Page 723 – Show-Me Institute

Congratulations to MoDOT’s Director, Pete Rahn

Posted on November 6, 2009May 5, 2026 by David Stokes

MoDOT Director Pete Rahn has received a well-deserved award from Governing Magazine for his work at MoDOT. I eagerly second the award. (A quick note on Governing: I used to read it regularly. You might assume that most of the writers and readers here, coming from a free-market perspective, would hate a magazine dedicated to government. But, honestly, it’s not as terrible as you might imagine.)

Here’s the key quote from the award, via the MoDOT presser:

Governing magazine specifically praised Rahn’s ability to “partner with the private sector in unique ways to build large-scale transportation projects quickly and affordably.”

That is definitely something worth praising.

Missouri Starts Taxing Yoga Classes

Posted on November 6, 2009May 5, 2026 by Chaya Kristen Chopra

The Kansas City Star reports that on Sunday, the state’s Department of Revenue began enforcing a 4-percent tax on yoga and Pilates classes. Why the change? Missouri officials have decided that yoga and Pilates are places of “amusement, entertainment or recreation” and therefore taxable, rather than spiritual practices that are untaxable. Unsurprisingly, there is already an uproar:

“The practice of yoga in a studio setting is a spiritual practice, and is not done for entertainment,” said Michael Shabsin, a St. Louis area lawyer and yoga instructor.

Shabsin said he is leading an effort to clarify the legal definition for places of amusement, entertainment or recreation and exclude yoga-specific studios. That effort could include legislative proposals and lobbying, he said.

Whether one believes yoga to be spiritual or recreational, should the government really be making that distinction for us? And, for that matter, with obesity wreaking havoc on the nation’s health care system, should the state be discouraging those who use yoga for health or weight loss? A Department of Revenue spokesman says they’re just trying to make applications of the tax fair for everyone. But it seems here that taxing yoga classes isn’t fair to anyone but the Department of Revenue.

Bail Bondsmen Back in the News

Posted on November 5, 2009May 5, 2026 by David Stokes

Nothing involves the combination of occupational licensing, the Second Amendment, civil rights, police and courts, free markets, and entrepreneurship quite like the bail bond industry. That’s probably why I write about it every chance I get. So, when I got back in the office this morning for the first time since Friday (there was a fire in our Clayton office building on Friday, shutting it down, and many of us spent Monday through Wednesday at a think tank convention — my brain is very tired), I was delighted to see Combest linking to a story about an investigation of some bail agents.

Apparently, Missouri is holding hearings on the industry. I might go and testify on Nov. 10 — but, then again, I might not. I really don’t know very much about the industry (my enthusiastic blog postings aside), and since this is one industry where I think the benefits of having some licensing outweighs the costs, I really don’t have that much to add. “Don’t go too far with tightening up the licensing requirements,” would basically be all I might say.

This is also topical because some agents possibly went too far in their efforts to catch someone the other day in Springfield. As the police officer quoted in the story says, agents do have the right to kick down your door in certain circumstances:

“They have less […] restrictions [than] what a law enforcement agency has and can make some entries under some circumstances,” Springfield Police Department Maj. Kevin Routh said. “And that’s the key that’s under investigation here…is, did they have enough information to make entry into the residence?”

I basically think that if the agents did indeed violate the rights of the other citizens, criminal and civil penalties should be enforced. If they made an honest mistake in a difficult situation, then perhaps there should be civil repercussions to benefit the people they harassed, but I wouldn’t see the need for criminal charges. No matter what, there are current laws to deal with this, and this should not serve as some excuse to tighten up the licensing requirements further.

Charters Shouldn’t Have to Copy Traditional Public Schools

Posted on November 5, 2009May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

Worrisome news from Los Angeles suggests that some public school districts are not the “melting pots” that education lore makes them out to be. Students who don’t speak English are relegated to separate classes, where they have little contact with native speakers. Many who entered the schools in kindergarten still don’t know English by high school. And, once they’ve mastered the language, they have to catch up on the academics they missed:

Mary Campbell, who is in charge of English language learning programs at L.A. Unified, said students must learn English as well as the grade-level material to move into mainstream classes. That often takes longer than learning the language, she said.

It must be a big challenge for a district with lots of non-native language speakers to integrate them all within a few years, so I don’t want to rush to blame L.A. Unified. But it does make you wonder why traditional districts’ English language learning programs are held up as a model for charter schools. The districts’ approach doesn’t work with all students, and charters should be free to try new ways of teaching English that could help students who fall behind in regular English classes.

Several charter proposals in Oregon have been turned down on grounds that they lacked plans to educate children who don’t speak English (and that they didn’t have enough community support, and a bunch of other things). Given the results of English programs in districts like L.A. Unified, no plan could be the best plan. If charters don’t expect large numbers of English language learners, they might mainstream them and let them learn English through immersion. Students would hear English all day long, instead of sitting in a class with others who don’t know any more English than they do. Parents who prefer a structured English program would always have the option of staying in the traditional district instead of choosing a charter.

