St. Louis May Get KIPP Schools!

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

"KIPP" stands for "Knowledge Is Power Program." Read all about it here in the Post-Dispatch.

The article mentions KIPP’s great track record in improving test scores, and brings up the usual objections: KIPP schools take the cream of the crop; not everyone is able to spend 10 hours a day in school; it won’t work everywhere.

I hope those arguments won’t stop the mayor from bringing in KIPP. After all, KIPP schools are free public charter schools that specifically target poor urban areas. They can’t be accused of admitting only wealthy, ready-for-school students. And if they accept a lot of motivated students who want to work hard, is that really a problem? Kids go to school to learn, not to be a good influence on everyone else. When you look at the before-and-after test scores of KIPP students, it doesn’t make sense that these kids would have done well anyway, because they weren’t doing well in their traditional public schools before they came to KIPP. So much for the "cream of the crop."

The KIPP school day is longer than many kids can tolerate, but we have other charter schools with shorter school days. I hope Mayor Slay’s plan goes through — then we’ll have even more charter schools to choose from. That’s not a reason to keep out KIPP.

"Policy leaders have said the schools are great but can’t be widely replicated," according to the article. But the vast majority of KIPP schools have done very well, as the article reports. We can’t predict for certain whether the model will work in St. Louis. But you never know until you try.

Taxes From the Kelley Blue Book

Posted on by Justin Hauke

I was in a particularly bitter mood this morning after mailing off my personal property tax bill for my car. It will never cease to amaze me that Missouri taxes me for owning something that depreciates in value each year. That’s just adding insult to injury. In addition, more than 60 percent of the revenue from personal property taxes goes toward supporting the local school district, which has absolutely no connection to my car’s value. Put differently, it makes sense to me that revenue from residential and commercial property taxes goes towards supporting local school districts because the value of the property is indirectly tied to the quality of the school system. But personal property taxes on cars should be used to finance general city government, or, preferably, road maintenance/infrastructure. In my opinion, the closer you can get to a user tax, the better.

That’s a rant, but it prompted me to comment on an even greater source of property tax abuse in Missouri — the practice of increasing tax revenue through reassessment.

An article in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch draws attention to this abuse, and the outrage local property owners are expressing. Essentially, Missouri’s two-year reassessment statute allows local governments to raise property taxes indirectly by keeping the tax rate the same, but overvaluing individual property values. This has become an all-too-common problem in the state.

One solution that has been proposed is to introduce legislation which would require local jurisdictions to reduce property tax rates in tandem with any increase in assessed value, so that the actual revenue remains constant. This would require local governments to approve tax increases through a vote, rather than through the current back-end approach.

I think this is a great idea. Of course, it still doesn’t help me with my particular tax irritation …

And You Thought Our Education System Had Problems…

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

It’s been a slow news weekend for Missouri, so I’ve decided to write about Somalia. That’s right; our public schools look pretty good in comparison:

The only government funding in the last 16 years came four years ago when the local warlord offered to pay teacher salaries at seven schools in the region. But the warlord, Mohammed Dheere, who is now Mogadishu’s mayor, raised the money in part by taxing teachers’ income.

The quote is from an article in the L.A. Times. This reminds me of Andrew Coulson’s research on private schools in poor parts of the world. Coulson describes schools that charge only a few cents per day in tuition (and parents can pay by the day as they go). Despite their constraints, some of these schools surpass local government schools in English instruction, computer literacy, and other subjects. However, you need some basic level of political stability to maintain private businesses like that, so I doubt private schools have made much headway in Somalia.

When you think about the tough odds schools face in other countries, the claims of Missouri school districts that our schools don’t receive adequate funding are less believable. If activists on shoestring budgets can work for universal education in Jowhar, we should be able to teach kids in St. Louis with $390 million.

Stokes on Kirkwood’s Utilities

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Thank you, Dave, for responding to my telemarketing challenge. For those of you who want to read about something more substantive than telemarketers, check out Dave’s op-ed in the Post-Dispatch on the topic "Should Kirkwood Sell Its Municipal Utilities?":

According to Kirkwood’s 2007 budget report, "The high average age of our (electric) system dictates more replacement and maintenance and drives our operations and maintenance costs up." This situation will become more expensive for Kirkwood over time.

I think Kirkwood should follow the example of the municipalities in our area that have ceased providing utilities, and sell its facilities to investor-owned, regulated firms. This would allow Kirkwood to focus on services that are not privately provided.

Read the whole thing. I take umbrage at the "conservative" label the Post sticks on us at the bottom of the page, but I guess I don’t need to rant about that subject again.

