Live By the Sword, Die By the Sword

Posted on by Scott Tanner

Show-Me Institute analysts have been writing and talking about Paul McKee’s Northside (St. Louis) development plan since it started almost 20 years ago. The Northside project plan was to acquire and redevelop large, struggling parts of north St. Louis. The entire project was backed by huge amounts of state and city tax subsidies.

How has the project worked out? Did the promises of redevelopment of this part of the city and a great return on the public tax investment pan out? Or did the warnings and concerns of people like Institute analyst Audrey Spalding prove correct?

Of course, Northside has been a total failure, and Audrey and others were correct.

The latest update on almost 20 years of policy failure is that a batch of McKee’s properties (which taxpayers bought for him) is being seized by the city via eminent domain. More of his properties may face the same fate soon. In this particular case, the properties are needed for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) project, so the eminent domain seizures are for legitimate public use. The city tried to buy these properties from McKee, but no agreement could be reached on price, so the city is taking them. The final price paid for them will almost certainly be determined by a court.

Everything you need to know about why economic development using subsidies is a road to failure is wrapped up in this story. The entire project began not based on market forces, but on the forces of lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians. It was sold as a way to save parts of north St. Louis from decades of poverty and blight—conditions that were created in part by government policy in the first place. The entire Northside redevelopment project has been a colossal failure from the start, and the city and state should never have authorized tax subsidies for it. In the state’s case, it created a brand new law just for McKee to do this.

I would hope the city and state would learn a lesson from the failures of tax incentives and subsidies from this project. I doubt very much that they will. As Orwell said, to see the things in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle—a struggle that politicians rarely have any incentive to engage in.

Missouri’s Sunshine Law Needs More than Good Intentions

Posted on by Scott Tanner

Missouri’s Sunshine Law was a product of the Watergate era, passed in 1973 with a clear message: the public’s business should be done in public. But in the decades since, while the language has been modestly updated, the spirit of the law has too often been ignored—and in some cases, actively undermined.

Across Missouri, public officials routinely delay, dodge, or deny access to information that taxpayers are entitled to. They charge outrageous fees, cite vague exemptions, lose track of requests, or hide behind non-disclosure agreements, treating transparency as a nuisance rather than a requirement.

Years ago my colleagues wrote about the prohibitively high fees municipalities sought just to turn over the most basic financial data—the city checkbook. That’s just the beginning.

Consider Kansas City’s downtown ballpark negotiations. Mayor Quinton Lucas indicated he was willing to share details, so I took him up on it. I filed an open records request through the city website. Having received no response for almost two weeks (state law requires action be taken within three days), I followed up only to be told that the request had been wrongly assigned and had been sitting idle. A city employee resolved the issue, adding, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed” that it works this time. Two weeks later I was emailed: “All responsive records pertaining to this request are closed records pursuant to Sec 610.021(12) because such records are related to negotiations for a contract prior to its execution.”

The Kansas City Star reports that the city is again in negotiations with the Royals to subsidize a downtown park. Elected leaders are apparently eager to make sure the deal is not only kept secret, but also that it avoids any public vote.

In August 2025, I asked the Kansas City Streetcar Authority for records about the construction costs of its new Main Street extension—reported to be the most expensive streetcar line in the country at over $100 million per mile. My request was redirected to city staff who told me the matter was under review. I followed up in late October and was told the city would contact me by the end of that week. It’s been almost three months with no update.

In one recent case, a state employee told me the data I needed would take just 20 minutes to find—but only after a formal Sunshine Request was submitted and processed. This person did not know how long that would take. I got the information five days later, and I was grateful. But it underscored a troubling reality: a process meant to promote transparency is now often used to delay it.

Then there are the NDAs. The director of Missouri’s Department of Economic Development signed one with both the Royals and Chiefs—and indicated in a legislative hearing that she may not be able to answer questions. PortKC even requires companies sign an NDA in its application. While sealed bids may serve public interest in competitive contracting, secrecy around subsidies undermines the very idea of public oversight.

Missouri’s Sunshine Law could be a valuable tool, but it needs to be refreshed and its exceptions narrowed. Doing so would not merely combat waste, fraud, and abuse, but would also encourage better public policy.

2026 Missouri State of the State | Roundtable

Posted on by Zach Lawhorn

David Stokes, Elias Tsapelas, and Avery Frank join Zach Lawhorn to break down Governor Mike Kehoe’s State of the State address, including what we know so far about his plan to eliminate Missouri’s income tax, proposals to modernize Missouri’s tax system, and the need to rein in state spending. They also discuss open enrollment legislation, the new Missouri Advanced Nuclear Task Force and AI strategy executive order, the push to privatize downtown St. Louis convention center operations, what the Dome’s history says about stadium subsidies, Kansas City’s stadium debate, what they are watching in Jefferson City, and more.

