THE EDUCATION PLANS headed for the General Assembly have so many political twists and bureaucratic turns that they cross the eyes. But it could be simple. Here’s reform in two steps, and it doesn’t matter how you pick your state superintendent of schools: Assign each student a share of next year’s education budget. Let them enroll wherever they wish, taking their education funding with them. Repeal the Indiana Collective Bargaining Act. The first step has a…

by Andrea Neal Drive along the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, and you can’t miss the 68-acre Jeffboat plant in which workers make the ships that transport so much of the nation’s grain, coal and chemicals to market. Due to our landlocked location, most Hoosiers don’t see Indiana as a leader in the shipbuilding economy, yet it’s a role we’ve been playing for almost two centuries at the same spot where Jeffboat now stands. “Look out…

by Stephen M. King, Ph.D. Your 17-year-old daughter, diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, calmly but determinedly refuses chemotherapy. Her refusal is not based on religious beliefs; she simply does not want to ingest poison in her body, suffering the side effects and incurring further damage to her internal organs as a result of the treatment. What would you as a parent say? Would you support her decision? Cassandra, the name given a 17-year-old Connecticut student in…

“Poor government leadership was the top problem in 2014.” — The Gallup Poll, Jan. 2, 2015 WHAT IF IT’S NOT about race? What if the police are only incidentally involved? What if something else is at stake, something more important? First, the police are not “cops.” That is a derision, and an 18th-century French one at that. In a constitutional republic, they are police officers. Second, the invigoration or enforcement of law is everybody’s business. It…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Some of my favorite college students have been 21st Century Scholars. The popular state-financed college access program for low-income households enrolls students in junior high school. If the student maintains a decent high school grade-point average, stays out of trouble and participates in college-prep activities, he or she becomes eligible for a significant scholarship to Indiana universities. This makes an otherwise unaffordable college education a reality for many students from low-income…

by Bruce Ippel, M.D. Having a car is very important for most Americans, but cars are technical and dangerous and expensive. What amazes me is how much more safe and comfortable and efficient cars have become in the last 30 years. Modern healthcare is also technical, dangerous and expensive. Medical and surgical care also has become much safer and more effective than ever before. And buying good healthcare also is important for Americans. This is…

by Andrea Neal He was educated in Europe and trained to emulate the brushstrokes of the great masters, yet Theodore Clement Steele’s greatest gift was in depicting and interpreting the Indiana countryside. T.C. Steele — Indiana’s most famous painter — was born in Gosport in 1847, raised in Waveland and died at his “House of the Singing Winds” in rural Brown County in 1926. He loved Indiana, and Indiana still loves him. His paintings sell…

by Philip R.P. Coelho, Ph.D., and James E. McClure, Ph.D. Suppose a doctor told a two-pack-a-day smoker not to worry about his tobacco addiction because smoking another half-pack per day would shorten his life expectancy by only six weeks. What would you think of that physician? The physician may have been telling the literal truth; the additional damage done to the health and life expectancy of smoking an additional 10 cigarettes per day on top of…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. Over the last 30 years, Charles Murray has been one of the most influential thinkers on domestic policy matters. Murray was trained as a sociologist, but has a terrific understanding of economics and political economy. His work is multi-disciplinary, readable, relevant and often provocative. This year marks a key anniversary for two of Murray’s books. Losing Ground is 30 years old now — and was the book on welfare programs in the 1980s. Quite…

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.” — Jane Austen in Emma “Self-command is not only itself a great virtue, but from it all the other virtues seem to derive their principal lustre.” — Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments CERTAIN MEMBERS of this foundation gather every year to survey the political landscape and to enjoy each other’s company. The landscape being what it is, the latter motivation has driven…