Money Well Spent?

Posted on by Dave Roland

I guess I can’t really blame school administrators for their perspective from the losing end of this summer’s school funding lawsuit. If I had just helped to gamble away more than $4 million of someone else’s money, I’d also be trying to convince them that it was money well spent.

The Post-Dispatch reports today that school administrators and representatives of the Committee for Educational Equality and the Coalition to Fund Excellent Schools are not even slightly abashed at the revelation that state’s legal bill in this case ran so high. Then again, wasting taxpayers’ money is a daily ritual for many of these people, so perhaps embarrassment over this matter is too much to expect.

But hide your pocketbooks, gentle readers, because even after the trial court issued a thorough, well-reasoned opinion against the plaintiffs in CEE v. Missouri, these folks want to spend millions more of the public’s money in hopes of persuading the Missouri Supreme Court to … spend hundreds of millions more of the public’s money!

Let me be clear: If some well-meaning private citizens decide to fight out a legal battle about school funding, they are within their rights to use their own money in the effort. But with this case, it is your money they are spending, just as it is your money they would claim if their suit was successful. We owe it to ourselves to tell these school districts that enough is more than enough — they should follow the lead of the St. Joseph school district and abandon this lawsuit immediately.

All Eyes on the Midwives

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Lest anyone thought I had forgotten about the midwives, here’s another update. OK, not exactly an update, because the only news in the Kansas City Star article is this:

Before the law went into effect, however, opponents filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn it. The case has since made it to the Missouri Supreme Court, though attorneys don’t expect oral arguments until sometime next year.

For now, the issue has captured a nationwide audience and has been spotlighted on media outlets such as Fox News. And it’s the talk of midwifery circles.

However, the article does include a picture of a bunch of cute kids who were delivered by midwives, and some useful definitions of different kinds of midwives for those of you who haven’t been obsessing over the midwife saga like I have need a refresher. I just had to point out this article because I couldn’t let Midwifery Week go by without a post on the subject.

St. Louis Students Imagine the Benefits of Education

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The St. Louis Public Schools’ problems have been in the news a lot lately. In particular, students’ reading and math MAP test scores are way below the state average. But the schools always manage to resist pressure to "teach to the test." The Post-Dispatch describes the latest assignment at Fanning Middle School:

Each student was randomly assigned a career, a family situation and 18 decisions to make pertaining to such budgetary realities as groceries, health insurance, utilities, child care and clothing. …

Seventh-grader Derrick Lloyd, assigned the career of a chemist who is single and earns $41,000, made frugal choices down the line. "My goal is to retire at 32," he said.

Early retirement (or earning $41,000 a year) will be out of reach for most of these kids as long as the district’s drop-out rate stays so high and test scores stay so low. Only 15.1 percent of district 10th graders are proficient in math, which means that the vast majority of them are not prepared to become chemists.

Unless the schools improve, these imaginary science careers are going to remain a dream.

A Cutting-Edge Charter School, in Kansas City

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

An article in the New York Times describes private preschools that offer language immersion programs for kids:

Ms. Kinsale says that what she wanted for Sidney was a high-quality, nurturing, racially diverse school. At the two language schools, she has come to appreciate the mix of Asian, white, black and Hispanic children. “People who start their children on a language so young understand it’s a multicultural world and they want their children to be part of it,” she says.

I think teaching foreign languages to young children is a great idea. And there’s a charter school in Kansas City that’s doing exactly that. While many public schools postpone languages until sixth or seventh grade, Academie Lafayette starts French classes in kindergarten. Here‘s a profile of the school from a few years ago. And from the more recent statistics on DESE’s website, you can see that 48 percent of the students are minorities, and 31 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch. This is another great example of how charter schools give minority students access to educational choices.

In addition to being able to use unique curricula and educational approaches, charter schools have another advantage over traditional public schools: They are open to all students in the district, not just those who live nearby. When students from all neighborhoods and economic backgrounds can attend the same school, they encounter real diversity.

