Accountable, Understandable, and Comparable

Posted on by Scott Tanner

There are so many things that go well together during the Christmas season. Faith and family, sweet potatoes and those little marshmallows on top, and (less enjoyably) my fantasy football team and a tragic playoff loss.

Jokes aside, I came across a recent poll from the yes. every kid. foundation that reminded me of a vital pairing for holding education systems accountable: understandable information and comparable information.

The poll is nationwide, but the results apply to Missouri. Parents want to hold schools accountable, but they need high-quality information to engage.

Our annual Blueprint has consistently emphasized the importance of building informational resources that are both understandable and comparable. Missouri provides some data, but there is no central, user-friendly landing place where parents can easily access and evaluate information about the quality of their children’s schools.

For instance, this data dashboard from DESE reports a number of understandable statistics for the year, but you cannot compare districts to each other. Some DESE sources are difficult to decipher and navigate altogether. And if a parent truly wants to compare districts and years, they will need to break out their Microsoft Excel skills.

Using DESE’s dashboard, a parent can see that 58 percent of Parkway C-2 students scored proficient or advanced in mathematics on the Missouri Assessment Program. But is that good? Isn’t 70 percent usually a passing score? How does it compare to last year? How does it compare to other districts across the state? Should a parent be concerned, or encouraged?

These are all important questions, and sadly, the answers require a lot of digging.

Thankfully, parents can find the answers to these questions on our own website, MOSchoolRankings.org.

There, Parkway C-2 is ranked as one of the better districts in our state: 133 out of 551 overall. In fact, its math score is the 37th best in the state. But it’s not all peachy in Parkway, as its low-income math scores ranked 378th in the state, and the overall mathematics score declined from the prior year. These statistics give meaningful context for parents to more accurately hold schools accountable.

Our website serves as a valuable resource for the state, but DESE ought to provide a similar tool—one that is even more comprehensive and accessible—using the state’s greater manpower and authority.

Taken together, survey data and practical experience point to the same conclusion: Missouri’s education system needs to be more accountable to parents. Achieving that goal requires creating resources that are both understandable and comparable.

Legal Challenge over Belton Housing Project Highlights Flawed Approval Process

Posted on by Scott Tanner

A legal battle has erupted over a proposed housing development in Belton, Missouri. Regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, the case illustrates how the housing approval process enables small but organized opposition to stall or halt development, driving up costs and constraining supply, regardless of planners’ or developers’ intentions.

On December 2, Jabal Companies and Calvary University filed a federal complaint alleging that the City of Belton discriminated in rejecting a proposed 252-unit affordable housing project on city-owned land. The plaintiffs argue that public opposition included racially coded language and that the city council’s decision violated the Fair Housing Act by relying on stereotypes about prospective tenants.

The project was modest in scale, encompassing just over eight acres near Westover Road and Bong Avenue, across from Calvary University and adjacent to a public golf course. Plans included a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, along with amenities such as a pool, playgrounds, and a community clubhouse. The site had remained undeveloped for decades.

Belton’s own community development staff had described the parcel as “an underutilized property not being used for its highest and best use.” The city was expected to contribute nearly seven acres, with Calvary selling an adjacent one-acre parcel. Jabal Companies had already secured low-income housing tax credits and begun engineering and design work.

Public opposition quickly emerged. During rezoning hearings, residents raised concerns about crime, school overcrowding, and declining property values—common themes in debates over subsidized housing. According to the lawsuit, many of these objections, and the council’s response to them, reflected coded language around race and socioeconomic status.

Whether the legal claims succeed remains uncertain. But from a policy standpoint, this case illustrates a broader challenge: what political scientist Francis Fukuyama termed a “vetocracy,” in which a small number of actors can block change, even when there is widespread recognition that change is necessary.

Across the country, similar dynamics play out in neighborhood meetings, zoning boards, and advisory councils. These forums are intended to enhance democratic participation. In practice, they often amplify the voices of politically engaged homeowners who oppose new housing near their properties.

In Belton, the developers spent months working with city officials and cleared several early procedural steps. Yet because no binding approvals had been secured, a single up-or-down vote by the city council effectively killed the project—despite prior staff support and what the plaintiffs contend was a complete and compliant application.

These decisions carry real consequences. Projects that are blocked or delayed leave more families searching for housing that doesn’t exist. Each additional layer of discretionary approval adds uncertainty and expense, discouraging developer investment.

