Page 380 – Show-Me Institute

The Best School Choice Program in America

Posted on June 4, 2015May 5, 2026 by Brittany Wagner

Universal health care, universal broadband, universal daycare—attaching the word “universal” to a government service connotes inefficiency, lack of choice, and high costs. But the opposite is true when it comes to universal school choice.

Yesterday, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a bill that will give all parents in the state a choice in how public dollars are spent on their child’s education. Nevada is the fifth state to adopt an Education Savings Account (ESA) program. An ESA allows parents to direct public funds toward multiple uses including private tuition, online learning, and higher education expenses. Nevada’s program would be different than other programs around the country in that it is not limited to students with disabilities.

To be eligible, a student must have been enrolled in a traditional public or charter school for at least 100 consecutive days. Students with special needs will receive 100 percent of what the state pays for their education, and students without will receive no less than 90 percent—about $5,000 each. Parents can direct funds toward religious private schools and even homeschooling.

Despite some contention concerning the state’s Blaine Amendment, the Silver State’s one-of-a-kind ESA program will not only make education customizable for any Nevada student, but it also will serve as an example to other states in how to reinvent public education.

As Distinguished Fellow James Shuls wrote in his essay on redefining public education in Missouri:

Most people have come to understand a very clear meaning of public education. They think of it as a system of education whereby students are assigned to schools based on where they live. They think of these schools as serving all students in their residential attendance zone. . . . It is time for Missourians to move past our narrow definition of public education. It is time we accept the reality that students can, and do, receive a quality public education from schools that are not publicly operated.

For more details on Nevada’s program, check out this blog post by the Friedman Foundation.

Missouri Lawmakers Debate, Nevada Lawmakers Innovate

Posted on June 3, 2015May 5, 2026 by James V. Shuls

While Missouri lawmakers were vigorously debating whether students in chronically failing schools should be allowed to go to better schools, Nevada lawmakers did something remarkable—they created the most far-reaching, innovative school choice program to date. Yesterday, Gov. Sandoval signed the expansive education savings account bill into law. This will allow Nevada parents to take control of their child’s education like never before.

All students who have attended a public school for at least 100 days are eligible to receive an Education Savings Account. Depending on family income, students can receive either 90 or 100 percent of the average state expenditure per-pupil. This translates to approximately $5,100 or $5,700. Families can use these funds to pay for private school tuition or a host of other education-related expenses. For more on the details of this program, check out this excellent summary by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

This is truly an enormous victory for school choice supporters.

Light Rail Light on Riders in Saint Louis

Posted on June 3, 2015May 5, 2026 by Joseph Miller

With Saint Louis County spending $1 million to study possible MetroLink expansion, light rail proponents are out trying to gin up support for new routes. We’ve been skeptical of light rail expansion in the past, especially given the large (in this case billion-dollar) price tag. But light rail proponents are undaunted by cost and argue that MetroLink is worth every penny. How do they argue this, when MetroLink loses nearly four dollars (not counting capital costs) for every passenger that steps on board? According to proponents, MetroLink is one of the best light rail systems out there. As the Post-Dispatch reported:

[Executive Director of Citizens for Modern Transit Kimberly] Cella cites studies that name MetroLink percentage-wise among the most utilized light rail corridors in the U.S.

Calling MetroLink one of the most utilized light rail lines could be considered damning with faint praise. However, the compliment itself does not appear to be correct. A quick look at data from the National Transit Database contradicts the idea that MetroLink is a particularly successful light rail line.

Of 21 reporting light rail systems, MetroLink ranked ninth in terms of passenger trips in 2013. Of course, those systems vary in their total mileage and level of service, so a better measure of utilization is passenger miles or passenger trips divided by total vehicle revenue miles (VRM), a proxy for total service provided. By those measures, MetroLink ranks eighth for passenger mile per VRM (24.6) and 19th for passenger trips per VRM (2.7).

From this data, we can see that large, dense cities tend to have the highest rate of ridership given the level of service provided. The best term to describe MetroLink utilization is middling.

Interestingly, utilization was much higher before MetroLink expanded in the early and mid-2000s.

When MetroLink only had the initial line from the airport to just across the river, it may have been true that the system had among the highest utilization rates of any light rail system. But after MetroLink expanded further into Illinois and again to Shrewsbury, utilization rates fell substantially. The reason for this is obvious: The route with the highest ridership potential was built first, with secondary options being built secondarily. Later routes, with fewer riders at a given level of service, drag down the entire system’s average.

