Special Laws Get Special Attention

Posted on by David Stokes

I think I have a new candidate for Missouri’s worst law: RSMo 94.270. What makes this law so awful is that it combines two of the things I loathe: government licensure and special laws written in blatant violation of our state Constitution that are somehow allowed anyway, probably because hardly anyone ever challenges them.

The first section of the law lists all the types of businesses cities are allowed to license and tax. A very revealing part of the law adds another word (emphasis added):

and to license, tax, regulate and suppress ordinaries, money brokers, money changers […]

The law then proceeds to get even worse, where it specifically forbids three cities from applying hotel taxes larger than a certain (very small) amount. Now, far be it for me to argue in favor of letting cities tax more, but it is still ridiculous that the legislature allows some cities to enact hotel taxes and forbids others from doing so. This law limits the taxation options of only three cities: St. Peters, Woodson Terrace, and Edmundson. The mayor of St. Peters has recently asked for an investigation, but that is not the point of my post.

Missouri has way too many “special laws” that apply only to certain areas or municipalities. Many of those laws allow for higher taxes or increased government authority. Just because this one limits taxes is not a good reason for it to apply so selectively, although I guess that makes it very slightly better than the others. I hope the cities targeted by the law challenge this and win, and I hope that it leads to fewer specially targeted laws all around. More to come on this from the Show-Me Institute in the future.

Carbon Reduction Treaties Misguided

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

Copenhagen is becoming unlucky for the United States. Last Friday, Chicago lost its bid for the the 2016 Olympics there; this December, a summit will be held there to debate an international climate change treaty that, if passed, would critically damage the U.S. economy.

Some are pushing the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” better known as “cap and trade,” to set the stage for this international treaty. In short, because of political compromises backroom shenanigans, the bill as it stands does more to raise the cost of energy — thus raising the cost of every product in the economy — than it does to reduce emissions. Missouri and other Midwestern states would be especially hurt by the regulations, given that much of our economy relies on carbon-emitting energy. (Read my previous blog post about cap and trade for more reasons why it is a bad idea.)

The student newspaper at Wash. U. wrote an article in favor of the international treaty, and about an upcoming event: In two weeks, Missourians will be marching in support of this treaty. Although everyone is entitled to their own opinion, this treaty and the support for it are misguided.

International treaties — especially in regard to environmental agreements — are difficult to enforce and are rarely effective. The Kyoto protocol, signed by 183 nations, was intended to reduce carbon emissions worldwide; however, the signatory nations have increased their emissions even faster than the world average and the United States.

This new treaty would only cripple the economies of the United States and other participatory countries. It would add an extra cost to business transactions with arguably negligible environmental benefits. Most of the world’s environmental damage is done by burgeoning industrial economies, like China and India, but they will not be party to the new rules. The United States can try to set a good example through productive and competitive efficiency measures, but cap-and-trade legislation would only hurt American businesses in an already uncertain global economy.

Minimum Wage

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

Yesterday, John Combest linked to a KOMU article about minimum wage and its effects on the youth work force. As the minimum wage increases, businesses must make tough decisions about their capital allocations to labor, which disproportionately hurts younger employees. The Show-Me Institute’s executive vice president, Dr. Joseph Haslag, was quoted in the article, explaining the effects of minimum wage on younger workers:

Haslag said the government is manipulating the market by increasing the hourly wage employers [must pay]. This forces employers to hire less people and cut hours. This hurts the younger workforce because they are usually the most inexperienced and least productive.

Minimum wage policies are detrimental to the economy, entailing another cost for employers that increases prices and eliminates both jobs and work hours. Younger and lower-skilled workers bear the brunt of this cost. For further reading about the minimum wage, there are relevant Show-Me Daily blog posts and articles by other Show-Me Institute scholars.

Innovation, Monopoly-Style

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

For public schools to be innovative, it helps to have a competitive education market surrounding them. Then, schools are on the lookout for ideas that are truly new. Otherwise, a school can dress up a tired old idea in fancy language and pass it off as something original, because there aren’t any competitors to call its bluff.

Oregon, as I’ve written in my coverage of charter schools there, is holding on as tightly as it can to its education monopoly. That’s glaringly obviously when you examine the “innovative” ideas that Oregon’s traditional districts have come up with.

This article gives an enthusiastic account of “proficiency-based learning”:

Transparency is key in credit for proficiency. Students are told what they are expected to learn and how assignments or lessons help meet those goals. Report card grades are determined by what a student knows, rather than by absences, tardies or extra credit, which traditionally factor into grading.

So this special method involves telling students what they are expected to learn. In every class I’ve been in, we called that a syllabus. And yes, attendance and extra credit do factor into grades at many schools, but no school with a decent grading system will give an “A” just for showing up and doing extra credit. I hope that attendance didn’t make up such a large fraction of a student’s grades in Oregon that leaving it out of the equation could be called a radical change.

If grading based on knowledge is a new idea, what will they think of next? Studying the textbooks?

