Districts of Choice

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The California legislature is considering whether to extend its inter-district public school choice program. I completely agree with this statement from the L.A. Times editorial supporting choice:

The best possible education for students should take precedence over attendance boundaries.

It would be great if Missouri were to follow suit, create districts of choice, and allow families to choose public schools without regard to street addresses.

St. Louis has the Voluntary Inter-District Transfer Program, but it doesn’t go far enough. For one thing, the eligibility requirements restrict choice to certain groups. Why shouldn’t a white, Asian, or Hispanic city student have the same choice as an African-American student to attend a suburban school? The situation is reversed in magnet school admissions, in which African-Americans are reduced to the lowest priority level. These admissions distinctions reflect someone’s idea of the “right” racial mix for certain schools — an idea that I find very distasteful, to say the least. Restricting educational options by racial group is even more repugnant than limitations based on address. It also makes no sense in a diverse city that’s home to many multi-racial families.

In addition to the race issue, the Transfer Program is inadequate because it doesn’t present parents with enough choices. Parents can choose to participate, but once they do they have little say in which suburban school their children will attend.

It would be difficult to institute a broad public school choice program in Missouri, because districts are wary and parents are used to the way things are. One small step would be to streamline the magnet school admissions process, doing away with tiers and racial preferences. Allow any child from the city or county, regardless of race, to enter the magnet school lottery on an equal footing with other students — or to enter a lottery for other SLPS schools. SLPS could then have the distinction of being Missouri’s first true district of choice.

Honey, I Shrunk the Legislature

Posted on by Josh Smith

A very encouraging post on the Freakonomics blog today mentions that the Maine state legislature recently proposed a bill that would unify the state’s Senate and House into one representative body, making Maine the second state in the union to go unicameral. Unfortunately, the Maine Senate voted it down.

I call this event unfortunate not just because of the obvious benefit of reduced government expenses (some predicted that moving to a unicameral measure in Maine would save taxpayers a whopping $11 million per two-year legislative session), but because the current bicameral system is truly redundant.

According to this Wikipedia entry, it used to be the case that:

[T]he basis of representation in most state legislatures was modeled on that of the U.S. Congress: the members of the smaller chamber represented geography and members of the larger chamber represented population. In 1962, the United States Supreme Court announced the one person, one vote standard and invalidated state legislative representation based on geography. (One person, one vote does not apply to the composition of the U.S. Senate because that chamber’s makeup is prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.)

So, we now have a case in which 49 states have two houses serving the same purpose: per-capita representation. Nebraska — the one place where this good idea of house unification has taken place — has also adopted nonpartisan elections. The best explanation I have heard for why nonpartisan elections are a bad idea came from David Stokes: Political parties provide a general identification of a particular candidate’s political stances, and help voters save precious time obtaining information about every person on the ballot. Stokes has also written about the problems with nonpartisan elections, as well as ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of state government — right here in Missouri.

Livestock Registry Plan Misguided

Posted on by Abhi Sivasailam

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS), bureaucratic brainchild of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, mandates identity registration for livestock to allow for centralized tracking and oversight in the event of disease outbreak. The policy may be well-intentioned, but its stated goals don’t justify the incursion into private life, erosion of liberty and livelihoods, and the increase in prices that it would undoubtedly foster. The program calls for livestock owners to furnish federal databases with personal information: their name, home address, telephone number, and the GPS coordinates of their home. Further, if these owners wished to transport the animals outside of their birth farm for any reason (even on a trail ride or to a fair), the animals would need to be biochipped and registered to a federal identification number. It’s no wonder this policy has been the target of recent protests in Jefferson City.

Given that compliance costs for this program are relatively high, smaller farms will close down, farmers will lose their livelihoods, and larger farms will pass on their costs to consumers in the form of higher prices. All for what? Farmers and livestock research organizations argue that the spread of disease is not even initiated at the level of the farms, but rather at meat processing plants, so this policy is misguided not only in implementation, but also in its conception.

Charter School Results Getting Federal Notice

Posted on by Josh Smith

I came across this story about charter school advocates being heard by the House Education and Labor Committee in Washington, D.C.

One of the wonderful points of focus in this piece highlights the benefits of charter innovation, which can then be adopted by other schools. This is precisely the sort of progress promised by charter school advocates.

Particularly encouraging is the following quote:

“Outstanding charter schools are proving that low-income and minority kids can achieve at the highest levels, graduate from college and thrive as adults,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the committee.

With the data on the side of charter advocates, the movement toward more charter schools is happily gaining inertia.

“Everything’s Up for Counting in Kansas City”

Posted on by David Stokes

Recalls, recounts, references to songs in Oklahoma — things are a mite bit interesting in Kansas City, wouldn’t you agree, Will Parker?

We have so far avoided commenting on the Kansas City mayoral recall; it’s just a bit too political for us. Speaking just for myself, if I lived in Kansas City I don’t think I would have signed the recall petition. I just don’t see how the Mayor’s actions and problems have risen to the point where he should be removed from office before his term is up. But I certainly support the constitutional/charter rights and use of referendum, recall, initiative, etc., so if the people of Kansas City want to engage in their right as citizens to have a recall election, then I admire their active participation in democracy — even though I don’t necessarily agree with the recall leaders on this exact issue. …

Who knows? A recall election could be a lot of fun. Maybe Paul Rudd could announce that he is running for mayor on the “Tonight Show”? Or Jason Whitlock could announce it on “SportsCenter”! There is no end to the potential fun!

Some of Kansas City’s quirks are coming to light as part of the recall. You might be aware that the recall petition has fallen a few signatures short of qualifying, and its organizers are fighting for a recount of the recall signatures. One of the tricks to the whole process is that they have to deal with four different election boards.

