Page 943 – Show-Me Institute

There Are Way Too Many School Districts In Missouri!

Posted on June 21, 2007May 5, 2026 by David Stokes

The Post-Dispatch has an article today on Fort Zumwalt School District in St. Charles County opening its fourth high school next school year. This puts Fort Zumwalt in select company, as one of only six school districts in Missouri with four high schools, out of more than 500 school districts. Others may read this article and want to congratulate Fort Zumwalt, which is fine, but I read it and despair over the enormous number of school districts that are tiny and should be forcibly merged with neighboring districts.

Most of the extremely small districts are in the rural areas, although St. Louis County has some, Hancock Place and Bayless mostly, that should merge. It’s not as if these small, rural districts just want to be left alone to operate by themselves. Many of them are currently suing the State of Missouri for more tax money. I hope they lose their lawsuit and the state refuses to increase financial support for any school district below a set number of students.

Missouri has as much duplication in government as any state. The examples abound: too many St. Louis City Alderman, to many St. Louis County municipalities, too many state representatives, too many separate counties, and way too many school districts.

On another note, the new school, Fort Zumwalt East, has chosen its new mascot and colors: the Lions, and black and gold. Nice to see they are starting off the new school by copying everything from University City High School. Next, I bet Fort Zumwalt will put enormous lion statues at the entrance to O’Fallon.

To Each His Own

Posted on June 21, 2007May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

On Missourinet, a post encourages all of us to serve on state boards:

Jessica Robinson with the Governor’s office says there is bound to be a board or commission that appeals to just about every Missourian.

No kidding. There’s a Wine and Grape Board, a Committee of Interpreters, a Holocaust Education and Awareness Commission, Interior Design Council, and the Committee of Marital and Family Therapists. My favorite is the Board of Geologist Registration. Members of this board get paid to attend meetings and conference calls about licensing geologists. Those meetings probably seem fun if the alternative is studying rocks.

How About Just Scrapping No Child Left Behind!?

Posted on June 21, 2007May 5, 2026 by Maurice Harris

An article in the St. Joseph News Press (via Combest) discusses Rep. Sam Graves’ (R-MO) move to make No Child Left Behind more flexible for the states to implement:

Congress should cede more accountability for student academic progress to local school districts, teachers and parents, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves told educators Wednesday. In addition, the Northwest Missouri congressman said No Child Left Behind legislation should look to growth-based models as more fair and accurate ways to track grade-level proficiencies.

We need to be a little bit less rigid with the expectations, Mr. Graves, a Tarkio Republican, said.

Better yet, how about removing the federal government from its role in education altogether. No Child Left Behind and other federal interjections into school has not helped improve schools one bit. In fact, they have probably made schools worse-off, because they had to meet federal regulations to receive federal money. Only through harnessing the distributed knowledge of local educators who know the tendencies of their own school districts, rather than a burdensome federal bureaucracy that is stuck in DC, can a school district reach its potential.

Pathbreaking Reform – In Missouri!

Posted on June 21, 2007May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

Thanks are again due to Combest for linking to a letter by state Rep. Doug Ervin Kearney in the Springfield News-Leader:

Less attention has been paid to the Missouri Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act (HB 818) designed to assist small businesses and individuals in purchasing health insurance through a number of innovations predicated on tax equity and portability of health insurance […]

This bill, while getting little media attention at home, is gaining much interest nationally among other states looking for market-based solutions to assist the uninsured and uninsurable. Missouri is emerging as a leader in health care transformation.

While everybody loudly debates the midwife provision that got snuck in, few people notice all the good that the rest of the bill will do. Helping consumers take responsibility for their own health care is big news. Everybody should be celebrating this legislation — even those of us who aren’t practitioners of tocology.

Jetton Spreads the Good News

Posted on June 21, 2007May 5, 2026 by Maurice Harris

An article in the Lebanon Daily Record (via Combest) discusses Rod Jetton’s visit to the Hughes Senior Center in Lebanon to talk about the The Senior Tax Justice Act (HB 444). For the most part, he was discussing the benefits of the bill and why he was so passionate about repealing the tax on Social Security and other retirement funds:

We were one of only 15 states in the country that still taxed your Social Security benefits,” Jetton said to the crowd at the senior center. “It didn’t seem fair to you to pay your Social Security taxes your whole life, and then when you’re 62 and living in Missouri, you have to pay taxes again on the check when you get it. That’s unfair double taxation, and we’re going to stop it this year.

Well, Jetton is a little misleading about the taxes ending this year; the tax cut will be phased in over a five-year period. He is very correct about the state of Missouri being involved in an unfair system of double taxation. It makes no sense when you work to pay your social security taxes over your whole life, and then be taxed on the taxes you paid earlier in your life. It espeically hurts when it’s people who are on a fixed income, who in some way depend on their Social Security checks to get by. Congrats to Speaker Jetton for passing this piece of legislation, and hopefully this will be a move toward more tax relief for Missourians!