Fundamental Economic Principles Illustrated in This AP Article

Posted on by David Stokes

I really enjoyed this Associated Press article about the current recession in today’s Post-Dispatch. Not because I like the recession, trust me — I feel the same way about it that everyone else does. But I did enjoy the article for the way it demonstrates basic Economics 101 principles, like the role consumer expectations can play in altering the demand curve:

The more shoppers expect prices to fall, the less they shop until prices drop. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that forces companies to keep cutting. That reduces profits, making it less likely companies will hire workers or raise wages.

Or how the price of complementary (or substitute goods) can affect both demand and quantity supplied:

Dominick’s supermarkets announced in late August that prices on a range of items in its 81 stores would fall by as much as a third. Included in the cuts were both private-label goods and national brands […]

Dominick’s hopes the low prices will attract customers, who will also buy enough full-priced items to make up the difference.

“Hey, this case of Budweiser is on sale for $15.00! Let’s go buy some pretzels to go with it. Dammit, the pretzels aren’t on sale. Oh, hell, let’s get them anyway.” (There is always a lot of swearing in the liquor aisle.) I definitely recommend the entire article.

Matthew Kahn on Charter Schools

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Caroline Hoxby has found that students who were randomly selected to attend charter schools earned better test scores than other students who applied for charter schools but lost the lottery. This research controls for an important factor in charter students’ achievement: motivation to attend charters. You can’t compare scores for students who enroll in charters with the group of traditional public school students as a whole, because applying to a charter indicates an extra degree of commitment. By restricting the study to students who applied, Hoxby shows that charter school attendance, not initial motivation, accounts for the difference in achievement.

Matthew Kahn (scroll down to the Sept. 28 post) wonders how much of this effect can be attributed to what goes on in the classroom. He suspects that when parents see that their child’s new school is better than the old one, they work harder to supplement the child’s education at home. For instance, they might be more careful in checking that homework is completed on time.

I think this parental response probably does account for part of the charter effect. Caroline Hoxby herself points out in her talks about charters (you can watch one here) that parents may approach education differently when they’ve chosen a school, just as customers expect more from a restaurant they’ve chosen than from an office building cafeteria.

It’s an interesting question from the point of view of econometrics, but less relevant to policy. What matters is that charters spur student achievement. Whether 100 percent of the learning happens in school, or whether some of the benefits come from changes within homes, the fact remains that students who switch to a charter generally do better than their peers who lost the charter lottery. That’s one more good reason to let students attend charters if they want to.

The Story of Stuff Update

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Recently I returned to The Story of Stuff Blog to see what had transpired since I last wrote about The Story of Stuff in May. I learned that Annie Leonard is planning to release a follow-up video in November, with more videos to come. The biggest news, from my point of view, is about the ongoing promotion of The Story of Stuff to schools:

We’re developing a two-week educational curriculum—aligned to national standards, with a strong focus on critical thinking—that provides teachers with a fuller set of tools to help students consider and debate the message of The Story of Stuff.

The deferential nod to “national standards” and “critical thinking” notwithstanding, the fact remains that The Story of Stuff presents a controversial and one-sided view of how a market economy works. It’s regrettable that this is taught as fact in the public schools.

Leonard acknowledges that The Story of Stuff promotes her opinions, but she says that students are free to disagree and debate her argument’s merits. I might see her point if teachers showed both The Story of Stuff and a documentary from a competing point of view (perhaps something from Free to Choose Media!), then held a discussion. However, when a school adopts this as a curriculum for two straight weeks, it goes way beyond showing a short documentary. It’s one thing to discuss a cartoon; it’s another matter entirely to challenge the curriculum.

I’m reminded of the presidential address back in September. Apart from the Department of Education’s curriculum, the speech was much like any other speech that politicians have given in schools. The questions and activities recommended by the government, which presupposed that students would be inspired by the speech, were the aspect that many critics found troubling.

Illinois Attorney General Files in Support of Autism Service Dog

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Post-Dispatch reports:

Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed papers with the 5th District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon announcing her office’s intention to file a brief in favor of Chris and Melissa Kalbfleisch. Madigan was granted a temporary extension Monday to file them.

This is the case of the boy with autism who recently began attending a private school after his public district refused to admit his service dog.

I think the boy’s family has a good case, considering that Illinois law requires schools to accommodate service dogs. The district can continue to argue that the dog is just a pet. But, because the dog was ordered by a physician and is specially trained, and because autism is now widely recognized as a disability that requires comprehensive treatment, I doubt the district will win.

At the same time, I would be surprised if the district allows the boy to return to the traditional public school with his dog. I expect that the district will continue paying tuition at the private school if the case is decided in the boy’s favor, and it may be ordered to pay the full cost. But you can’t force a district to teach someone who needs extra, specialized services. There are other districts that pay to send students with autism to private schools — and they do this even for students who don’t have service dogs to complicate matters.

This story continues to serve as a reminder that traditional school districts can’t educate everyone. The idea of all students coming together in a common school simply doesn’t work in practice.

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