Getting Children Ready for Kindergarten: An Alternative to Home Visits

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

A Michigan school district is starting a program it calls “Begindergarten.” The idea is to help prepare preschool-age children for kindergarten through monthly sessions. Each month, parents and students will meet as a group for instruction. Parents will receive packets of reading materials and information about how to continue teaching their children at home.

The district is missing some of the advantages of programs like Parents as Teachers, that send educators into homes. It won’t have the opportunity to observe every child’s daily schedule and family environment. It also won’t be able to watch parent-child interactions very closely or make individualized suggestions.

On the other hand, the district won’t incur the cost of paying people to drive out to every child’s house and spend time with them one-on-one. While I’m skeptical of the assertion that Begindergarten “will not cost the district any money” — even if it’s run by volunteers, there’s at least the expense of photocopying all the materials — it won’t call for anywhere near as much funding as Parents as Teachers.

Some Parents as Teachers programs do minimize home visits as children get older, or place greater emphasis on group programs. It would be wise for more of the Missouri programs to move in this direction, because Missouri doesn’t have the resources to give every child the ideal home visiting program through age five. Parents as Teachers will have to consider whether the most costly aspects of its model are truly necessary for all the children it serves, or whether something like Begindergarten would be good enough for older children.

Improving Raw Milk Policy

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

A proposal in Wisconsin would allow dairy farmers to sell raw milk, with a few conditions:

Under the bill, farmers with a grade ‘A’ dairy farm permit would be allowed to buy a permit to sell raw milk.  They would have to meet certain sanitary conditions for bottling milk and have a sign to let consumers know raw milk doesn’t provide the same protection of pasteurized milk.

The proposed change in law would give farmers greater freedom to sell their milk. And consumers would be able to make their own decisions about whether to purchase unpasteurized dairy products. Everybody would win.

The bill’s restrictions should be enough to protect the public. We don’t station a policeman by every cow to prevent farmers from drinking raw milk, and we needn’t impose that level of surveillance on other people, either. Regulators ought to concentrate on stopping fraud and deceptive advertising, like if a farmer were to display a sign saying “Buy pasteurized milk here!” when he’s really selling raw milk.

If Missouri adopted a similarly free milk policy, it would be a welcome end to the bizarre law that says exchanging cash for milk in a barn is legal, but the same transaction in a parking lot is prohibited.

Missouri Dental Association Promotes Its Agenda

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

Two op-eds, attributed to different members of the Missouri Dental Association (MDA), appeared in the Columbia Missourian and the Examiner in response to my op-ed about dental therapists (which appeared in both the Columbia Missourian and the Examiner). Although these responses were textually the same, they have different credited authors: In the Missourian, the op-ed is attributed to Dr. Rob Coyle, DDS, and in the Examiner, the authors are  Matt Niewald, DDS, president of the MDA, and Scott Roberson, DDS, trustee of the MDA. One can only wonder why the same piece is attributed to different authors, but a reasonable conclusion may be that the MDA asked its members to submit a pre-written op-ed to these newspapers. The MDA’s purpose is not secret, given that the last line of both pieces reads:

We would encourage others, both inside and outside of the profession, to contact your legislators and ask them to support the MDA agenda. Working together, we are confident we can bring common sense solutions that will improve the oral and overall health of our state.

The MDA suggests other factors, like Medicaid reimbursements, that may be contributing to the problem of providing access to dental care for Missourians. These are valid points, but they do not provide an adequate reason for their offhand dismissal of the value of dental therapists. The MDA implies that dental therapists “would compromise the safety” of patients. I’ve addressed the issue of the quality of dental therapists in the comment section of previous posts, and within the op-ed itself. The studies of dental therapists, from New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Alaska, have so far shown that they provide quality in patient outcomes that is comparable to that of professional dentists, and studies show that altering licensure rules to allow dental therapists to practice could improve access to care for children in the United States.

This opposition by the dental lobby despite the lack of evidence to support their position, evidenced in op-eds like these from the MDA, or in legislation to prevent teeth-whitening in kiosks, is an attempt to keep market share by using government power rather than by providing a better service at a better price. Artificially protecting a profession from competition — especially high-quality competition — does not help keep patients safer. Arbitrary rules that prevent qualified mid-level professionals from entering the market only hurt the people they are purporting to help: the patients.