The New York Times article illustrates the challenges diversity-seeking parents face when they look for public schools for their kids:

Until two years ago, they lived in Orange, N.J., a community that is three-quarters black. They were happy there, they say, with a nice house that they spent a lot of time renovating and a racially mixed group of neighbors. But when Stirling was 4, they began looking ahead to school and studied the state test results. At Orange High School, more than half the students did not pass the 2005/2006 state proficiency test in English, and three-quarters failed math. “I looked at the report and looked at my husband and said, ?Do you mind selling this house?'” says Ms. Kinsale.

They were determined to find the best school district for what they could afford. “Taxes and real estate were so high,” she says. They pored over test scores and real estate listings in suburbs that were a reasonable commute to Mr. Kinsale’s Newark office and found a three-bedroom home in Millburn. 

Now the Kinsales are sending their daughter to the private preschool to experience diversity she’ll miss later when she goes to a traditional public school.

Here Is Something We Can All Support

Posted on by David Stokes

Governor Blunt has launched a loan program (article via Mr. Husband-to-be) for students interested in going into large animal veterinary practices. I don’t link to this because I think it’s a major issue — I am linking to it because it’s a good example of how the government should go about addressing needs such as this. It’s not a new tax credit, or an excise tax on pork products, or a new license fee to tailgate outside of Faurot Field, it’s just a simple, concise loan program that tries to help students move into a needed field. The governor deserves credit for this program and for keeping it at a reasonable level.

Missouri Teachers Voice Support for School Choice

Posted on by Dave Roland

When the Missouri General Assembly reconvenes in January, true education reform should be at the top of its agenda. Missourians, parents, and teachers alike have suffered from continual public school decline as the Legislature has pumped more and more money into districts. Yet increased educational spending has not improved the state’s most ineffective schools, and many of the state’s worst-performing districts are those in which per-student spending has greatly outstripped the state average.

For example, the Wellston school district spends nearly $11,000 per student each year, yet only 2.9 percent of that district’s students scored “proficient” on their Missouri Assessment Program Math exit tests. By comparison, the statewide average expenditure per student is $7,500, and the statewide proficiency rate for that exam is 42.4 percent. Additional dollars simply don’t add up to better test results.

Recognizing this, many Missourians — particularly those with children in failing schools — are calling for legislation that would grant them the opportunity to send their children to the best schools in their communities. Last fall, the Show-Me Institute published the results of a poll which asked more than 600 Missouri voters about their views on K-12 education. The collected data showed overwhelming support (especially among minority and low-income parents) for granting parents the opportunity to use their children’s public educational funding at schools of their own choosing.

But it’s not just parents who see the value of parental choice for educational reform — teachers support school choice, too. Of those surveyed who either specified that they were teachers or had a teacher in their immediate families, roughly two-thirds agreed that public schools had “a serious problem” or were “in a state of crisis.” Only 28 percent expressed favorable or neutral feelings about the quality of Missouri public schools in general, while 83 percent had favorable views of private school performance.

It’s not surprising, then, that a significant majority of this group agreed that public schools would improve if parents were allowed to choose where their children would be educated. Sixty-four percent of teachers said they would favor a program that allowed parents to use money that would have been spent at a public school, to send their children to private schools instead. A full 88 percent of teachers responded that parents, not governments, should decide which schools their children attend. Eighty-nine percent of teachers responding to the Show-Me Institute survey agreed that every child should have the same opportunity for a quality education, regardless of their parents’ financial situations.

These survey results highlight an important point: Missouri teachers, like Missouri parents in general, recognize that increased parental choice will improve education in this state, recognizing that increases in educational spending have proven to be utterly ineffective. These results are important, because the conventional wisdom (fostered by anti-choice groups such as teachers’ unions) says that teachers are against school choice.

This survey suggests widespread teacher support for the idea of school choice, however, along with a consensus that increased spending has failed to fix our faltering public schools. Missouri’s parents and teachers are demanding more educational opportunity for their children. Isn’t it time that the Legislature listened?

Justin P. Hauke is a research assistant at the Show-Me Institute, a Missouri-based think tank, and a graduate student at Washington University’s Olin Business School. Dave Roland is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute.

 

“This Will Be Our Little Secret …”

Posted on by Dave Roland

One of the most important reasons for having representative government is so that if the people don’t like the way their elected officials are behaving, they can replace them with someone else. This holds politicians accountable for the decisions they have made and the actions they have pursued (ostensibly) on behalf of the people they represent.

