Pioneer Institute - History and Influence

History and Influence

The Institute claims to have had influence over a broad set of policies, including reforms of bilingual and special education, the formation of key state policies on school accountability and academic standards, welfare programs, public construction, transit funding, health and human service agencies, public employees’ long-term health care benefits, the repair of hundreds of deficient bridges, and more. The Institute’s Better Government Competition has resulted in significant savings and improvements in service for taxpayers. In the past two years, the Institute has worked on successful initiatives regarding public employees’ collective bargaining on health care, pension reform, the freeze on businesses’ unemployment insurance rates, and the expansion of public charter schools, among other important reforms.

Over the past year, Pioneer has focused on topics with national implications, launching initiatives in support of state-based health care reform, and in opposition to federal overreach in K-12 education. In March 2012, Pioneer released and distributed a book on state-based reform of health care policy, The Great Experiment: The States, The Feds, and Your Healthcare. The book received widespread praise. Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas:

“In a series of essays compiled by Joshua Archambault, director of Health Care Policy at the Pioneer Institute, and with a forward by Jeffrey S. Flier, M.D., the dean of Harvard Medical School, experts propose the states take the lead in reforming health care, as Massachusetts did, rather than dictate a one-size-fits-all system from dysfunctional Washington… these are serious and doable proposals that deserve congressional consideration.”

The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote:

"Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute—a free-market think tank in Boston that has published a book on ObamaCare and RomneyCare titled "The Great Experiment: The States, the Feds, and Your Health Care"—argued in a recent conversation that the fundamental mistake of ObamaCare was in imposing a giant, untested law on an unwilling nation. He contrasts this to the 1990s welfare reform, which came only after 20 years of state experimentation. By the time the federal law was passed, politicians on both sides of the aisle, he says, had come to a sort of "settlement" as to what generally worked. "The Great Experiment" argues that the GOP "alternative" to ObamaCare needs to be federal steps that give states the maximum flexibility to innovate and experiment with free-market health care."

Pioneer began its campaign against Common Core national education standards in 2009, and since then, the Institute has formed a coalition of policy organizations across the country in opposition to what has been called the federal takeover of K-12 education. The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Pacific Research Institute, the American Principles Project, the Hoover Institution, the Federalist Society, the Sutherland Institute, the Heartland Institute, and others have published books, op-eds, policy research, and appeared at conferences, forums and in the media against the Common Core.

The national effort to develop common mathematics and ELA standards that states could supposedly voluntarily adopt began with Washington, DC-based trade associations such as the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, sponsors of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But far from "voluntary," adoption of the standards became criteria for states vying to win federal “Race to the Top” education grant funding.

Pioneer Institute made the case in a series of reports that the federal standards contain weaker content in both ELA and math than Massachusetts' own curricular frameworks. These reports were authored by curriculum experts R. James Milgram, emeritus professor of mathematics at Stanford University, Sandra Stotsky, former Massachusetts Board of Education member and University of Arkansas Professor, and Ze’ev Wurman, a Silicon Valley executive who helped develop California's education standards and assessments. Pioneer also published two definitive reports questioning Common Core's legality and estimating the cost of implementation at over $15 billion.

Nationally syndicated columnist George Will wrote:

"Meanwhile, the Department of Education is pretending that three laws do not mean what they clearly say. This is documented in the Pioneer Institute's report "The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers" by Robert S. Eitel, Kent D. Talbert and Williamson M. Evers, all former senior Education Department officials. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act - No Child Left Behind is its ninth iteration - said "nothing in this act" shall authorize any federal official to "mandate, direct, or control" a state's, local educational agency's or school's curriculum... We have been warned. Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, noted that "in its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas." Here again laws are cobwebs. As government becomes bigger, it becomes more lawless."

Nationally syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher wrote:

"Today, even more states are waking up to discover that they have lost control of both curriculum and costs for a program that is untested and unlikely to improve student performance. A February study by the Pioneer Institute conservatively estimates that Obama's Common Core Standards will costs the states at least $16 billion -- money that could be used to promote education in other ways."

Common Core advocates frequently cite the number of states that have adopted Common Core. However, as states such as Utah, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina and others begin to take a closer look at Common Core, more are considering withdrawal. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a national association of state legislators, may pass a resolution opposing national standards.