Rampant Licensing Requirements Are Tricks, Not Treats

Posted on by Christine Harbin

Today, Matt Drudge linked to two articles that illustrate the negative consequences of excessive licensing requirements. The city of Ventura, Calif., has condemned a homemade haunted house on private property as an “unsafe structure,” and prohibits visitors from entering it.

Responding to an anonymous complaint, the city said the 1,200-square-foot “amusement building” didn’t have a permit.

As a consequence, the cavorters will have to limit their fun to that which the city will allow.

There will be no maze, and it will only be open Halloween night, to coincide with a block party the neighbors are hoping to have, with the city’s permission.

This story has a lot of similarities to a story I blogged about recently in which a Michigan woman was cited for running an unlicensed daycare center. In both situations, no one had been physically hurt, all involved parties were happy with the arrangement, no money had been exchanged, and it occurred on private property.

This demonstrates how red tape can negatively affect the general welfare. For many families, visiting this haunted house is a Halloween tradition. The unintended consequence of requiring vigilante haunted houses to obtain a permit is disappointed children. Parents should have the right to determine what constitutes a safe environment for their children.

As contributors to this blog have discussed, Missouri is a milieu for rampant licensing laws, too.

Interesting Tax Data From the Tax Foundation

Posted on by David Stokes

The St. Louis Business Journal has a story about a recent study comparing sales tax rates in the 50 states. The study is from the Tax Foundation, one of my favorite think tanks. The foundation’s task is difficult, because compiling local tax data is very complicated, nowhere more so than in Missouri. We are listed as having the 15th-highest combined state and local sales tax rate. Illinois is seventh. Illinois’ average is increased by Cook County having the highest local sales tax rate in the country, so the part of Illinois along the Missouri border is going to be more closely aligned with us. Illinois also has higher property and gas taxes, but a lower state income tax.

This previous study by the Tax Foundation ranks the level of dependency that states have for various types of taxes: sales, income, property, and licenses. Missouri is not in the top 10 for any of the four categories, although it just misses the top 10 for income taxes. Illinois makes the top 10 for property taxes. Tennessee is right at the top for sales taxes, as are a number of other states without income taxes. All of this is important, because Missouri is currently debating the state income tax, and we are hopefully getting a full and accurate debate regarding that issue.

I would like to see a Missouri system in which local government is funded primarily by property, especially land taxes, with a more fair and reasonable system of assessments equalizing and lowering the property taxes that most people pay. State government should be funded primarily through sales taxes, without increased reliance on user fees (like toll roads). At both levels, privatization opportunities should be pursued whenever appropriate. At the local level, more shared provision of services between cities and counties is also needed, and can be a very good alternative to privatization. This is, in my opinion, a recipe for economic growth and fair taxation.

Thanks to Mr. Combest for the original link to the StLBJ.

Jailhouse Barack

Posted on by Josh Smith

According to an article over at the Springfield News-Leader, the Missouri prison population has inexplicably reached an all-time high. On a related note, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend President Barack Obama for scaling back the police state milieu slightly with his recent announcement that federal authorities will no longer pursue users and suppliers of medical marijuana, provided that the individuals and businesses in question conform to state laws.

How are these related? Well, during 2005, 20 percent of the state prison population in the United States were nonviolent drug offenders. The policy issue here is: “How should our limited tax dollars be spent? In particular, how much should go to incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders?” Obama has recognized that deprioritizing the pursuit of certain nonviolent drug offenders will alleviate some of the fiscal burden caused by funding for enforcement and incarceration. Similarly, and especially given the sea change in federal policy, there is an opportunity here to relax some of the tax burden for Missouri citizens involved with putting nonviolent drug users away for a decade or two. Let me spell it out: Legalized medical marijuana in the state of Missouri would simultaneously help many people who are ailing and reduce the tax burden that comes from incarcerating users.