Did you know that Jackson County is one of 34 counties in the country, and the only one in Missouri, with multiple county seats? Independence and Kansas City both serve that role, and Kansas City is the only county seat in Missouri, and probably one of the few in the country, to be the county seat of one county while existing within several counties.

Because Kansas City has to deal with four election boards, and different election officials are giving different counts in the Star article, it is not crazy to wonder whether different standards are being applied by different boards to certify the petitions, and whether those different standards are having an effect on the process. It’s like Florida in 2000! Or maybe it’s not, because you would think the rules are pretty clear as to what the election boards are supposed to certify. And, although I keep referencing four election boards, KC’s population in Cass County is so small that it appears the petitioners didn’t collect any signatures there, so really only three counties are involved.

This whole post was really just an excuse to get into the comparative politics of Kansas City and Jackson County, which is interesting to me and hopefully a few other people. I will have a lot more coming out soon in a study of the many differences between how Kansas City and St. Louis operate their respective governments. The two areas are about as different as they can be for cities in the same state.

Milton Friedman’s Vision for School Choice

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

It was about 54 years ago that famed economist Milton Friedman first wrote “The Role of Government in Education,” his argument for an expansion of parental choice in public-funded education:

Government, preferably local governmental units, would give each child, through his parents, a specified sum to be used solely in paying for his general education; the parents would be free to spend this sum at a school of their own choice, provided it met certain minimum standards laid down by the appropriate governmental unit. Such schools would be conducted under a variety of auspices: by private enterprises operated for profit, non profit institutions established by private endowment, religious bodies, and some even by governmental units.

About a year before his death, Reason interviewed Friedman about the education reform legacy he had instigated:

I want vouchers to be universal, to be available to everyone. They should contain few or no restrictions on how they can be used. We need a system in which the government says to every parent: “Here is a piece of paper you can use for the educational purposes of your child. It will cover the full cost per student at a government school. It is worth X dollars towards the cost of educational services that you purchase from parochial schools, private for-profit schools, private nonprofit schools, or other purveyors of educational services. You may add from your own funds to the voucher if you wish to and can afford to.” (I try to avoid calling government schools public schools because I think that’s a very misleading term.)

As to the benefits of universal vouchers, empowering parents would generate a competitive education market, which would lead to a burst of innovation and improvement, as competition has done in so many other areas. There’s nothing that would do so much to avoid the danger of a two-tiered society, of a class-based society. And there’s nothing that would do so much to ensure a skilled and educated work force.

Friedman also expanded on his arguments in favor of school choice in the 1980s PBS television series “Free to Choose.” The episode of this series dealing with education is available online, broken into six separate video clips. The first is embedded below:

Be sure to watch the rest, too! It’s well worth the time of anybody who cares about improving educational opportunities for all children.

The Other View in the Smoking Ban Debate

Posted on by David Stokes

This month’s edition of the Soulard Renaissance has a very well-written article arguing for a ban on public smoking. (The page takes a few moments to download, and the article begins at the bottom of page 1.) I know most of the staff and readers here probably disagree vehemently with the author, the inimitable William S. Tomber, but he does a very good job of making his points.

Contrast this with Show-Me Institute policy analyst Dave Roland’s testimony on this subject before the Clayton City Council, and please fire away in the comments.

(I will add that the author is a successful small businessman and entrepreneur, so he is well aware of how markets meet demand.)

More Health Care for Less Money

Posted on by Josh Smith

There’s a great piece on the Washington Post website about improving health care at the federal level. Among the wonderful insights, which are quite intuitive, but likely not widely considered, are:

1. Applying the law of demand to health care:

Research shows that if individuals have to pay 25 percent out of pocket for their elective medical services, they will visit the doctor about 20 percent less.

2. Recognizing that increased care costs can lead to diminishing returns:

A hospital’s bottom line often improves when doctors run more tests, even if those tests add little diagnostic information to the clinical picture.

Utilizing this kind of economically minded approach is precisely how to control costs in a way that will maximize the availability of health care for all. Remember that the real problem is not how to pay for health care for everyone, but rather how to make sure that the incentives are structured such that health care is affordable for all.

Reform Plans and Early Graduation Incentives

Posted on by Abhi Sivasailam

Over at the New York Times, Harold O. Levy, former New York City schools chancellor, outlines “Five Ways to Fix America’s Schools”:

  1. Raise the age of compulsory education.

  2. Use high-pressure sales tactics to curb truancy.

  3. Advertise creatively and aggressively to encourage college enrollment.

  4. Unseal college accreditation reports so that the Department of Education can take over the business of ranking colleges and universities.

  5. Produce more qualified applicants, beginning by encouraging an appropriate home environment.

The plan holds fast to the trend set by many recent “pop” education reform plans: well-intentioned and wildly insufficient. Levy is vague when it comes to articulating policy mechanics, and is more than a little idealistic about implementation, yet he does succeed in  identifying three great values for guiding education reform of any kind: choice, transparency, and the importance of continuing investments in human capital.

To his credit, Levy does make note of one specific policy initiative that I love: scholarships for early-graduating high-schoolers equal to the state’s per-pupil spending, for every year till they have reached the age limit of compulsory education. Similar programs have been tried out in Texas and Arizona, with successful results and enthusiastic participants.

I imagine that such policies would:

  • promote the growth of students who feel restrained by the pace of their curriculum;

  • extend greater financial opportunities to students wishing to continue investing in their human capital;

  • free up seats in overcrowded high schools, allowing teachers to focus on smaller classrooms filled with students who may prefer or require a slower pace of teaching.

Those potential gains could warrant serious discussion about the use of such programs in Missouri, and how they could aid students. Feel free to comment!

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