Successfully Competing For Students

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

In 2000, 48 percent of parents in the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District chose to opt out of that public school system. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the district was in poor shape. The district was struggling academically, its buildings had fallen into disrepair. The district’s buildings certainly did not sound inviting, according to reporter Elisa Crouch’s description:

The high school was surrounded by barbed wire. Doors with broken locks were chained shut or jammed with broom sticks. Science labs had no running water. Gangs used school walls for graffiti.

That was when Superintendent Linda Henke started at the district. Now, 12 years later, as she retires, the district is much better off. It has made big strides academically, with its students outperforming the state average in Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test scores. The buildings look more inviting.

According to the Post-Dispatch, Henke had to make tough decisions to improve the district. She terminated 30 teachers, a no small feat given how hard it can be to fire a teacher in Missouri, and the teachers’ union sued the district. The Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District also successfully passed a tax levy increase in 2010 during the midst of a recession.

But the best sign of the district’s success is that more area parents are opting to send their children to public schools. Now, 75 percent of neighborhood children are enrolled in the district. Though some of this change is due to the recession and parents no longer able to afford private school tuition, most of this change is likely attributable to the positive changes made at the district.  Parents are capable of recognizing educational success, and many will, if able, leave a failing district by moving or finding a better educational alternative.

But for every success story like that at Maplewood-Richmond Heights, there are districts that are falling behind with many parents unable to afford a better option. Instead of relegating students to a failing district for who knows how long, wouldn’t it be better if districts were held accountable for failure and rewarded for success?

One way to do this would be to allow parents to choose what school (and what district) their child attends, with the child taking his or her per-pupil funding to the chosen school. That way, successful districts would attract more students (and funding), while failing districts would have to compete for students and funding, or risk being closed. If competition for students can work for Maplewood, why can’t it work for the rest of the state?

I Am Not Alone On The Dome

Posted on by Michael Rathbone

I have not been shy about expressing my distaste for the current proposals being bandied about for upgrading the Edward Jones Dome. Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published my letter expressing dismay at one of its columnist’s support for the Dome upgrade. Also today, the Post-Dispatch published a column by David Nicklaus echoing many of the same points I previously made.

Nicklaus cites an economic study conducted by Robert A. Baade and Victor A. Matheson which found that “Researchers who have gone back and looked at economic data for localities that have hosted mega-events, attracted new franchises, or built new sports facilities have almost invariably found little or no economic benefits from spectator sports.” This echoes the conclusions of the St. Louis Federal Reserve study that I cited. The economic case for upgrading the Dome simply is not there.

I also have to concur with Nicklaus regarding the public officials who are making the case for the Dome. If these officials are for the Dome, make the case in terms of civic pride or boosting the city’s image. Take that case to the people and let the chips fall where they may, but do not try to sell the plan to the public stating that upgrading the Dome will be an economic boost to the area, because it is not true.

Health Care Scorecard: The Good, The Bad, And The Downright Sad

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

The legislative session is over. How did the Missouri Legislature fare in the area of health care?

The Good: The Legislature will submit to voters a referendum that would block the governor from unilaterally implementing ObamaCare. I have written about this in the past and had researched last September what the governor could do unilaterally. I expect Missourians will add an exclamation point to the state’s opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) with the referendum, not unlike Missourians did with Proposition C in 2010. If passed, the referendum will deny the governor the ability to impose an ObamaCare health insurance exchange in Missouri.

Moreover, Missouri senators defeated what would have been an extension of the expensive and burdensome kindergarten optometrist mandate, an issue which I testified against. An unnecessary and inefficient imposition on Missouri’s families, the bill’s failure was the right thing for Missourians and Missouri families. This is an all-too-rare example of removing licensing-related rules and regulations in Missouri. I hope we have more of this in the future.

The Bad: In this case, really bad legislation. A bill that would have declared ObamaCare “unconstitutional” and applied criminal penalties to federal officials who would implement portions of the law in the state never made it to a vote on the floor of the Senate. Re-litigating the centuries-old notions of state interposition is neither necessary nor helpful to combating ObamaCare. The bill’s unceremonious end was warranted.

The Sad: Late last week I worried here that a bill allowing volunteer health organizations access to medically underserved Missourians would die due to a small potatoes dispute in one of the bill’s sections. To be clear, both the House and the Senate passed nearly identical versions of the bill. And yet, it died. It is a shame, bordering on shameful  that the chambers could not reconcile their differences.

Episode IV: A New Dome (They Might As Well)?