The current system also distorts the market. Developers recognize that affordable housing proposals often face the most resistance and may instead pursue higher-end projects with fewer political risks—or leave the market altogether. Or, as is too often the case, developers seek public subsidies to offset the additional costs of delays and red tape. In contrast, cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina, which have restructured local review boards and relaxed zoning restrictions, have seen measurable increases in “missing middle” housing options such as duplexes and townhomes.

Community input remains essential, and many developers are willing to engage with residents. But Missouri’s approval process, which features duplicative reviews, ambiguous standards, and politicized hearings, is simply too burdensome.

A Free-Market Guide for Missouri Municipalities Part Four: Parks and Recreation

Posted on by David Stokes

This fourth installment in A Free-Market Guide for Missouri Municipalities series examines how cities provide and manage parks and recreational services. It outlines which park assets are best funded through general taxes and which should rely more heavily on user fees, and explains why those distinctions matter. The report also explores opportunities for outsourcing, contracting, and service sharing to reduce costs and improve service quality, while cautioning against taxpayer-funded facilities that unnecessarily compete with the private sector.

Download Part Four Here

Part Four: Parks and Recreation

We Still Need Zoning Reform in Missouri

Posted on by Scott Tanner

Two recent stories out of St. Louis County have demonstrated why we need zoning reform in Missouri. In my most recent report from the free-market municipality series, I discussed how the St. Louis metro area has the least strict zoning rules of any region in the country. That is wonderful, but these rules should still be liberalized further to protect property rights and increase economic and homeownership opportunities. (Kansas City’s metro area rank is in the middle, but if you break out the zoning strictness for the Missouri-side municipalities only, it gets much closer to St. Louis’s rank.)

The first zoning example is in Des Peres, where the owners of a wellness and substance-abuse treatment center want to operate on the site of a recently closed hospital. Let’s repeat that. A healthcare-related business wants to open on the site of a former hospital. In a rational world, the City of Des Peres would do nothing more than say, “Welcome to Des Peres.” But, alas, nothing is ever easy. The Des Peres Board of Adjustment has decided that a wellness and treatment center is not a hospital and denied the application and permits to operate. Furthermore, city officials have said the company seeking the approval cannot appeal the decision, as it doesn’t own the property yet. The company can appeal once it finalizes the purchase of the property, but then it will be forced to make a very large investment in the site without having any idea if it will be allowed to use it after purchase. This is, of course, all completely insane.

I am not adamantly anti-zoning. Nobody here is trying to put a chemical factory into a neighborhood (or some similar hyperbolic example anti-growth NIMBYs usually make). This is a wellness and treatment center that will be located where a hospital was. The fact that the city can deny any part of this is absurd.

The other zoning example is nearby on the border of Chesterfield and Wildwood. Here, a small, tightly knit African-American community has lived for over a century, and the land has become very valuable over recent decades as the suburbs have expanded. The family that owns most of the land wants to sell its largely undeveloped property and build a lot of new, large homes there, which is exactly what has happened in the surrounding area for the past 40 years. Not so fast . . .

Among the many impediments the family is facing is the opposition of neighbors. Here is a great quote from the public hearing by an opponent of the zoning change to allow the redevelopment:

“This would certainly be a substantial change to the character of this entire area,” resident Chrissy Jurkiewicz told the city council at its Dec. 1 meeting. “The landscape would be forever altered.”

Come again? What does the speaker think happened 20 or so years ago when her own subdivision was built? Did her own house and all of her neighbors’ homes somehow not “forever alter the landscape?” Did Osage Indians roam the area in the early 1800s and see a bunch of empty houses in her neighborhood and wonder why nobody lived in them?

A while ago, the City of Chesterfield approved rezoning to redevelop the property, but the City of Wildwood (remember, it’s on the border) rejected the rezoning precisely because the Chesterfield change was “too permissive” and would “overdevelop” the land. The entire area has changed from farmland to subdivisions over the past 50 years, but a bunch of Wildwood officials who live in those new subdivisions get to tell this family that their sale would “overdevelop” the land. This is infuriating, and it’s denying this family the right to the prosperity it has earned.

