How Easy Is It to Get a Sunshine Request Fulfilled? It Depends.

Posted on by Philip Oehlerking

Will Rogers once said, “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” And while government transparency is no joke, sometimes you have to laugh at how hard it can be to get information that should be readily available to the public. That continues to be the case with our “government checkbook” project, which my colleagues and I have been working on for several months now.

Let me re-set the stage. Missouri’s Sunshine Law (RSMo 610) requires municipalities and other public bodies to provide records of public interest, with some exceptions. It also states that if there is a charge billed to the requester, the municipality fulfilling the request should use employees of the public body that will result in the lowest amount of charges for search, research, and copying time.

Obtaining records of city expenses over the last five years is central to our project, and because there are so many cities in Missouri, it has been interesting to see the wide variety of reactions we have received from our uniform request (available below). As my colleague Scott Tuttle has noted before, responses to our inquiries have been uneven, with many cities promptly providing us the information we requested for reasonable fees, while others were less responsive and charged more.

For instance, the city of Festus took several days, waived their fees (as they are allowed to do) and gave a detailed Excel spreadsheet of their spending, which can be filtered and easily searched. Smithville took one day to fulfill the request and charged $20.00 for its records in PDF form. Meanwhile, Manchester—which to be fair is a city larger (population ~18,000) than either Festus (~12,000) or Smithville (~9,500)—told us it would cost approximately $1,200 and take up to four weeks for its staff to complete the response to my request.

Why the huge discrepancy in cost? The law does not specify the format in which information should be kept, or what a reasonable fee to charge is. To some degree this ambiguity makes sense, because the law has to be flexible enough to address situations and requests not considered when the statute was written. But should that gray area allow locales to drag their feet or (arguably) overcharge for documents that should be easy to access, while nonetheless complying with the law?

Although the responses from these three cities fulfilled statutory obligations, Festus and Smithville’s responses seemed to be most faithful not only to the law, but also to its spirit. As for Manchester’s response, you can judge for yourself.

It is puzzling with the technology available today why our cities and counties don’t simply publish their “checkbook” information online. There are plenty of free or low-cost platforms to keep these records up-to-date and accessible (look at what Manchester’s neighbor Ballwin is doing), and given the taxpayer interest and treasure involved, why should obstacles get in the way of accessing that information?

Click on the link below to see the request we sent out

Studies Show Benefits of School Choice Extend Beyond the Classroom

Posted on by Emily Stahly

There’s an old joke often told by economists that goes something like this:

A policeman sees a man looking for something under a streetlight and asks what he has lost. He says he lost his keys and the policeman decides to lend a hand looking for them. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them there, and the man replies, no, he lost them on the other side of the street. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the man replies, “well, this is where the light is.”

When education researchers want to measure the impact of a policy or program, they are forced to look where the light is. That usually means looking at student test scores, graduation rates, and a set of relatively limited short-term indicators.

Fortunately, school-choice researchers are starting to look at outcomes beyond just test scores, casting light into areas that were previously shrouded in darkness.

In fact, not only does new research show that school choice can boost test scores and increase the likelihood that low-income students finish college, but studies also suggest that students in school choice programs are less likely than their traditional school peers to commit crimes.

Researchers studying the high-performing Promise Academy in the Harlem Children’s Zone found promising results for students at that school, which uses a lottery system to place students in the limited number of available spots. Four percent of lottery “losers” were incarcerated compared to none of the lottery “winners.” In addition, charter school students were 17 percentage points more likely to enroll in college immediately after high school, and female lottery winners were 10.1 percentage points less likely to report having been pregnant as a teenager than lottery losers.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district in North Carolina used a lottery system to place students into schools that have a limited number of available seats. A study by David J. Deming at Harvard University shows that high school students who “won” the lottery and were placed into their first-choice school were arrested 70 percent less for drug charges and 45 percent less for other felony charges compared to students who entered the lottery but did not secure a spot in their first-choice school.

Schools that use lottery systems for admission are especially helpful for comparison studies because they allow researchers to compare two groups of students who both showed a desire to attend a school of their choosing. But even in situations where there is no lottery, researchers can use other techniques to help ensure the validity of their findings.