For what it’s worth, I also commend Obama’s move insofar as it is a nod to increased state sovereignty. A government by and for the people is easier to manage when fewer people need to agree on how to proceed, so sovereignty at lower levels is highly encouraged. For more on that, see my post about Charles Tiebout and the blessing of prioritizing local governance.

Do Charters Make the Grade?

Posted on by Abhi Sivasailam

Over the weekend, the Columbia Missourian ran an interesting article that questioned the effectiveness of Missouri’s charter schools. Using MAP scores as a benchmark, the article suggests that the lower average MAP scores of charter school students as opposed to traditional public school students show that charter schools are doing worse in educating children. Problems abound in this analysis.

The article makes an oft-repeated mistake in education: viewing education as static, as happening in a vacuum. The static view leads one to analyze student scores as isolated events — as snapshots — and ignore the underlying trend. Only in taking a longer view of the data can we begin to see the degree of value added at each stage. Yes, the average test scores of students in St. Louis charter schools are lower than the statewide average of students in traditional public schools. But, no, it does not follow that those charter schools are worse. For starters, that claim is based on an apples-to-oranges comparison between St. Louis city charter schools and statewide public schools. Instead, it should be based on the relative performance of St. Louis charter schools as opposed to St. Louis traditional public schools — a gap which, it should be noted, has also been established and will be outlined in more detail in a forthcoming Show-Me Institute study. But charter critics still have to contend with the value-added component, something the article does not do.

So, the article fails to reject the claim that charter schools are effective. Can we actively prove the claim? As Show-Me Institute policy analyst Dave Roland writes, in the comments section of the article:

A simple comparison of MAP scores doesn’t even come close to telling the real story. None of these comparisons take account of “selection bias” in making charter and non-charter comparisons. A recent study by the Center for Research on Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University examined the effectiveness of charter schools in 16 states, including Missouri. The Stanford study took careful account of the prior test scores of charter school students, and every charter school student was paired with one or more similar students (aligned by race, sex, grade, poverty status, English language learner status, special education, and prior test score by subject) in schools that acted as feeders for the charter school. The study revealed that Missouri’s charter schools attracted students who were underperforming in their traditional public schools, and that this state’s charter school students were realizing larger academic gains than their counterparts in traditional public schools. The difference was small, but statistically significant.

If You Run Out of Things to Say, Just Praise the Communist Party

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The above advice was given to students in China before a national exam, according to this radio program featured on the Two Million Minutes Blog.

The program reports that China is trying to incorporate more critical thinking into its school system. I don’t expect it to make progress in this area unless it mitigates the propaganda and censorship its citizens are subjected to. You can’t command students to think critically the way you can insist that they memorize the periodic table of elements. And they’re unlikely to volunteer a challenging opinion if they fear recrimination.

China’s top-down education system is good at producing high test scores, bad at inviting criticism. We should keep this in mind the next time someone calls for national standards “because the highest-performing countries have them.”

Quest to Learn in the News

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Here is a Popular Science article about Quest to Learn, the game-themed charter school I wrote about last month (article link via the Quest to Learn Parents’ Blog).

I’m glad that Quest to Learn is the subject of media attention and debate. Unfortunately, this particular article leaves readers only partially informed about how Quest to Learn operates. Nowhere in the article is the word “charter” mentioned. The article lists both public and private sources of funding, but provides no information about who runs the school. The reference to “New York City education officials” may cause readers to conclude mistakenly that Quest to Learn is managed by the New York City Department of Education.

And this sentence gives an erroneous impression about Quest to Learn’s admissions (emphasis mine):

Select sixth graders can look forward to playing video games such as “Little Big Planet” and “Civilization,” as well as non-digital games ranging from role-playing scenarios to board games and card games.

It implies that Quest to Learn is exclusive, when in fact students are admitted through a lottery just like at other charters.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen reports on charter schools that portray them as regular district schools with special powers. That was something that bothered me in Outliers, when Malcolm Gladwell didn’t identify KIPP as a charter. Perhaps this journalistic tendency can be attributed to the newness of charters, and charter school coverage will become more accurate when the schools have been around longer.

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