An Education Proposal That Falls Short

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

This is well-intentioned, but it’s not enough. The Grade reports on Rep. Ted Hoskins’ proposal to “require accredited school districts who reject a student from an unaccredited district give the parents a reason.”

I’m sure Rep. Hoskins is motivated by a true desire to help students in unaccredited districts, but this bill wouldn’t give them any new alternatives or educational options. It doesn’t reform the education system to make it easier for schools to accept out-of-district students, nor does it give schools any incentive to take students from nearby districts. It just says the districts can continue doing what they’ve always done, but now they have to give a reason.

This is like a teacher telling students they needn’t complete assignments, as long as they say “The dog ate my homework,” and put it in writing.

Concealed Carry on Campus

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Katy Steinmetz responds in the comments to my post about concealed carry:

The point is that carrying guns around is not justified on the basis that it is a personal freedom; it is justified when exercising that personal freedom can help achieve the end of self-defense, which, given the lack of danger on the MU campus, is not possible (outside of truly extraordinary circumstance) there.

In my worldview, people start out with personal freedoms and have to give some up when they harm others. So I agree with Steinmetz, for example, that we shouldn’t allow people to carry hand grenades around. Hand grenades are a danger, and giving up the freedom to carry them is a small price we pay to enjoy the benefits of civil society.

But guns are a different story. It’s possible to safely carry guns without threatening anyone else’s lives or property. That’s why Missouri, like most other states, allows concealed carry.

Steinmetz says that MU should be different from the rest of the state because of its low crime rate. I don’t think it makes sense to divide up the state into little areas and allow concealed carry in some but not in others. Crime can happen anywhere. Although as Steinmetz points out, school shootings are rare, we see that they have occurred. Opponents of concealed carry at MU argue that the campus police is enough to deal with those rare events, but campus police wasn’t able to prevent the tragedies at Virginia Tech and other schools.

Suppose we were to follow Steinmetz’s reasoning to its logical conclusion and permit concealed carry only on streets with high annual crime rates. (On streets with lower crime rates, crime is a rare event that we shouldn’t legislate based on.) And suppose a murder takes place on my street this month, on a nearby street the next month, on an adjacent street the month after that, and so on. No one would be allowed to carry guns because no particular street would have a high enough crime rate. Steinmetz could argue that my street just had that one murder a while back, so concealed carry isn’t justified on that street. And the next street over also had one murder, so we shouldn’t allow concealed carry on that street either. This is not the approach Missouri law takes to the Second Amendment — it allows concealed carry throughout the state, regardless of the statistical likelihood of crime in individual counties and neighborhoods.

For more on concealed carry and self-defense, I recommend listening to Marcus Bowen’s arguments in this podcast.

Cautious Optimism on Sale of SLPS Buildings

Posted on by Dave Roland

In the past several years, St. Louis Public Schools has been forced to consider selling dozens of its former school buildings, which are no longer economically viable to maintain because of the steep drop the district has seen in the number of enrolled students. Knowing that these buildings would be very attractive to those interested in opening new charter or private schools, two years ago the district’s Special Administrative Board placed deed restrictions on the vacant buildings that would prohibit future purchasers from allowing charter or private schools to operate in those buildings. This was really just a formalization of an earlier, unwritten policy of refusing to sell empty buildings if the district suspected that they might be used for such purposes.

In the past few months, a broad coalition of legislators (led by Rep. Talib El-Amin) and education reform activists (led by the Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri) have pushed to have these deed restrictions lifted, either by action taken by the Special Administrative Board or by a vote of the General Assembly. This morning, David Hunn at the Post-Dispatch reported that the SAB has rescinded the formal deed restrictions.

Theoretically, this means that any buildings sold by SLPS will now go to the highest bidder — unless a government agency opts to bid for the property, in which case it will likely take precedence over a private purchaser. Time will tell whether the SAB (or the elected Board of Education, in the event they are ever given back control over the district) will actually put these buildings on the market for all interested parties, or whether they will implement a new plan that would selectively withhold properties that might be useful to potential charter and private schools.

Kansas City Airport Privatization Takes Small Step Forward

Posted on by David Stokes

We may have to even call it a “very small” step, but nonetheless the idea is slowly moving forward. Prime Buzz has a post about this in the Star. Of course, big ideas like this should move slowly and carefully. I have no idea how far this will go. Obviously, I support privatization in principle, and I think it would be an excellent move for Kansas City taxpayers and travelers, but it a complicated issue and I have not yet been able to study it closely — although I certainly will. The nice thing is that, as with MoDOT and tolling, at least the issue is being talked about as a possibility, even if it does not happen. That alone is a step in the right direction. As usual, Reason has a lot of great information on this topic that I recommend to you.

