Jump-Starting America and Loonshots

Here are two books that discuss ways we can make the economy grow faster and promote innovation.  Both of them refer to Vannevar Bush and his inspirational push for research beginning in the 1940’s and continuing through his work with the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development.

JUMP-STARTING AMERICA is written by Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson, professors at MIT of Economics and of Entrepreneurship, respectively.  They make a robust argument for more government funding of research in order to stimulate private spending and to grow the economy, saying, “the major – and now mostly forgotten – lesson of the post-1945 period is that modern private enterprise proves much more effective when government provides strong underlying support for basic and applied science and for the commercialization of the resulting innovations.” Beginning with a summary of Amazon’s search for an HQ2, they note that by choosing already successful cities “the potential for Amazon to transform lagging communities remains unfulfilled.” Therefore, Gruber and Johnson also discuss geography of localized benefits of investment, with an entire chapter titled “America: Lands of Opportunity.” This is similar in some ways to Steve Case’s and JD Vance’s efforts with “The Rise of the Rest” bus tour which was recently profiled on 60 Minutes. Gruber and Johnson point out the high cost of housing, barriers to increased supply, and differences in mobility rates for college and high school graduates, contributing to a “continued divergence between the most and the least educated in our society.” However, they also look at rankings for quality PhD programs and undergraduate institutions to explore why so few “superstar cities” emerge, offering anecdotes about both Microsoft and Amazon independently choosing Seattle over Albuquerque. JUMP-STARTING AMERICA is a fascinating look at past patterns and future potential for investment in education and research; roughly a third of this well-researched book is filled with appendices, notes and index.  

LOONSHOTS by biotechnology entrepreneur Safi Bahcall deals with “How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries.”  Bahcall writes about how small changes in structure can transform a team.  Both in the book and in his March 2019 talk at SXSW he uses the example of combining a molecule of water either with a glass of water or with a block of ice – that same molecule will react differently in different circumstances. Hence, Bahcall advocates for applying the science of phase transitions, essentially crafting life at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, supporting innovators and doers equally, plus managing the transfer, not the technology.  One chapter uses examples from new drug development to discuss the surprising fragility of loonshots and he quotes Nobel Prize winner Sir James Black as saying, “it’s not a good drug unless it’s been killed at least three times.” Bahcall list several lessons:  beware the false fail; create project champions, and LSC: listen to the suck with curiosity, noting “I find it’s when I question the least that I need to worry the most.”  Other sections of his book stress the value of spreading a system mindset and draw on examples dealing with Edwin Land and Polaroid, with Xerox’s PARC and even with James Bond or Star Wars films. Diagrams are interspersed and approximately a fourth of the book is devoted to appendices, notes and an index. The concluding section of LOONSHOTS poses an important question: “any large organization develop[s] deeply held beliefs, sometimes consciously, often not, about both strategies and products – and loonshots are contrarian bets that challenge those beliefs. Perhaps everything that you are sure is true about your products or your business model is right, and the people telling you about some crazy idea that challenges your beliefs are wrong. But what if they aren’t? … How much risk are you willing to take by dismissing their idea?”

What School Could Be by Ted Dintersmith

WHAT SCHOOL COULD BE is a brand new non-fiction book by Ted Dintersmith which he opens with a quote from John Dewey: “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”  

Although I did not really care for Most Likely to Succeed which Dintersmith co-wrote with Tony Wagner, his newer title (subtitled “Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America”) seems a little more grounded in how to prepare students for this innovation era.  That’s because Dintersmith spent the entire 2015-2016 school year traveling to and observing schools in all 50 states.  [As an aside, he provides a map in his prologue and it appears that he visited mainly major metropolitan areas. Not many small towns or rural areas are identified, even though he notes the national proportion of public high school students is roughly 4.5 million urban, 8 million suburban and 3.5 million rural.] He argues that students thrive in environments where they develop the PEAK principles: Purpose – attacking important challenges; Essentials – acquiring innovative skills; Agency – self-directing learning; Knowledge – retaining so as to make, create and teach others. His final section says Americans long for a speech that notes, “We need to understand how our world is being shaped by innovation, automation, and machine intelligence. Low-skilled jobs aren’t going to Mexico, China or immigrants – they’re just plain going away.” Dintersmith asks readers to “consider the possibility that our innovative teachers, not data-driven policies, can best lead the way.”  He also notes that superintendents stress the importance of “the right school board.” 

One section of WHAT SCHOOL COULD BE deals with the Ivory Tower where he opines that the college model is broken and another discusses Social Equity where he bemoans the dire consequences of unequal education. Once again he makes many claims in this text, but offers limited research and evidence to support them (the notes consist of 15 URLs). In addition, I was a little surprised that his final reflections section – meant to include “pragmatic advice about steps a school community can take to transform learning” – highlights “remarkable innovation” in Kentucky and Oklahoma, two states where teacher strikes are currently much in the news.

You can judge for yourself about Dintersmith, his observations, and his conclusion because he will be speaking at New Trier’s Cornog Auditorium on the Northfield Campus (7 Happ Road) on Thursday evening, April 12 at 7:00pm.  More information is available through the FAN (FamilyAction Network) web site.