February 23 Event is Now Online Only

Posted on by Zach Lawhorn

 Due to concerns about winter weather, our scheduled event in Jefferson City on February 23 is now an online-only virtual event.

 

Please register here to join us online at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 23!

About the event

Missouri schools are failing to teach the core subjects of reading and math, and the most recent test scores show that students are falling further behind. In response to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) failure to perform one of its most basic functions, the Show-Me Institute, in conjunction with Show-Me Opportunity, launched The Missouri School Rankings Project and MoSchoolRankings.org.

On February 23, Susan Pendergrass, director of research and education policy, will present her findings from the Missouri School Rankings Project and give an overview of how to use the website.

New Grid Operator Study Highlights the Need for More Transmission

Posted on by Jakob Puckett

Missouri’s electric grid operators are requesting new transmission lines. Electric transmission lines carry power from power plants to homes and businesses. Too much power on the line increases the risk of damaging it, and as I’ve written previously, several parts of Missouri already have overloaded transmission lines.

More transmission lines will need to be built to relieve this congestion. The two regional electric grids that Missouri belongs to—the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP)—have released a draft study identifying several points along their shared electric grid borders—including spots in Missouri—where new transmission projects can help relieve congestion and increase connectivity between different grids.

The study noted several benefits of a more interconnected transmission network. Given that MISO and SPP’s wholesale energy markets select the lowest-cost electricity sources to meet regional demand, a more connected grid allows the most efficient power plants to produce electricity for a wider region. Greater transmission connection also increases reliability, as more power can flow between larger geographic areas in case one spot has trouble meeting electric demand.

The study estimated that the total benefits to customers in the MISO and SPP regions would be roughly $1 billion, savings which would cover a little over half of the expected $1.8 billion cost. It is important to note that these numbers are self reported, although the benefits of more integrated markets and transmission networks are widely understood.

Evidently, the need for expanded transmission capacity in Missouri has caught state legislators’ eyes. However, as I described recently, the bills in the House and Senate take the wrong approach to building out more transmission capacity. These bills give incumbent utilities veto power for new transmission construction proposals. Instead, Missouri should embrace a competitive bidding process, which on average cuts costs by 40 percent.

Electric delivery costs, which include transmission and distribution, are a growing fraction of the cost of providing electricity to customers. Given Missourians’ already rapidly rising electricity bills, policymakers should be keen on finding ways to reduce costs.

Missouri could benefit from expanded electricity transmission, but there are good ways and bad ways to go about doing that. Let’s hope legislators come down on the side of market forces and competition.

Occupational License Compacts Counteract Reciprocity

Posted on by Corianna Baier

In 2020, Missouri became one of the first states to enact universal licensing reciprocity. This was a huge step forward that allows Missouri to recognize out-of-state occupational licenses, making it much easier for trained professionals to offer services to Missourians.

Now House Bill 2138 seeks to establish Missouri as part of a licensure compact, which is an agreement between and among states that establishes mutual recognition of specific licenses and is overseen by a third-party regulatory group. This specific compact, the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact, would establish mutual license recognition for audiologists and speech-language pathologists in the 15 states in the compact.

There are two main benefits to joining a compact: licensed workers in other compact states can more easily relocate to your state, and licensed workers in your state can more easily relocate or expand their reach to other compact states. Missouri lawmakers have already provided an expanded version of the first benefit, but some Missourians could profit from the second point.

However, the current licensing reciprocity statute states that licensing reciprocity “shall not apply to an oversight body that has entered into a licensing compact with another state for the regulation of practice under the oversight body’s jurisdiction.”  On its face, this language indicates that the license compact would overrule licensing reciprocity to the injury of Missouri consumers.

Here’s another way to think about it. With Missouri’s current licensing reciprocity, Missouri consumers have access to professionals in 50 states and Missouri licensees have access to 1 state (Missouri). (Of course, they may have access to other states with reciprocity, but that is not controlled by Missouri lawmakers.) If Missouri were to enter the Audiology and Speech-Pathology Interstate Compact, it seems that consumers seeking audiology or speech pathology services would have access to professionals from only 16 states (the 15 in the compact plus Missouri), and Missouri licensees would have access to customers in 16 states. While this change gives a small benefit to licensees, Missouri consumers lose out.