I’ll Bite on Telemarketers

Posted on by David Stokes

We are on the No Call list, and nonetheless somehow receive a large number of calls each evening. Lately, Discover has been particularly active in trying to get our business. I have nothing against telemarketers themselves — they are just people trying to support a family and earn a living, or work part-time through college, or burn their way through 20 years of purgatory, whatever their reason might be for doing what they do. Sarah already made a key point as to why some no-call lists need to be allowed: fax machines. Unsolicited faxes have a direct cost in paper and ink to fax machine owners, and as such are not merely some random inconvenience.

I do believe in some type of hard-to-define right to privacy. I like No Call lists, and do not feel they are an intrusion on free trade or a right to work. They are a voluntary listing of people who choose not to receieve calls, and should be respected by telemarketers in the same way "No solicitation" signs on doors should be respected.

Why Education Reform Can’t Wait

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

There’s a sad post today on the Missouri Parents for Public Schools blog:

My children are the most important things to me. Therefore, the education of my children is incredibly important to me. […]

Unfortunately, I am unable to pay for my school of choice and have been forced to send them to the public schools in the St. Louis School District. Where and when I grew up, the public schools were pretty good. Now, the schools I send my boys to have been unaccredited, which really did not surprise me. I am trying to make the best choices for my boys. However, I am currently standing in front of a brick wall. I cannot seem to get them transferred out to better schools. I hope this is taken care of quickly.

When we debate the pros and cons of hypothetical future reforms, it’s important to remember that there are real people in the district trying to find a better education for their kids right now.

Maybe these boys will be able to attend one of the charter schools that are now in the works.

Lawyers Continue Rolling in Taxpayer Dollars

Posted on by Dave Roland

You can’t really give away something that doesn’t belong to you — especially if the "recipient" is its rightful owner! While it may seem like common sense for most people, Attorney General Jay Nixon apparently has trouble grasping this simple idea. Instead, he continues to insist that the Department of Natural Resources is nefariously giving Union Pacific Railroad a sweetheart deal just by allowing the company to do what it wants with its own property.

The bridge at the heart of the lawsuit belongs to Union Pacific Railroad, which purchased it from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in 2004. The dispute has come about because in 1987 MKT reached an agreement with the state that gave the DNR nearly 200 miles of right-of-way for use by the Katy Trail project. That agreement specifically excluded the Booneville lift bridge, although the state was given assurances that the railroad would not modify the bridge in such a way that the Katy Trail would be disrupted.

Since that agreement was reached, the DNR has decided not to use the bridge for trail purposes, and the bridge is currently not being used by anyone at all. To make absolutely certain that the DNR’s intentions were clear, and to guarantee that the railroad had no further duty to maintain the bridge for trail purposes, the DNR officially released and permanently waived any rights it might have had to use the bridge.

The attorney general’s misguided lawsuit, which has already cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, basically claims that the DNR has no authority to say that it isn’t interested in using the bridge. Nixon wants to force the DNR — against its avowed desires — to claim a right to keep using the bridge even though it does not fit into their plans for the Katy Trail.

Even though two courts have now thoroughly rejected Nixon’s arguments about the bridge’s ownership, he is vowing to press on — at taxpayer expense — to the Missouri Supreme Court.

The bottom line is that Union Pacific, the rightful owner of the bridge, now wants to make use of its raw materials for another bridge and Nixon should be ashamed for using taxpayer dollars in his personal quest to prevent them from doing so.

Too Bad This Is No Longer Current

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I’ve been searching for more good blogs and other websites about public policy outside of St. Louis, and today I almost thought I’d found one. It has news about politics, crime, transportation, and courts — and it’s mainly about Kansas City. But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be 100 years old:

The county court in Independence yesterday issued the order to Oscar Koehler, county surveyor, to prepare all necessary profiles and plans and specifications immediately, so that there may be no delay in the work next year of closing up the gaps in Jackson county’s rock road system.

Can we make a time machine?

Merit Pay for Teachers

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Merit pay for teachers is on the horizon. With gratitude to Combest for the link, here’s an article in the Columbia Daily Tribune about the possibility of merit pay for all of Missouri’s teachers:

Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, said he plans to file legislation that would clearly allow merit pay in Missouri schools.

The Ladue School District in St. Louis County has had performance pay for teachers for more than 50 years without legal challenge. The district assigns teachers points based on yearlong evaluations, then doles out raises accordingly.

The article discusses Ladue’s merit pay system and describes why teachers like the idea. It makes sense to pay teachers like the individual professionals that they are, not like interchangeable assembly-line workers.

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