Environment
In 1994, PRI published the "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators," a pathbreaking analysis showing, contrary to "green" hysteria, that environmental conditions are steadily improving in the U.S. This fall, PRI will expand and re-release the Index to show the increasing costs and declining returns of further regulation. The updated study will answer a simple, common-sense question: Why do bureaucrats like those at the EPA and politicians like Vice President Gore keep telling us things are getting worse when the facts tell the opposite story?
"The problem for a huge bureaucracy like the EPA," says Boris DeWiel, an intern working on the project, "is that once the original issues have been resolved, regulators have to look around for something else to do. Their jobs depend on dreaming up new areas in which to get involved. By understanding the self-interest that drives these folks," he argues, "we can begin to see environmentalism for what it is -- 10% real problems and 90% greed for political power."
The updated Index will include Canadian data and will be published in conjunction with the Fraser Institute in Canada. "We can learn from each other, across the border," says Mr. DeWiel. "You can bet that environmental regulators in both countries talk about each other's advances. Those of us who know the truth about environmental problems must do the same. We need the help of our friends."
Mr. DeWiel is a Canadian doctoral candidate in Political Science who holds a master's degree in Environmental Science. His internship at PRI/Fraser is made possible by the generosity of the Donner Canadian Foundation.
More on Education...
Let's Make ALL California Students UC-Eligible: Center for Innovation in Education co-director Pamela Riley has proposed a system of University of California-sponsored charter high schools. "Such schools," writes Ms. Riley in a recent briefing, "would provide an intensive college preparatory educational environment for low income and other historically under-represented student populations on UC campuses." University officials have begun preliminary discussions on how to extend affirmative action and outreach (without a quota system) to underrepresented minority students in the state's K-12 public school system.
"If the University of California continues to rely on the failed K-12 school public system," pre-dicts Ms. Riley, "UC's outreach and affirmative action programs will fail." Instead, UC should follow the example of the Thurgood Marshall College of the University of California at San Diego, which is working with the San Diego Unified School District, school board members, and other community members to create a high school housed on the Marshall Campus.
Under current law, the Thurgood Marshall College will have to petition the San Diego school board for its charter. Legislation that would allow state and community colleges and universities to bypass the local school board and directly sponsor charter schools was defeated in the state legislature this summer. Michigan's charter school law allows state colleges and universities to develop and sponsor charter schools without petitioning a local school district. Charter school experts cite district footdragging as one of the primary obstacles facing charter school developers in California. They have predicted that many more independent charter schools would be developed if an alternate sponsor provision was added to California's law.
The Pacific Research Institute will host a meeting later this fall between university officials and charter school experts to craft a strategy for developing university-sponsored charter schools.