Related:

• Mike Rowe talks to ReasonTV about the high cost of college.

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St. Louis’s light rail, MetroLink, has been built on press events and promises. The CMT made-for-media race earlier this month is a great example of the former, but consider some of the promises made to sell MetroLink:

* “…some of Metro Link’s heaviest use could come from lunch-hour passengers moving among downtown, Union Station and the Central West End.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch 10/26/1988

* “The city is talking with investors and developers about building a golf course just north of the King Bridge, an area of abandoned rail lines… City planners picture light industry around the golf course.

“Conventioneers, just five minutes from East St. Louis by rail, offer a natural market for a golf course…” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch 10/17/1993

During our race, Joseph Miller provides the numbers behind MetroLink. It’s incredibly expensive and there are better ways to improve public transportation. For example, money used on MetroLink would be better spent improving bus service.

Note 1: When Joseph Miller refers to “city” and “city planners” he means the “St. Louis region” and “regional planners”.

The post MetroLink: The Great Race – Part Deux appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Alonzo West wrote a piece last weekend in the St. Joseph News-Press about how repealing Common Core would affect students in Missouri. The conclusion? It wouldn’t really hurt them; in fact, it would have almost no impact.

West spoke with Brian Shindorf, St. Joseph School District’s director of elementary education, who gave keen insight into potential side effects of repealing Common Core.

“So the impact for us would be having to go back and revise our curriculum to not be aligned to the Common Core, but instead be aligned to whatever standards the state outlined for us. It would be a lot of work for us, absolutely,” Mr. Shindorf said.

The change would not impact children at all, he said. It would be a matter of realigning the standards to the appropriate grade level and students.

“It wouldn’t harm the kids,” he said. “The biggest impact would be the process the curriculum department and the teachers would have to go through to go back to the realignment of the standards.”

I believe Shindorf is correct – repealing Common Core won’t hurt students. It’s not like we would return to the Stone Age. Of course, one has to wonder: did starting Common Core in the first place hurt students?

The post Common Core Repeal – Think Of The Children appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In a new case study for the Show-Me Institute, Jason Bedrick notes that more than half the scholarships awarded in 2013 were used for homeschooling expenses. And the families who enrolled in the program were, for the most part, extremely pleased with the opportunity, more than 80 percent, in fact. Homeschool families also saw more academic improvement than their private school counterparts. They appreciated the fact that they were in control, that they were able to adjust the curriculum according to their children’s needs, and that they had more options for different or harder classes. Many of them mentioned that it helped strengthen family relationships.

I have nine siblings. When I was growing up, my parents wanted to make sure that my siblings and I received an education that met our individual needs. They explored public and private schools and each of us was homeschooled at one time or another. The beauty of homeschooling is that it allows parents to tailor the curriculum for their children. Additionally, homeschooling benefits the state because it saves taxpayers money. However, for families like mine, it can be financially difficult. That is why New Hampshire’s tax credit scholarship program is particularly interesting. It could enable more families to homeschool and benefit both families and the state.

As Missouri looks at options for expanding school choice and implementing tax credit scholarship programs, it should seriously consider expanding these to include homeschooling.

The post Don’t Forget About Homeschoolers! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Having the ability to customize their child’s curriculum is one of the main reasons parents choose to homeschool. Some worry that the new standards may infringe on their ability to do so.

The creators of the SAT and ACT are already working on aligning their tests to Common Core. Public schools are changing their curriculum to align with the new standards and tests. There is concern that homeschoolers will struggle on the redesigned state and national standardized tests unless they also align their curriculum. This defeats the purpose of homeschooling – to have greater flexibility and autonomy.

The more state standardized tests and college entrance exams align to the Common Core, the more textbook companies will align their curriculum to the Common Core. Over time, this could leave homeschooling parents with fewer and fewer alternatives from which to choose. It is difficult to know what the exact impact will be; what is certain is that the issue is not going away anytime soon. Parents, whether homeschooling or not, should continue to question Common Core and to educate themselves about the standards and their potential effects.

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