Parents as Teachers

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Here‘s an illustration of why preschool education is better when carried out in the private sector:

With the district reorganizing its staff and resources to round up children 3 to 5 into universal pre-K, parents worry that the Parents as Teachers program may get slighted.

FitzGerald’s 4-year-old son, and now her 2-year-old daughter, both benefited from the insight of their parent educator, “Ms. Cindy,” she said.

“Ms. Cindy knows my kids. They’re excited to see her,” FitzGerald said. “Will she still be coming?”

It’s disturbing that we have a program to send government workers into people’s homes to patrol their parenting. It’s also unfortunate for the disadvantaged parents who would benefit from help with their kids. When districts restructure programs like this, it disrupts the trust and relationships families have formed with the teachers. It might be a better idea to give parents vouchers for private parenting classes and preschool programs, which wouldn’t be subject to the whims of public school administrators.

Reforming Property Taxes … A Great Idea.

Posted on by Maurice Harris

In Sunday’s Jefferson County Journal, an op-ed piece discusses a way to stop spiraling property taxes in Missouri. The plan includes moving away from tax rates on residential property to a base tax that would be calculated from a house’s final selling price. After two years, any improvements made on the house would not count toward the property tax. This would reduce the penalty that people faces for making housing improvements that most homeowners do later in their lives. As the author states:

However, the question I have asked myself for years is this: when a homeowner adds a deck or another room to his or her residence does the local or county government incur additional expenses necessary to provide basic services to the citizens of the community?

The answer to this question is an emphatic "No!"

This plan would also allow room for adjustments to the property tax due to cost-of-living and inflation:

To factor in inflation and cost-of-living it is necessary to allow for adjustments in the base tax. This might be accomplished by setting an inflation cap of 2 or 3 percent periodically. The voters must approve any increase above this.

Overall, the plan sounds solid. Instead of basing property taxes on the infamous drive-by assessments, as has been done in St. Louis County, they should be based on uniform standards that homeowners can understand. Also, it’s about time that homeowners stopped being penalized for making improvements to their homes, by extra taxes being added by assessors to homeowners’ property tax bills. It makes no sense that homeowners are penalized for trying to improve the houses that they live in.

Talk the Talk

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Here’s an article in the St. Joseph News-Press about the proposed English-language amendment:

If the ever-increasing number of students enrolled in English classes at the Ruth Houston Learning Center is any indication, non-English speaking adults in St. Joseph are in a rush to pick up the language.

Sharon Franke began teaching English at the center in October 2005. At the time, she was the sole teacher with three students. The center now requires five teachers that instruct up to 85 students.

Immigrants are already eager to learn English — even though most of these people have nothing to do with the state’s official proceedings. English is useful in everyday life. An amendment won’t make people want to learn English, but we don’t need it to. Immigrants already want to learn English.

The Long Tail of Choice

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

Now it’s my turn to disagree. Not to the idea that there are too many school districts — I have no way to measure the optimum balance between the value of competition and the efficiency of consolidation — but to the notion that "too many choices" can ultimately make us worse-off.

David Stokes links to a New Yorker review of Barry Schwartz’s book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, noting that when faced with an ever-growing variety of products from which to choose, "at some point, the variety of choices leads to diminishing returns." I don’t dispute that this can be the case — for a majority of people, most of the time, even — but that this is no argument for artificial elimination of any of those choices.

Sometimes eliminating choices is a business strategy that makes sense. Some restaurants are getting rid of menus, some supermarkets are paring down the number of items on their shelves, and the Internet is filled with advice on how to make decisions effectively — suggesting that there’s a wide range of people out there that needs help coping with the bewildering array of choices life has to offer them.

So, yes, I grant all of this. And yet … it’s easy to forget that the long tail has become the basis for the most valuable new business plans of the Internet age. The idea here is that people have such widely varied tastes that the many items people buy very little of, with low market share, add up to a mass of options that rivals the popular items that nearly everybody buys.

Schwartz coined a couple of terms for different types of deision-makers: "maximizers" and "satisficers."