Language immersion charters are another alternative to traditional English classes. In these schools, part of class time is spent in English and the rest in a foreign language. Every student has the experience of learning in a language they don’t yet speak fluently, so English language learners aren’t the odd ones out. An advantage of immersion charters is that grade-level materials are taught in at least two languages. For example, a Spanish-speaking student attending an English-Spanish charter would learn English for part of the day, while continuing to study some subjects in Spanish. This prevents students from taking one step forward in English, two steps backward in math or history.

If they’re to improve education, charters have to be free to depart from the districts’ established routines — including English classes.

Farm to School and Nutrition Education

Posted on November 5, 2009May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

Today was the second USDA live Facebook chat. (Here are my comments on the first chat; the video is here.) Today’s session focused on the Farm to School component of the USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” Initiative, and its goal of supplying public schools with local produce. Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan also discussed teaching students about nutrition.

The talk was marked by a conspicuous non sequitur: In response to a question about the high cost of local produce — asked by someone other than me, no kidding — Merrigan insisted that we don’t know that local produce is more expensive for districts than food from other sources. But she went on to list what she called “barriers” to buying local: the difficulties of contracting with lots of individual farmers, fluctuations in local farm outputs caused by weather, seasons when crops don’t grow. I think of those “barriers” as “costs” or “expenses.” If a district has to go to extra trouble or deal with additional uncertainty when it purchases local food, it would be better off buying healthy food from somewhere else.

I agree with Merrigan that some districts are in a better position than others. I imagine that buying local is not all that hard for many districts in California. Those districts would choose local food if there were no federal program, because it would be the most advantageous choice for them. The USDA is encouraging them to do what they would have done anyway. At best, Farm to School is superfluous; at worst, it pushes districts to spend more than necessary on food, taking resources away from other uses, such as paying teachers or repairing buildings.

On the subject of teaching nutrition, the suggestions had more to do with promoting a locavore ideology than with conveying information about food. Merrigan proudly displayed trading cards featuring local farmers, and another viewer commented that a school had produced a fruit-and-vegetable memory game with USDA funds. The thing is, there’s no connection between knowing your farmer and choosing healthy foods. If students get the impression that healthy choices are all about personalities and who you know, they’ll be at a loss when they walk into a grocery store and find that the names of farmers aren’t displayed.

Nutrition is not a popularity contest, and students ought to learn about what kinds of foods are healthy without bringing farmers into the picture. And I don’t like the implication that farmers are more worthy of our acquaintance than the people who serve fast food at a chain restaurant. The fact that one food product is healthier than another doesn’t have anything to do with the producers’ intrinsic value as human beings.

Although nutrition facts are more relevant than farmers when it comes to making good choices, I still question the propriety of the federal’s government’s involvement in people’s diets. “Helping people eat healthier food” is not one of the enumerated powers granted in the Constitution. Furthermore, this is not something that the government does effectively. The Deputy Secretary noted that the food pyramid website has had 9 billion hits — yet obesity continues to rise! She concluded that the government hasn’t done enough. I’d say it’s done too much.

D.A.R.E. to Stop Wasting Time and Money

Posted on November 3, 2009May 5, 2026 by Caitlin Hartsell

No school program epitomizes a childhood in the nineties like the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (D.A.R.E.). I still have a few awkward memories of wearing an over-sized D.A.R.E. t-shirt, reading my “I promise never to do drugs” essay at the D.A.R.E. graduation ceremony. I don’t remember the essay itself, but I do remember thinking that the concept didn’t mean a whole lot to me, or to many of my classmates.

Many research studies over the past two decades have reached the same conclusion: D.A.R.E. does not work. By the end of the ’90s, there had already been dozens of studies that reached the conclusion that D.A.R.E. is ineffective, at best. In fact, in some suburban areas, it appears to have the opposite effect: A six-year follow-up study showed an increase in drug use among D.A.R.E. graduates. Yet the program is still around, using up tax dollars and officer time.

Despite the plethora of research on its futility, Blue Springs, Mo., spends more than $1 million every year on its D.A.R.E. program. It is funded though a quarter-cent sales tax called “Community Backed Anti-drug Taxes” (COMBAT). From the Examiner (emphasis added):

[Jackson County Executive Mike] Sanders could not emphasize enough the importance of the tax, which funds many county services, including one-third of the county prosecutor’s budget; it also funds a portion of the drug task force and the popular and successful DARE program.

The Kansas City Star article criticizes the decision to keep the COMBAT tax and the D.A.R.E. program, pointing out that even supporters can’t show proof of its success, and many national studies have shown that it is unsuccessful. Even the surgeon general said, in 2001, that the program does not work. While it is certainly a “feel good” program, it is not a good use of tax payer dollars.

