The Kids Are Alright

Posted on by Michael Q. McShane

Mathematica public policy research just released a high-quality, rigorous evaluation of the Ewing Marion Kauffman charter school in Kansas City. The results are out of sight.

From the report:

  • In Math, after 3 years in the school, students have learned 1.35 years more material than their peers, moving on average from the 36th percentile to the 58th percentile in achievement.  Those gains represent 57 percent of the gap between white and black students in Kansas City.
  • In reading, after 3 years in the school, students have learned 1.29 years more material than their peers, moving on average from the 39th percentile to the 55th percentile in achievement.  Those gains represent 45 percent of the gap between white and black students in Kansas City.
  • The results for the Kauffman school are better than the average results for the much-vaunted Boston and New York City charter schools as well as the successful KIPP charter school network.

This is great news, and it’s not like the school is cherry-picking some privileged subset of kids.  Eighty-six percent of the students at the school qualify for free or reduced lunch (compared to a KCPS average of 92%). Seventy-nine percent of the students are black (compared to 59 percent in KCPS). Twenty percent had even been suspended at least once by 4th grade (compared to 17 percent in KCPS). 

The Kauffman school puts to lie the notion that the black kids of Kansas City cannot learn. They can. What we need to do is work to create more schools like Kauffman, and allow charter schools like Kauffman the freedom to operate outside of the narrow KCPS district boundaries to give our children and their families more and better options city-wide.

The Cost of Inefficiency in Kansas City

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Woody Cozad on Ruckus last Thursday talked about how poorly Kansas City government is managed. While most people are still learning how much our leaders like to divert tax money to wealthy developers to build in nice neighborhoods, fewer people might be aware of the cumulative impact.

In his remarks, Cozad compared Kansas City to Indianapolis. According to a case study written by The Show-Me Institute’s Michael Rathbone, Indianapolis is similar to Kansas City in education, median household income and poverty levels. Indianapolis has about twice the population of Kansas City and is just a little larger than Kansas City in total city area. (The study also compared us to Tulsa, Denver, Oklahoma City, Omaha, St. Louis, and Louisville.)

Despite the larger population and larger geographical area than Kansas City, Indianapolis appears to be run much more efficiently. Their total government spending per capita is much lower than Kansas City’s, $1.411 to our $2,354. They spend much less on city administration per capita and less for about every other category the paper examined, including public safety, public services, culture and recreation and capital outlays. The Mayor’s own Citizen’s Commission on Municipal Revenue reported in 2012 that Kansas City has a higher number of employees per capita than most other cities it considered.

If Kansas City leaders were able to bring total spending per capita ($2,354.05) just halfway down to what Indianapolis pays ($1,411.64), it would save us $220 million each year, almost exactly the amount the earnings tax provides. They don’t have to match Indianapolis—or the even more efficiently run Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Omaha or Louisville—just get us hallway there.

Even if Kansas City just lowered its per capita city administration spending from its current $210.59 down to the level of Omaha ($109.57) the city would save $46 million per year. We’d save $78 million per year if we reduced it to what Indianapolis spends ($43.47).

Instead, our leaders prefer to dig in their heels and offer only scare tactics about cutting public safety spending. Don't taxpayers deserve better?

Attracting Students to Saint Louis?

Posted on by James V. Shuls

The story of young Edmund Lee, who will be denied the opportunity to continue attending the school of his choice because he is black, has caught our attention. Edmund currently attends a successful Saint Louis Charter School, Gateway Science Academy. Unfortunately, Edmund’s family will be moving to the county.  If he were white, he could use the inter-district transfer program and continue attending school at Gateway.

While it is easy to focus on the obvious story about race here, there may be another equally important story that we are missing—some students want to transfer back into Saint Louis. Black students in Saint Louis have regularly used the transfer to attend county schools. According to the Voluntary Inter-District Choice Corporation, which oversees the transfer program, more than 4,700 city students did so in 2013. Few white county students, however—just 121—chose to transfer into the city. Typically, these students choose to go to high-performing magnet schools such as Metro High School.

Edmund’s desire to attend Gateway Science Academy tells us something amazing. His parents would rather send him to a city charter school than enroll him in the Pattonville School District, a respectable district.

This is good news for the city!

We want schools in the city that attract families. That is what we hoped charter schools would do, and that is indeed what Gateway and many fine charter schools are doing. 

Now it is time to for policies to catch up.  As I’ve written previously on the Show-Me Daily blog, Missouri should allow charter schools to enroll students across district boundaries.  This would open up numerous high-quality educational opportunities for students in Saint Louis County. It would also make it more feasible for charter schools to operate in relatively small county school districts, such as Normandy and Riverview Gardens.

Edmund Lee is caught in an unfair situation that should lead us to question the transfer rules that are currently in place. But hidden in the story is a sign of hope—that charter schools will attract more students to the city. 

Is It Better for the School Week To Be Shorter?

