Parents’ Bill of Rights Heads to Senate Vote, But Obstacles Remain

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Yesterday I testified before the Senate Education Committee on House Bill (HB) 1858, a parents’ bill of rights that we’ve written about in the past. The bill addresses a number of education and parents’ rights issues, but in my view the biggest reform is the implementation of the mandatory posting of school curricula and instructional materials online. In a twist, the committee voted the bill through to the full Senate immediately after it received testimony. The speed of the committee’s action was somewhat surprising—a committee vote usually doesn’t happen until days or even weeks after testimony—but the committee’s action was by no means unprecedented.

Because HB 1858 was not amended in committee, the bill could technically be sent to the governor if the Senate passed it as is, since the bill’s language is currently identical to what the House passed. Given comments made by some senators at the hearing, however, it sounds like a handful of changes will be forthcoming, and those changes will then need to be approved by or negotiated with the House. The hearing also reaffirmed that a final vote in the Senate could be close, with one of the six committee Republicans voting against the bill.

On the heels of the Missouri Senate purportedly voting through “one of the most progressive budgets” it’s ever passed, the prospect of the parents’ bill of rights being gutted on the Senate floor or even failing is a more real possibility to me than at any time this legislative session. To be clear, I’m still generally optimistic about the current text, or something close to it, becoming law this year, but I hope the Senate leadership is prepared to use its political capital to get this important legislation across the finish line. Stay tuned.

Podcast: Charter Schools in America with Ron Rice

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Susan speaks with Senior Director of Government Relations at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Ron Rice.

Ron C. Rice has over 15 years of public policy experience in the fields of education, urban development, and community empowerment initiatives as an executive state government appointee and two-term local elected official.

Prior to joining the National Alliance, Ron served as the Special Assistant/Chief Policy Analyst for the Chief of Staff to the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education, and as a city councilman for two terms in Newark under Mayor Cory Booker where he created his ward’s Education Support Committee and consistently supported charter school facility needs and their growth and advancement throughout the city, specifically working with KIPP (TEAM Rise and SPARK Academies), Uncommon Schools (North Star Academy), and community charters such as Marion P. Thomas Charter School, Lady Liberty Academy, and Adelaide Sanford Charter School.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Sticher 

Listen on SoundCloud

You Like Options, Right?

Posted on by Corianna Baier

As consumers, we like options when buying things. We like choosing between the red and the blue package, the more expensive and the less expensive, the brand that’s on TV and the one that’s new. The same is true for services. Don’t you like being able to choose between multiple doctors or hairdressers based on your needs, schedule, and budget?

New options for Missouri consumers appeared to be under threat based on a bill currently in the Missouri House—but a recent change could fix serious problems with this proposal. House Bill 2138 seeks to establish Missouri as part of the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact. Joining the compact would allow for mutual license recognition between Missouri and other states in the compact for audiologists and speech-language pathologists. However, the original language of the bill seemed to allow this compact to nullify licensing reciprocity for this field, which was already established (for all occupational licenses) in 2020.

Licensing reciprocity vastly increased options for consumers by allowing licensed professionals from all other states to operate in Missouri without requiring an extensive relicensing process. If licensing reciprocity for audiologists and speech pathologists were nullified and replaced with an interstate compact, Missouri would only recognize licenses from states within the compact, not all states. This could result in significantly decreased options and higher prices for consumers. If you were looking for a speech-language pathologist to help with your child’s stutter, does it matter if their license originated in Colorado (a compact state) or Texas (a non-compact state)?

Fortunately, a positive change was made to the bill text. There is now language that appears to establish the compact while keeping reciprocity in place. This changes this bill from a step backward for consumers to a step forward for workers. If the legislature passes this bill (and that’s a big if) Missouri consumers will still have access to audiologists and speech-language pathologists in 50 states and Missouri licensees in these fields will now have access to customers in all the states within the compact. Increasing access creates more options for consumers and encourages competition, which lowers prices. Lawmakers made a good change to this bill; hopefully they can follow through and deliver on this legislation.