In order for this to work, however, it is imperative that the people know what, precisely, is being done by their representatives on their behalf. That is why states and the federal government have adopted sunshine laws requiring the disclosure of information about how public officials have acted in their official capacity.

The Springfield News-Leader reports today, however, that the Missouri House has an internal policy that requires the maintenance of confidentiality concerning staff communications with lawmakers about bills or amendments being drafted. The rule is supposedly intended to prevent opponents of legislation from gaining information that could be used to their advantage. But the House investigation reported in the the News-Leader article suggests that officials are more worried about public scrutiny. Officials are expressing consternation about information leaks regarding the representative responsible for an amendment that relaxes village incorporation requirements for property owners. This anxiety makes it seem that our elected officials really are scared to have their official actions exposed for public inspection.

This secrecy policy — like any other policy that allows governments to camouflage their actions from the people they serve — is actively dangerous. If public servants don’t want others, whether they be legislators or members of the public at large, to be aware of their official actions or the motives that led to them, it suggests very strongly that those actions or motives should be subject to careful scrutiny. Even if this policy only has status as a "gentlemens’ agreement," rather than an officially adopted rule, it should be abandoned.

Revealed Preferences in Voting

Posted on by Justin Hauke

The Missouri Ethics Committee announced today that it will delay a decision on how to enforce July’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down a law repealing Missouri’s campaign contribution limits (see the article in the Kansas City Star).

Apparently, candidates from across the state and the political spectrum collected well over their contribution limits during the first six months of 2007, and now the committee is unsure of how to address (read: “rectify”) the situation.

Now, I don’t have a legal education — my background in constitutional law stems from a single undergraduate course five years ago. But I realize the court has held that campaign finance restrictions do not violate free speech because, apparently, “money is not speech.”

You may or may not agree, but I think the current argument that candidates should have to return their excess contributions, as a matter of equal treatment to the other candidates, is ridiculous.

The candidates did have equal treatment under the law during the time those limits were lifted. Some were preferred over others — which is why they collected more money. In economics, money is a tool used for determining revealed preferences, which essentially means that we can find out what consumers really want by tracking their purchasing habits. Consumer preference for a candidate is revealed by the candidate’s ability to collect campaign contributions. I personally think that spending money is a form of speech, and that I should be allowed to spend as much of my money as I want to provide either myself or someone else with a platform to share their views. Moreover, I think this is efficient.

But I guess that’s only because I believe in this silly idea called freedom.

How Do You Spell Relief? C-H-O-I-C-E

Posted on by Justin Hauke

The Post-Dispatch has a great article this morning about the success of “Big Picture” schools in educating students who had previously performed poorly in traditional public schools.

Big Picture Co. is a Rhode Island-based company that operates 46 schools across 13 states. The schools follow an unorthodox lesson plan — one that is uniquely tailored to each individual student. The idea is that large public schools aren’t effective at reaching some students. When these students can’t relate to their peers or their lessons, they fall behind academically and often become disruptive in class.

The St. Louis School Board voted last spring to set up “alternative” schools, such as those operated by Big Picture, in an effort to reach students that conventional schools weren’t adequately serving. Big Picture subsequently opened three new schools in St. Louis to fill that gap.

What makes Big Picture schools so effective is their flexibility. Rather than being constrained by the Legislature or the local school board with a fixed lesson plan targeted at the median student, Big Picture schools can work with students and their parents to find what motivates them specifically, and then cultivate it. Matt Spengler, the director of development for Big Picture Co., summarizes:

A big part of what we do is building trust and the relationship between individual teachers and families. They know the kid the best. You find out what has worked in the past and what hasn’t worked. And as the relationship develops over time, families feel more comfortable sharing when problems or issues arise.

We’ve often written that one of the greatest benefits of school choice is that it introduces flexibility and competition to education, rather than the static “one-size-fits-all" solutions generated by centralized bureaucracy. Every child learns differently, and it is imperative that schools recognize this — especially at an early age. Students that lose interest in school early in their lives often never catch up to their peers, and that has negative consequences for all of us.

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