Making News
Compromise propositions continue to move forward as policymakers in Washington begin face the realities associated with no action on the healthcare debate. Several sites had interesting posts this week mapping out points of compromise and the ways forward:
- The American Enterprise Institute provides suggestions for a bipartisan approach on health care. The article offers several high-level suggestions characterized summed up by an recommendation to lead with elements that affect the middle class. It also encourages the exploration of compromise alternatives around Medicaid Expansion and the Individual Mandate–two of the most divisive elements of the Affordable Care Act that provide ample room for common ground.
- Over at Real Clear Health, Gary Shapiro from the Consumer Technology Association gets even more prescriptive and lays out 10 specific elements that have the potential for bipartisanship, including limiting prescription drug costs and incentives for health technology and for personal ownership of health insurance.
- Bloomberg columnist Michael Strain provides a more tactical approach to compromise and lays out some of the tonal points progressives and conservatives need to work on in order to explore policy compromise. In short, he argues that conservatives need to acknowledge that Medicaid will likely need to expand and that progressives need to recognize that regulations in healthcare must relax.
The Other 49
Last week saw several profiles of education-related initiatives in other states.
- The Hechinger Report has a piece on a Vermont initiative on “work-based learning.” Often times these types of programs are limited to technical and labor-intensive training (think shop class). The Vermont program has those options but also provides credit options for traditional subjects. One student mentioned in the article received English credit for work with a music critic.
- The voucher debate is about as divided as any in policy right now. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has a thoughtful editorial by a Marquette Law School professor outlining the successes and shortcomings of Milwaukee’s experience with vouchers.
- The Fordham Institute’s Flypaper blog has a useful post about Ohio’s recent policy changes around charter school administration. The policies instituted stronger quality control mechanisms and led to the closing of many underperforming charters. On the flip side, the policies have made it more difficult for successful, high-quality charter networks to replicate and slowed the introduction of new schools.
- The Urban Institute has a new tool that allows researchers and other interested parties to examine how education funding has evolved across the 50 states.
Dropping Knowledge
Governing has a new report analyzing how self-driving cars may affect city revenues. The researchers surveyed 25 U.S. cities and charted the different ways that cities collect money off of vehicle use, e.g., emission taxes, parking and driving citations, parking meters, and registration fees. The data is interesting, especially for the wonky, but the overarching point is simple: cities have a lot of budget weight tied to our current vehicle ownership paradigm. We should recognize and solve for that as we move towards new technologies and transportation models.
What we're reading
The Rise of the 'Night Mayor' in America
Large and small cities in the U.S. have begun to provide staff and expertise, aka, "night mayors" or "bar czars," to support nighttime culture and activities as their downtowns have become more populated.... Read the rest-
What We Learned About Bureaucracy from 7,000 HBR Readers
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Tracing the links between basic research and real-world applications
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Can augmented reality bridge the manufacturing skills gap?
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2017’s Best & Worst States for Health Care
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Is Changing the Constitution the Only Way to Fix Washington?
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We have a political problem no one wants to talk about: very old politicians