Twelve years have passed since I graduated D.A.R.E., and it has been an even longer time since the program has been debunked, yet it continues to remain funded because of the idea that something needs to be done, regardless of whether it is effective. Numerous studies have shown that the program’s touted “successes” can’t actually be credited to D.A.R.E. I personally have never taken an illegal drug, but I don’t think D.A.R.E. factored into my decision, and plenty of my classmates still chose to do drugs in middle school and high school, despite completing the program.

D.A.R.E. has consistently failed to prove that it’s worth the taxpayer expense. Considering that the Blue Springs children seem likely to fit the profile of children who have been negatively impacted by D.A.R.E. in the past, residents there certainly have better uses for that money than to fund a discredited program.

Local Food Policies and the Late Harvest

Posted on November 3, 2009May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

A Wall Street Journal article explains how unusually rainy weather affects the corn and soybean harvests. Most crops aren’t dry enough for storage yet, but leaving them in the fields puts them at risk for mold and other kinds of damage.

A late harvest that threatens crops is a challenge for the economy, and policies can either mitigate the problem or exacerbate it. For instance, requirements that public schools buy a certain percentage of food locally could force schools to wait weeks for crops to be harvested, or to pay extra for scarce local produce.

Conversely, allowing for open trade between regions protects consumers. People and organizations can buy food from areas that aren’t experiencing adverse weather, so no one has to go hungry because of a bad harvest where they live.

Nanny State Policies and Their Side Effects

Posted on November 3, 2009May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

Matthew Kahn writes about safety precautions that can do more harm than good because they lull people into complacency:

Child proof safety caps on medicine lull people into not hiding medicine from kids and kids break into the pills. Diabetic medicines for fighting high blood sugar lull diabetics into thinking they can eat lots of sweets.

In the rest of the post, he applies this idea to climate change policies.

Kahn’s insight relates to many facets of the nanny-state agenda, such as smoking bans and caloric restrictions on restaurant food. When restaurant patrons believe that their dining experience is sufficiently regulated to optimize health and safety, they won’t go out of their way to look for the most nutritious menus or the cleanest environments. While some people might be brought up to a higher level of health by the imposed standard, others might make worse choices than they would if they were on their guard.

I would expect complacency to be a negative side effect of most policies, but in some cases it could actually be a good thing. For example, Springfield local food advocates are really worked up about an impending economic collapse:

A food policy council should be created in the Springfield metro area because it would trigger an increase in the local food supply and protect the region if a catastrophic event severed the Ozarks’ national and global food link.

If something so disastrous happened that we couldn’t even bring food into Springfield, I doubt a defenseless community garden would survive unscathed. And even if the garden remained intact, the catastrophe would have to be remarkably well-timed to strike during those months when food can be harvested in Missouri.

I’m not a fan of farms on public land, but if a little garden can get these people to calm down and stop seeing the end of the global food system in the shadow of every tomato leaf, it might be worth it. (That’s assuming they really would be lulled into complacency and wouldn’t just proceed to demand more gardens.)

Test Scores Aren’t Set in Stone

Posted on November 3, 2009May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

At Cato@Liberty, Andrew Coulson discusses Charles Murray’s ideas about education. Murray advocates competition in education because he believes competing schools will offer safer environments and impart more knowledge, but he does not expect choice to raise test scores significantly. He thinks that students could learn more information than they do now, but he doesn’t think that reading comprehension or math test scores could rise much — according to Murray, those scores depend too greatly on IQ and family background for schools to make a difference.

Coulson cites research findings that private and charter schools do raise test scores, and that the effect lasts. Test scores really can go up. Then he makes this important point:

What’s more, this should be intuitively obvious. The current mean of the bell curve of educational achievement is not some inescapable fact of nature, like the value of pi. It is a symptom of the monopoly school systems that have stifled educational efficiency and innovation for more than a century.

That’s something that bothers me about Murray’s reasoning: He holds stagnant test scores under a monopoly system as evidence that mean test scores can’t change under any system. This extrapolation is unwarranted without evidence from competitive education systems. And, as Coulson notes, studies of competitive systems don’t support Murray’s argument.

In the book Real Education, Murray suggests another kind of study, one that he claims would put the debate to rest. First, he says, shower some below-average students with resources and attention. Next, give them a test. This, Murray writes, will determine “the outer limits of what can be accomplished with the current state of knowledge.” It would be futile to ask anything more of below-average children.

The fallacy here is readily apparent if we imagine an analogous experiment: Take some highly gifted people, and shower them with resources. Then see what they can do. Would you find the limits of human accomplishment?

Besides, Murray overlooks the fact that competition creates knowledge. As competing schools experiment and try new things, they gain knowledge of what works in education and what doesn’t. When we debate what a competitive market in education could achieve, we shouldn’t assume that knowledge of teaching will remain at current levels.

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.