The Mismeasure of Stimulus

Posted on by John Payne

An article in the St. Joe News highlights the accomplishments of federal stimulus dollars in Northwest Missouri:

Missouri’s 6th Congressional District, only two of whose 26 counties gave electoral majorities to President Obama, got more than $314 million last year from the federal economic stimulus program. […]

In Plattsburg, Mo., a $1 million stimulus grant is paired with a $4.3 million low-interest loan to help build a water treatment plant. “Those two things you can’t be upset about,” said City Manager D.J. Gehrt. “But it’s not as simple as getting $5.3 million and you can go out and start your project.”

The engineering plans were finished and submitted for review 13 months ago. But the reviews stalled while agencies pondered where the funding might flow. Further delays have come from setting up mechanisms to repay the debt incurred from the loan.

If all goes as planned, Mr. Gehrt said, the treatment plant will be completed in the summer of 2011, maybe a quicker timetable because of the stimulus money, but maybe not.

In the long run, he added, “it’s going to save the ratepayers in our service area a good amount of money.”

In St. Joseph, the stimulus program directed more than $31 million to recipients like the school district, Missouri Western State University, the Department of Transportation and Community Action Partnership.

Etc. No doubt some people are benefiting from the stimulus, but because government spending does not face a profit and loss test, there is no good way to determine which projects are worthwhile and which wasteful. The article also ignores all the things taxpayers and bond holders would have done with the money had it not been taxed away or loaned to the government — in other words, it only pays attention to the seen, but not to the unseen, effects of the spending. These recipients of stimulus funds would not have received the money to do what they’ve done, but that money would have been used instead to create something else, if it hadn’t been spent in the stimulus.

Furthermore, although the $314 million that the 6th district received may seem like a lot of money, it amounts to less per capita than the national average. During the last year, $334 billion in stimulus spending has been allocated with $119 billion going toward tax cuts and another $14 billion in individual benefits like additional unemployment insurance payments. That leaves $201 billion in spending projects awarded during the last year. According to Wikipedia, the population of Missouri’s 6th district is 621,690, and the estimated population of the United States is 308,705,000, which means that the district contains just barely more than 0.2 percent of the national population. Given that 0.2 percent of $201 billion is $402 million, the district falls under the national average for stimulus spending by $58 million dollars.

Maybe the 6th district’s underwhelming support for Obama during 2008 is in some way related to the underwhelming amount of stimulus funds it has received.

The Sales Tax and Catholic Schools

Posted on by Charis Fischer

Catholic schoolsThe Missouri Catholic Conference (MCC) has come out in opposition to the proposal to implement a statewide sales tax that would replace all corporate and individual income taxes. One of their major concerns is the effect that such a change would have on Catholic schools. By taxing Catholic school tuition, they argue, fewer families would be able to afford it, thus decreasing enrollment and forcing those children into public schools. This is a legitimate concern, but the MCC fails to take into account that with the repeal of the income tax, families would have more money to spend on discretionary expenses in the first place. This money could be devoted to educational expenses, thereby increasing the demand for Catholic school education.

In the chart to the right, the y axis represents the price of parochial education, and the x axis represents its quantity (P and Q represent the status quo price and quantity). The line labeled S1 shows one likely effect if the state income tax were replaced with a sales tax: An increased cost for parochial education would lead to a shift in the supply curve, wherein quantity demanded and supply provided would settle at a lower equilibrium. But the line labeled D1 shows another effect of the replacement of the income tax with a sales tax: Because families would have more money to spend that would have previously gone toward paying taxes, the demand curve for parochial education would shift, as well, leading to a higher equilibrium point for both supply and demand. We can’t predict which one of these effects will dominate, but the point is that replacing the income tax with a sales tax would not necessarily lead to a reduction in the amount of parochial school enrollment demanded by education consumers.

Another concern raised by the MCC is that because poor families already do not pay income tax, they would only be harmed by the implementation of a sales tax and would not benefit from greater income levels. However, as this blog post by Abhi Sivasailam notes, lower corporate and personal income taxes help fuel growth by attracting people and investment funds to the state. This results in higher employment levels and higher incomes, which benefit everyone. Furthermore, the bill as proposed in the Missouri Senate also includes a sales tax rebate for low-income families that may otherwise struggle to pay the sales tax.

The concerns brought forth by the Missouri Catholic Conference are not unfounded, but as my colleague Abhi Sivasailam reminds us, tax changes do not happen in a vacuum. The switch to a sales tax has the potential to greatly benefit Catholic schools in Missouri.

Something Must Be Done!

