On November 30, Show-Me Institute hosted a virtual town hall on the future of supply-side economics beyond the legacies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Patrick Minford and Aaron Hedlund shared their insights and perspectives on the past, present, and future of supply-side economics, and answered audience questions.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
For the past several years, the Missouri Secretary of State has partnered with the Hunt Institute to host the Missouri Legislators Retreat. This is a bi-partisan event created to present various policy ideas and discussions. I was invited to take part in a panel discussion on school choice at this year’s retreat. In framing the discussion, we were provided with two questions to consider. Below is my prepared response to the first question.
From each of your specific vantage points, what are the most important things for Missouri policymakers to consider when it comes to school choice?
Thank you Dr. Siddiqi for the question and thank you to the Hunt Institute, the secretary of state’s office and the planning committee for putting on this important event. It is an honor to be with you today talking about a topic that I am very passionate about–school choice.
The question asks about the most important things for you to consider when it comes to school choice. And I think there is nothing more important than this—choice is good. It is inherently good.
Now let me make sure you don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying private schools are inherently good and public schools are bad. I am a product of Missouri public schools. I went to K-12 in the Meramec Valley School District. I then took my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Missouri Southern and Missouri State, both in elementary education. It was during this time, while I was teaching first grade in the Republic School District, that I became a supporter of school choice.
Yet, when I looked around at my students, at my colleagues, and at my community I was met with the unmistakable realization that the local public school is not right for everyone. It does not and cannot meet the needs of every student and the desires of every family.
Republic, coincidentally, will be playing for its first state football championship on Friday. Go Tigers. Now, I was a soccer player, but even I can see the beauty of a town rallying around a football team. Public schools are, in many cases, the lifeblood of a community and they provide a valuable service. We can’t dismiss that.
So let me come back to what I started with—school choice is good. I do not mean that it is good because it will lead to better academic outcomes, although I think it will, and I think there is evidence for that. Rather, I mean that educational freedom—the ability to choose your children’s school is a good thing in and of itself.
We have grown accustomed to talking about education policies as utilitarian tools to something else. The science of reading is good because it leads to better reading acquisition. Trades programs are good because they prepare students for meaningful trades in the workplace. This policy or that policy is good because it will lead to increased test scores.
If we did look at school choice this way, we might say:
School choice is good, because, on average, there are small academic benefits for participants.
Or
School choice is good, because 26 of 29 studies showed that these policies led to positive competitive effects for those not participating in the program.
Or
School choice is good because parents love these programs.
All of that is true, but it is the wrong way to look at school choice. We might say school choice is good AND it does those things.
School choice is about empowering parents to make the best decisions for their children. It is about equipping individuals with their constitutional rights and with freedom of conscience to direct the upbringing of their kids. This isn’t a left issue or a right issue—it is a human issue. School choice is about freedom.
Now look, we don’t say “Free speech is good because it will lead to . . .” or “The ability to vote is good because it will lead to . . .” We say “free speech is good, therefore people should have it.” “The ability to vote is good, therefore citizens should have it.”
Educational freedom is good; therefore, people should have it.
Choice allows every parent to decide what is best for their kids and their family.
On December 7, 2023, Brenda Talent joined Mike Ferguson in the Morning on NewsTalkSTL to discuss the 2024 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward.
The 2024 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward explores 16 policy areas in which common-sense reform could immediately and positively impact everyday life for Missourians. Issues covered range from education and health care to unemployment insurance and budget reform. Each article identifies a problem that affects the citizens of our state, provides background information and analysis, proposes one or more solutions, and then boils the solutions down into actionable recommendations. We believe that the proposals our policy team has assembled can put Missouri on the path to a healthier economy, a better public education system, and a more vibrant and flourishing civil society.
On Wednesday, December 6, 2023, the Show-Me Institute hosted a Virtual Town Hall outlining the 2024 Blueprint for Missouri. Watch a recording of the event here.