In reality, MetroLink does not stand out among light rail systems in terms of ridership. Furthermore, adding new lines in Saint Louis County are likely to have even less ridership potential than existing routes, due to lower population density and higher car ownership. And since fewer people per train means higher subsidies per train, new lines will likely require higher subsidies and carry fewer riders. Residents should think carefully about whether Metro should, or even can, take on the extra burden.

Tax Credits or Corporate Taxes?

Posted on June 3, 2015May 5, 2026 by Michael Rathbone

During a recent Show-Me Institute Policy Breakfast, Sen. Bob Onder discussed an important reform to tax policy that could dramatically improve Missouri’s economic prospects.

Saint Louis to Spend $1 Million on MetroLink Expansion Study

Posted on June 2, 2015May 5, 2026 by Joseph Miller

Recently, Saint Louis County announced that it would spend around $1 million to “study” whether the region should commit money toward an expansion of the MetroLink system. The money for this study comes primarily from Proposition A, the primary purpose of which was to raise money to keep buses running in Saint Louis County. The study will look at three possible corridors, one running from Clayton to Westport, one running from Lambert Airport to Florissant, and one running from Shrewsbury to Butler Hill. Given the recent push to build a North-South MetroLink line from Florissant to Butler Hill (running through downtown), it appears that the end goal could be a giant light rail loop around the Saint Louis area.

Unfortunately, expanding MetroLink in this way will easily exceed a billion dollars, and when one considers that a billion-dollar North-South MetroLink line will likely precede these county-specific projects (and need to precede routes to Florissant and Butler Hill), we are talking multibillion-dollar funding requirements.

But too often, costs like these do not daunt regional planners. The results most often conclude that any rail expansion plan would have positive benefits; just some routes are more positive than others and should be built first. We should not be surprised if that is the case with this study as well. However, as so much money is being spent, I propose the following questions the study could address:

How might the bus system in Saint Louis City and County be improved for $1 billion to $2 billion? How much money are we proposing to spend per new transit user?
Given the higher-than-expected costs and lower-than-expected usage of the Shrewsbury MetroLink line, does it make sense to extend the MetroLink into areas of the county that predict for even less demand for public transportation?
Do planners expect transit-spurred economic development, given the distinct lack of economic development surrounding most existing MetroLink stations in Saint Louis?

And last . . .

How exactly will $1 million be spent on this study? Itemization is encouraged.

Branson Firefighters Unionize

Posted on June 2, 2015May 5, 2026 by John Wright

Last week, Branson firefighters voted 17-7 in favor of unionizing. After the State Board of Mediation finalizes the results, the union is expected to begin negotiating with the city in the hopes of winning an agreement that will set fire department policies, such as compensation and work rules. This may be good news for the 17 firefighters who chose the union to act as their representative, but how this affects the people of Branson remains to be seen.

The city of Branson has a choice in how it will conduct negotiations with the firefighters union: It can keep the citizens of Branson in the dark and meet with the union in closed-door sessions, or it can open the doors to its collective bargaining sessions and allow citizens and the media access to these meetings.

Open meetings like this are important because taxpayers and people who depend on city services need to be informed about what their government is doing. The transparency of open meetings leads to accountability. However, when the public is kept from meetings between government officials and government unions, government often acts in a way to benefit itself to the detriment of the taxpayer.

If Branson decides to hold collective bargaining sessions in open meetings, it will be in good company. Both the Monarch Fire Protection District and Columbia Public Schools already hold open collective bargaining sessions with their employees.

To put it simply: Branson citizens have a right to know how their city and fire department operate and where their tax money is being spent. When the city of Branson and the firefighters union begin negotiating a labor agreement, the city should keep the doors open. This will help ensure that citizens of Branson are well served by their newly unionized fire department.

Missouri’s Bridges: Are They Falling Apart?

Posted on June 1, 2015May 5, 2026 by Joseph Miller

As we’ve written many times before, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) is facing a serious funding problem. If something is not done soon, MoDOT will no longer have enough funds to keep the state’s highways and bridges in a state of good repair. The emphasis for this post is on bridges, a subject that MoDOT officials often lead with when they promote measures that would increase the department’s revenue.

A likely reason for MoDOT’s focus is the fact that the condition of state-controlled bridges ranks poorly compared to other states. Congestion may be low and road pavement tends to be smooth, but Missouri is among the bottom tier of states when it comes to the number of bad bridges. MoDOT claims that 2,000 bridges in the state are “structurally deficient and functionally obsolete.” Bridge closures, like the recent emergency shutdown of MO 291 in Kansas City, also receive significant media attention.

However, the claims that Missouri’s bridges are in crisis is somewhat misleading. Missouri has an extensive state highway system that includes not only the high-profile bridges across major rivers, but also many lightly used bridges that cross small streams. In other states, the latter usually belongs to counties or municipalities instead of the state transportation department. In Missouri, these numerous small bridges greatly add to the list of structures in need of repair.