Posted on by Michael Rathbone

The St. Louis Rams’ counter-offer to the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission (CVC) has just been released. You can read the proposal yourself, but the key take-away is that the estimated price for this upgrade is in the range of $500 million to $750 million, with $700 million as the more specific estimate. The breakdown between private and public money is unknown, but presumably the public portion will be substantial.  Also, the plan would involve making the Dome unfit for conventions for two years, due to renovation work. Needless to say, operators of hotels and restaurants in Saint Louis would not be thrilled with such an arrangement in the short term.

Before even discussing the merits of such a proposal, it is imperative to ask, where would the city, county, and state find the money to pay for this, even if they wanted to? The state had enough trouble balancing the budget for its current obligations. Saint Louis City is looking to reduce the size of the police force and Saint Louis County is laying off workers to balance its budget.

Also, would the public be better off with an investment of this sort? I already pointed out the conclusions of a St. Louis Federal Reserve study showing that the impact of public investments into sports stadiums was negligible, or in the case of Saint Louis, negative. In a book written by Roger G. Noll and Andrew Zimbalist, “Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums,” the authors conclude: “the economic case for publicly financed stadiums cannot credibly rest on the benefits to local business, as measured by jobs, income, and investment.”

If the Rams want a first-tier stadium, they should be free to build one with private funds, like the Carolina Panthers did. However, if they want the taxpayers to pay for most of it . . . then that is a problem. It is time to choose between what the city, county, and state need and what they would like to have.

Let Kansas Make Foolish Development Bets; We Have Better Things To Do

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

The Associated Press has published an excellent article about the tax incentive border war in Kansas City.

According to the AP, Missouri and Kansas have committed more than $750 million in tax incentives and bonds to lure companies across the state line. That amount of taxpayer money is incredible to promise away in just five years. Perhaps even more incredible is that the former head of the Missouri Department of Economic Development (DED) openly told the AP:

You get to a point where you have to say we are wasting taxpayer money.

For once, I agree with someone associated with the DED. It is certainly nice for elected officials to be able to issue a press release and claim to have created jobs and investment. But that practice is a raw deal for taxpayers. Research has shown that state tax credits have a lousy track record of delivering on promises. And, Missouri taxpayers support this foolish practice at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax credits.

Though he has promised in the past to try and rein in tax credits, our governor does not seem to quite get it. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon told the AP:

I’m going to compete for jobs for our state, I’m not backing up on that. But I think that the real long-term solution is how do we get more out of the region as far as joint economic impact?

Here is an idea: If a company wants to leave Missouri because Kansas has promised it a ridiculous amount of money, like $100,000 per job, let it go. That is a poor use of taxpayer dollars, and when a company moves a few miles, its employees frequently stay where they put. Those employees will continue to own homes, shop, and pay taxes in Missouri.

There are better ways to make our state competitive. Let’s lower the corporate income tax. Why not reduce the state income tax?

The way to encourage economic growth throughout the state is to provide tax relief to all Missourians, instead of participating in a tax incentive game that helps politicians earn political points.

Is An Opportunity To Help Medically Underserved About To Be Missed?

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

As the last week of the Missouri Legislature’s regular session groans to a close, time is running out for dozens of bills to get a final up or down vote in the chambers. The Volunteer Health Services Act is one of those bills. Last week, I wrote about what a wonderful opportunity the Missouri House and Senate had to reform the licensing laws regarding volunteer medical missions in Missouri, allowing medical professionals in good standing and properly licensed in other states to provide free services to Missouri’s neediest. (I had also talked about the idea before that.) Requiring only a concurrence in the House to a lightly-amended Senate version, the House instead rejected the bill and a committee meeting was requested of the Senate to work out the differences. Whether that meeting will happen, nobody really knows.

Because the session ends tomorrow, the margin for error here is narrow.

I truly hope that the legislation is revisited and final, unambiguous judgment is rendered before the session closes. This is one of those bills that could help a lot of Missourians, not hurt them, who would otherwise go without medical assistance or would have to turn to the government for help.

There are a number of bills in the waning hours of the session that deserve attention as the minutes tick down. This is one of them.

Ignoring 40 Years Of Failure, Legislature Passes Land Bank Legislation

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

Yesterday, the Missouri Legislature passed House Bill 1659, which allows for the creation of a land bank in Kansas City.

This land bank, if Kansas City officials decide to create it, will have the power to bid against private buyers for vacant property, make expensive development bets, and have the ability to turn down offers from would-be buyers for arbitrary reasons.

We already know that land banking can have disastrous consequences. In my review of the Saint Louis land bank, also known as the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA), I found that the LRA rejected almost half of all formal offers it considered, and allows local officials to have substantial and inappropriate power over who can buy land bank property.

Other land banks in other states do this as well. Consider this Michigan Ingham County Land Bank rejection: An offer to purchase vacant property from the land bank was rejected because “. . . the [land bank] wants to have a home on the vacant property.”