Continue reading “The Long Tail of Choice”

Missouri Must Get Honest About Toll Roads

Posted on by David Stokes

Via John Combest, the Kansas City Star has an excellent editorial on future transportation funding in Missouri. Key statement:

"Any comprehensive approach should also authorize the use of tolls."

Amen to that. MoDOT simply does not and will not have the money in the long run to build and maintain the transportation system that our state’s people and economy require. Tolls are a way to finance transportation paid for by the entities that use the system. And I don’t mean just allowing MoDOT to build new toll roads. I mean using private companies to build, operate and maintain highways and bridges in Missouri under contract with the state. All options must be available to build and maintain the best transportation system possible. Much, much more on this issue in the future from the Show-Me Institute. 

I Designate Myself the Official Sarah of the State of Missouri

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I like three-toed box turtles almost as much as crayfish. But this still strikes me as a bad idea:

Legislation signed into law Thursday by Gov. Matt Blunt designates the three-toed box turtle as the official reptile of Missouri and makes the crayfish, also known as the crawfish or crawdad, the official state invertebrate […]

Blunt said he assumes there will be more, because children get both a science and government lesson when they research and advocate for their favorite plants and animals.

"It’s amazing what they come up with up," Blunt said. "I’m sure we’ll be stunned by their innovation as we name yet another state symbol next year."

We just can’t have a symbol for every middle-school class in the country. A few symbols are cute. A few hundred symbols are a waste of time on the part of our elected officials.

I’m also bothered by the idea that kids have to get their own law passed in order to learn about the legislative process. Kids can learn about the legislative process by visiting Jefferson City, listening to debates over the internet, or volunteering for campaigns. We would never make sixth-graders governor for the day to learn about the executive branch (although a few people might like that).

Sarah is Brilliant, But Nonetheless Wrong …

Posted on by David Stokes

Sarah Brodsky disagrees with my opinion that there are too many school districts (524 to be exact) in Missouri. Her argument is that choice breeds competition, competition benefits schools and students, and more districts means more competition. She cites a study that proves her point. I don’t doubt the study but it explicitly states that it is measuring and comparing results in metropolitan area school districts, not rural areas. From the study:

That is, the effects are substantial if one considers moving from one end of the Tiebout choice spectrum (a metropolitan area like Miami) to the other (a metropolitan area like Boston). Naturally, most metropolitan areas are between the two ends of the spectrum, and the current variation in Tiebout choice among metropolitan areas explains a modest amount of their differences in school productivity.

My point clearly stated that I think too many small, rural school districts are the primary problem here.  Further, choice is indeed a wonderful thing in many ways, but simple logic dictates that there is a limit to the top number. If 524 is not too many districts, then would we be better off with 1,200? Of course there is a limit to the benefits of choice contained by a large number of districts. I think 524 is WAY too high. The tax dollars wasted by 524 sets of administration, upkeep on a large number of underattended schools, and much more, clearly tell me the number should be much lower. What should it be? I have no idea, but cutting it in half would be a good start — and still give Missourians plenty of choice.

There is such a thing as too much choice. This article sums up the various ideas very well. From my own experience as a recent father, I would call it the "Babies ‘R’ Us" dilemma. If one company had a monopoly on making baby bottles, that would be terrible. Just two companies is better, but still bad. But at some point, the variety of choices leads to diminishing returns. Just go to "Babies ‘R’ Us" and try to decide which of the two dozen brands of bottles is right for your child. If you are like me, you quickly realize that the amount of time spent trying to determine that answer would be an enormous effort that would almost certainly result in more or less a tie among the products. So you just trust that "Babies ‘R’ Us" has tested them all, and buy the ones on sale.

The More the Merrier

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Blogs are no fun if all the contributors echo each other. To prevent that from happening here, the Show-Me Institute hired both me and Dave Stokes. I must disagree with Dave’s post arguing that Missouri has too many school districts. As Caroline Hoxby has shown, more districts mean more competition, which leads to higher student achievement per dollar spent. When families move to an area, they usually look at the different available school districts before buying a house. They have more options in areas where there are many different districts.

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