St. Louisans Should Support the Zoo!

Posted on by Dave Roland

I love zoos. Some of my fondest memories of my youth are of my trips to the zoos in Knoxville, Birmingham, and Atlanta. When my wife and I lived near the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., the fact that my morning runs took me right past the elephants, cheetahs, and gibbons gave me motivation to get up and get going. Since moving to St. Louis, I have happily gone to visit our fabulous zoo with several of my nieces and nephews.

That having been said, I have to disagree with Dave’s take on proposals to expand taxation in support of St. Louis’ zoo and museums. My problem with the plan is this: Taxation forcibly strips people of hard-earned money. These are dollars that, if not for taxation, citizens could use to buy flowers for their significant other, pay down debt, improve their home, put into a college fund, or give to charity — whatever was most important to them. If the government is going to take that money away from those who earned it, it should only take as much as is necessary to provide the services and infrastructure necessary for the well-being of society — such as roads, law enforcement, education, and so forth.

No matter how much I love zoos, they are not institutions vital to the well-being of a community. They are a luxury, and not even a luxury that everyone will want to enjoy. Why should people with no interest in going to the zoo be compelled to financially support those who do? And, on the flip side, why should those who would like to go to a zoo be able to force their neighbors to subsidize their entertainment? I’m sorry, Dave, but zoos should be supported only by people who don’t have to be coerced to give them funding.

Thus, the ideal free-market solution in this case would be to replace taxation on behalf of the city’s zoos and museums with a reasonable admission fee of $20–$25, perhaps charging half price for children aged 5–13 and letting kids younger than five get in for free. The zoo’s board could even choose to adopt a policy that would offer free or reduced-price admission to people of slender economic means, if it felt strongly that no one’s ability to experience the zoo should be limited by their ability to pay. This sort of arrangement would guarantee that the zoo would continue to be supported by those who want to enjoy it, solving the “free rider” problem while lightening the tax burden for those living in the area. And, once the government quit taking that portion of their money, area taxpayers who were so inclined could then use it to, y’know, support the zoo!

Happy Tax Day

Posted on by David Stokes

If you would like to join with many other Missourians in discussing your opinion of growing deficits and rampant spending under both this administration and the previous one, you can go down to Kiener Plaza tonight at 6:30 PM to get your groove on. I made it to the previous one at the riverfront, but can’t make it tonight because of a board meeting. Otherwise, I would be there — and I don’t even drink tea.

Zoo-Museum Tax Bill Changes Make Good Idea Less Good

Posted on by David Stokes

I liked Sen. Joan Bray’s original proposal to expand the St. Louis Zoo-Museum taxing district. I liked it because it gave taxpayers in neighboring counties a choice: institute the tax locally or pay an entrance fee. It got rid of the free riders, but didn’t mandate either option. Now, though, the tax expansion part has been removed and the proposal is just moving ahead as a typical new fee or tax.

The good news is that, in Sen. Bray’s own words, it is not likely to pass, and is really just there to get the discussion going, for which I applaud her. I am glad to participate in the discussion — hell, that’s what I do! For next legislative session, the proposal should include choices by counties as to whether they want to institute a tax or have their residents pay an admission fee. It should also allow for the expansion of the facilities supported by the tax so that any county adopting it can have one entity added to the district. Any new county should also be represented on the district’s board of director’s, as former St. Louis mayor and state Sen. Jim Conway said in the article:

Conway, a zoo board member, added that “something of this magnitude” needs to first be vetted by the institutions and “all the other civic leaders” to help build support.

How does Mr. Conway fit into my recent study of the number of elected officials in Missouri? When he was a senator, he quietly passed legislation making the medical examiner of St. Louis an appointed doctor rather than an elected official. I think we can all agree that large cities with large city problems should have medical examiners who are doctors — and not just some former state rep who ran for the position because he was term limited.

Restaurants and the Minimum Wage

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Post-Dispatch reports on a proposed minimum wage cap that would apply to tipped workers, like waiters in restaurants. The cap would keep their minimum wage where it is now, so that it wouldn’t rise with inflation.

A small increase in the minimum wage, paced with inflation, isn’t going to cause massive labor market inefficiencies — but there are downsides to a continually rising minimum wage nonetheless. One is that it gives the false impression that we’re helping poor people. Most poor people don’t earn the minimum wage. And many minimum-wage earners live in households that are not poor, or earn the minimum wage only temporarily. To illustrate, the server quoted at the end of the article is a Washington University graduate student, who undoubtedly will earn a higher wage once she completes her advanced degree.

There are other policies, such the Earned Income Tax Credit, that directly help poor people. Legislators would do well to cap the minimum wage and focus on policies that can work. If you still think tipped workers are getting a bad deal, give them larger tips!

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