The Choice Revolution

The Choice Revolution

By Andrei Cherny

(Published in Blueprint, July 12, 2001)

Like Progressivism, the New Deal, and the New Frontier, the Choice Revolution is more an attitude, an outlook, and a set of principles than a line-by-line agenda. Its central impulse is replacing one-size-fits-all programs with programs that offer a range of options and give Americans the ability to make personal decisions for themselves. Some Americans are already blessed with such freedom. Those who have achieved a measure of wealth -- through luck or pluck -- can choose their children's schools, their family's doctors, their own way of saving for retirement, and so forth. Others are not so fortunate. Once this disparity did not seem to bother many Americans. Now they want to be masters of their own destiny again.

The Choice Revolution's force should be felt in every aspect of government action. But four big areas -- education, retirement savings, job training, and health care -- best illustrate why the Choice Revolution is needed and how it would work.

A central plank of the Choice Revolution is giving every parent the right and responsibility to choose -- from a large menu of good options -- which public school their children attend. In an Information Age where knowledge, creativity, and critical thinking define success, a high-quality education is more important than ever. Yet public schools still rely on a top-down, regimented "one-size-fits-hardly-anyone" model that strangles innovation and excellence.

Charter schools have begun to revolutionize the public school system. They have become oases of innovation in a larger desert of monopolistic cookie-cutter schools. It is time to bring life to the entire desert. Every single public school in the country should be made a charter school -- by giving each school a contract that grants the freedom to innovate and experiment, and freedom from restrictive red tape, in exchange for a firm demand for high-end results.

Over the past 20 years, America has doubled the amount of money it has spent on education -- without an appreciable improvement in our students' performance. By giving choices to every parent and bringing competition to every school, the Choice Revolution offers a better way -- a bigger idea that can bring salvation to every child in the public school system.

The Choice Revolution is driven not only by grassroots innovations such as charter schools. The real engine for this new political outlook is the growing trust Americans have in themselves -- a trust built by working in nonhierarchical, empowering businesses; living in a networked, choice-based economy; and witnessing the demographic changes that are remaking the face of American life. One example of this newfound self-confidence is the explosion in the number of Americans investing in the stock market. This eruption of interest in investment is not merely a product of faith in the stock market, but a byproduct of Americans' growing faith in themselves. They are not just buying securities; they are buying the notion that security in the Information Age comes in the form of personal decisionmaking ability.

Increasingly, Americans are looking for the same choices they have in other aspects of their lives; the same choices the wealthy have when it comes to their retirement today.

Where else will this personal control come to be exercised? The increasingly important world of job training is another natural arena for the Choice Revolution. In a world of big businesses bleeding jobs and growing numbers of workers displaced by technology and globalization, job training is an imperative for the nation's prosperity and for the job prospects of millions of Americans. Workers would take charge of their careers, and competition would create a market dynamic likely to lead to innovations, improvements, and accountability for performance.

Health care is another area desperately in need of the Choice Revolution. If more Americans had choices about their health plans -- and didn't have to take whatever was chosen for them by their employers or the government -- they would have more bargaining power, would have more say in their own health care, and would get better service from doctors, hospitals, and insurers. Instead of giving up on universal health care, the Choice Revolution would achieve it by putting power and responsibility in the hands of individual Americans. Universal coverage would ensure Americans not only better health, but more power.

Today, Americans' freedom of choice is imprisoned. Someone is going to free the average citizen; someone is going to break the public monopolies on education and Social Security; someone is going to give decisionmaking power to those who most need it. The only questions are who and how soon. That is the faith of the Choice Revolution.