To illustrate this fact, let’s consider MoDOT-controlled bridges in a condition listed as poor or worse in the National Bridge Inventory, of which there are 735. As the chart below demonstrates, the majority of these bridges are lightly traversed (less than 1,000 vehicles per day). In fact, less than 4 percent of bridges in poor or worse condition have daily traffic that exceeds 40,000 vehicles a day.

1. Frequency refers to the total number of bridges in a range of daily traffic, like the total number between 0-1,000 vehicles per day. 2.Cumulative % refers to the percentage of poor quality bridges that have traffic levels at or below the designated range. — Caption: 1. Frequency refers to the total number of bridges in a range of daily traffic, like the total number between 0-1,000 vehicles per day.
2. Cumulative % refers to the percentage of poor quality bridges that have traffic levels at or below the designated range.

Looking at the location of bridges, we can see that the vast majority of structures in poor condition are located in rural areas away from major highways, which in other states would be the responsibility of county or local governments:

This demonstrates that the low-traffic bridges are in the worst shape; they are in most danger of closure if the “325 Plan” goes into effect. It is unlikely that a major, well-trafficked highway will have to shut down after a piece of the bridge crushes a school bus, as some alarmists have envisioned.

When we take away the many small bridges that do not see much traffic, Missouri is left in the same position most states are in: a few dozen ailing bridges that need attention. As for those small local bridges, it might be best if over time MoDOT returns those routes to the control of local governments, who can better perform a cost/benefit analysis on reconstruction proposals.

The Value of Union Elections

Posted on June 1, 2015May 5, 2026 by John Wright

Today, many government workers are practically “married for life” to the union representing them in their professional fields. For a variety of reasons, decertification elections—the elections that allow workers to fire a union or hire a new one—are notoriously hard to come by, and that bias toward the status quo can be a serious problem for workers when an incumbent union fails to do its job well.

One proposal to fix this problem would restructure the process by which a government workplace becomes unionized by holding elections for unionized government employees every two years. In these elections, public employees would be able to keep their union, choose another union, or forgo union representation altogether.

For workers, that could mean serious money.

Consider the firefighters in Chesterfield. A union firefighter in Chesterfield pays $2,169.18 a year in union dues. While some might feel that this is money well spent, other firefighters may take a dim view of the value they're getting for the price—perhaps preferring to save or spend that money on other needs in their households. Shouldn’t our public employees, from firefighters to teachers and social workers, have some choice over this portion of their paycheck?

Regular union elections give workers this choice. If they had union elections and chose to boot out the union for the next two years, they’d save a little over $4,300. If this didn’t work out, they could always go back to the status quo. And they’d be $4,300 richer for it.

Union elections not only give workers the option of going without a union or signing up with a new union, but it also preserves the right of workers to keep their union if they believe it gives them the best deal. And it’s this freedom to choose that’s really valuable.

Kansas City’s Reverse Robin Hood

Posted on June 1, 2015May 5, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

The poor in Kansas City face a double hit: We are generally a high tax city, and development policy ignores the poorer east side. To make matters worse, the taxes in the poorer part of the city are higher than they are elsewhere. The map to the right shows a portion of Kansas City from Crown Center to the north, Waldo to the south, State Line Road to the west, and Interstate 435 to the east. The location of the three Aldi grocery stores are marked with a shopping cart. The sales tax charged at each location—gathered from shopping receipts and Jackson County—is listed next to each store.

The Aldi in Gladstone, Missouri, just outside the city limits to the north, is not shown on the map. It charges only 4.725 percent sales tax. Again, that was no surprise because Kansas City is generally a high tax city.

The stores in Waldo and East Brookside to the south both charge 5.85 percent sales tax. The Aldi to the north, supposedly in the middle of a food desert but definitely in the poorer part of town, charges 6.35 percent sales tax.

The reason for this higher rate is the Independence Avenue Community Improvement District (CID), which collects an additional .5 percent tax on top of the existing sales tax. This means that the tax rate on unprepared food such as groceries is 6.35 percent; for restaurants it is 11.35 percent. According to their website, the purpose of the CID is:

to provide for enhanced and reliable improvements, security, services and activities, such as general maintenance of public areas, continued efforts to address area beautification related issues, as well as other concerns within the Independence Avenue corridor not already receiving such services.

It used to be that security, general maintenance, and beautification were addressed by the police, public works, and the parks department. As the city fails to provide these basic services, neighborhoods step in and do it themselves. As a result, the poorest neighborhoods, where the need is greatest and the ability to pay lowest, pay higher taxes.

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