Posted on by John Payne

As many residents of Saint Louis are aware, there has been a coyote wandering through Tower Grove Park for more than a week. As someone who lives very close to the park, I demand the city of Saint Louis take swift and drastic action to drive the beast from our midst. The city should establish a Coyote Patrol, similar to the Bear Patrol created after a bear wandered into Springfield in The Simpsons episode “Much Apu about Nothing.” No expense should be spared to protect us from the solitary predator: We need round-the-clock surveillance of the park, and patrols of all nearby wooded areas to ensure that no more coyotes sneak in.

While some might say that the risk of coyote attack is still very low — negligible, even — and that therefore we shouldn’t spend lavish amounts of money guarding against it, I respond that the risk can’t be much lower than some other risks the government pours billions into thwarting. And when Tower Grove Park is once again free of coyotes, we will have the government’s Coyote Patrol to thank — just as Homer knew to credit the Bear Patrol for keeping bears out of Springfield:

Schools Tell Kids That Local Hamburgers Are Best

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Christian Science Monitor describes a Farm to School program in Vermont that encourages local meat consumption. This student has gotten the message (emphasis mine):

“I think it’s really good because we get healthier here than at my old school, and we get more fruits and vegetables and local meat,” says fourth grader Morgan Jones.

The district bought meat from a local farmer, spending an additional $1 per pound above the price it would normally pay.

As Farm to School expands to include products like meat or cheese, it gets harder for supporters to justify the program as anything but protectionism. The appeal of local fruits and vegetables is easier to relate to. Anyone’s who’s eaten delicious fruit right off the tree can sympathize with activists’ support for local produce. (At least, we can sympathize in the early fall and late spring. Activists still have to explain how local produce is superior during the rest of the school year, when very few fruits or vegetables are harvested. Many will say to preserve the local food in the fall — but is locally preserved food really better than food that was preserved somewhere else, or shipped in fresh?)

Meat, on the other hand, has no local advantage at any time of year. There’s no such thing as a hamburger picked fresh off the cow. Meat has to be preserved and prepared no matter where it comes from. Its quality depends on factors like the health of the animals and how safely the meat was handled.

It would be great if Missouri districts could resist this Farm to School trend and refrain from insisting on local meat. Districts should shop around for the safest meat at the best price — and not settle for whatever meat happens to be raised nearby.

I Guess This Is One Way to Deal With Teacher Union Issues

Posted on by David Stokes

This is probably a little more radical than most of us would hope for, but still quite interesting. The news of a school district in Rhode Island firing every teacher comes to us via a former intern, and (personally speaking) one of my favorite Democrats, Calvin H.

Needless to say, I think the changes we need in Missouri require less dramatic action than this, but if this is what they had to do in Rhode Island, I hope it works out. Improving the school, not protecting jobs, is the ultimate goal of sensible education policy — and, if you read the article carefully, it sounds like up to half of the staff will likely be hired back anyway.

WashU Economist Testifies NorthSide Forecasts “Made Out of Thin Air”

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

The first round of arguments against a projected $8.1 billion development of the city of Saint Louis’ north side was made in court yesterday.

The bulk of the trial, which will continue on Feb. 25, was devoted to testimony by Washington University economist Michele Boldrin, who clearly doesn’t think much of the projections and forecasts developer Paul McKee used to persuade city officials that his development was viable and worthy of more than $390 million in tax increment financing (TIF).

“I find these numbers completely unbelievable,” Boldrin said. “Pie in the sky” was another frequent characterization.

And, later, “This is something that if an MBA student came up with this as a term paper, I’d throw him out of the office.”

Boldrin’s main argument, repeated many times, was that no justification was given for any of the especially rosy growth and employment estimates. For example, the development company, NorthSide Regeneration LLC, estimates:

  1. That property value growth rates will be as high as 20 percent in 2010, and 15 percent in a number of following years.

  2. That more than 20,000 new, permanent jobs will be created as a result of this development.

  3. That there will be buyers for 6,000 new homes, valued at an average of more than $450,000.

Dave Roland, a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, testified briefly that the north side area, which you can explore here, is not as blighted as NorthSide asserts. He, and Terry Artis, the owner and founder of the River City Examiner, took video of some of the areas NorthSide had noted as being especially blighted. The video, which is a publicly available court record, is linked below.

Dave Roland – A Look at Purported Cases of North Side “Blight” in St. Louis from Audrey Spalding on Vimeo.

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