Entering this compact with the current licensing statute in place would be a bad idea. Missourians benefit from reciprocity in many ways—reciprocity creates more options for various services, breeds more competition which lowers prices, and encourages businesses and entrepreneurs to move to Missouri, which makes the Show-Me State more prosperous. Because of this, entering a compact would be a step backward for regulatory policy in Missouri.

Podcast: Millions for Improvements in STL, A Gas Tax Holiday, and Medicaid Expansion Update

Posted on by Jakob Puckett

Jakob Puckett, Elias Tsapelas, and David Stokes join Zach Lawhorn to discuss a new plan to spend millions on capital improvements in St. Louis, rumors of a federal gas tax holiday and the latest on Missouri expanding Medicaid.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Sticher 

Listen on SoundCloud

 

School Choice Mythbusting Virtual Event

Posted on by Michael Q. McShane
Have you ever wondered: Do the narratives continually pushed by defenders of the status quo in education actually hold up? Are they fact or just plain fiction? Is the proverbial sky falling in education as opponents would have us believe?
Join us on Wednesday, March 9, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. CT as EdChoice’s Jason Bedrick, Director of Policy, and Mike McShane, Director of National Research, challenge these narratives and share with us their published papers on two specific topics. Bedrick’s Who’s Afraid of School Choice? follows up on some of the dire predictions that school choice opponents have made over the years and sees how little they match reality. McShane’s The Accountability Myth attacks head-on the argument that public schools are accountable while private schools are not.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions via a Q&A session following the discussion.

Register here to reserve your spot for this virtual event today!

Sponsored by Show-Me Institute, EdChoice and Show-Me Opportunity

Parents Have a Right to Know

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Like many things, parenting has gotten more difficult in the last couple of years. Families had to adjust to virtual learning and many discovered how little they know about their children’s education. Conversations on the way to the bus stop and looking through backpacks are not the same as being put in charge of the entire school day. One interesting result of having a more informed cohort of parents is that their rights as parents, apparently, need to be clearly delineated.

The Missouri Legislature is currently debating several bills that are each known as a “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” They’re not all exactly the same, but, for the most part, they reiterate that parents have a right to know what their children are being taught—and not by digging through notes or textbooks. Parents should have easy access to what each teacher plans on teaching.

In addition, parents (and taxpayers) should know how much is being spent and what the money is being spent on for public education. Surveys consistently find that parents and taxpayers underestimate how much is spent per student in our public schools. Consider that in the last school year (2020–21), the average spending per student in Missouri was about $16,800. Where is that money going? Parents have a right to know.

One of the most fundamental rights of parents is the right to know whether their children’s school is doing a good job or poor job at educating students. This should be very simple—no jargon, no words like “provisionally accredited,” and no protecting the egos of the adults in the building. Parents understand the difference between an “A” and an “F” on their children’s report cards, and they should be given the same opportunity on a report card for their children’s school and district.

One version of a Parents’ Bill of Rights (HJR 110), sponsored by Representative Christofanelli, requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to report on a list of indicators for each school and district and to score them with a letter grade of A through F. Unfortunately, the bill gives DESE too much wiggle room in how to assign points that determine the calculation of grades. It also includes some non-academic measurements, such as attendance, and some gameable measurements, such as graduation rates.

To be useful, school report cards should be based on objective learning outcome measures of both performance and progress. They should be timely and use clear and transparent descriptions of what’s an A and what’s an F. They should be as rigorous as possible and have automatic increases in rigor (e.g., the bar for what constitutes an A keeps going up over time) to encourage continuous improvement.

It’s great that legislators are ready to stand up for parents, but we need to make sure that they get this legislation right.

St Louis Reconsiders the Loop Trolley . . . Again

Posted on by Jakob Puckett

The Bi-State Development Agency is meeting on Friday to consider getting the Loop Trolley up and running again.