Listen to the event as a podcast:
The 2024 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward explores 16 policy areas in which common-sense reform could immediately and positively impact everyday life for Missourians. Issues covered range from education and health care to unemployment insurance and budget reform. Each article identifies a problem that affects the citizens of our state, provides background information and analysis, proposes one or more solutions, and then boils the solutions down into actionable recommendations. We believe that the proposals our policy team has assembled can put Missouri on the path to a healthier economy, a better public education system, and a more vibrant and flourishing civil society.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
Recently, the commissioner of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced that she would be departing her post next summer. For context, DESE is an organization with a $10 billion annual budget and 1,500 employees. It is currently facing the rough waters of declining test scores and declining enrollment, both of which began long before the global pandemic. However, since the pandemic, the crisis of chronic absenteeism and a looming “fiscal cliff” (due to expiring federal stimulus cash flows) have been added to the list of DESE’s challenges.
One would guess that the state board of education would spend the time between the commissioner’s retirement announcement and her June departure looking for a strong leader—ideally one with management skills honed in a similar-sized organization. This leader could bring a fresh perspective and take a hard look at what is going wrong and what is going right in Missouri public education. Perhaps this person would even question the board’s meaningless accreditation this week of all 523 school districts in the state, with the exception of six—even those with fewer than 1 in 10 students able to do grade-level reading or math. Finding this leader should entail a thorough search for and vetting of candidates.
Did the board do that? It did not. Without any public discussion that is readily available on the internet, it seemingly tapped a new commissioner with little to no search in behind-closed-doors meetings. The new commissioner is a former DESE assistant commissioner and a current state Senator. She served as superintendent of two rural districts in Missouri. Regardless of flaws in the search process, she deserves a chance to demonstrate if she can be the leader we need, or not.
The Missouri Board of Education had an opportunity to build public support for its commissioner choice. The board had an opportunity to signal that it would at least consider a potential change agent or someone from outside of the Missouri public education establishment. It could have avoided the questions regarding whether a sitting state Senator should vote on bills or budgets that impact her future role as leader of a department in the executive branch. Time, due diligence, and transparency could have worked in the board’s favor. Why were those elements ignored?
The Missouri high-school football playoffs have me feeling sentimental about the “good ole days” of Friday night lights. While we never could get over the state semi-final hump, the memories and lessons from my time on the team will last a lifetime. With the state football championships taking place this weekend, I pray for high-quality games, protection from injuries, and that the remaining teams will be proud of all they have accomplished this year. These playoffs have been filled with many ups and downs for students across the state, but for one particular team (which was recently eliminated), the path to the playoffs itself was remarkable.
This year with declining enrollment, Brentwood did not have enough participation to field a football team on their own, meaning that would-be players and their supporters would miss out on a beloved experience. When I saw Brentwood and Clayton were going to merge their football teams, I was excited that these students would be able to play this great sport.
Missouri is seeing population and enrollment declines, which can mean fewer sports teams, fewer elective classes, and other missed opportunities. What Brentwood and Clayton did is admirable. Clayton did not have to share its resources, and Brentwood could have just told everyone there would be no football team this year. However, these two districts came together with the interests of the students in mind, and hopefully more useful collaborations like this will take root in our state.
Building on this example, here are some ways districts can share with each other:
A happier student body can build a stronger community. All students deserve the chance to thrive, and parents should have the choice to send their children to the school which will best serve their needs.
The Clayton-Brentwood football team is inspiring. The team made a solid run into the playoffs, winning two games before falling to Lutheran North in the third round. Two programs that were struggling in different ways put their reservations aside and came together for the betterment of their students. Clayton coach Doug Verby put it like this, “We joked that as long as the adults don’t mess it up, the kids will do just fine. That’s pretty much the way it’s gone. The players just want to play football.”
As adults, we must always remember that education policy should revolve around the betterment of our students. A Clayton student summed up his new experience nicely, “We didn’t know each other, and we’d never played together before. It took a while, but we’ve formed a brotherhood and we’re starting to play like a real football team.”
Policies like open enrollment, sharing classes/programs, or merging teams are needed—especially in a time where enrollment and participation is shrinking, and families want more opportunities. There may even be times when districts should merge and share a superintendent. Let Clayton and Brentwood’s football team serve as an example of what putting students first can do in a community.