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Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

Data Centers Will Require Innovation in Missouri’s Energy Sector

Posted on by Mike Ederer

A version of this commentary appeared in USA Today.

I remember when Game of Thrones was at the height of its popularity and its catchphrase seemed to be plastered everywhere I looked: “Winter is coming.” Today a similarly ominous refrain is echoing across the energy sector: Data centers are coming.

A data center is a physical location that houses servers and related hardware that process, store, and transmit digital information. As artificial intelligence use expands, demand for computing power is also rising at a feverish pace, driving the need for more and more energy-intensive data centers.

As in Game of Thrones, there is a certain mystery surrounding how dire the situation truly is.

In April 2024, Goldman Sachs forecast that data centers would rise from 2.5% to 8% of all U.S. electricity usage by 2030. However, Google recently reported a 33-fold reduction in their energy usage for AI text prompts in a single year. It is difficult to predict how much more energy will be needed in the coming years.

Current Missouri law protects average ratepayers from “any unjust or unreasonable costs from service to such customers [such as data centers].” However, this does not mean none of the burden of building new generation capacity will fall on ratepayers, and an overbuild based on overly aggressive demand projections could leave them paying for unused assets.

On the other hand, failure to build sufficient power supply (whether due to demand miscalculation or delays in constructing multiple plants) could cause Missouri to miss out on significant investment in the state. Worse, an underbuild could create real reliability concerns. There is real tension here, and a great deal of pressure to predict and build effectively.

Fortunately, there is a policy that could help alleviate some of this pressure: consumer regulated electricity (CRE).

The premise of CRE is fairly straightforward: allow consumer-regulated electricity utilities (CREUs) that are disconnected from the ratepayer-supported grid to create “private energy islands” for the largest new customers (such as data centers). This approach makes sense for two reasons:

  1. The anticipated surge in demand is expected to be fueled by a small number of users. By isolating the electricity supply of these customers from the ratepayer-supported grid, CRE can help shield everyday customers from spikes in energy prices.
  2. The increase in demand is predicted, but it isn’t certain. CRE ties both the risk and the possible rewards of building new power plants to the companies that will use the resulting energy.

This year, New Hampshire passed a law to allow CREUs to generate, transmit, distribute, and sell electricity as long as they operate independently from existing utilities and do not serve the general public (CREUs are still subject to appropriate oversight, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for nuclear plants). Missouri could do something similar, and there are many reasons to do so.

#1: Protecting Ratepayers from Risk

If the projected surge in electricity demand materializes, CRE could help lessen the severity of rate increases by allowing some large customers to be served by independent CREUs. Because these facilities are privately financed and serve only their customers, their costs would not be spread across all ratepayers. If electricity demand falls short of projections, then the excess capacity will have been a poor investment.

#2: Accelerating Capacity Buildout and Investment

 Missouri needs to build new generation capacity. In a permission-first, regulated environment, that process can be slow. Letting CREUs build and operate their own generation facilities could help keep economic development from being constrained by red tape.

Further, CREUs could offer more tailored payment structures and allow companies to align their energy sources with their own environmental or strategic goals—without forcing all ratepayers to work toward those same goals.

#3: Alleviating Pressure

Not only does Missouri face new demand growth, but our two largest electric utilities are dealing with coal-plant retirements. This transition would be challenging even without a new surge in demand. CREUs would allow utilities to focus more on serving their current customers.

CRE could be an ideal response to an abrupt surge in energy demand driven by a narrow set of customers. It would provide price security to everyday ratepayers, give data centers control over their power supply, and decrease the need for governments to predict future energy demand. Data centers are coming, and CRE is worth exploring as a way for Missouri to prepare for them.

Meaningful School Report Cards are on the Way

Posted on by Scott Tanner

I was thrilled by the governor’s State of the State address this year, where he emphasized letter-grade report cards for school districts as a priority. In fact, he announced an executive order that will require the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to produce informative and differentiated school report cards with letter grades by June of this year.

This is a much-needed improvement to school accountability in Missouri. Parents and community members will finally have access to clear information about how their local schools are performing.

Following the governor’s address, I wanted to re-up my post about school report cards from last May, which helps to explain why the letter-grade requirement is sorely needed and how it improves upon our current school report card system.

It is printed in full below.

———

Information Overload and Missouri School Report Cards

Have you ever started reading the warning label on an over-the-counter drug like aspirin or ibuprofen? Ever finished one? Probably not.

Drug warning labels are classic examples of information overload—so packed with details that they become practically useless. Unfortunately, the school report cards produced by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) suffer from the same problem.

