Page 967 – Show-Me Institute

State Takeover vs. Mayoral Control

Posted on February 15, 2007May 5, 2026 by Timothy B. Lee

We’re one step closer to a state takeover of the Saint Louis school district:

The State Board of Education voted this morning to take the first step to intervene in the St. Louis Public Schools, despite parents and teachers who disrupted their meeting.

The final step hinges now on whether the district is awarded provisional accreditation. That decision is expected as early as Feb. 28.

At that time, the board the board is expected to vote to intervene in the St. Louis Public Schools, a move that will alter the oversight and operation of Missouri’s largest school system for up to the next six years — and also trigger legal challenges.

The idea of a state takeover is bound to make a lot of Saint Louis residents uncomfortable. The Saint Louis school board may not be perfect, but at least it’s elected by Saint Louis voters. Why should a state board of elections?most of whose members are not from Saint Louis?have a say in the running of the Saint Louis school system?

That’s why we asked Frederick Hess to look at another option that might preserve local control while giving the district the focus and accountability it so desperately needs. As Frederick Hess argued in an op-ed last month and a recent Show-Me Study, mayoral control can provide the leadership required to make the tough choices that will be required to improve the plight of the Saint Louis schools. And it does so in a way that leaves control over the district firmly in the hands of people who were directly elected by the Saint Louis voters.

The Economics of Midwifery

Posted on February 15, 2007May 5, 2026 by Timothy B. Lee

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch reports on the raging controversy over liberalizing laws that now bar midwives from delivering babies without the supervision of licensed doctors:

Missouri has one of the most restrictive laws in the nation, allowing only certified nurses to become midwives, in partnership with doctors. The bill would allow so-called direct-entry midwives to also practice, provided they meet certain certification requirements.
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Currently, direct-entry midwives in Missouri can face felony charges for assisting in births. In most states, including where many of Grisamore’s children were born, that’s not the case.

“This is about giving families a choice in the direction of their health care,” he said.

On Wednesday, Grisamore joined an unusual coalition of legislators, Mennonites, Amish and advocates of home birthing to push for the bill.

Doctors raise concerns about the patient safety, but these aren’t fly-by-night midwives we’re talking about. The legislation would require midwives to either have 2 years of training and experience with 20 births, or have been a practicing midwife for five years. It’s possible that giving birth with a midwife is a little bit riskier than giving birth with a doctor, but in a free country, an expectant mother should be allowed to assess the risks and make a choice for herself.

The big effect of the midwife bill that medical associations don’t talk about is that opening up the market will increase competition and reduce the salaries of doctors. Although doctors might not like that, it would be a good thing for the rest of us. The United States has millions of patients who are unable to see a doctor at all due to soaring health care costs. If midwives can deliver babies nearly as well as doctors at a fraction of the cost, it makes sense to have doctors tend to more patients who really do require the services of doctors, while midwives deliver more babies.

Missouri Should Open Cable TV Market to Competition

Posted on January 26, 2007May 5, 2026 by Sarah Brodsky

A few decades ago, cable TV looked like a monopoly that was here to stay. Missouri passed cable franchise laws, which require cable companies to go through a time-consuming process to obtain permission to operate from local governments. One rationale was that franchise laws would protect consumers, but now that new technologies have sprung up that offer alternatives to cable, those outdated laws actually keep potential competitors out of the market. Missouri should pass cable franchise reform so consumers can enjoy lower prices and better service.

Cable franchise requirements probably sounded like a good idea back in the days when cable TV was a new, expensive luxury. Once a cable company had built out a network in any particular area, so the argument went, it was unlikely that another company would try to operate there too. That would require a huge initial investment just for the chance to pull away a few dissatisfied customers. Since only one cable provider would be available in a given location, requiring it to negotiate a franchise agreement with the local government was a way to hold down the monopolist’s prices. Besides, some kind of restriction was needed on laying new cable through public rights-of-way.

Missouri’s current cable franchise law is based on this argument. But the description of cable companies forming natural monopolies no longer holds true. The demand for cable TV has soared; today 67 million U.S. households subscribe to cable. New technologies were developed in response. Satellite TV now competes with cable in providing multichannel video programming services. Economists have found that competition from satellite TV forced cable rates down, so that consumers pay $4 less each month than they would if cable companies were still calling the shots. That adds up to over $3 billion in savings a year for U.S. consumers. The competition has even spurred cable companies to improve the quality of their services and to offer more channels.