State Invertebrate

Posted on June 21, 2007May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

I have mixed feelings about the state invertebrate. (Thanks, Combest!) I love crayfish, and creating new state symbols is about the least harmful thing legislators could do. It’s not like it’s a tax on crayfish. Still, the story bothers me:

The lesson had groups of students studying different types of invertebrates such as insects, millipedes, arachnids, segmented worms and crustaceans. It also asked students to find out whether Missouri had a state invertebrate, and make a case for why a particular one should represent the state […]

After the crayfish won the class vote, students contacted state representative Dennis Wood, R-Kimberling City, who agreed to meet with them.

I think it’s inappropriate to put students in the role of lobbyists, under the guise of studying the legislative process. When Missouri State University asked a student to lobby on a more controversial subject, legislators took that as an opportunity to try to regulate course content.

Furthermore, school assignments should not force political positions on sixth-graders. These kids are not mature or knowledgable enough to consider the pros and cons of legislation. And most 12-year-olds won’t go against their peers and argue that a new state symbol is a bad idea. The assignment didn’t even allow for conscientious objection. Everyone had to vote on one invertebrate, then everyone lobbied for what the group had chosen. From the remarks of the children who were quoted in the article — the more state symbols the better, because we study them in fourth grade — leeches are bad for the environment. You can see that they’re not thinking about this in a serious way.

I Love the Sales Tax Holiday!

Posted on June 20, 2007May 5, 2026 by David Stokes

I stand to respectfully yet strongly disagree with my colleague Sarah Brodsky, over her arguments against the sales tax holiday. The state sales tax holiday occurs each year sometime in August before schools start, and is targeted toward items people need as they prepare to go back to school. Items exempt from the sales tax include school supplies, clothes under a certain amount, computers under a certain amount (these amounts are subject to change), and so on. You don’t get a tax exemption for luxury clothes, top-of-the-line computers, etc. I think this idea is a great one and I wish the state did not allow individual cities and counties to opt out.

When I worked for Kurt Odenwald at the St. Louis County Council, he led the fight to have St. Louis County opt in, and thereby exempt its sales tax along with the state’s for the weekend. As I recall, St. Louis City also opted in because St. Louis County did, and the city and county then saw an increase in sales for their businesses as shoppers came over from Illinois to shop that weekend in Missouri.

Sarah is completely right when she writes that tax policy should be broad-based, fair and consistent. And I agree that it would be preferable to just lower the sales tax slightly year-round instead of exempting it for a weekend. However, this is one case to me where the practical trumps the theoretical. It would be nice to lower the tax year round, but that is not happening. A sales tax holiday is happening, and I think it benefits Missouri consumers and businesses. And if it puts a slight hurt on some municipal budget, you can imagine how much I care about that. About this much.

My Ears are Burning

Posted on June 20, 2007May 5, 2026 by Eric D. Dixon

Just a few days after Paul Jacob mentioned our scholar R.W. Hafer’s op-ed about St. Louis traffic and bridge construction in both his Common Sense radio commentary and Townhall column, Paul has mentioned the Show-Me Institute again in Common Sense — this time quoting a blog entry I wrote last month about Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s fight to reform the congressional earmark process:

Time will tell whether McCaskill sticks to her guns. But McCaskill has supported Republican Senator Jim DeMint’s new push to ensure that earmark requests be transparent, revealing the name of the sponsor and exactly where the money is going. Early moves toward such transparency in the new senate have stalled.

Eric Dixon, an editor at Missouri’s Show-Me Institute, says "We should congratulate McCaskill for sticking to her principles in her fight against congressional earmarks." I agree. I’m cautiously optimistic. Very cautiously, though. Show me!

I made much the same sort of qualification in a blog entry earlier this month. The real measure of a fight for reform is how well it holds up in the long run. Hopefully, McCaskill will stick to her guns.

No Sales Tax Holiday in Jeff City

Posted on June 20, 2007May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

Via Combest, an article in the Jefferson City News-Tribune about Jeff City’s exemption from the sales tax holiday:

City Council members Monday night voted 8-2 for a bill permanently exempting the city’s sales taxes from being included in the weekend-long, back-to-school related holiday that cancels the state’s sales taxes on designated clothing, technology and school supply items.

I don’t love paying taxes, and I’m not a big fan of sales taxes in particular. But I think Jefferson City is right to avoid a sales tax holiday. Taxes should be broad-based, fair, and consistent. Exemptions for specific products on special days cause people to make bad choices as they change their behavior to take advantage of the holiday.

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