Another Crack at Expansion?

Posted on by Elias Tsapelas

Earlier this week, Missouri’s legislature moved one step closer to sending another question to Missouri voters regarding Medicaid expansion. This time though, the ballot question won’t be about expanding Medicaid eligibility. The question this time is about how much flexibility the state’s elected officials should have administering the state’s Medicaid program.

Over the past few years, my colleagues and I have written a lot about Medicaid expansion and the problems it presents for Missouri. Before voters approved the Medicaid expansion ballot measure in 2020, I wrote repeatedly about how costly expanding eligibility would be for our state, despite the ballot language suggesting the measure could somehow save money. In addition, I discussed how administratively difficult it would be to grow an already oversized program, and what that could mean for other state funding priorities.

After expansion passed, there was a long legal battle about whether the ballot initiative required the legislature to fund Medicaid expansion. In short, some legislators argued that since the expansion initiative failed to include a way to pay for the costs incurred by expansion, it was their prerogative to decide whether to pay for expansion at all (because the constitution gives the legislature exclusive authority to approve all state spending). The state supreme court disagreed and ruled that the legislature was required to find the money necessary to cover the cost of expansion. Administering the state’s largest program is more difficult than just writing a check, so the legislature now appears ready to ask voters for additional input on how they think Medicaid should be run—thus a new ballot initiative.

So far, the legislative effort is focused on three separate Medicaid issues. First, should Missouri impose work requirements for able-bodied enrollees in the expansion population? Second, should Missouri continue paying medical bills for individuals who live outside of our state boundaries? And third, should the legislature have the flexibility to decide how much money can be spent on Medicaid expansion annually, or does the program really have a “blank check”?

Since Medicaid is a partnership with the federal government, it’s not clear how easy each of these changes would be to implement, as they’d likely require federal approval as well. But I do believe additional flexibility would represent a major step forward for Missouri’s Medicaid program. And as far as I know, Missouri voters have never weighed in on these three issues before, so it will be interesting to see if they agree.

Building Height Limitations Are Unwise

Posted on by David Stokes

There is a controversy in Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza. A developer would like to build a nine-story building on the Plaza. That doesn’t sound very high, especially in the place where they sang songs about seven-story skyscrapers.

Then again, in the song, they said that seven stories is about as high as a building oughta grow, and perhaps that explains the limits on building heights that they have in the Plaza, and, hence, the controversy.

The Plaza area has had height limits in place for three decades, although the limits were advisory until about three years ago when they became law. The limit for buildings is between three and five stories, depending on the location within the Plaza district.

I have been to the Plaza many times and I, like most people I know, love the look, feel, and vibe of it. But I think that the property rights of the developer along with the benefits of urban density make building height limits a questionable idea.

Kansas City is not the only city in Missouri with building height limits. St. Louis has them, too, in certain areas. I would imagine many other towns also have them, but they don’t come into play much. Nobody is proposing to put a 42-story office building in Poplar Bluff right now.

I think the most famous example of building height limits in the United States is Washington, D.C. Those very strict limits have certainly given our capital a consistent look, but they are undeniably one of the reasons housing and office costs in DC are so high.

Removing the height limits in Kansas City won’t make it Manhattan overnight (no, not that Manhattan). But if a developer wants to build an unsubsidized, tall building along the Plaza, shouldn’t the economic, social, and environmental benefits of allowing taller buildings be given greater weight than the desire to maintain a “consistent look” for an area, even an area as iconic as the Plaza?

Podcast: Discount Drugs and a Broken Program with Bill Smith

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Over the past decade, the revenue for hospitals generated by the federal 340B drug discount program, initially intended to serve low-income, uninsured populations, has exploded even while a number of important Massachusetts hospitals have reduced the level of charity care they provide, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute. The Pioneer Institute study, “340B Drug Discounts: An Increasingly Dysfunctional Program,” notes that nationwide, 340B drug sales rose from $9 billion in 2014 to $38 billion in 2020.

