Language-Specific Charter School to Open in New Jersey

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

A Hebrew-language charter school is set to open this fall in New Jersey. Unlike the California “Hebrew-language” charter I recently wrote about, the New Jersey school will focus on … Hebrew. That’s right, the school has permission to specialize in one language. Here, its website lists some reasons to study Hebrew, such as gaining an advantage in international business and diplomacy. None of the reasons have anything to do with religion.

I hope the charter school approval process in Missouri will remain friendly to single-language charter schools, so that a school like the New Jersey charter would be welcome here. There are many languages besides Hebrew that could possibly be studied for their religious significance. Religious texts have been composed in Greek, Latin, and Arabic, to name a few — yet all of those languages are taught in public schools. It’s unfair to single out Hebrew or any of those languages as unsuitable for specialization, when students’ reasons for studying them are as varied as the words in a dictionary.

Free Agents and the Free Market

Posted on by Christine Harbin

In an article in the Wall Street Journal today, Reed Albergotti writes that eliminating the salary cap on free agents in the NFL hasn’t caused the season to “become the discombobulated cash volcano everyone was hoping for.” Now, I don’t know very much about football, but I do know enough about economics, and I find the author’s conclusion to be economically nonsensical (emphasis mine):

So with apologies to Messrs. Friedman and Hayek, here’s the likely game summary on the free-agent season that was: The free market ended up making the NFL’s players poorer and its owners richer than ever.

Removing a salary cap would not cause salaries to decrease — it would cause them to either increase or remain unchanged. If the salary cap were ineffective (i.e., above the equilibrium price), then removing it would result in no change in salaries. A football team owner is going to hire q* football players and pay them a salary of p* nevertheless. If the salary cap were effective (i.e., below the equilibrium price), then removing it would cause salaries to increase to the equilibrium level.

ineffective_price_ceiling

From what I can tell from the article, the author is incorrectly assuming that the salary cap for football players was effective (i.e., their past salary was below their market value). On the contrary, the salary cap was probably ineffective (i.e., their salary equals their market value), which would explain why nobody is “throw[ing] irresponsibly large sums of scratch at the sport’s top free agents” upon its repeal. This is evidenced by the fact that, while under the cap, many teams hadn’t used up all the funds they had allocated in salaries. According to a recent article in the Post-Dispatch, this group includes the Saint Louis Rams:

The Rams have only about $76 million committed to salaries so far in 2010, and with projections of $30 million or $35 million in cap space when all is said and done.

University of Michigan Student: Census Participation = Cash

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Those of you who become physically ill when you watch ads connecting Census participation and government funding might want to skip this post. Everyone else, prepare to be amazed by the most blatant ad for the Census I have ever seen.

The video was produced by a University of Michigan student for a university-sponsored contest. It won second place. In the clip, students gather numbers representing how many people live in their houses — one takes a big “4,” another a “5,” and so on. The students bring their numbers to a bureaucrat and pile them on his desk. He, in turn, pulls a humongous dollar sign out of a drawer and hands it to them. Words flash across the screen, informing viewers that they can “earn money and recognition” for their communities by participating in the Census.

You have to see it to believe it:

State Government Employee Thinks the Private Sector Exists to Serve Him

Posted on by David Stokes

There is a very weak letter-to-the-editor / small op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader today (hat tip to Combest) from someone with the state workers union, presumably some type of official affiliated with them. Here is the best part of the letter:

How does Missouri’s 48th worst pay for state workers in the nation contribute to our budget crisis? […] It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t position Missouri for future prosperity and economic growth.

So, logically, if Missouri wants to position itself for future prosperity and growth, the first thing we should do is give our state employees a raise? Because taking more from the general public to give more to state employees will result in spending multipliers so grand that we’ll all be living the good life? I guess that is the logic. Thank goodness the governor and the legislature don’t seem to agree.

I truly believe that a large public employment sector is a real threat to our financial stability and our economic freedom. For every police officer, fireman, and teacher doing important work out there, there is a clerk who got hired because they were some connected person’s cousin. Most public employees then become part of a consistent movement for more government and higher taxes, as they are the ones who benefit from that. Unfortunately, it takes a recession to generally see layoffs in the public sector – which many of us would agree is not the best time to lay anyone off. (I do give credit to former Gov. Matt Blunt for reducing the state payroll during good economic times, but that is a rarity.) However, if it has to be done during a recession, then it has to be done. There is nothing special about government jobs. They should be maintained only as long as it takes someone 40 hours a week to perform a needed public service. Once the service becomes unnecessary, the revenues are not there to support it, or it turns out that certain people are not needed for 40 hours (impossible to imagine for bureaucrats, I know) they should be let go.

What Is the Point of This Interactive Map?

