January 1998 PRI Ideas in Action
Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report

As we begin a new year, PRI continues to impact and shape public policy in California and the nation. The following is a sample of PRI’s work during the first month of 1998.

SALLY PIPES, PRESIDENT & CEO

Sally Pipes, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pacific Research Institute, spoke to a packed house of parents and high school students on January 6 and 8 at the Presidio YMCA about PRI’s new San Francisco Independent Scholars Fund (SFIS). SFIS has seen significant interest among San Francisco residents interested in applying to the scholarship program. One hundred students will be selected to receive a $2,000 scholarship for private school or independent study, renewable for up to four years.

EVENTS

PRI is proud to announce that George Will, nationally syndicated columnist, will be the keynote speaker at PRI’s 6th Annual Gala Privatization Awards Dinner at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco on April 22. This year’s topic is “Celebrating Private Initiatives in Education.” Entrepreneurs in education in the state have applied. A $20,000 Grand Prize will be awarded at the dinner to the best example of a private effort to improve public education in California.

CIVIL RIGHTS

Lance Izumi’s article on the state of race relations in the United States appeared on January 11 in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an article entitled “This May Be the Flash Point Year in Affirmative Action Debate.” Lance, Co-Director of PRI’s Center for Innovation in Education, stated that “the momentum in the courts is clearly against race preferences” and that “it is only a matter of time before the [US] Supreme Court lays down once and for all that race preferences are unconstitutional.”

Katherine Post, Director of PRI’s Center for Enterprise and Opportunity, participated in a national conference sponsored by the Institute for Justice and the American Civil Rights Institute. Entitled “Equality Under the Law,” the program brought policy leaders from around the country to Washington, D.C. to discuss issues pertaining to affirmative action, including laws to end preferences and discrimination at the national and state level. Also participating in the conference was Professor Eugene Volokh, PRI Senior Fellow in Legal Studies.

EDUCATION

Statistics from PRI’s “California Index of Leading Education Indicators” are cited in opinion-editorials in The Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, CA, Dec. 31) entitled “School Proposal Deserves a Look,” and in the Orange County Register about U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein’s proposals for education reform. PRI’s “Index” also was cited in a Register opinion-editorial entitled “Orange County Remains Ground Zero in the Ongoing Debate Over Bilingual Education.” The article states that “[PRI] discovered that no more than 5 percent of bilingual-ed students were being transitioned into English classes in any one year [and that] education bureaucrats... have no credible data of their own to indicate otherwise.”

PRI’s “California Index of Leading Education Indicators” was cited in the San Francisco Examiner’s opinion-editorial section on January 14, in a letter pointing out that while per pupil spending has increased in the last 30 years, despite the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s claims to the contrary, school performance has markedly decreased during that same time period.

Lance Izumi was quoted in an Orange County Register article entitled “The 50% Solution” about the possibility of abolishing the supermajority requirement for raising taxes for, among other things, education spending increases. Lance argues that spending is not the key to educational excellence and that “Research indicates there is little correlation between amount of education spending and student performance.”

An opinion-editorial by PRI Policy Fellow Royce Van Tassell entitled “Preferences Hinder Racial Equality” appeared in the January 23 San Francisco Chronicle, first in a series of articles entitled “About Race.”

KCBS Radio interviewed Lance Izumi on January 26 regarding President Clinton’s class-size reduction proposal. Lance criticized the proposal for only superficially addressing class size while not addressing how children are being taught in the classroom.

Pam Riley and Royce Van Tassell briefed state legislative leaders and staff throughout the month of January on the most pressing educational issues facing the California Legislature in the second half of the 1997-1998 legislative session.

The Economist interviewed Lance Izumi on January 26 on education issues and how they will be played out in the upcoming California governor’s race. Lance’s comments will appear in an upcoming issue.

HEALTH & WELFARE

Steve Hayward’s (PRI Senior Fellow) article entitled “Privatize Social Security?” appeared in the St. Augustine Record on January 4. Steve praises Oregon lawmakers for petitioning the U.S. Congress to allow Oregon to administer its own Social Security funds. The same article also appeared on January 4 in the Providence Sunday Journal, the Arizona Republic, and the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA) on January 5.

Dana Joel, PRI’s Director of Research, was the keynote speaker at the January 27 meeting of the San Ramon Valley Republican Women, where she discussed medical savings accounts (MSAs) and the possibilities for legislation at the federal and state level allowing for wider use of MSAs.

Steve Hayward, in an article entitled “The Shocking Success of Welfare Reform” in the Jan/Feb issue of Policy Review, writes that welfare reform in the states has been a tremendous success. Hayward cites, among other things, that “for faith-based and other voluntary organizations, welfare reform is an invigorating opportunity.”

ENVIRONMENT

John PRI addresses one of California’s most daunting problems in a new study released in January entitled The Road Ahead: The Economic and Environmental Benefits of Congestion Pricing. The report demonstrates that congestion pricing programs already in existence effectively reduce traffic congestion and recommends policies that promote congestion pricing throughout the state. Among these recommendations: devolution of highway funds from the federal to state governments, ending restrictions on road privatization, electronic roadway tolling, and a gradual reduction and ultimate abolition of the gasoline tax.

URBAN STUDIES

Joel Kotkin’s (PRI Senior Fellow) report entitled “Southern California in the Information Age” was cited in a Los Angeles Times article entitled “For State, Answer Is a Qualified Yes” on December 28.

