“Bail Out the Dead … Bail Out the Dead”

Posted on by David Stokes

The funeral home industry has long been one of the most heavily licensed and regulated occupations in every state, and Missouri is no exception. This is one of the reasons that we here at the Show-Me Institute have not focused much on the Jeff City debate surrounding prepaid funeral plans. Because Missouri has fewer licensing regulations than other states, I instead prefer efforts to prevent new rent-seeking laws from being enacted. In states that have much more licensing than Missouri, it’s much more of a priority to overturn bad laws. But, anyway, the prepaid funeral debate made it seem as though an already heavily regulated industry would become a little more regulated — but an attempt by some funeral home directors to gain even more power over their own industry might be killing (and embalming) the golden goose.

Today’s Post-Dispatch has a very detailed story about the movements of the bill in question, Senate Bill 1 (sponsored by Sen. Delbert Scott). The bill is in trouble because of an amendment that has been pushed by the funeral home industry that would alter the current mortician board to have it filled by nine funeral home directors and one person not affiliated with the industry. That’s right, a nine-to-one ratio weighted toward an industry group getting to decide who is allowed to enter the occupation, which restrictions might be retained or initiated in order to benefit current businesses, etc. This is every bit as much of an effort to restrict competition as it sounds like.

In a shocking revelation that absolutely floored me, the funeral homes pushing this amendment are primarily the ones who lost the most when a national prepaid funeral seller went out of business last year. Now they are hoping to add new fees to help make up their loses:

Sen. Scott said Lindley’s group has floated the idea of a surcharge on death certificates or a surcharge on prepaid funeral plans to help offset the rest of the NPS contract costs. Scott said those ideas won’t fly.

The proposed changes to the board that is supposed to overseee the industry would make it easier for proposals like this one to be enacted by the industry. The entire story is a textbook example of the economic harm that is done when an industry becomes actively involved in its own regulation. Such regulations are quickly bent to help current practitioners, but not future competitors or current customers.

At least one current funeral home owner sees the proposed change for what it is:

Sue Heckart, who owns Heckart Funeral Home in Sedalia, Mo., served on the state regulatory board from 1987 to 1993. She said those seeking the amendment “made a bad business decision, so they’re trying to make the rest of us pay for their mistake. And ultimately, it’s going to affect the consumer.”

I commend Sen. Scott for his opposition, and this is one amendment that I hope to see die on the floor of the legislature. (Get it — funeral homes, die …)

New Member of the Show-Me Institute Family

Posted on by David Stokes

In honor of the birth of my son, Ryan Parker Stokes, this past Friday, I present to you this beautiful piece about the future of the United States, titled “A child born in America today,” which was conveniently enough written just a few weeks ago. Actually, as you will realize as soon as you start reading it, it is not a beautiful piece — it is just some worthless drivel written as utopian fantasy by some 19-year-old statist:

A child born in America tonight deserves to be safe and free at the same time.

But when these two values come into conflict, guess which one will always have to give way first in order to build the perfect proletarian state? It is just so disheartening to read the writings of a young man who thinks the highest achievement in life is full-throttle government protection and care for everyone. (I highly recommend the comment below the piece, though.)

But mom and baby are both healthy and doing great, which is the most important thing!

Property Tax Appeal Workshops in Saint Louis

Posted on by David Stokes

I am simply posting the following information (which I received from a friend who often forwards political notices) so that our readers throughout the St. Louis area who are considering appealing their assessments are aware of these meetings. I don’t know too much more about them. I am confident that they will be valuable, but I can’t vouch for them or give any guarantees. If anyone has more info on them, such as who is putting them together, feel free to share it in the comments.

REAL ESTATE TAX APPEAL ASSISTANCE

Volunteer tax payer advocates will host workshops for St. Louis County homeowners on how to effectively appeal property tax assessments. Homeowners will receive their reassessment/tax impact notices in May. In order to make an appeal, an appeal form (available at the workshop) needs to be filed with the Board of Equalization of St. Louis County, which will hold hearings during July and August. The deadline to file an appeal is July 13, 2009.

The workshops for tax appeal assistance are free and open to anyone.

Workshop dates and times are:

7 p.m. May 21 at Glendale City Hall, 424 N. Sappington Rd.

9 a.m. June 6 at Shrewsbury Community Center, 5200 Shrewbury Ave.

1 p.m. June 16 at the Jones Building on the campus of Edgewood Children’s

Center, 330 N. Gore.

Education Outside the Box

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I’ve recently directed readers to a few videos from the Oregon School Choice Contest. There are so many good ones that I’m sorry I can’t blog about them all. Anyone who’d like to watch more clips of kids learning outside of traditional schools should check out the YouTube page (or just search that site for “school choice”).

This cartoon is a little bit different from the other entries:

“Out-of-Control” Virtual Schools

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I found this link through the Panama City Renaissance School blog: an article about the virtual school controversy in Oregon. Oregon’s virtual schools have been bogged down by regulations for years. Virtual academies in Oregon operate as charter schools; like other charters there, they have to enroll half of their students from a single district. (The state made an exception for the first virtual school, which is now the largest one in Oregon.)

A new bill would prevent existing virtual schools from expanding, or new ones from opening, for two years, until the state has decided how to regulate them — as if the current regulations weren’t enough of a hindrance. The enrollment rule makes no sense for virtual schools. The whole point of online learning is to give kids from many different places access to the virtual school. Why should half of them live in one particular district? And why does Oregon need two whole years to consider new regulations? It takes about two seconds to see that the current regulations are overly restrictive. Imagine if the state forbade traditional public schools to enroll new students for two years while it contemplated reform!