Does this mean cities should have no say at all in these zoning changes and redevelopments? No. For instance, in the Chesterfield case, I think the nearby residents have legitimate concerns about water runoff if the higher land above them were to be developed. But that’s not a reason to deny the proposal; that simply means the cities should ensure a plan to address such possible harm is included. As for the eternal concerns about things such as increased traffic, cities (and counties) can use the increased taxes generated by the development to fund the infrastructure improvements it may necessitate. We used to allow people to build, and we used the expanded tax base to fund the improvements we needed. Now we either reject it or subsidize it. (Yes, I’m exaggerating, but the point stands.)

It’s great that we have more liberal city and county zoning rules in Missouri than the rest of the country. However, these examples show that there is additional room for improvement.

Why Missouri Needs Early Literacy Reform with Cory Koedel and Avery Frank

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Susan Pendergrass is joined by Cory Koedel, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute, and Avery Frank, policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, to discuss Missouri’s early literacy crisis. They walk through the need for a universal reading screener, the evidence behind third grade retention, why banning three cueing matters, how teacher preparation programs must change to align with the science of reading, what successful states like Mississippi have done, what Missouri’s current laws get wrong, and more.

Listen on Spotify

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Timestamps

00:00 The Literacy Crisis in Missouri
04:42 Strategies for Improvement
09:37 The Role of Testing and Accountability
14:21 Retention Policies and Their Impact
19:08 Legislative Solutions and Future Prospects

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

Webster Groves Should Not Institute an Economic Development Sales Tax

Posted on by Scott Tanner

There is a long list of really dumb taxes in Missouri. The St. Louis and Kansas City earnings taxes are actively harmful to growth and opportunity. The personal property taxes on livestock are absurd. The pool table tax has long been an anachronism. But I have always thought that the single worst tax is Missouri is the local economic development sales tax. Why is it the worst? Because while the other taxes are harmful, they at least fund, in part, necessary functions of government. The economic development sales tax is a tax that entirely funds actions that cities should not be engaged in. It’s a tax that collects more money from people to make our communities worse off.

What does the economic development sales tax do? It is a sales tax for economic development purposes, but mostly it serves as a vehicle for corporate welfare. That’s all. It may be sold to voters in terms of new jobs, infrastructure, growth, and all sorts of things, but it is really nothing more than a vehicle for the exact types of corporate welfare that numerous studies have shown accomplish nothing except involving the government more in our economy.

We have a perfect example of the uses of the economic development sales tax from University City. A business in University City wanted to upgrade its manufacturing system. So, the company asked the city for tax money for this entirely private purpose. In a decision that should be shocking and illegal but somehow is neither, University City just gave the business $175,000 using money collected through the economic development sales tax. This is just one example of how this money is used statewide.

This is apparently what Webster Groves looked at and said, “How can we get in on that action?” Under the guise of addressing a budget deficit, Webster Groves has somehow decided that increasing sales taxes to fund corporate welfare will help it with its budget deficit. If you think this is absurd, congratulations—it is. If you think this is smart public policy, then you probably are an economic development official somewhere. (There are two sales taxes being proposed in Webster Groves. This post is focused on the economic development sales tax mentioned in the link.)

The economic development sales tax is the last tax any city in Missouri should institute. Those that already have it should remove it. Government-led “economic development” rewards cronyism and involves government in things it has no business doing. This tax is the last thing that Webster Groves needs.

The Data Center Debate Continues in Festus

Posted on by Scott Tanner

Amidst great debate, a city commission in Festus recently moved forward with plans for a new data center development.

Festus is not alone in its debate. Nationwide, there have been significant disputes about whether communities should want data centers in their backyards. While data centers can bring investment to a community, there are concerns about electricity, water usage, and sound.

Of the hundreds of citizens participating in the recent Festus hearing, one gentleman’s comments captured my attention. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:

He urged local governments to turn any revenue gain due to the new facility into lower property taxes for the general public. He also said a data center should pay for any increase in utility rates due to the extra energy usage it requires. And, he said, the city should not offer the data center any tax incentives.

I have to wonder—has this gentleman read this article I recently published?

Jokes aside, his comments convey a few key points that I think are important to keep in mind when considering a data center project in a community.

#1: Lower taxes help drive economic growth, so a reliable course of action is to return extra revenue to taxpaying citizens.

New data center revenue ought to be returned to taxpayers through lower tax rates, easing pressure on the entire tax base. Property tax abatements should not be handed out.