BOOKNOTES

PRI’s book The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence, by Don B. Kates, was the subject of an editorial entitled “So Far, So Good II,” which appeared in the Hickory Daily Record (Hickory, NC) on December 18. Kates’ book was also the subject of a book review entitled “Outgunning the Media” by Harry Hogan, in the January issue of Chronicles.

PRI’s book Unconventional Wisdoms: The Best of Warren Brookes was the subject of a December 28 commentary by Thomas J. Bray in the Detroit News and Free Press.

Lance Izumi has contributed an essay for the book Minorities published by Greenhaven Press (1997). It is part of Greenhaven’s “Current Controversies Series” which examines today’s most important social and political issues. The books are designed as texts for students to spur discussion and analysis of ideas. Lance’s text is entitled “Uncontrolled Immigration Threatens Race Relations,” and describes how the combination of multiculturalism and rampant illegal immigration has resulted in increased hostility between non-white ethnic groups. He concludes with a call for a common American culture rather than hostile ethnocentrism.

PRI’s book The Heated Debate by Robert C. Balling was cited as a source for information refuting global warming claims in an article entitled “Blowing Smoke” in the Tampa Tribune and Times on December 21. The Heated Debate was also cited in a January 5 opinion-editorial entitled “Global Warming: Best Scientific Minds Agree: The Need To Act Is Clear” in the Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), and also in the Herald (Jasper, IN) in an article entitled “Global Warming Will Be Good for World Food Supply,” in which it is argued that climate changes are normal and have been occurring for centuries, and indeed can often be productive for the earth’s food supply.

Lloyd Billingsley, PRI editorial director, reviewed Official Negligence, an account of the Los Angeles riots by Lou Cannon, for an upcoming edition of the Washington Times.

PRI’s book What Went Right in the 80s, by Richard B. McKenzie, was cited by Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journal on January 2.

NOTABLES

Lance Izumi has been named Contributing Editor to the California Journal. His first article in the February edition, addresses the labor unions’ efforts to stop competitive bidding in local government contracting. The article notes that in an age of fierce competition among many industries, California unions continue their attempt to slam the door on free and open competition. Reaction to Lance’s article has been swift and positive. For example, Carol Bionda of the Nova Group commented, “Thank you, again, for your insightful article...We desperately need voices such as yours speaking out [about mandated project labor agreements].”

The Washington Post cites (Dec. 30, 1997) Dana Joel’s (PRI’s Director of Research) study of Virginia’s state government bureaucracy entitled “Downsizing State Government: Doing Better With Less.” The report recommends across-the-board efforts at privatization of state services, as well as the abolition of some state services. The study’s recommendations have been highly publicized and could result in privatization of some programs in Virginia. Ms. Joel’s study was also profiled in the Southwest Times (Jan. 6), the Rappahannock Record (Jan. 15), the Arlington Journal, the Fairfax Journal, the Alexandria Journal, the Mount Airy News, the Daily Press, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, the News Virginian, the Northern Virginia Daily, the Hopewell News, the Potomac News, the Daily News Record, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginian-Pilot, the Kingsport Times-News, the Roanoke Times, the Danville Register & Bee, the Daily News Leader, the Martinsville Bulletin, the Progress-Index and the Daily Progress, all on December 30, 1997.

In an article entitled “Hot Air Merchants” in the Enterprise (Ferndale, CA), PRI is cited as calculating that Vice-President Al Gore’s round-trip flight to Kyoto, Japan for the recent Summit on Global Warming used 65,000 gallons of jet fuel for a 10-minute speech — working out to about 40 gallons of fuel per word (December 18, 1997).

PRI Senior Fellow Steve Hayward is recognized in the “Names in the News” section of the Alexandria Journal, the Arlington Journal and the Fairfax Journal on December 30 for having recently been named a Bradley Fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

In an article entitled “Runaway State Spending Needs to Be Capped — Here’s How,” Dana Joel makes the case that states should reduce spending and privatize services as outlined in her recently released study, “Downsizing Government: Doing Better With Less.” The article appeared in the Alexandria Journal, the Arlington Journal, the Metro Herald and the Fairfax Journal on Jan 16, 1998.

Pam Riley, Co-Director of PRI’s Center for Innovation in Education, was interviewed on January 20 by Velocity Magazine (Chicago, Ill) for an upcoming article about the recent ban on smoking in California bars and restaurants.

PRI Senior Fellow Jack Pitney was quoted in a January 23 San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “Even if Charges False, Clinton May Not Recover” about the fallout from the investigation of the Clinton administration by the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

1996 PRI Privatization winner Mara Manus was featured in the January 26, 1998 issue of People in an article entitled “Reel to Real,” about Chrysalis, an organization in Los Angeles to help the poor and homeless find jobs.

Lloyd Billingsley wrote about the GOP’s new clout in Hollywood in the “Culture, et cetera” section of the Washington Times on January 2.

Steve Hayward weighs in against the dismissal of Joseph Epstein from the editorship of the American Scholar for being “politically-incorrect,” in an opinion-editorial entitled “The First Politically Incorrect Casualty of ‘98,” which appeared in the January 9 edition of Investor’s Business Daily. Steve was later interviewed about the article on NET Television’s “Morning View” on January 13.