In theory, these report cards should help parents and community members quickly understand how their local schools are performing. When well-designed, they can promote transparency and inform decision-making. But if a school report card is not organized and does not emphasize the most important information, it functions like a drug warning label. It can include a lot of detail but be of little practical value.

If you’re curious to see this for yourself, here is a link to the school report cards made available by DESE. Choose a district, then a school, and you can scroll through a vast amount of information. However, after you’ve taken the time to look through it all, you may realize you haven’t learned very much. DESE’s report cards may be comprehensive, but they fail to deliver what busy families need most: clear, accessible information about school quality.

Now, contrast the Missouri report cards with this report card for Briarmeadow Charter School in Houston, produced by the Texas Education Agency. At the very top, letter grades in four categories are displayed prominently:

  • Overall Rating: A
  • Student Achievement: A
  • School Progress: A
  • Closing the Gap: A

With just a glance, you know where this school stands.

Texas is not alone in this approach. States such as Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana also use summary performance indicators on their school report cards to give the public a clear picture of school quality. Unlike Missouri, these states are courageous enough to rate schools based on performance, and most importantly, publicly identify schools that are failing to educate their students.

It’s no coincidence that students in states with strong transparency and accountability policies, including clear and informative school report cards, consistently outperform Missouri students academically. These policies are key drivers of school improvement, and without them Missouri is only likely to fall further behind. School report cards that are informative about actual school performance are a simple way to get our state moving in the right direction.

No Adult Left Behind, How Politics Hijacks Education Policy with Vlad Kogan

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass


Susan Pendergrass speaks with Vladimir Kogan, professor of political science at The Ohio State University, to discuss his new book, No Adult Left Behind, How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids. They explore why the No Child Left Behind era is increasingly viewed as a high point for academic accountability, how low-turnout school board elections skew decision making away from students, and why policies like four-day school weeks often serve adult interests rather than children, and more.

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Find Vlad’s book here: bit.ly/3KQzCJv

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The Amazing Case of Steubenville, Ohio

Posted on by Scott Tanner

Over at The74, Chad Aldeman wrote an excellent article about the remarkable reading results in Steubenville, Ohio. He shows that the literacy rate among third graders in Steubenville City Schools has consistently hovered between 93 and 99 percent since 2016. In 2024, 100 percent of Black students, 99 percent of low-income students, and 92 percent of students with disabilities in Steubenville scored proficient in third-grade reading.

Steubenville must be rich, right? Nope. The poverty rate in Steubenville is among the highest in the state, which makes its literacy rate all the more impressive.

Steubenville then must have access to more funding than other districts? Wrong again. Steubenville’s per-pupil spending is below average in Ohio, and below the average in Missouri.

So how does Steubenville do it? It’s hard to be sure, but Aldeman’s article suggests an intuitive explanation: the district emphasizes literacy skills through and through. He gives several examples. Steubenville offers subsidized preschool where teachers emphasize speaking in complete sentences as language practice for later, when kids begin learning how to read. Every elementary teacher, even the physical education teacher, leads a reading class. And Steubenville kids practice reading constantly, either as part of the whole class or in small groups, and they work on their fluency skills by reading aloud to each other.

I’m not sure which aspects of Steubenville’s approach are most important, but what stands out to me is the district’s clear commitment to the purpose of teaching literacy. And sure enough, the results follow. This stands in stark contrast to what is happening in many schools today, where mission creep has led to a proliferation of objectives, implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) de-emphasizing the core competencies our schools have historically emphasized, such as literacy, numeracy, science, and civics.

So, cheers to Steubenville. I hope districts elsewhere—including in Missouri—recognize its success and work to emulate Steubenville’s approach.

Crime and Public Safety in St. Louis: Upcoming Events

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Please join us for an in-depth discussion on crime and public safety trends in St. Louis. Patrick Tuohey, Senior Fellow at the Show-Me Institute, will be joined by local experts Gabe Gore, St. Louis Circuit Attorney;  Janet Lauritsen, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri–St. Louis; and Pernell Witherspoon, Senior Professor of Criminal Justice at Lindenwood University.

Over the past five years, the number of crimes committed in St. Louis has decreased, however the city is still widely perceived as dangerous. What are the actual crime statistics, what are their real implications, and what shapes public perception? Our panel of experts will address these questions and more.

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights, share your perspective, and participate in an informed community conversation on crime and public safety in St. Louis. Two Opportunities to Attend:

Event Details
Wednesday, January 21
The Knight Center at Washington University

Tuesday, February 10
MAC West

Reception at 4:30 p.m., including beverages and light appetizers
Program and Q&A from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Registration
Please register for this complimentary event by emailing [email protected]. Include your name and specify which date you will attend. Walk-ins will not be admitted.

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