This bill is a thinly veiled attempt to shut down competition to the traditional districts. Here’s what the lobbyist for school administrators in Oregon says about it:

“We’re not going to wait until it is out of control.”

He’s on the right track. Traditional schools shouldn’t wait until the virtual schools attract all their students. Nor should they fight change with regulations. Instead, they should start offering a better education right now. Traditional schools have an advantage over virtual schools in some respects — they can provide lots of face-to-face contact and hands-on lessons, for example. They can focus on those strengths to compete with the virtual schools.

So far, Missouri’s Virtual Instruction Program hasn’t been confronted with such strong opposition. Then again, we have only one Virtual Instruction Program, administered by the state. Missouri’s online education system doesn’t provoke animosity from unions, but the downside is that we don’t have the competition between virtual schools that Oregonians do.

For more on virtual schools in Oregon, watch this cute clip of a student explaining why he likes his online school.

Underground Restaurants

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I’m of two minds about the underground restaurant movement. On one hand, I’m sympathetic to chefs who want to do something fun and different. Forcing underground restaurants to settle down in one place and get a permit would defeat the purpose. And I don’t think you should need a permit just to serve dinner to a bunch of people in someone’s living room.

On the other hand, it’s unfair for these chefs to take “donations” under the table while everybody else is complying with the law and paying taxes.

Anyone want to convince me one way or the other in the comments?

How Not to Hold Teachers Accountable

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I love reforms like merit pay, flexibility in hiring and tenure, etc. I thought any idea that held teachers accountable would be fine — until I read this proposal. Scott McLeod of Dangerously Irrelevant suggests schools adopt this approach to weeding out bad teachers:

Every year fire the worst teacher in the school. If you don’t have a robust teacher evaluation system (or if you’re worried about administrator bias), do it like they do on Survivor: everyone gets a vote and the one with the most votes leaves the island. Administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents–everyone involved with the school gets a vote.

Yes, perennially bad teachers can be a problem, but this is not the way to deal with it.

First, this procedure is too rigid. Why fire exactly one teacher every year? If two teachers are terrible, they should both be fired. And some schools probably have a few teachers who would benefit from training or mentoring, but nobody who needs to be fired.

This plan would have a devastating effect on teacher morale and cooperation. Everyone would try to identify the one likeliest loser and give up on that person as soon as possible. Teachers would sabotage each other and point out their colleagues’ faults.

Furthermore, one vote each for all those people doesn’t make sense. A bad fourth-grade teacher won’t get voted out if the kindergartners and first-graders haven’t even met that person yet. And six-year-olds shouldn’t be making decisions about adults’ jobs.

As a consequence of kids voting, school would become a popularity contest. Teachers would be reluctant to discipline students or challenge them, lest they be voted out.

No district is considering this idea (I hope), but I still think it’s worthy of discussion here on Show-Me Daily because it illustrates how difficult it is for organizations to evolve and improve in the absence of market forces. Businesses that have to compete in the marketplace have no qualms about firing workers who aren’t doing their jobs. The flip side of that is, a business that has to compete would never be attracted to a crazy scheme to fire one person each year no matter what.

Public school districts have so much difficulty getting rid of bad teachers that voting someone “off the island” once a year may sound good in comparison. At least they would get rid of one bad teacher every year. The vote would also take pressure off administrators, who don’t want to be the ones to make controversial firing decisions.

If traditional public districts were less like islands and more integrated into a fluid market for education, they would have to adopt flexible rules for hiring and firing teachers. Bad teachers would be let go when necessary — unlike the current practice of keeping them until they retire, and unlike the Survivor scheme of firing one each June as a ritual.

Locavores Clamor for a Piece of the Pie

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Missouri locavores are collecting signatures to petition Gov. Jay Nixon for a share of the stimulus funds. They want the state to spend money on local food, and to coerce other people into doing so as well.

The letter states that there is increasing demand for locally grown food, then reports:

This growing demand, however, has been difficult to meet.

No kidding! Is that because nothing grows in our climate when there’s snow on the ground?

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy fresh produce that was picked just minutes before. The thing is, it’s costly to provide that, and consumers are turned off by the price. So the locavores want the state to step in.

Almost anything can be produced locally, for enough money and effort. We shoudn’t do that, though. Imagine if all our oil had to come from inside the state. We could maybe find some … if we drill deep enough.

The locavores assure us that state spending would improve the “long-term profitability” of local food production. It certainly would, to the detriment of taxpayers. And take a look at this sentence:

You will be facilitating a new economic engine for Missouri based on local values, local ingenuity and local relationships.

“Ingenuity” must refer to their lobbyists. It doesn’t describe the farmers who prefer to rely on state handouts rather than on their own initiative.

Language Learning

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The St. Louis Language Immersion Schools blog has posted a series of essays describing immersion schools the faculty have visited recently. These will be of interest to anyone following charter schools and language immersion.

Several people have responded to my writing about charter schools and languages by pointing out the existence of language programs in traditional public schools. In some cases, these programs are indeed comparable to charter schools, like SLLIS. I believe SLLIS has visited some immersion classes within traditional districts.

However, most of the traditional public schools’ language programs are not as innovative as SLLIS and other charters. Often, schools recognize the value of immersion, but students are only immersed in the language for one class period each day — not enough time to gain fluency. Many international magnet schools, such as Bunche International Studies of SLPS, conduct the majority of the school day in English. Students are able to choose from several languages, and the school incorporates different cultures into activities and special events, but a science or math class there looks the same as in a traditional public school.

Charter schools have the flexibility to center the entire school day around a foreign language. They also have the parental support for long hours of immersion. These aspects of the charter model let them adopt immersion programs more completely than traditional districts — and with greater success.

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