When Missouri’s cable franchise law was passed, no one imagined cable TV would face competition from the phone companies. Today, technology allows phone companies to compete with cable over wide areas. After Texas enacted telecom reform in 2005, AT&T invested $800 million in order to provide video services to customers throughout the state. These technological advances mean that cable companies can’t monopolize local markets. And they show that the current cable franchise law isn’t needed to protect public rights-of-way either—phone companies use the rights-of-way already. Permitting them to provide video services wouldn’t impose any new demands on public areas.

Missouri’s cable franchise law doesn’t protect consumers, but it does protect cable companies. Negotiating franchises with every municipality in the state takes a long time. States like Texas that issue statewide franchises will see new investment and better deals for consumers right away. Missourians, on the other hand, will have to wait while potential competitors to the cable companies wade through the cable franchise bureaucracy.

In place of the current cable franchise law, Missouri should allow companies that want to compete with cable to apply for a statewide franchise. Any necessary regulation could be handled once at the state level, rather than replicated wastefully in every municipality. Consumers in California, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, and the other states that have passed cable franchise reform will benefit from competition. Missouri should open its cable market to competition too.

Sarah Brodsky is a research assistant at the Show-Me Institute.

School Takeover Requires Mayoral Commitment

Posted on January 8, 2007May 5, 2026 by Fredrick Hess

The Saint Louis school board has descended into chaos. The previous superintendent, Creg Williams, was ousted in July after just 15 months on the job. Board president Veronica O’Brien championed the selection of Diana Bourisaw as Williams’s replacement. But just three months later, the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the two women were barely on speaking terms.

Shifting political alliances and personality conflicts have produced six superintendents in the last five years. This has made it difficult for superintendents to set long-term goals, and made it impossible for the fractious school board to hold anyone accountable for their results. It is simply naïve to imagine Saint Louis schools will improve amidst this kind of discord and leadership turnover. What the district needs is decisive, consistent leadership.

As I argue in a forthcoming study for the Show-Me Institute, mayoral control of urban school districts can help bring to cities like Saint Louis the focus and consistency that is lacking. Boston is a model of how this can work when done well. Boston’s mayor was given control of the school board in 1991 and a few years later tapped Thomas Payzant, an official in the Clinton administration’s Department of Education and former San Diego superintendent, to run the system. In 2006, Payzant concluded a heralded 11-year run, as the district claimed the Broad Prize for Urban Education. Consistent mayoral support from the stolid Tom Menino throughout Payzant’s tenure gave him the time he needed to right a troubled district.

A similar success story may be unfolding in New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was given control of the New York City school board in 2002. While they have not proceeded without controversy, Bloomberg’s policies have generally received high marks. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has singled out the gains by minority students in New York and Chancellor Joel Klein has become a national voice for aggressive, focused urban reform. It is too early to judge the success of the Bloomberg-Klein reforms, but it is clear that they have moved New York past the confusion and petty turmoil that currently bedevils Saint Louis.

On the other hand, Washington, DC, offers a cautionary tale. In 2000, the D.C. school board was amended to include four mayoral appointees and five members elected by the public. This “hybrid” model was hailed as a superior alternative to straight mayoral control, and its backers included Mayor Anthony Williams, the Washington Post, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and the Federal City Council. Six years later, the hybrid design is widely regarded as ineffectual, especially with a mayor whose attention to schools was flitting and whose energies were concentrated elsewhere. Williams himself has described his partial authority over the D.C. school board as “trying to drive a car with one pedal.”

There is reason to believe that mayoral control of large urban districts offers a better chance for disciplined oversight, real accountability, and sustained focus than does continued control by an elected school board. But in order for mayoral control to work as intended, careful attention must be paid to how the reform is executed. In particular, it is absolutely critical that Mayor Slay demonstrate a willingness to mobilize support and expend political capital on behalf of a coherent reform agenda. Such action will require the backing of business and civic leaders in Saint Louis. Those leaders, in turn, must be willing to hold the mayor’s feet to the fire, insisting that he set clear goals for the district, establish meaningful benchmarks, and do what is necessary to see that district officials are getting the job done.

Absent this commitment, a takeover will do little more than increase confusion. Meanwhile, a poorly-executed transfer of authority could yield new problems by reducing transparency, making it harder for local voices to get a hearing, and further insulating district leaders from at least rudimentary democratic oversight.

