Year-end In-and-out list

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

It’s that time of year. Time to look at past trends and future forecasts to decide what’s in and what’s out in fashion, music, food, words, etc. This list is about public education, and some of it’s aspirational, but here we go.

In: letting parents find an education setting that works for their families

Out: giving every student just one assigned option

 So many reasons have popped up for this one in the last year or two. Parents want their children and everyone around them masked. Parents don’t want their children to have to wear a mask all day. Parents want everyone vaccinated. Parents want vaccination to be a personal choice. Parents like, or don’t care, about their school’s curriculum. Parents care a lot about their school’s curriculum. Regardless, the single, assigned option is “out” and letting every family avail themselves of at least one alternative is “in.”

In: school board meetings that include parents and the community

Out: school board meetings with no one but the board in attendance

People have discovered an interesting fact in the past year—school boards actually impact what happens in school buildings, including selecting curricula. Who knew? School boards create textbook selection committees. They hear from textbook publishers. They weigh the options and approve curricula. A broader understanding of their role will (hopefully) make broader participation in their decisions “in” and forgetting they exist “out.”

In: innovative new learning environments

Out: every student learning in a room with a teacher at the front and 20 other students

 When schools shut down, parents didn’t just go along with that program. They joined with other families and created micro-schools in someone’s basement. They sent their children to karate academies or churches for guided virtual learning. They decided to join the homeschool movement. They founded Boys and Girls Clubs, or some other nonprofit, that morphed into an outright school. Necessity is the mother of invention, and public education became inventive. The 1950s education model got tossed “out” in favor of bringing “in” new models of learning.

In: giving teachers autonomy and flexibility

Out: step-and-ladder pay scales

School shutdowns also affected teachers. Some teachers didn’t like teaching virtually; others loved it. Some teachers discovered that teaching just ten students in a micro-school means applying skills more directly, and no staff meetings or red tape. There is a massive opportunity for good teachers to take on gig work as tutors. Joining a school district at the age of 23 and staying in the same district until the age of 55 to be “taken care of” with a pension until death is so “out,” and teachers as entrepreneurs who can be paid directly to teach is “in.”

This list could go on. The bad news is that we are in the middle of a tough road back to recovering learning loss for so many students. The great news is that we’ve been forced change some of the old ways of doing things in favor of parent empowerment and engagement, systemwide flexibility and autonomy, and the notion that one size definitely does not fit all.

 

Joplin Students Learn About Food Trucks and (Perhaps) Government Regulations

Posted on by David Stokes

Students in a Joplin-area high school recently engaged in the school’s annual “Food Truck Competition.” In this event, student teams design miniature food trucks, construct a sample menu, and prepare some of the foods from that menu for a taste testing. The entire event sounds like a great, fun project for the students to learn about design, cooking, and hopefully future entrepreneurship.

If these students do one day get into the food truck business, one thing they will learn about is government regulation. Food trucks in Missouri are overregulated in many parts of the state—sometimes they are outright banned from operating in certain cities. While everyone would agree there are some safety rules that should apply to food trucks, such as not blocking busy intersections or parking in dangerous places, many places still engage in protectionism against them in favor of sit-down restaurants.

In some locales food trucks can operate, but not within a set distance from brick-and-mortar locations. That compromise is better than a total ban, and it may be a political necessity in some cities.

How are the food truck regulations in Joplin that these students may one day encounter? The good news is that the city allows them in the first place, and there does appear to be an active foot truck scene in the community.

But the regulations for food trucks appear to be heavy-handed. Don’t get me wrong, I know they are heavy-handed for restaurants, too. The obsession with “safety” in health regulations has led to things like banning popular (and perfectly safe) bake sales at schools. For example, in Joplin’s regulations I fail to see why a food truck has to:

“report to an approved commissary daily for servicing, food prep and cleaning”

There are other regulations on the list that seem unnecessary, but that is typical for the field.

But at least Joplin kids will be able to operate a food truck if they so desire, getting a real-world education in government regulations at the same time.

You Will Accept This Welfare Check Whether You Want It or Not

Posted on by David Stokes

The Section 8 housing voucher program is a well-known federal program that subsidizes rental payments for low-income households. It is one of many government welfare programs. For people like me, who believe that the welfare system has a role but also has negative effects, the Section 8 program is far down on the list of programs to object to. It helps people who need housing by working with the private sector in a voluntary capacity. Landlords can choose to participate in it or not, according to federal rules.

But that is not good enough for certain Missouri cities that won’t be content until we are all forced onto the dole.

Maplewood is the latest city to consider passing a “source-of-income” law compelling landlords who operate in that city to accept Section 8 housing vouchers as payment. It would be illegal to decline to rent to people in the program, even though it is a federal program and federal law allows landlords to choose to participate or not. The City of St. Louis, Clayton, and Webster Groves are the three cities in Missouri that currently have these laws. Kansas City has considered it, but thankfully not passed it.

Cities cannot, and should not, be able to tell doctors within their boundaries that they must take Medicaid patients. Cities should not be able to force grocery stores to take food stamps. Clearly, most grocery stores choose to, just like many landlords choose to participate in the Section 8 program, and many doctors and hospitals serve Medicaid patients. I can’t find any examples in Missouri of cities that compel food stamp acceptance, but feel free to share with me if there are (so I can go oppose it). For food stamps, the debate is more about what you can buy with the program, not where you can buy it.

You might — believe it or not — as a landlord, store owner, unemployed person, disabled person, or anything else, choose not to accept a government welfare check or join in a certain program. You have, and should continue to have, that right. Cities with “source-of-income” rules are basically like Marcellus Wallace telling the Harley-Davidson riding, sword-wielding watch-enthusiast/boxer Butch Coolidge what he should do with his sense of pride.

The fact that Marcellus is a mobster just makes the analogy more delicious. These “source-of-income” rules are relatively new to Missouri. But new or not, they are wrong. The state should not compel anyone to participate in a welfare program if they don’t choose to, and this includes landlords. Maplewood should reject this proposal (which has not yet been introduced as a bill). If cities continue to adopt such laws, the state legislature needs to step in and prevent it like they did in Texas.

Extend Telemedicine Again

Posted on by Elias Tsapelas

Once again, action is needed to protect Missourians’ access to telemedicine. A little more than two months ago, I wrote about the good news when Governor Parson issued an executive order extending the regulatory waivers on various telemedicine restrictions that have been in place since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, those waivers are set to expire at the end of the year, which is now rapidly approaching.

As I’ve written in the past, telemedicine has been an important part of Missouri’s response to COVID-19, and unfortunately, our state is still dealing with the coronavirus. Prior to the pandemic, state rules and regulations made accessing health care providers remotely more difficult than it needed to be. Telemedicine has become an increasingly popular option among providers and patients alike in the 21 months since these restrictions were lifted.

The growth of telemedicine over the past two years has been staggering. Recently, the chief medical information officer for BJC Medical Group testified in Jefferson City that more than 190,000 patients used its telemedicine services in 2020, up from only 4,000 in 2019. That’s a 4,750% increase in one year! Given telemedicine’s rapid growth, our elected officials need to ensure that access to these services can continue.

Of course, the best way to protect access to telemedicine would be for Missouri’s legislature to remove the currently waived regulations permanently. And as we head into the 2022 legislative session, I’m hopeful this will finally be the year our elected officials do just that. But until then, an executive order is the only way to preserve access to telemedicine.

Is SALT Really a Priority for Schools Right Now?

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

With families enduring yet another chaotic school year of mask mandates, vaccination mandates, school closures, and shortages of substitute teachers and bus drivers, you would think that the teachers unions would be up to their eyeballs trying to figure out how to get things back on track. Nevertheless, the president of the American Federation of Teachers found the time to join a protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. And what was the protest for? Why, to bring back the deductibility of state and local taxes on federal tax forms, of course.

The reason that the president of a teachers union is joining forces with the bipartisan SALT caucus is that taxpayers are more willing to raise state tax rates if they can at least deduct what they pay to the state from their federal taxes. If they can’t deduct state taxes, then they prefer to keep them at a minimum, thank you very much. Same goes for local property taxes. And why does the teachers union want higher state and local taxes? So that more resources can be directed at teacher pay and teacher pensions. The education establishment is taking time to throw support at having everyone pay more out of their pockets to support and grow the education establishment.

Teacher pay, teacher recruitment, and teacher retention are also on the list of legislative priorities for the Missouri State Board of Education. The board would like to see legislatively mandated minimum starting salaries of $35,000 for teachers by 2024. In addition, $50 million in federal stimulus funds have been directed at recruitment and retention.

It’s true that having a high-quality teacher in every classroom is one of the few things that can have a positive impact on academic achievement. But do we get there by protesting for higher state taxes for everyone? Do we get there by paying every teacher more, regardless of their effectiveness? Do we get there by perpetuating a costly and outdated system of retirement that often pays teachers for more years of retirement than working years?

Stuck In the middle of all this are the 65 percent of Missouri students who were not at grade level on the state math assessment last year. Also in the middle are students with disabilities who did not receive any services when their schools shut down, along with the parents who desperately want tutoring for children who have fallen behind these last two years. It’s a sad state of affairs when public education starts to look like a battle between those who support teachers and those who support families.

Missouri’s Budget: A Primer (Update)

Posted on by Elias Tsapelas

Nearly three years ago, my essay “Missouri’s Budget: A Primer” was published. In the years since, a lot has changed in our state, including the size of the budget. Today, Missouri’s budget is the biggest it’s ever been, and is more than $3.6 billion larger than it was in 2019. With billions in federal aid sent to our state over the past year and billions more on the way, understanding the process for how our elected officials choose to spend state tax dollars is more important than ever, which is why I decided to update this primer.

Next month during his State of the State address, Governor Parson will lay out his budget recommendations for the 2023 fiscal year. In addition, there are supplemental funding requests for our current fiscal year that require immediate legislative attention. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has requested approximately $2 billion be appropriated from federal relief funds by April, Missouri’s Medicaid expansion population will run out of funding soon, and the governor has recommended a $15 minimum wage along with a 5.5% pay raise for state employees starting February 1st.

My updated report provides the context necessary to fully understand the tough task ahead for Missouri’s legislature. It also provides a step-by-step explanation of the state’ budgeting process, a graphic explaining the expected timeline for the budget, and a detailed description of many of the difficult decisions required to craft and maintain a constitutionally-required balanced budget. As lawmakers discuss the economic forecasts for the coming year and decide how much to raise future state spending obligations, this report should help provide some valuable insight.

Click here to read the full report.

Competition in Electricity Markets

Posted on by Jakob Puckett

Electricity is vital to all aspects of modern life, making it important that policymakers and citizens understand the laws and regulations governing it. This paper gives an overview of how electricity gets from a fuel source to your home and business, how electricity markets operate, and what policies different states have implemented to reduce electricity prices for their citizens. The report argues that Missouri lawmakers can lower electricity prices by embracing competition and allowing Missourians to choose from competing electric suppliers.

To read the full report, click here.

A Tax Cut is the Gift that Keeps on Giving

Posted on by Corianna Baier

At one time or another, I’m sure you’ve stressed about getting someone the perfect holiday gift. Everyone wants to get their loved ones something they’ll enjoy. And if lawmakers are looking for the perfect gift for their constituents, I can think of (at least) one thing that everyone would find extremely useful: an income tax cut. Stay with me here—this really is a great gift.

An income tax cut is basically the gift of money. Taxpayers would get to keep more of their hard-earned money to spend or save in any way that they want. That means more opportunities for taxpayers and more money that can be spent at Missouri businesses. And it’s the gift that keeps on giving, because you’d get this “extra” money year after year.

This would not only be an individual gift, but also a gift to Missouri’s economy. Income taxes are destructive to growth and disincentivize working. For a number of reasons, Missouri’s economy would be better off if the state relied more on other forms of taxation for revenue.

In recent years, Missouri lawmakers have taken steps to lower the individual income tax. The “Wayfair” bill in 2021, for example, added a reduction of the top income tax rate by 0.1 percent in 2024 and two triggers to eventually lower the top rate to 4.8 percent. But it’s not time to take our foot off the gas. Other states (like North Carolina) are implementing tax cuts, and Missouri should follow suit to support taxpayers and stay competitive.

In the mass of pre-filed bills, I know of at least one that would reduce the income tax, but it’s difficult to predict what will happen in Jefferson City in 2022. If lawmakers really want to give taxpayers a gift (albeit a late gift, given the timing of the legislative session), they’ll consider further income tax cuts this session.

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