For example, researchers from the University of Arkansas found the following reduction in crime rates for male students, relative to incidence rates for their age among the general population: 79 percent for felony crimes, 93 for drug related crimes, and 87 percent for thefts. Because private school enrollment through a voucher program is not capped in Milwaukee, researchers couldn’t sort students into lottery-winner and lottery-loser groups. Instead they “used comparison groups constructed through an algorithm that matched [voucher] students with Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students based on grade, neighborhood, race, gender, English language learner (ELL) status and math and reading test scores” (see page 6 of the study).

These studies are encouraging, and suggest that school choice can not only enrich the lives of students, but also help make our cities and communities safer. No wonder school choice is becoming more popular.

 

Feds Find KC Streetcar Deficient

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

On July 24, the Federal Transit Administration issued a triennial review of Kansas City, Missouri, and its FTA-funded projects, namely the downtown streetcar. The report, available at the link below, found the city deficient in several areas, including maintenance.

A number of initial deficiencies were closed prior to the issuance of the final report, often because the city addressed the concerns after receiving a draft of the report. The city has until October 19 to address the remaining items. Of the seven initial deficiencies, one that remains concerns maintenance, including vehicle preventative maintenance, facility/equipment maintenance, and oversight of contracted maintenance.

It is a shame to learn that the city isn’t properly maintaining its streetcars—or at least is not complying with federal grant guidelines for reporting maintenance procedures. These are complicated machines, and cities such as Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Toronto have had maintenance and safety issues with their streetcars.

Cincinnati’s streetcars—which were manufactured by the same company as Kansas City’s—have had myriad maintenance problems. At one point late last year, several streetcars were offline at once.

[Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority spokeswoman Sallie] Hilvers cited “manufacturing defects” that caused the service issues that resulted, at one point Thursday night, in all but one of the city’s five streetcar vehicles being removed from city streets.

It is possible that Kansas City has had no significant streetcar maintenance problems—despite an embarrassing shut down on at least one occasion. And it is possible that the deficiencies cited by the FTA are easily addressed. We’ll know more when the city responds to the outstanding issues. 

Click below to see the entire FTA report

Cleared for Landing – KCI and the Billion Dollar Terminal

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

The Kansas City Council’s Airport Subcommittee has recommended Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate as the developer for a new billion-dollar single terminal at Kansas City International Airport. If the full Council agrees, this would bring to an end the latest chapter of the airport saga, one that Councilman Quinton Lucas referred to as “really weird” and The Kansas City Star editorial board called a “disruptive mess.” Show-Me Institute analysts have been writing about the process since way back in 2013; many would say both Lucas and The Star were being generous in their descriptions.

Four years ago, in our first post on the matter, we detailed the first arguments in favor of such an expense and concluded,

If the Aviation Department and their chorus on the City Council want to tear down a much-loved and nationally recognized airport, the public deserves transparent processes and substantive answers to serious questions regarding the endeavor’s necessity.

We’re not sure either obligation has been met satisfactorily. In fact, the past four years may have only decreased confidence among voters in their elected officials. Telling voters they bear no risk in the scheme is different from telling them the scheme is necessary or even worthwhile. Kansas Citians have seen too many so-called genius ideas become fools errands. The rallying cry for new terminal supporters, “build it and they will come,” is more wishful thinking than sound economic planning.

However the full Council votes on the Airport Subcommittee recommendation, voters will be asked to sign off on the project on November 7. We’ll hear a lot about public opinion polling in the meantime. I hope there will be just as much talk about what ought to be done, the likely benefits, and the most cost-effective way to do it. 

Ouch–Missouri Individual Health Insurance Premiums To Rise by Double Digits in 2018

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Over the Labor Day holiday, the state released next year’s Obamacare health insurance rates for Missourians in the individual market, and it was  a doozy. Not only will participation in the marketplace decline in 2018, but plan prices will increase on average by a whopping one-third, or even more.

Rate proposals released Friday by the Missouri Department of Insurance are on average 36 percent to 42 percent higher than rates for similar 2017 plans….

Both Cigna and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, the two companies returning to sell on the marketplace, listed the uncertainty about cost-sharing payments that help consumers cover the cost of insurance as justifications for their proposed rates.