I still do not understand why Missouri legislators want to follow the 40-year history of the LRA. Saint Louis’ land bank began its life with about 2,000 parcels, and now has amassed more than 10,000 parcels of vacant property. The land bank that the Kansas City legislation hopes to replicate also continues to amass vacant property, and helps funnel tax subsidies to private developers. Where exactly is the land banking success that Kansas City hopes to replicate?

During discussion of an amendment that was added to the land bank bill yesterday, the Senate sponsor stated: “Might be a terrible idea. But two years from now they can address that problem.”

I hope so, but I am skeptical. Our legislature passed land banking legislation for Saint Louis in 1971, and it has been an abysmal failure. Instead of addressing that problem, legislators passed a similar bill for Kansas City.

A Victory For Educational Choice

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

Though Missouri legislators may not accomplish much on tax credit reform, and are pushing forward misguided land bank legislation, there is some good news coming out of the Missouri Capitol: On Tuesday, the legislature passed a bill that would expand the use of charter schools throughout the state of Missouri. This is great news for Missouri students. It is perhaps the best news for students and educators since this.

Previously, charter schools were limited to Kansas City and the City of Saint Louis. If Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signs the bill into law, charter schools can be opened anywhere in Missouri if the state has designated the area district as unaccredited.

This could certainly help students in the failing Riverview Gardens School District, which has been unaccredited since 2007. Though the district is unaccredited, its students do not have the option of attending a free charter school in their district because it is outside the boundary of Saint Louis City.

In fact, there is cause for optimism that the charter school expansion bill could result in quick, positive change. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a graduate of the district (class of 1977) has been waiting to open a charter school in Riverview Gardens to help students there gain better access to a quality education.

Some opponents of the charter school expansion bill have pointed out that charter schools can fail. That is true. In fact, that is the whole point of the charter school model: When a charter school fails, it should be shut down, instead of being allowed to continue to provide students with a poor education.

I have argued here before that it is very important to shut down failing charter schools, like the Imagine Schools that will be closed this year. The hope is that by closing down poor schools and directing more students and resources toward successful charter schools, we can quickly identify and replicate successful schools.

If only we held our traditional public schools as accountable.

A Window For Kansas City Schools?

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

For years, Marisol Montero, newly-elected member of the Kansas City (Mo.) School District’s board of directors, has navigated the district’s maze of red tape and ignorance of state and federal education policy. Her efforts to ensure her son, who has special needs, was actually receiving the care that he required, and for which schools had accepted federal dollars to provide, led her to an idea to dramatically increase the district’s transparency.

She says her requests for information initially met resistance: She often was told “Why do you need to know that?” and that her request was “unreasonable.” However, the school was receiving federal money and not spending it, then claiming that because it was not spent, the school was not bound to certain reporting schedules. The federal government disagreed, and thanks to Montero’s leadership, the school administrators resigned.

Montero now hopes to save other parents the hassle of battling the bureaucracy just to learn what is going on inside schools. She believes that simply providing information would go a long way toward improving services. She proposes instituting a Transparency Accountability Portal (TAP), modeled after Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt’s Missouri Accountability Portal (MAP). The MAP portal serves taxpayers as “a single point of reference to review how their money is being spent and other pertinent information related to the enforcement of government programs.” It includes information about state agency expenditures, the distribution of tax credits, state employee pay, and the use of federal stimulus funds.

Montero’s TAP would show how money is collected and spent; and link each expenditure to a specific district goal. The TAP will be similar to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Missouri Student Information System and the Missouri Comprehensive Data System, but more detailed and specific to the Kansas City district. Montero wants to include:

* The amount of money a school receives for each program.

* How much the school has set aside in activity funds for field trips, etc.

* General ledger details such as individual employee salary and basic job function — including administrators, teachers, and janitorial staff.

* Contracts the district and schools have entered for things such as lawn care, maintenance, and equipment. Montero said there is no consistency in contracting. “Some contracts can be for three years, others for three months,” she said. There is often no way for outsiders to evaluate the efficiency of some expenditures, i.e., tutoring services. How many kids are participating, and are grades improving?

The database also can help taxpayers appreciate the amount spent on employee benefits and pensions. The board could use this information for public input while renegotiating contracts and cutting budgets. The portal also could reduce the time the district spends responding to open records requests.

Montero believes such a portal would help the board stick to what she identifies as the four Ds: Data Driven Direction and Decisions. Without the portal, Montero said the board risks making decisions based on opinions, not facts.

Support Us

The work of the Show-Me Institute would not be possible without the generous support of people who are inspired by the vision of liberty and free enterprise. We hope you will join our efforts and become a Show-Me Institute sponsor.

Donate
Man on Horse Charging