Jackson County residents voted on adopting a “use” tax last week. Use taxes are simply sales taxes on goods you have delivered to your house. I am not opposed to use taxes, but I have long argued they should be adopted—at least in part—to lower other, more economically harmful taxes instead of just being a way to raise more tax revenue.
Jackson County residents have been through the taxation wringer this year with reassessment. Once again, they were hammered with a poorly managed process, high assessment increases, and insufficient tax rollbacks to offset it. I would guess many voters had just received their property tax bills before they voted on this use tax proposal.
Did those bills have any effect? They almost certainly did, as the use tax was defeated in Jackson County. It actually passed in the Kansas City portion, but the eastern suburbs overwhelmingly voted against it and it failed.
So this means that neither of the two largest counties in Missouri (Jackson and St. Louis) have a use tax. While most of the cities within those two counties do have use taxes, if you live in the unincorporated areas of those counties the sales tax you pay on goods delivered to your home should be just the state rate of 4.225%. (I would bet some stores or delivery companies are incorrectly charging more. Check your receipts.)
The next time Jackson County asks for a use tax, which they should not do for a while out of respect for the voter’s decision, they might have better luck if they promise an offsetting tax cut at the same time.
An interesting vote took place last week in St. Louis County. A large unincorporated area in the southwest part of the county had a vote on whether or not they wished to be annexed by the city of Manchester. The overall question was fairly straightforward. Did the residents of the area want to receive local public services from Manchester instead of St. Louis County, and, if so, were they willing to pay the slightly higher taxes for it?
The answer by the residents of the area was a resounding “no.” The proposal was overwhelmingly defeated in the area to be annexed, and considering they had over fifty percent voter turnout (incredible for an off-year election day like this), the desire to remain unincorporated has been made abundantly clear.
Living in an unincorporated area is an overlooked aspect of suburban life. Obviously, in rural areas many people live outside of cities, towns, or villages. But in the suburbs, I think we assume people live within municipalities, albeit sometimes very small ones. However, particularly in St. Louis County, many people live in unincorporated areas and enjoy, generally speaking, the lower taxes that can come with it. In rural counties, the unincorporated areas often genuinely have less government involvement in residents’ lives, (e.g., no zoning, less licensing, and reduced code requirements). St. Louis County has zoning and codes for its unincorporated areas, but at least the licensing requirements are indeed less (e.g., no general businesses license is required).
St. Louis County has by far the largest unincorporated population of any county, around 300,000. I would wager a lot of money that it is the only county with an unincorporated population of more than 100,000 people. By comparison, the other truly large Missouri county, Jackson, has a small unincorporated population of just around 25,000 or so. Jackson County is the most heavily incorporated county in the state, with 97% of the residents living in municipalities such as Kansas City.
Some people just want to live with one less unit of government over their lives. I can understand that. Clearly, the people of the unincorporated area around Manchester understand it, too.
In the spring 2022 assessments, just 13.4 percent of the students in St. Louis’s traditional public schools scored on grade level in math, and 20 percent did so in reading. The average St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) ACT scores have fallen from 16.3 in 2019 to just 15.7 in 2022. Enrollment is dropping and chronic absenteeism is on the rise. The district is failing its high school students.
There is some good news, though, for high school students in St. Louis. Believe STL Academy, a charter school, is set to open next fall. Believe STL is modeled after the Believe Circle City (BCC) high school in Indianapolis. BCC works with “historically underestimated youth” and helps them become successful adults. BCC has achieved dramatic results, such as having 30 percent of its students pass a college-level Advanced Placement exam, spurring dramatic growth in the SAT scores of its students, and having extremely high (92 percent) average daily attendance.
Sadly, SLPS is suing to prevent this school from opening. The case rests on an administrative matter—SLPS claims it wasn’t informed that the school would be opening. The charter school’s application was approved by both the Missouri Public Charter School Commission and the state board of education. Yet, the SLPS Board wants to derail it. The board president said, “There are too many schools in St. Louis right now.”
The number of schools, filled or nearly empty, has nothing to do with the quality of those schools when students are assigned to them. When students get to choose, it does. Only those schools that can attract and keep students will stay open. Blocking charter schools, especially those with proven track records, is akin to trapping children on a sinking ship. Shouldn’t we instead be building a system of schools that best serves as many students as possible?