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Census Bureau has created a map that allows you to track Census mail participation rates, which the bureau defines as the percentage of forms mailed back from households that received them. When I read the map this morning, Missouri’s participation rate was 28 percent, well above the national rate of 16 percent. The map also lists areas with the highest participation rates so far; this morning, two small towns in Iowa were tied at 74 percent.

The map is colorful and easy to use. Still, I can’t help wondering why the Census Bureau displays this information so prominently. The Census isn’t a contest in which we try to beat other states. It doesn’t really matter which cities or counties are “ahead” in mailing back their forms.

Ignoring Calorie Counts

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Thus begins the AP story about the national calorie count mandate, which will force restaurant chains comprising 20 or more locations to post calorie counts on menus:

A requirement tucked into the massive U.S health care bill will make calorie counts impossible for thousands of restaurants to hide and difficult for consumers to ignore.

I’m following it until I get to the words “difficult for consumers to ignore.” There’s evidence that consumers are pretty good at ignoring the numbers on the menu. For example, this research on New York City’s calorie count mandate found that less than a third of consumers reported taking the newly posted nutritional information into account when they ordered. When the researchers examined caloric data from fast food sales before and after the change in policy, they found no decrease in calories purchased. (The AP story does mention this study a couple of paragraphs from the end.)

Another study that looked at data from Starbucks alone found a small decrease in purchased calories in food, but no change in purchased calories in beverages — the main attraction at Starbucks. People who headed over to Starbucks in search of the high-calorie drinks for which it’s known didn’t suddenly change their minds when they read the calorie counts.

The calorie count mandate won’t make the population healthier, because people are good are ignoring numbers they don’t want to see. You can plaster nutritional data all over a restaurant, but if people aren’t interested, they’ll tune it out.

It’s unfortunate that the federal government imposed this mandate on all states. States like Missouri should be free to weigh the evidence from places that have imposed mandates and come to their own determinations on calorie-posting policy.

Page on Parents as Teachers Website Reinforces Gender Stereotypes

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Parents as Teachers website includes a list of tips on involving fathers in their children’s lives, and it also gives several reasons why fathers should be involved. Most of them look fine to me, but I take issue with this one:

Dads often have a special interest in analytical skills such as math and problem-solving, which can support a child’s intellectual development and promote school readiness.

The page also states that fathers “are usually more rough-and-tumble in their play with children than moms.”

Mothers can also focus on problem solving and their children’s cognitive growth, and I see no reason to highlight those characteristics as the special domain of men. There are plenty of couples that don’t fit these generalizations; it’s unfair to them to imply that an analytical father paired with a docile mother is the norm, or that this is what men and women are “usually” like.

Now, the wording on this one page should not be a deciding factor in funding Parents as Teachers. I’ve set out my arguments for limiting Parents as Teachers in previous posts, and my reasoning doesn’t depend on what a small section of the program’s website says. However, because Parents as Teachers receives state funds, taxpayers should be aware of what it tells participants. Public programs that give parenting advice can acquaint parents with information, but they can also provide a platform for the promulgation of opinions, biases, and stereotypes.

Governmental Things One Should Be Able to Do Online

Posted on by David Stokes

Over at the Freakonomics blog, they’re discussing a website focused on getting the U.S. Census to be made available online, thereby saving millions of dollars — maybe more. This post won’t devolve into a census discussion, but I will say that I absolutely hate those ads that constantly talk about filling out the form so that your community can get its fair share of funds for all the wonderful things government does. I reject that it is the role of government to do many of those things, and the constant talk of “fair share” makes me physically ill.

But let’s move on. We are talking a lot around here about ways to cut the state’s budget. Although this idea is more closely related to Missouri’s county governments, personal property tax declarations could very easily be done online. As far as I can tell, only Jackson County allows you to do the entire process online. That saves every taxpayer the postage cost of two letters, and it should be emulated by every other county. St. Louis County offers some helpful things online, but I think they should go the full mile here and try to phase out the requirement for physical mailings of property tax declarations for as many people as possible. Cutting costs here might also save the state at least a little money, given that the state reimburses counties for portions of their assessment expenses.

Please let me know if you are aware of other counties that have gone completely online with this process.

Continuing the Fight for Fewer State Reps

Posted on by David Stokes

Today’s Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal has an op-ed about the size of Missouri’s House of Representatives. In short, the House is too big and we could do just fine with fewer elected state reps. It is a very good editorial and sounds many of the same arguments I’ve made in my writings on this subject. I recommend the piece highly — thanks to Combest for catching it. The key argument:

The annual savings on pay and per diem of $39,751 per House member, multiplied by 95, tops $3.75 million per year.

That money adds up. Decreasing the number of people who have a say in how we live our lives would be another benefit of reducing the size of the House.

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