Common Core Is More Like Curves Than Weight Watchers

Posted on by James V. Shuls

Mike McShane, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is in the middle of an interesting blog series: “Dispatches from a nervous Common Core observer (in 10 parts).” In his first post, he asks, “Is the Common Core Curves or Weight Watchers?”

McShane notes that Curves is a very scripted and regimented workout program, while Weight Watchers simply provides guidelines for users.

Many supporters of the Common Core say the standards are just that, standards. They don’t tell teachers how to teach, they simply set the end goal. If that’s true, then the Common Core is like Weight Watchers.

However, there is a lot of evidence that the Common Core State Standards are being implemented in a manner that provides little flexibility to local schools and individual teachers. McShane writes:

First, both consortia developing tests for the Common Core standards are developing … tests designed to be given throughout the year to make sure that students are on pace to reach the level of competence that the standards require. While making sure that students are on the right path is a perfectly reasonable and laudable goal, it has the unintended consequence of standardizing the order in which particular material is taught. It makes the standards begin to look more like a curriculum…

and

Second, there do appear to be certain pedagogical undertones to the standards. Tom Loveless wrote a fantastic post over at the Brookings Institution’s blog aptly titled “The Banality of Deeper Learning.” In it, he highlights language that has been used to support the Common Core (and many other educational projects) including “project-based” “inquiry and discovery” “higher-level thinking.” These tend to be code-words for an approach to education that de-emphasizes the learning of discrete facts and standard algorithms…

This is a very important issue. Many supporters of the Common Core have said, “These are just standards. They don’t tell teachers how to teach.” I’m just not sure I believe that. From what I’ve seen, it certainly looks like the Common Core is more like Curves.

Gov. Nixon Unexpectedly Gives Legislators Another Reason To Override A Tax Cut Veto

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Last Thursday, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon dispatched a press release saying he believes the income tax cut, passed by a wide margin earlier this month, would in fact raise the sales tax on prescription drugs in the state. That’s news to the drafters of the legislation, who say the legislative language in question actually came from… the governor’s Department of Revenue. No doubt, there’s an army of tax lawyers heading to Jefferson City right now to figure out how that language should be interpreted, and I’m sure we’ll hear more on their analyses soon.

But if good policy wasn’t a sufficient reason to override the widely expected veto of the tax cut before, then self-preservation might be — an incentive the governor has now offered up through his remarks. If there is in fact a “tax increase” in this tax cut, legislators cannot afford to have nothing to show for it and no way to fix it. That leaves them with only one option: preserve the tax cut and correct the drafting error. Voting not to override a veto of the tax cut would close that door; voting to override the veto would prop it open.

But stripping away all the inside-baseball stuff, this whole situation boils down to one thing: that the governor would rather spend taxpayers’ money on new state programs, such as an expansion of Medicaid, than return the money to taxpayers. That’s sad, and I wish the governor would just come out and tell us as much rather than dance around the fact. If nothing else, it would save taxpayers the money spent on all the governor’s press releases hinting at this reality.

Columbia Could Pave The Way For Food Trucks

Posted on by Kacie Barnes (Galbraith)

It’s food truck season again. As food trucks grow in popularity, more cities are working on policies to set guidelines for these mobile eateries.

Columbia’s Downtown Community Improvement District (CID) hopes to update a city ordinance to allow food trucks on downtown streets. CID board members, restaurant owners, and food truck representatives worked together to find a solution that should please all parties.

Hopefully regulations will not look like the 75 pages of food truck rules that the Council of Washington, D.C., recently introduced. Several food trucks staged a protest a few days before the Council hearing (short video here). Trucks parked at their normal lunch spots, but refused to open for business during the lunch rush. These trucks wanted to show what lunch would be like in their absence if the city imposed overly burdensome regulations on the trucks.

Columbia’s food truck business, on the other hand, is only just beginning. The city has two food trucks operating right now, Pepe’s and Sunflower Waffle Co. But the CID is smart in thinking ahead, looking to prevent issues before a problem starts. The CID board members, restaurant owners, and food truck  representatives all agreed on certain public areas that would be best suited to food truck occupancy.

While it is helpful that varying interests are working together, the city can best encourage food truck business by imposing as few regulations as possible. Excessive rules or fees would deter entrepreneurs from starting up new food trucks. Confining the mobile vendors to specific areas of the city may help keep restaurant owners from complaining, but it also may limit the success of food trucks, if they can’t freely go where customers want them.

Democracy Alive And Well In Lee’s Summit

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

On May 23, the Lee’s Summit Enhanced Enterprise Zone (EEZ) Advisory Committee held a public meeting to collect feedback on a proposed EEZ. On April 11, the Show-Me Institute had submitted testimony about the failure of EEZs to generate any results, and on May 15, the Lee’s Summit Journal published our guest commentary regarding the issue. About 250 people were there, leading the city manager to comment that  it was one of the most well-attended meetings he had witnessed.

To a person, those in the room were opposed to the implementation of the EEZ. They asked questions about the zone, the required findings of blight, and the implications for the property values. Some were upset about the implications of blight and if their property could be subjected to eminent domain as a result. The Lee’s Summit Journal reported:

By state statute, such a zone does not alter local zoning nor can a city enact eminent domain on an EEZ area, a claim made by members of the Show-Me Institute.

“Any use of eminent domain within an EEZ is deliberately misleading,” [city consultant Chris] Sally told the crowd, adding that the term “blight” doesn’t mean a residence is blighted or run down and would not decrease property values, a claim that brought groans and sighs from the audience.