Susan Pendergrass speaks with William S. Smith, Senior Fellow and Director of the Life Sciences Initiative at Pioneer Institute, and co-author of the study. He has 25 years of experience in government and in corporate roles, including as vice president of public affairs and policy at Pfizer, and as a consultant to major pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. He held senior staff positions for the Republican House leadership on Capitol Hill, the White House, and in the Massachusetts Governor’s office. He earned his PhD with distinction at The Catholic University of America (CUA).

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Sticher 

Listen on SoundCloud

Shoring Up School Choice Laws

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Missouri families need access to multiple options for their children’s education, and this need has only become more pressing since the COVID-19 pandemic. Two options—charter schools and virtual learning through the Missouri Course Access Program (MOCAP)—are already available to some Missouri families. However, it has become evident that the laws governing these options need to be amended to ensure that families can access them as intended. House Bill (HB) 1552 is nearly through the Missouri House and Senate, and is intended to fix some of these problems. Let’s look at what’s in this bill.

Charter school funding – Current Missouri law requires districts to share their state aid with the public charter schools within their borders, based on the number of public school students who choose to attend charter schools. However, lawmakers didn’t anticipate what would happen if the number of public school students in charter schools was so high that a district’s state aid wasn’t enough to cover the charter school students, as is currently the case in Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS). Over half of the public school students in Kansas City have chosen charter schools, and the funding for those students equals the entirety of KCPS’ state aid and more. If more public school students choose charter schools, the pie will not get bigger. Rather, each public charter school student will receive a smaller slice of state aid from the district.

Secondly, under current law, public charter school students do not have access to the same sources of local funding as their counterparts attending a district public school. Local aid for non-charter public school students includes property taxes, merchants’ and manufacturers’ taxes, financial institution tax revenues, all city sales tax revenue, payments in lieu of taxes, and revenues from state-assessed railroad and utility taxes. HB 1552 would correct these imbalances by requiring that the state provide the difference between the amount available through a district’s funding and the amount charter school students are guaranteed to receive The state would make up the difference in funding.

MOCAP access – The Missouri Course Access Program, or MOCAP, became accessible to all Missouri public school students at no charge beginning in fall 2018. However, the legislation that made MOCAP available to Missouri families has several shortcomings. The first is that students must receive permission to attend MOCAP from their local superintendent. In far too many cases districts have refused, and students have had to sue to enroll in MOCAP. Second, funding for MOCAP students flows from the state, through the student’s local district (or charter school), and out to MOCAP. This establishes a slight financial disincentive to allow students to enroll, because it creates the perception that the district has to “pay” for the student’s virtual education. Finally, the state assessment scores of MOCAP students are incorporated into their local district’s (or charter school’s) test scores, which are used for accountability purposes and, in the case of charter schools, count toward charter renewal.

HB1552 addresses these shortcomings, but only for students who choose to be full-time virtual students, not students who just take a virtual class or two. Under HB1552, parents and students would be able to apply directly to full-time virtual providers, the test scores for full-time virtual providers would be considered as a separate school, and funding for full-time virtual providers would come directly from the state.

Students choosing to attend charter schools or enroll in MOCAP are public school students and should not be treated differently than their peers who attend their assigned public school. HB1552 would correct several shortcomings in the laws governing how these important educational options.

Parents’ Bill of Rights Law Passes the House

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

This week, the Missouri House of Representatives gave initial approval to a Parents’ Bill of Rights bill, the culmination of months of hard work by members across the chamber. The bill is a bit of a mash-up of reforms relating to school transparency and instruction—eight amendments were added to the bill after the title was expanded, each from a different House member—but the final legislative product is one that parents and reformers can get behind. The Missouri Independent has more details on the bill:

The bill . . . aims to “to empower parents to enforce” rights laid out in the bill, like knowing what curriculum is being taught and allowing parents to visit schools to check on their children. . . .