#2: Find innovative solutions for electricity needs.

Last year, a major energy omnibus bill, Senate Bill 4, included a provision that protects average ratepayers from “any unjust or unreasonable costs from service to such customers [such as data centers].” This should help shield average ratepayers from rate hikes to meet this new energy demand, but some burden will likely still fall on them.

While it is a state-level solution, Missouri should explore consumer-regulated electricity (CRE), which would allow new data centers and other large customers to be served by separate, independent grids. This idea could be beneficial for both ratepayers and developers. You can read more about CRE here.

#3: Remember what data center developers are prioritizing, and do not hand out subsidies.

Lastly, the actions of the biggest data center customers have made their priorities clear.

Money does not seem to be a big factor for these enormous developers. They instead seem focused on energy availability, speed to operation, and long-term stability. A clear example of this is Microsoft pouring an enormous amount of money into restarting Three Mile Island for its data centers.

Instead of handing out subsidies, a municipality could evaluate its own permitting rules. Reducing red tape could both accelerate speed to operation and signal that the community is a dependable, long-term location.

Festus will certainly not be the last community to have a heated debate about data center development. Keeping these key principles in mind, however, may help communities have productive debates on this topic.

Missouri’s Reading Crisis: 42% of Fourth-Graders Can Barely Read

Posted on by Cory Koedel

Missouri is in a reading crisis. Forty-two percent of the state’s fourth-graders can barely read, the worst results in twenty years. When students reach third grade without strong reading skills, they fall behind in every subject and many never catch up. Other states have taken steps to reverse declining reading scores, and Missouri can too, but only if state leaders act with the urgency this crisis calls for. Reform cannot wait. The materials linked below outline the evidence-based model policy Missouri needs to begin reversing its reading decline.

The Early Literacy Reform Model Policy Packet includes:

• An infographic with key facts about Missouri’s reading crisis
• Frequently asked questions for policymakers
• Full model policy language for early literacy reforms
• A detailed policy brief with research and state comparisons
• Contact information for policy experts

Read the full Early Literacy Reform in Missouri Model Policy Packet here.

New Observations Confirm Skepticism of Creative Class Urbanism

Posted on by Scott Tanner

In a recent Vox column, Rachel Cohen Booth argues that many American cities pursued a “creative‑class” strategy in the 2000s and 2010s: they built dense housing aimed at young, child‑free professionals—studios, one‑ and two‑bedroom apartments—betting millennials would form the stable middle of urban life. According to Booth, the bet is unraveling as those millennials age into their 30s and 40s and begin having children. Because the housing stock never adapted—family‑sized apartments, townhouses, or starter homes remained rare—many of these families are leaving cities, and large urban counties have seen notable declines in their population of children under five.

Long-time readers of this site will not be surprised. I argued in 2018 that Kansas City’s “creative‑class” investments—downtown luxury apartments, entertainment districts, and infrastructure built for young urbanites—did not amount to a sustainable strategy for long‑term growth and retention. I observed that many millennials preferred the suburbs: affordable housing, space, good schools, and stable services.

Booth’s column helps explain why. The urban‑core housing boom may have been good at attracting people in their 20s and early 30s. But when that cohort started families, cities lacked housing and civic infrastructure suitable for children and long‑term residence. As a result, the creative‑class gamble has begun to backfire. Cities may keep a veneer of vibrancy and high rents, but underneath many are losing the people who once anchored stable communities—workers, taxpayers, parents, consumers.

That matters for Missouri cities such as Kansas City (and for other mid-size urban areas nationwide). A city’s strength does not come only from bars, nightlife, or trendy apartments. It comes from stable families, long‑term homeownership or stable renting, good schools, reliable infrastructure, and civic engagement grounded in predictable community roots. The creative‑class theory always rested on uncertain assumptions about life‑cycle stability.

As I pointed out in 2018, and as current national trends affirm, there is no magic bullet to make downtown living the default for most families. A better path remains broad and neutral: keep taxes reasonable, maintain infrastructure, support quality schools, and enable stable, moderately priced housing—suburban or urban—that families actually want.

Creative‑class strategies may look shiny on paper and flashy in media. But when they fail to adapt to one of life’s key transitions—from young adult to parent—their long‑term contribution to stable growth may have been nothing more than a short‑lived boom.

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