Mayoral control is no quick fix or panacea. But as Boston and New York show, if pursued thoughtfully, it can invigorate school improvement. If Mayor Slay is willing to make school improvement the centerpiece of his administration, and if business and civic leaders are willing to throw their weight behind the mayor’s agenda, it could offer new hope to the nearly 40,000 kids in Saint Louis schools.

Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming study from the Show-Me Institute on mayoral control of urban school districts. He holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

Imagine you sign a two-year lease with your landlord. After the first year, you decide you’re tired of paying rent and would like to buy the property instead. You make him an offer, which he rejects as too low. In response, you go to the board of aldermen and ask them to declare the apartment blighted, condemn it, and turn it over to you for redevelopment.

The Gentry’s landing apartment complex. The fence in the foreground surrounds a supporting cable for a crane that’s being used for new construction across the street.

It might sound absurd, but something very similar is happening right now in Saint Louis. The story demonstrates just how ripe for abuse Missouri’s eminent domain laws have become. And there’s little reason to think the eminent domain bill the state legislature passed in May will prevent such abuses in the future, because the “blight” loophole being used by the city was not closed by the legislation.

When you think “urban blight,” you probably don’t think of the downtown Radisson. The Radisson is one of three skyscrapers built on land leased from Florida real estate developers John and Joe Seravalli. The other two are apartment buildings: the Mansion House and Gentry’s Landing. The owners of the buildings pay rent for the use of the land under leases that last for decades.

A view of the Mansion House apartment as seen from the “blighted” courtyard that lies between the Mansion House and Gentry’s Landing.

Gentry’s Landing is owned by Integrity Real Estate, headed by Peter McCann. For years, McCann has expressed interest in purchasing the land under his building from the Seravallis in preparation for building renovations, but they have not been able to agree on a price. In 2001, McCann began hinting that if he didn’t get a “reasonable” price, he might ask the city government to condemn the land and turn it over to him for redevelopment. Those threats became more overt in 2005, with warnings that he would have “no choice” but to pursue condemnation of the land if a deal was not reached. When the Saravallis continued to refuse McCann’s terms, McCann made good on his threat. On April 28, 2006, the city of Saint Louis notified the Seravallis that they would have to sell or have their land seized using eminent domain.

The neighborhood in question does show some signs of neglect. The city declared the area to be blighted back in 1989. Today, retail space along the street includes a payday loan shop and a couple of vacancies. The Gentry’s Landing apartment building is beginning to show signs of age. But it’s not obvious why the blame for those problems should fall on the Seravallis, who only own the land underneath the complex, rather than McCann, who owns and operates the facility itself.

The lobby of the “blighted” downtown Radisson hotel, on the same block as Gentry’s Landing.

The Seravallis contend that the reason is politics: that McCann and the city are conspiring to take their land for below its fair market value. They have filed suit against the plan, asking why, after 17 years of inaction, the city has suddenly become interested in redeveloping the neighborhood.

The story illustrates how precarious property rights have become in Missouri. Property rights should not depend on whether you have connections in city hall. The eminent domain legislation passed in May is unlikely to solve the problem. The legislation does require that blight determinations not be “arbitrary or capricious or induced by fraud, collusion, or bad faith.” But it’s difficult to prove bad faith in court, and judges have historically been reluctant to second-guess the decisions of legislative bodies. Such vague rules are unlikely to be much of a deterrent.

Some retail stores down the street from Gentry’s Landing.

More importantly, the legislation did not close the “blight” loophole, which has become one of the most common justifications for the use of eminent domain in Missouri. The legislation sets a 5-year time limit on blight designations, but it allows city legislative bodies to renew the blight designation indefinitely. And the legislation does not tighten the definition of blight, leaving city officials with wide latitude in defining the term.

The power of eminent domain has traditionally been used for public uses like roads, police stations, and hospitals. The Seravallis’ battle with the city of St. Louis illustrates how far we’ve strayed from that ideal. Although the proposed redevelopment might result in increased tax revenue for the city, the primary beneficiary is clearly a private real estate developer. And any incresed tax revenue would come at the cost of weakening property rights for everyone.

The Seravallis are successful commercial real estate developers who can afford to hire the best legal talent to defend their rights in court. They may ultimately prevail. But the battle will take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Few homeowners could afford to mount that kind of legal defense. If property rights in Missouri aren’t strengthened, the big losers won’t be wealthy businessmen like the Saravallis, but ordinary homeowners who won’t have a prayer of standing up to unjust seizures of their land.

Timothy B. Lee is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute.