The filing of charter school expansion bills in the state legislature has been accompanied by spirited debate on the subject. However, this debate is often filled with misinformation about what a charter school actually is. The attached infographic lays out key facts about charter schools.
Students Who Are Bullied Deserve Educational Options
Kids can be terrible. I know. I have four of them. They bite. They kick. They scream. They mock. They tease. They do just about everything you tell them not to . . . sometimes because you tell them not to. As parents, my wife and I try our best to teach them to love each other, to have compassion, to offer forgiveness, and to just be decent people. We fail at this on a daily basis.
That is why I have some sympathy for teachers and school leaders when it comes to issues related to bullying. I have four kids; they have hundreds. I understand that some amount of bullying or fighting is going to occur at schools because schools are filled with children.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. Parents and schools need to be proactive about preventing these kinds of problems. But what do we do for students who do not feel safe at school right now?
In most cases, our policies require the child being bullied to confront their bully. They have to come forward to their parents, teachers, or principals. Then, often times, they have to work with that student to overcome differences. While there may be some merit in attempting to build these bridges, sometimes this is just a bridge too far.
The problem with all of this is that most parents have little recourse. They can bring the issue to the attention of the school, but then they must trust the professionals to address the issue that first happened under their watch.
Students should not be forced to continue attending a school where they don’t feel safe.
As my colleague wrote about recently, Florida did something innovative to address this problem. It created the Hope Scholarship Program, which allows “purchasers of motor vehicles to contribute their vehicle sales tax to fund private school scholarships.” Those scholarships are awarded to victims of bullying or physical attacks.
School choice programs, such as this or Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, give parents control. These programs equip parents with the resources to place their child in a school where they will feel safe and supported.
Teachers and school administrators will do the best they can to help students and prevent bullying. But like it or not, it will occur. When it does, those children deserve educational options.
Health Care Desperately Needs Competition-Retail Medicine Provides It
If you need a flu shot, you could make an appointment with your physician, wait at a potentially inconvenient location, and likely receive an expensive bill. Or, you could head to your local grocery store and quickly receive the shot for under $30 with additional incentives like discounted shopping coupons. Some places like Walmart have even delivered flu shots for free, realizing they are a way of getting people into the store.
Why is there such a difference between the two? Charles Silver and David Hyman, authors of Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care, argue that it is because of the free market.
Traditional providers, like hospitals and clinics, are expensive and inconvenient for the consumer because their pricing is primarily based on what insurers will pay. In comparison, retail providers, like the clinic found in your grocery store, have to price their services in order to attract customers and strive for convenience. The two offer many of the same services but have completely different ways of doing business.
Retail providers are becoming an increasingly disruptive challenger of traditional providers. This should not be surprising—when providers are able to compete the results typically are lower-priced and more attractive options for the consumer. Just as internet shopping is disrupting brick-and-mortar businesses, retail medicine is disrupting traditional medicine, an industry that is used to being insulated from competition.
A great example of this is the way retail medicine is transforming audiology. While traditional audiologists charge steep prices for hearing aids and hearing checks (with additional charges for things like testing, warranties, and damage coverage, which can often make up 70 percent of the total price of a hearing aid), retailers are improving services while lowering costs. Costco Hearing Aid Centers offer similar services to that of audiologists without the additional charges.
Silver and Hyman write:
As more retailers enter the field, prices will become easier to compare and competition will intensify. Bargain-hungry consumers will look for better deals, but they will be interested in quality too . . . With pressure on both quality and price, retail offerings are bound to improve. (pg. 325)
Competitive pricing offered by the retail sector also allows people to avoid markups that come with using third-party payers. While most retail providers take insurance, patients pay out-of-pocket one-third of the time. In contrast, patients who visit primary care doctors pay out-of-pocket only ten percent of the time. Silver and Hyman view this as an important factor in the success of retail providers:
When we pay for health care the same way we pay for other services—by spending our own money instead of an insurer’s—good things happen: prices fall and quality improves as providers compete for business. (pg. 320)
Competition provides good things indeed. Want to learn more about market solutions for health care problems? Join us in St. Louis or Kansas City to learn more from Cato Institute scholars Charles Silver and David Hyman as they discuss why the American health care system is so dysfunctional and costly.
The Achievement Gap for Low-income Students Continues into College
Recent research shows that there is a gap in academic achievement between lower- and upper-class students by as much as three to four years of schooling. Being so far behind makes it difficult to get into to college, but even for those who do make it to college, often they are not adequately prepared to complete their degree.
Currently, only four out of ten lower-income students who enter college are graduating within six years. What’s more, few additional students graduate after six years; according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, only an additional 6.1 percent of all students entering college in 2009 graduated within eight years. Dropping out and being saddled with student loan debt makes it that much more difficult for these students to climb up the income ladder and access better-paying jobs that can help break cycles of poverty.
Here’s the data for first-time students in Missouri who started college full-time in the fall of 2011, per the Department of Education:
· 56.7 percent of those students graduated within six years, which is lower than the national average of 60.4 percent.
· Students from the same group receiving Pell Grants from the federal government—most of which have family incomes below $30,000—have a six-year graduation rate in Missouri of only 40.6 percent, while students not receiving Pell Grants or a subsidized loan graduated at a rate of 68.3 percent.
These are startling numbers for Missouri. Not only are we behind the national average in terms of college completion, but a large number of those who fail to graduate appear to be low-income students. Those are exactly the kind of students who are least equipped to handle the burden of high student debt, especially without the benefit of a degree.
A 2013 report from the Department of Education estimated that in 2009 students who did not complete their degree had on average $9,300 of debt if they attended a public 4-year school and $10,400 if they attended a private, non-profit 4-year school. More recent data from Debt by Degree breaks down student loan debt by Pell status and individual schools; it showed Pell recipients attending Mizzou average $19,328 in federal loans.
Addressing the degree achievement gap must start at the K-12 level and, as I discussed before, competition through choice is necessary if we want better outcomes for low-income kids. But in the meantime, making changes at the college level can help lower-income students getting ready to go to college now or that are already there.
In “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” I discuss a few ways colleges can boost graduation rates among low-income students. Retention grants or emergency scholarships can fill gaps in financial aid for low-income students who are on track to graduate but would otherwise have to drop out due to lack of funds. Providing supports like mentorships and enrollment or financial aid checklists have been effective in helping first generation college students be prepared.
Not included in my essay but also worth noting is data-based guidance counseling. Georgia State University’s predictive analytics system has helped students from all economic backgrounds graduate at higher rates by connecting students struggling academically with tutors sooner rather than later and making sure students are not taking unnecessary classes that cost extra time and money.
As taxpayers, we invest too many public dollars in education at every level to have results like these. Isn’t it time to move towards a system that better serves students of all economic backgrounds and ensures that those who go to college leave with a degree?
Why Aren’t More Missouri Students Earning IRCs in Agriculture-Related Industries?
In many of Missouri’s school districts, career and technical education classes are available either through the local high school or area career centers. But why are only a fraction of our state’s high school students receiving industry-recognized credentials (IRCs), especially in Missouri’s major industries like agriculture? Even where classes are available, it seems that getting some kind of certification is more of an afterthought.
When a student is looking to go to work right out of high school, an IRC shows the potential employer that the student has skills needed for that job. If a student is planning on going to college, an IRC can help them gain valuable experience, make some money, and potentially earn college credit. Particularly in industries like agriculture and animal science where there is a lot of student interest, Missouri should look for ways to create clearer pathways for high schools to earn IRCs.
In a recent article from the St. Joseph area, a local teacher discusses how he is observing more students interested in jobs related to agribusiness such as food safety, veterinary science, and conservation. But according to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), only three students from the St. Joseph school district passed the MO Agriculture Skill & Knowledge Assessment, an IRC that shows that students have mastered one of 15 areas including farm management and livestock evaluation. Despite interest in veterinary science, no students in the district received the Veterinary Assistant Animal Care Technologies IRC.
It is worth noting that some districts do very well in getting their students credentialed. For instance, even though Jefferson School District had fewer than 50 high schoolers enrolled in 2018, students in the district earned 23 MO Agriculture Skill & Knowledge Assessment certifications.
Nevertheless, Missouri as a whole could do a better job of helping students get a jump start on a career or college. And not just in agriculture-related fields—there are opportunities, albeit limited, for students to specialize in areas like welding, web programming and development, health care, and automotive repair. In 2018, only 7,084 IRCs were earned by Missouri high schoolers and about 2,800 of those were ag-related (for perspective, there are over a quarter-million high schoolers and over 64,000 12th graders in Missouri).
How can we expand these opportunities and make earning an IRC for career-minded students more of the norm in Missouri? Creating an incentive for teachers and districts through bonus pay is one option. In Florida, teachers are awarded a bonus of $25 to $50 for each student that obtains an IRC. After adopting this policy, IRC obtainment increased from 803 in 2007 to over 86,000 in 2017. North Carolina also has bonus pay for high-performing instructors and over 160,000 IRCs were obtained in 2017.
Missouri has over 500 school districts, all with different strengths and challenges. Establishing a bonus pay program would give districts an incentive to find the best way for them to give more of their students a head start on a career or college.
Hotels and Supply and Demand
VisitKC, Kansas City’s convention and visitor’s bureau, is making presentations in which they claim that the city’s occupancy rate—the percentage of available hotel rooms sold each night—is lower than what it should be for a “healthy lodging market.” That low occupancy rate is likely due to the recent addition of so many new hotels into the market, many of them subsidized by taxpayers.
As anyone who took Economics 101 would expect, the increase in hotel room supply will drive down prices. And a drop in prices can hurt hotel operators. This is why—in a free-market system—hotel operators may be hesitant to build new hotels. If they overbuild, their investment won’t be as profitable.
But in Kansas City, they aren’t just spending their own money. They are receiving subsidies in the form of abatements and tax-increment financing to shield them from risk. Recall that one development attorney made exactly this point in a recent letter to the folks who dole out such subsidies.
As a result, Kansas City is in a predicament: too many hotels rooms resulting in lower than ideal occupancy rates. To fill as many rooms as they can, hotels will reduce their rates and settle for lower profits. VisitKC refers to these completely expected free-market forces as “destabilization.”
VisitKC wants to avoid this. So one of their “strategies for combatting the destabilization” is “increased resources for VisitKC” including a “re-focused” sales and marketing strategy. (A copy of the Visit KC presentation is available below.) In short, they want to spend money doing what hotels should be doing themselves: selling hotel rooms. To their credit, they have also called for a halt in development subsidies for hotels.
To recap: city hall spent so much taxpayer money subsidizing hotels that more hotels were built than necessary because developers were shielded from the risks of expansion. Now that overproduction risks reducing hotel rates, city hall wants to spend taxpayer money. As I said on KCPT’s Ruckus, yes, this is as stupid as it sounds. Kansas City must do better.
Bike Lanes Won’t Create 12,600 Jobs, Either
My colleague recently wrote a post skeptical of the Bike KC Master Plan claim that spending $400 million on bike lanes would save 36 lives a year.
She was right to be skeptical of that claim. But it’s not the only claim that deserves scrutiny. The plan also claims it will create 12,600 new jobs. Economics professor Howard Wall responded on Twitter:
They find 12600 jobs through 2050 measured in “job years”. So 420 jobs. Their invented measure of jobs is buried in the impact study, but they tout the number as if they didn’t create a new use of the phrase.
The summary of findings upon which the Bike KC Master Plan claims are based states on page 6: “This increase in economic activity leads to 12,600 additional jobs (measured in job years) over the period.” The period is 30 years, 2020 through 2050. So dividing 12,600 “job years” by 30 years gets 420 actual jobs.
One can still be skeptical of that much smaller claim, but it is not the claim made by the Bike KC Master Plan, which prominently and repeatedly states 12,600 “new jobs.” This number is at best misleading.
Incidentally, the authors of the report upon which this is all based would not release the paper to the Show-Me Institute as they are not finished with it. Yet, the summary of the findings is available. How one can summarize findings before the paper itself is finished is a mystery. Perhaps that explains the questionable claims of 12,600 new jobs and 36 lives saved each year.
Anyone who is serious about public policy should be very skeptical about these claims.
Why is American Health Care So Expensive? Because You’ve Been Overcharged
Hot off the Cato Institute press, Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care tackles an anxiety-inducing question: Why is our health care system so costly and dysfunctional? Authors Charles Silver and David A. Hyman have differing top-flight educations and differing political backgrounds, but they both recognize the non-partisan reality of our health care system. It performs exactly as designed: expensively and with little accountability.
Silver and Hyman reveal the key flaws in America’s health care system, which replaces consumer choice with government control and third-party payment, driving up the cost of health care. Prices will fall, quality will improve, and medicine will become more patient-friendly only when consumers take charge. As Overcharged explains, when health care providers are subjected to the same competitive forces that shape other industries, they will either deliver better services more cheaply or risk being replaced by someone who will.
Overcharged is getting the attention of top free marketeers and conservative influencers. George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author raves that “Silver and Hyman frighten us with the facts and point to ways the biggest player in the health care game—the government—can stop making matters worse.” Show-Me Institute has also noticed the usefulness of Silver and Hyman’s free-market solutions to the national health care problem. We have invited the authors to Missouri to discuss their book. Details for the event are attached. We hope to see you there!
Get Tickets: https://showmeinstitute.org/overcharged-why-americans-pay-too-much-healthcare
Spread the Word: https://www.facebook.com/events/264480817839154/
Would Kansas City Bike Lanes Actually Save 36 Lives per Year? Probably Not
Kansas City officials are working on a draft of the Bike KC Master Plan, a strategy for increasing bike lanes within city limits. Advocacy group BikeWalkKC says that the plan, which could cost taxpayers anywhere from $387 to $418 million, would save 36 lives per year if implemented. But how do we know that’s true?
It is important to realize that this marketing campaign, even though it uses biker-oriented talking points, is not talking about 36 cyclist lives—the latest annual data from 2017 showed zero cyclist fatalities. Instead, it estimates:
- 15 lives saved by increased physical activity
- 6 lives saved by improved air quality
- 15 lives saved by a reduction in fatal car crashes (not crashes that occur because a cyclist was involved—any fatal car accident counts)
Only the physical activity category is directly connected to bikers who would use the lanes.
There are problems with these estimates. Physical activity benefits, while hard to measure, are dependent upon more Kansas Citians choosing to bike instead of drive. Only 0.3 percent of commuters used bikes in 2018, and a survey noted that fewer than 50 percent of respondents were interested in biking more. More bike lanes could mean an increased number of bikers—but it’s just a projection, and there’s no way to know how many more bikers we’ll see with expanded bike lanes, let alone what the actual health benefits will be.
Six lives saved by improved air quality also seems a stretch. The number was achieved by expanding data from research in New Zealand. Even if this study was properly applied to Kansas City, the boasted number is the highest estimate possible. An economic summary of the Bike KC Master Plan read:
Assuming 1 death due to air quality for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled and 1 per 40 million vehicle starts (trips), the bike plan could reduce Kansas City air pollution fatalities anywhere from 1-6 deaths per year . . . [emphasis added]
The most puzzling estimate is that of fatal crash reduction. The economic summary of the bike plan noted that 228 fatal car crashes occurred within the city limits of Kansas City from 2015-2017, and that 94 of these occurred along the route of the proposed bike lanes. While the summary boasts a 47 percent reduction in these crashes due to the way bike lanes will change the flow of traffic, no crash data was included.
Upon reaching out to the authors of the economic summary for more information, I was told that they did not have any data on the cause of these car accidents:
The dataset provided by the Mid-America Regional Council did not provide any context on the causes of the crash. There has been some analysis of the contributing factors in fatal crashes . . . but our FHWA source on road diets does not differentiate by crash cause or even crash severity. It is simply an empirical measure on the impact of road-dieted streets on total crash volume. These benefits accrue to all users, regardless of mode or how many people take up bicycling.
How can a 47 percent reduction in fatal crashes be a realistic estimate when there is no available data on what caused the crashes? If the reduction is due to fewer cars traveling the roads with the bike lanes, does that simply mean the crashes occur on the alternative routes these cars travel? Stating the number of crashes occurring within city limits and presenting some traffic flow statistics from other areas does not seem compelling. If BikeWalkKC wants to claim 15 fewer lives taken annually by fatal car accidents as a result of expanded bike lanes, shouldn’t there be more data to back that claim up?
By portraying the Bike KC Master Plan as a strategy that will save 36 lives per year, BikeWalkKC is not avoiding the real problem at hand: this project will cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, money that could be better spent elsewhere. As my colleague Patrick Tuohey noted,
Kansas City has significant needs, significant transit needs. They are not biking. It is infrastructure. It is infrastructure repairs. It’s getting those steel plates off our streets.
The use of questionable statistics will not help develop solid city policy. If the city has millions of dollars to toss around and is concerned about saving lives, a better idea would be hiring more police officers, not building more bike lanes.