Cigna has reportedly asked for up to a 73% price hike on at least some of its plans. Meanwhile Anthem will be dropping out of at least 17 counties in the state where the company marketed plans just this year. KCUR has a good national map of the number of insurers in each county in 2018. Particularly in Missouri, the map tells a story of an individual insurance market that for hundreds of thousands is less a market and more a monopoly, duopoly, or oligopoly. 

American health care reforms should be based on good policy that empowers people, not government. And these rate hikes are just the latest example of what happens when the center of a health care system is government and its cronies rather than patients themselves. We need change, and we need it sooner rather than later.

The School Choice Segregation Myth

Posted on by Emily Stahly

It’s time to put to bed a nasty myth about school choice (exemplified in this letter from American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten) and segregation that resurfaced this summer. According to the research, there is no evidence that private school vouchers make segregation in schools worse. In fact, according to a Cato Institute review of the literature most studies indicate that voucher programs help facilitate racial integration. 

Cory Deangelis of Cato reviewed the eight existing studies on school choice and integration that were conducted using rigorous, empirical research methods. Seven showed that school choice programs were associated with statistically significant progress toward racial integration (the other yielded results that were statistically neutral). These studies looked at voucher programs in Cleveland, Louisiana, Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C.

Attempting to revive long-debunked claims doesn’t help kids get a better education. With clear research on school choice and segregation, discussions of school choice should focus on what will improve schools for all kids. 

Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?

Posted on by Michael Q. McShane

A recent Washington Post article making the rounds on social media claims that there are widespread teacher shortages across the country. This argument is not new. It seems like nearly every year around back-to-school time we hear that schools are struggling to find teachers, and that it’s all because of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core, Republican governors, a lack of respect, or whatever trendy topic is central in the education policy zeitgeist.

Let’s cut through all of that. America has been on a teacher (and other school staff) hiring bonanza for decades. Ben Scafidi of Kennesaw State University has shown that while the total student population in American public schools grew by 100% from 1950 to 2009, the number of teachers grew by 243 percent and administrators and other staff grew by a whopping 709 percent. If that’s not enough, Mike Antonucci wrote earlier this week that since 2008, the American student population has remained essentially stagnant while the number of teachers has grown by 12.4%. He quotes noted researcher Richard Ingersoll stating that the “ballooning” teacher workforce is financial “ticking time bomb.”

Is struggling to keep up rates of teacher growth far outpacing student growth really the same as a “shortage?” I don’t think so.

Since at least the 1950s, America has prioritized reducing class sizes. Pursuing that policy has had consequences. It has meant hiring a lot more teachers, and, generally, paying them less. In other words, the public school system requires more and more teachers each year and has less to offer them. We shouldn’t be surprised when public schools struggle to fill teaching positions. Focusing less on class size reduction and more on hiring the best possible teachers that we can (and paying them accordingly) could help.

How we pay teachers matters as well. It similarly should not surprise us that we see schools struggling to find math and science teachers. Because we pay all teachers equally though step-and-lane pay scales, those who can make more money outside of schools (like those with backgrounds in math and science) are forced to take a financial hit when they decide to become a teacher. Allowing for pay variations that take into account the labor market demands for different skill sets is one way we might attract more math and science teachers.

Herbert Stein’s law states that trends that can’t continue, won’t. Continuing to expand the teaching workforce and compensating them through pay schemes out of the 1920s is not going to get us the teaching workforce our children need. Call it whatever you want, but it isn’t good for kids.

Charter School Students Thriving in New York

Posted on by Emily Stahly

Students at the Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City put up some incredible test scores this past year: 95 percent passed the state’s math test, and 84 percent passed the reading test. This is compared to 38 percent passing in math and 41 percent in English in the New York City school district.

Contrary to myths pushed by charter school opponents, Success Academy does not “cherry-pick” or “skim” its student population; about 95 percent of Success Academy’s students are children of color and are from low-income families.

Here in Missouri, we would be wise to take a closer look at what schools like Success Academy are doing to help low-income and minority students thrive. In fact, last November the Show-Me Institute invited Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academy, to speak at the Show-Me Institute. You can watch her lecture here. 

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