Members of the Show-Me Institute do not make this claim. We asked the Journal for a revision, but did not receive one. In our brief discussion about eminent domain in the testimony and op-ed, we put EEZs into the larger context of incentive and subsidies programs such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which do sometimes involve eminent domain. This is appropriate because recent history shows that when cities start implementing programs like this, they do not just stop at one. If you blight an area once for an EEZ, it will be even easier next time to blight it again for a TIF, and that very well could involve eminent domain abuse.

It is understandable that economic development consultants such as Sally are frustrated by research showing that the economic development “tools” from which they make their living are useless. Sally had to admit as much when he was asked if the job growth claims of Enhanced Enterprise Zones accounted for growth that was already happening in the area. He answered that they did not. In other words, and as the Show-Me Institute research pointed out, consultants and politicians just use EEZs to claim credit for economic growth that was already going to happen.

What is deliberately misleading, however, is the designation of EEZs themselves, and several attendees  commented the process was dishonest. In order to blight the area in which the Lee’s Summit City Council wants to attract development, it must include other “low-income” areas so that the whole EEZ qualifies. As a result, some of the so-called low-income areas are, in reality, neighborhoods with a large number of retired people. The City Council must also rely on 13-year old Census data regarding poverty and income — because more recent and accurate data won’t provide the numbers they need to create the EEZ. As a result, consultants like Sally draw lines around a Lee’s Summit that doesn’t exist, and state bureaucrats and city leaders seem willing to go along with the charade.

Democracy is alive and well in Lee’s Summit. The people understand a bad idea when they see it, even if city officials cannot.

Common Core And ‘Deep Understanding’

Posted on by James V. Shuls

On the Brown Center Chalkboard, a blog produced by the Brookings Institution, Tom Loveless has a terrific post (not just because he cites me).  He writes:

Deeper Learning is the current term for an old idea.  The notion is that schools spend too much time focused on the acquisition of knowledge, especially knowing facts.  In the past century, several alternatives have arisen to dethrone the prominent role of knowledge in schools: project-based learning, inquiry and discovery learning, higher-level thinking, critical thinking, outcome based education, and 21st Century Skills.  Now it is deeper learning.

Loveless provides two examples of “deeper learning.” His first is a summary of my personal story of struggle with the discovery learning approach that my kids’ former school uses to teach math. The second example comes from the international assessment known as PISA, or the Programme for International Student Assessment. Loveless contends that the tests may not actually assess the type of deep learning that we aspire to.

Loveless cautions readers to be “skeptical when encountering deeper learning in the future.”

In many of the conversations I have had with supporters of the new Common Core State Standards, people say that these standards will lead to “deeper understanding.” In some cases, the new standards have led school districts to adopt curriculum and teaching practices, much like the ones I describe in my account, which are supposed to lead to “deep understanding.”

Loveless’ post ends with this admonishment: “In the days ahead, you will be hearing a lot about deeper learning. Please be on guard. This virtuous sounding term means much more than its two words imply.” I could not agree with him more.

In Missouri and other states around the country, the Common Core Standards are being implemented. Be on guard if your child’s school begins talking about deep understanding, and find out what they mean by that term.

Finding The Right Way To Fund Roads

Posted on by Michael Rathbone

The Missouri Legislature did not approve Senate Joint Resolution 16, which would have raised the state sales tax by 1 cent to fund roads and bridges (among other transportation items), to be placed on the ballot in 2014. Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones (R-Dist. 110) has indicated that the issue will be revisited in the next legislative session.

It is important that Missouri maintain good roads and bridges. That is why I support transportation infrastructure spending. SJR 16 was an attempt to do that. However, my colleague, Policy Analyst David Stokes, and I did have misgivings about the proposal. Namely, we thought raising the sales tax to finance transportation infrastructure was not the right way to go.

Raising the sales tax to pay for transportation infrastructure would spread the burden of financing this spending evenly between those who frequently use roads and bridges and those who rarely use them. I don’t think that people who walk to work should have to pay the same amount for road maintenance as those who commute an hour each way.

When possible, and in the case of transportation funding it is possible, the external public costs should be internalized (i.e., linked to those who use the goods). That is why David and I support dedicated funding mechanisms for road construction and maintenance, such as tolling and increased gas taxes. Tolling isn’t a viable option for all of our transportation needs, but it has worked for the Lake Ozark Community Bridge and it can work for other projects. Increasing the gas tax instead of the sales tax would more closely align the act of using the road, bridge, or port, to those who pay for it.

Show-Me Hits (May 25)

Posted on by Darin Morley

In the press:

New this week:

And much more from the Show-Me Institute on our Show-Me Daily blog.

Another Union Comes Out Against The Affordable Care Act

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

A few weeks ago, I talked about how the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers International had dropped its support of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This week, we have another union upset with the law — the 1.3 million-strong United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Joseph Hansen, the union’s president, detailed his objections to the law in an editorial for The Hill that you can find here, but I’d like to highlight this quote from Hansen published in a separate report. Remember when we were told if we liked our plans, we could keep them? (Emphasis mine.)

“You can’t have the same quality healthcare that you had before, despite what the president said,” Hansen said. “Now what’s going to happen is everybody is going to have to go to private for-profit insurance companies. We just don’t think that’s right. … We just want to keep what we already have and what we bought at tremendous cost.”

Hansen’s union wants to be able to keep its current health plan rather than accept a plan the government wants to force on them. I agree with that, because everyone should have the choice to get a health plan — for-profit or not — that is tailored to their own needs, and to not have forced upon them a plan tailored first and foremost to some government mandate. Rest assured, Hansen’s union won’t be the last group to have a change of heart on the ACA. Stay tuned for more.

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