Under the proposed plan, Bi-State would operate the trolley while the Loop Trolley Transportation Development District (LTTDD) would still be liable for it financially. Bi-State would enter into a managerial and logistical support contract with the LTTDD without transferring ownership of the trolley. Leaders of the LTTDD are also asking Bi-State to reconsider the $1.26 million of federal traffic congestion and air quality improvement grants it denied to the trolley late last year.

The catch with restarting the trolley after years of broken promises and operational failures is that the federal government is threatening to claw back $37 million of grants that were used to build the trolley. At this point, the most sensible decision would be to do whatever would cost taxpayers less. This would mean doing some hard math, which I described here previously. The agenda for the Friday meeting does not indicate that a cost–benefit analysis has been undertaken.

And just as a reminder: $51 million of taxpayer’s money has already been spent on the trolley with little to nothing to show for it. As an example of things that can actually be done with that amount of money, India sent a satellite into orbit around Mars on a slightly larger budget of $74 million. I am neither advocating spending another $23 million on the trolley nor sending the trolley to Mars. But I do wish that the Loop Trolley developers had been as resourceful with our money.

But now that I think about it, sending the Loop Trolley to Mars might not be such a bad idea . . .

Brain Versus Heart on Amtrak in Missouri

Posted on by David Stokes

Rail advocates are arguing for an increase in Missouri’s Amtrak funding. They want the taxpayer subsidy for the little-used route across central Missouri increased to allow for two trains per day in each direction (up until this year, Amtrak ran two trips a day, but recent budget cuts reduced that to one trip). They sound like Loop Trolley supporters who actually argued that nobody rode it when it had partial service, but lots of people would ride if it had full service. (Spoiler: people didn’t.)

My brain tells me that the entire Amtrak subsidy should be eliminated. If Amtrak can’t stand on its own, then why should taxpayers subsidize it to such a large extent? There are numerous ways to get across Missouri, including cheap flights and busses for those who don’t drive.

My heart tells me that there is nothing wrong with compromise in politics, and I think the current compromise to fund Amtrak enough to guarantee one trip per day is a good one. In the past, I have argued in support of a limited subsidy for passenger rail service across Missouri. I do believe it is important to have that alternative provided. We subsidize all types of transportation, including cars. There is a public good aspect to having a variety of transportation options available to people.

MODOT released a study several months ago purportedly in support of the service:

The lawmakers set the figure in May, about the time an executive summary of a state-commissioned Cambridge Systematics economic impact study revealed that the four trains each day provide $208 million in annual economic activity, and more than $22 million in tax revenue Missouri would not see if the Runners didn’t run.

I have to be honest here. I don’t believe those numbers; not in the slightest. Like similar studies, this one makes use of exceedingly generous statistics. From the summary of it available online (emphasis added):

Amtrak’s . . . spending in Missouri yields the following direct, indirect and induced economic benefits….

The key words are “indirect” and “induced.” The authors of the study are likely using a robust and flawed multiplier to make assumptions about the tax revenue and economic activity that don’t withstand scrutiny.

Beyond those issues, some of the arguments in favor of a larger subsidy and two trips a day are simply weak (from the St. Louis Post Dispatch article linked at the top of this piece):

Tammy Bruckerhoff, the tourism and economic development director for Hermann, said the line is vitally important to draw tourism to the smaller towns along the route.

There are hundreds of small towns in Missouri. I fail to see why a half dozen of them along the Amtrak route deserve a subsidy for their tourism efforts, which mostly revolve around bacchanalian celebrations of excess (which are awesome, I admit). Do we subsidize Party Cove in Lake of Ozarks? I sure hope not (also, we don’t).

$10 million a year is a generous subsidy to keep Amtrak running in Missouri, and a compromise that I can live with in this debate. A larger subsidy is not warranted. There is no evidence that two trains per day in each direction will accomplish anything more than spending another $2.5 million (at least) in taxpayer money. You can’t wish market demand out of thin air, whether it’s for a trolley, a streetcar, high-speed rail, or Amtrak.

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