“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!

Concentrated Animal Blogging Operations

Posted on by David Stokes

CAFOs are a major issue in rural Missouri. They are probably the main reason why some rural counties are interested in enacting planning and zoning mandates, which rural areas have long resisted — and which, frankly, are not germane within rural areas, for the most part.

Until CAFOs, at least. This weekend’s Joplin Globe had an opinion piece about CAFOs, which I found to have an informative point of view. Contrary viewpoints, which are more free-market-oriented, have been argued in the comments section.

Please tee off on this subject., yourselves, in our own comments area.

The Promise and Performance of Charter Schools

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

Caroline Hoxby, Ph.D., the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor of Economics at Stanford University, spoke about "The Promise and Performance of Charter Schools" on May 5, 2009, in a lecture cosponsored by the Show-Me Institute and Saint Louis University's John Cook School of Business. Hoxby is also a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, the director of the Economics of Education Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

The embedded video below is a playlist consisting of five separate parts. After each individual part has finished playing, the playlist should automatically load the subsequent part until the sequence has finished.

You may also choose to view any individual part on its own:
Part 1 (9:22) | Part 2 (9:20) | Part 3 (9:13) | Part 4 (9:57) | Part 5 (10:01)

During Hoxby's trip to Saint Louis, she also spent a few minutes speaking with the Show-Me Institute about some of the key points contained in her lecture. In this interview, Hoxby explains the benefits of charter schools, outlines the challenges that charter schools currently face, points out the reasons for success in many charters, and more.

The embedded video below is a playlist consisting of two separate parts. After the first part has finished playing, the playlist should automatically load the second part.

You may also choose to view either individual part on its own:
Part 1 (9:08) | Part 2 (7:59)

This same interview can also be viewed in seven separate sections, each addressing a different educational question:

What are the benefits of charter schools?
What are the challenges that charter schools face?
How do traditional public schools and charter schools compare?
What are the reasons that some charter schools succeed?
What constitutes adequate funding for public schools?
What are the current barriers to school choice in the United States?
How does collective bargaining affect quality teacher retention?

Georgia House Passes School Choice Bill

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

More and more states are taking action to rescue children from failing public schools. From a WMGT article:

Parents will now have more say in where their kids can go to school in the fall. That’s because of a recent bill that passed in the Georgia house. House Bill 251 makes it easier for parents to transfer students to the school of their choice.

The article also includes video of the TV station’s news clip about this bill, so be sure to head over there to watch.

Shopping for Favorable Treatment

Posted on by Dave Roland

While I have written recently about one aspect of corporate welfare, the St. Joseph News-Press has a story today that illustrates yet another reason why these sorts of policies are ill-advised.

Rock Port, Mo., currently has only one grocery store — the aptly-named Rock Port Market. A group of developers thinks the time is ripe to add some competition into the mix, and is planning to build a new 10,000 square foot supermarket. But, rather than simply bearing the costs of their project, the developers have asked the city to establish a TIF district that would benefit their new venture. The owners of the Rock Port Market correctly point out that granting the TIF district would give the new business an unfair advantage, because the existing grocery store would have to shoulder expenses that the new store does not have to bear.

This is, in fact, a fundamental problem with corporate welfare schemes. The government creates a set of benefits that are only available to some market competitors, which inherently disadvantages all those who are ineligible for the benefits. A far wiser policy would be to establish even-handed rules so that ventures will succeed or fail based solely on their own ability to serve their customers, not because they received (or were denied) a competitive advantage by the government.

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