Posted on by Elizabeth Morrison

In Stockton, Missouri, this week, the board of education voted 5-2 to keep for the 2016–17 school year the four-day school week that had been adopted last year. The school district argues that it saves money by only having to operate buildings for four days, and that they will be better able to retain teachers if they can give them an extra day off each week.  Parents are not so sure, with several arguing that it is burdensome to obtain childcare for another day.  A survey administered to parents by researchers at the University of Missouri showed support for continuing the shorter school week. Some parents claimed, however, that the survey results were inaccurate and that their children had been negatively impacted by the new school week.

Changing the length of the school week and year has been a topic of debate for years.  Before a district decides to adopt such a change, there are a few questions they should ask:

  1. How will the change affect student achievement? At the board of education meeting, a community member voiced concerns over a decline in standardized testing scores. Board Member Sue Webb pointed out that if a decline in scores is indicated over a two-year period, the district will go back to a five-day school week. The results of this year’s scores won’t be known until June or July. Another man said that he and others were “disgusted” with the idea of a four-day school week because his children’s grades had been negatively impacted this year due to the same schedule. He also mentioned that their behavior had changed for the worse because of the measure.
  2. Do students really need more leisure time? At the meeting, a law enforcement officer also pointed out a rise in juvenile problems since the school system had adopted the four-day school week in the 2015–16 school year. He said that there had been at least a 15% increase in juvenile problems on Mondays when school isn’t in session. Is the extra day being used for homework or is it just giving students more time to get into trouble?
  3. Is there a one-size-fits-all solution here? Maybe a shorter school week is good for some students and not good for others.  For students with supportive families who will fill their out-of-school time with enriching activities, a shorter school week might be great. For families struggling to get by who need their children in school while they are at work, this might be a real hardship.

Ultimately, a system with more school choice could help resolve these issues. One charter school, for example, could offer a four-day school week, while another could offer five. Families could find the school that best fits their needs.  As long as there is only one system, we will continue to see conflict. 

Eminent Domain Puts St. Louis Homeowners in Jeopardy

Posted on by John Wright

Joyce Cooks, an artist and former school teacher who has been in her house for decades, does not want to move. But if some city officials get their way, she could be forced out of her home as early as June.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, currently in South City, is considering moving to a new location in the region. In order to keep the NGA within St. Louis City, city officials are considering using eminent domain to clear out a neighborhood on the north side. It goes without saying that the people who would lose their homes in the deal are unhappy about it.

Joyce lives in a three-story brick Victorian house built in 1893. Her mother bought the house in the 1960s and she grew up in the neighborhood. “I love my home,” she tells me. If the city uses eminent domain, that home would be bulldozed.

One would hope that city leaders would resort to eminent domain—the power of government to remove a person from their land—only when there’s a very clear public benefit and no clear alternatives.

But in the case of the NGA, there are alternatives. In fact, there are three of them. One in particular, a parcel of land in St. Clair County, would have the advantage of being adjacent to an existing Department of Defense campus at Scott Air Force Base. Of the four proposals the NGA is considering, only the one in St. Louis City requires the use of eminent domain to raze an entire neighborhood.

When I asked Joyce what she’ll do if the city is successful in forcing her to move, she was despondent. “That’s my biggest fear,” she admitted. Joyce still has no idea where she’ll go if it comes to that. “What will I do?”

I have my own questions: Why is the city serving as an agent of the federal government and using eminent domain to clear a tract for a federal agency that may not even locate within the city of St. Louis? Is keeping the NGA within the city worth keeping property owners in limbo while the NGA decides where to relocate? And if the city does use eminent domain to clear out this neighborhood on the north side, where will its residents go?

Should Missouri Use Tolling to Pay for the I-70 Rebuild?

Posted on by Joseph Miller

I-70 will need to be rebuilt in the near future, and it won't be cheap. This video explores tolling as a possible way to finance the upcoming expense. Click on the link above to watch.

For a thorough analysis of the current state of Missouri's highway system and the challenges it faces in the near future, check out Joseph Miller's new Policy Study, Funding the Missouri Department of Transportation and the State Highway System. 

Kansas City, Death and Taxes

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

At a recent gathering of religious leaders, one earnings-tax supporter told those gathered that if the earnings tax is defeated on April 5, "We're going to lose 800 cops over 10 years." Of course there is no way that any city leadership would allow that to happen, but this is the sort of scare tactic the city is relying on to get "yes" votes.

The speaker also talked about the history of the tax, claiming that it was promulgated to increase public safety spending in response to the high murder rates in the late 1960s. We looked up the murder statistics for Kansas City, and indeed there was an increase in the late 1960s, peaking at 134 homicides in 1970. The number decreased afterward, but never returned to its previous rate. The speaker offered no evidence to support the idea that the imposition of a regressive flat tax had anything to do with declining murder rates. He certainly offered nothing to suggest that phasing out the earnings tax now would lead to an increase in homicides. The tactic seems intent not on educating voters, but on frightening them.

Are things better now? Over the last few years, Kansas City has averaged 101 murders each year, and the trend is pretty flat since 2000. Overall, Kansas City has one of the highest murder rates in the United States, and while national data for 2015 are not yet available, the jump in homicides in 2014 may return us to the top ten, where we were in 2013. 

Back in the 1960s, Kansas City had a high murder rate. Today we have a high murder rate and an earnings tax. Is this the type of "progress" of which Kansas Citians can be proud?

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