An amendment added to the bill [] would prohibit teachers or students from being forced to adopt ideas in violation of sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, such as concepts that individuals are inherently superior or inferior based on their race, ethnicity, color or national origin or “bear collective guilt” for the actions their ancestors may have committed in the past. . . .

Other provisions included in the bill require that public school employees’ salaries be included in the state’s accountability portal, allow for lawsuits if school boards fail to follow requirements that allow for public comment and directs the state education department to develop a database for schools to post their curriculum and professional development materials every six months.

The bill also requires that districts post their curricula on their websites, one of many ideas that overlaps with the Show-Me Institute’s Parents’ Bill of Rights published last year. If this bill is passed, it will go straight into law. This is in contrast to House Joint Resolution (HJR) 110, which would first go to voters, but would also have the benefit of entering the Missouri Constitution.

It’s been a slow process, but it is good to see some of the legislative logjam in Jefferson City that’s bedeviled lawmaking for over three months finally making its way down the river. I look forward to testifying on this legislation in the Senate and hope these reforms complete the legislative process and become law. Onward.

Medicaid’s Volatile Upcoming Year

Posted on by Elias Tsapelas

As Missouri’s legislators begin crafting next year’s budget, one of the biggest questions they’re facing is how much the state’s Medicaid program is going to cost. Because Missouri’s budget is constitutionally required to be balanced, the size of Medicaid will directly impact our state’s ability to pay for other funding priorities.

It should be no shock that the past two years have been tumultuous and expensive for Missouri’s largest government program. Medicaid fulfilled its role as the state’s health coverage provider during a global pandemic, and on top of that, Missouri also adopted Medicaid expansion. These two factors have the potential to swing state Medicaid spending by billions of dollars.

Today, Missouri’s Medicaid program enrollment sits at the highest point in state history, which as I’ve written before, is in large part because of COVID-19. Fortunately, there’s hope that the federal state of emergency for the pandemic will end in the next few months. Such a move would represent a green light for states to begin once again checking whether program enrollees still qualify for the services they’re receiving (one of the conditions of receiving stimulus funds for Medicaid was not removing anyone from the rolls for the time being).

This is important because enrollment is the single biggest driver of Medicaid spending, and there are many reasons to believe that there are large numbers of ineligible enrollees right now. According to the Urban Institute, more than 350,000 current enrollees could lose coverage if the state starts checking eligibility again. To put that number in context, even if you assume the monthly cost of coverage for these enrollees is $400 (it’s likely higher), this is saying the state may be spending $140 million per month on people who don’t qualify to receive services!

It should not be controversial to insist that state tax dollars only pay the cost of health coverage for those who meet the qualifications to receive it. In normal times, federal law requires states to check eligibility regularly to ensure funds aren’t being wasted. Federal law also requires those who are qualified to receive benefits regardless of any administrative difficulties. This is a problem for many Missourians right now, as the wait time for application processing far exceeds what’s allowed by federal law. (It should be noted that those who are eligible for coverage when they apply will have their qualified costs covered retroactively once enrolled regardless of processing time.)

To summarize: There’s an enormous backlog of current enrollees whose eligibility needs to be checked, and once an eligibility check is completed we will likely see a major decline in total enrollment. But there’s also a sizable backlog of applicants who are waiting to be enrolled—and once that process is complete, total enrollment will increase.

The good news is that the governor and legislature appear to recognize the enormity of the task ahead; both have included increased funding to help reduce the administrative backlogs in their budgets. It’s anybody’s best guess how much Medicaid enrollment will fluctuate over the next year, but there are potentially billions of reasons that state taxpayers should care about enrollment numbers.

Support Us

The work of the Show-Me Institute would not be possible without the generous support of people who are inspired by the vision of liberty and free enterprise. We hope you will join our efforts and become a Show-Me Institute sponsor.

Donate
Man on Horse Charging