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School Choice Groups Going Forward
The school choice movement, 50 years old this year, appears to be
alive and well in Utah. The last legislative session produced mixed
results for school choice supporters, with a nice Carson Smith voucher
victory, but a stinging defeat on a broader tax credit bill.
After a few weeks of regrouping, school choice supporters are back
in action, and they seem to be as enthusiastic and committed as
ever. They still enjoy the strong support of Gov. Jon Huntsman
and they have pledges for significant funding, from both local and
national sources, to continue the fight. I attended a recent gathering
of school choice supporters and was impressed with the breadth and
depth of the plans and effort going forward.
Groups like Education Excellence Utah and Parents for Choice in
Education plan to mount education campaigns focused on target audiences,
advocate legislation on a variety of topics, and be very active
in 2006 legislative campaigns with candidate recruitment, grassroots
organizing, and a candidate contribution strategy.
Free-market economist Milton Friedman started the school
choice movement in 1955 when he published an essay, “The Role
of Government in Education,” in the journal Economics and the
Public Interest. In it he first used the term “voucher.” Today,
the movement is still going strong.
Disrupt Health Care?
Bruce Sterling has an interesting column in the May edition of Wired
magazine in which he cites the “industrial extinction” theories
of former Utahn Clayton Christensen in the hopes that this country’s
dysfunctional health care system might be reformed (or revolutionized)
through disruptive technologies and innovation.
Christensen is a Harvard Business School guru who has written several
books about how entire industries can be eviscerated by “disrupters”
using simple, inexpensive, but profoundly powerful techniques. His
latest book, “Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to
Predict Industry Change,” encourages readers to spot vulnerabilities
in the processes, values, and markets of seemingly invulnerable
industries, said Sterling.
So, Sterling said in his column that he decided to find the “stupidest,
most dysfunctional U.S. industry I could find.” The automotive and
energy industries were tempting, he said, “But the worst has to
be health care. Health care has every quality Christensen lists
as dangerous: crippling regulation, overcharged customers, enraged
victims with deep grudges, unnecessary goods and services, and a
massive base of underserved wretches.” Americans blow more money
on health than any other nation, in a system that chews up 15% of
the U.S. gross national product. “A broad field for disruptions,”
Sterling noted.
So what are the things that could disrupt health care? Medical
tourism, is one, Sterling writes. The TV news magazine “60 Minutes”
recently did a piece about medical tourism in India, where many
Americans are going for surgery at one-fifth the U.S. cost. A number
of countries are becoming destinations for medical care and Americans
are going to Canada and Mexico to buy prescription drugs. Other
disruptive possibilities in health care include alternative medicine;
innovative clinics that offer cheap diagnostic tests that show people
what’s going on in their own bodies (“it wouldn’t take a genius
to tear off this chunk of the medical complex and commoditize it”);
and coming biotech remedies like gene therapy, stem-cell driven
organ regeneration and designer drugs.
This might all be pie-in-the-sky, of course, but something has
to happen with skyrocketing medical costs or a big disaster awaits.
Leadership Tip
Define Victory If you’re an elected official or are in a key position
in government, your success is going to be measured. So it makes
sense for you to define what constitutes victory, rather than allowing
the news media or an opponent to do it.
So when announcing a new program, or key initiative, or goals for
the year, set expectations at a level you can exceed. I don’t mean
you shouldn’t set high goals. But stay humble. Better to under promise
and over deliver than fall short of high expectations. And don’t
use a number you’re not prepared to live with, because numbers take
on lives of their own and get repeated over and over.
Political Trivia
Play Ball!
Sixteen presidents on 55 occasions have thrown out the first ball
on Major League Baseball’s opening day. William Howard Taft
began the tradition inadvertently on April 14, 1910, at Washington’s
Griffith Stadium. Before a game between the hometown Senators and
the Philadelphia Athletes, umpire Billy Evans asked the president
to throw the ball over the plate following the introduction of the
rival managers.
Here’s how many times various presidents have tossed out the first
pitches: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 8 times; Harry Truman,
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 7; Calvin Coolidge, Herbert
Hoover, George H.W. Bush, 4; John F. Kennedy,
Lyndon B. Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding,
Bill Clinton, 3; George W. Bush, William H. Taft,
Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, 2; and Gerald R.
Ford, 1
(Source: National Journal Political Calendar)
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