People don’t appreciate things that are free, for good reason. One of the most famous insults in film history is on point here, when Rodney Dangerfield notices Ted Knight’s ugly golf hat in “Caddyshack” and says, “I bet you get a free bowl of soup with that hat.”

The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) didn’t give out free soup to riders when it made all transit free in 2020, but it might as well have. Free transit is great if your goal is to turn buses into mobile homeless shelters. If your goal is to provide quality, safe, affordable transit, then making it free is the last thing you would want to do. It reduces revenues the system needs while making ridership a worse experience for more people.

KCATA head Frank White III has acknowledged that security problems have increased under the free fare system. The agency addressed those problems by adding more security and police, which is better than doing nothing. But it is spending more money on security to address problems caused by collecting zero money in fares. No wonder there is a funding shortfall. Austin, Texas, instituted free fares on buses in the 1990s, and crime dramatically increased. Reinstating fares addressed that problem quickly.

KCATA is finally moving toward reinstating some fares, but it won’t go nearly far enough. According to plans, numerous groups, including the homeless, will remain exempt from paying fares. Politicians and other free-transit backers will blame the inevitable decrease in ridership on the fares while overlooking that the free rides for some will continue to make the bus experience so unpleasant that others who need it will choose not to use it. That’s basically progressive public policy in a nutshell: Make local government services equally awful for everyone.

On another transit front, Independence, Kansas City, and several other cities have been experimenting with a different option for public transit: outsourcing it to a private company. Independence had been contracting for bus services with Transdev bus company, but increased costs and low demand led the city to end those routes and that contract. Now, Independence and Kansas City are contracting with the private company RideCo to offer their own version of Uber or Lyft. To save money and time, the IRIS program in KC takes riders to a general area rather than an exact address, so some walking is required (which most Americans, including the author, could use). The IRIS program is subsidized by taxpayers, as public transit generally is. But it charges a modest fare, as it should. The baseline fare in Independence is $5. Some type of fare is needed both to fund the service and address the (both literal and figurative) free rider problems.

Will this new program succeed? I hope so. Such an experiment with subsidized ride sharing can only be done with the private sector. If it succeeds, wonderful. If it fails, the program can be ended and taxpayers won’t be on the hook for it anymore. Engaging the private sector avoids the complex politics of hiring and firing new government employees.

Successful public transit moves people who depend on it to where they need to be in a safe, efficient, and timely manner. The louder supporters of transit often confuse actual success with more grandiose aims: convincing well-off suburbanites to use transit, designing flashy but useless pet projects, or creating utopia by making everything free. For a perfect example of that confusion, see how KCATA is cutting its bus route hours while the flashy and useless (yet expensive) KC Streetcar route is being expanded.

Reinstituting some bus fares and contracting with private operators for rideshare service will hopefully give KCATA, Independence transit, and the larger region the resources it needs. The purpose of transit is to move people who need it, not to satisfy the dreams of urban planners or ideologues. Free transit and streetcars do the latter, but all actual transit users want is a safe and affordable way to get to work or school on time.

The post “Free” Transit Is Anything But appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Current State of Occupational Licensing in Missouri

In 2020, Missouri adopted a form of universal licensing reciprocity, allowing most professionals (there are some exceptions) who have held a valid license issued by another state for at least one year to practice in Missouri at the same occupation or level, and have all Missouri licensing requirements waived.

However, this policy has a little-known exception, known as the “compact exception,” which states:

[Reciprocity] Shall not apply to an oversight body that has entered into a licensing compact with another state for the regulation of practice under the oversight body’s jurisdiction.

A licensing compact is an agreement between multiple states to recognize each other’s licenses, but it is governed by its own set of rules and oversight. One reason that licensing boards like to join compacts is because it makes it easier to process new licensure applications. These compacts act as a central hub with all the information needed for processing the application.

However, due to the “compact exception,” joining certain compacts can increase the regulatory burden in Missouri.  This is because the compact exception overrides universal reciprocity, and boards can limit eligibility to only its member states and those following the compact’s rules. In such cases, licensing reciprocity only extends to workers from other states in the compact, instead of any qualified and licensed person who wants to move to Missouri and begin working. Yet, some compacts explicitly preserve reciprocity and state regulations, and allow the compact to serve as a voluntary option for licensing. Given this, officials must carefully evaluate how each compact would treat our universal licensing regime if passed.

Different Missouri Compacts

Senate Bill (SB) 109 is one compact that may not fall into the trap of increasing the regulatory burden in Missouri. While this compact only has 10 member states, it appears that this compact is voluntary and serves as one option to streamline the transition for dentists and dental hygienists across state lines. It states:

Allows each state to continue to regulate the practice of dentistry and dental hygiene within its borders;”

“Eligibility or ineligibility to receive a Compact License Privilege shall not limit the ability of a Licensee to seek a state license through the regular process outside of the Compact.

Since this compact does not appear to supersede Missouri’s licensing reciprocity, it wouldn’t negatively affect people moving to Missouri.

Always Read the Fine Print on Licensing Compacts

In theory, compacts should make it easier for Americans to move all around the country, but some act as a pathway for asserting regulatory control. A compact can be used by interested industries to raise licensing requirements in states that cut back on regulation, increasing costs for both consumers and potential entrants alike. It is important to read the fine print to ensure that our universal licensing reciprocity is not superseded.

The post Why Does Missouri Want to Keep Joining Compacts? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I think of that again because a new report by the American Enterprise Institute’s Scott Winship, “Understanding Trends in Worker Pay over the Past 50 Years,” addresses the fallacy of that chart and the broader claim that productivity and wages have not grown apace. Contrary to claims from some on both the political left and right, who argue that pay has stagnated despite economic growth, Winship presents evidence that overall compensation has grown in line with productivity when correctly measured.

The analysis begins by correcting misconceptions about wage stagnation. Winship shows that median worker pay, though not rising as dramatically as some top earners, has increased significantly when considering total compensation rather than just hourly wages.

Winship also addresses the discrepancy in pay growth between different groups. He notes that women’s pay has increased more rapidly than men’s over the past several decades.

Winship suggests that instead of accepting a gloomy narrative of failing capitalism or deteriorating worker conditions, policymakers should focus on boosting productivity and enhancing skills among middle- and working-class Americans.

The report paints a more optimistic picture of American workers’ pay trends relative to productivity over the past fifty years. While there are opportunities to enact policies that could improve workers’ economic mobility, they must be built on the solid understanding of wages that Winship advances.

The post New AEI Report Challenges Gloomy Views of Worker Pay appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On Thursday, contractors began to dig into the rail bed on the I-670 bridge to fix a piece of steel track that emerged from the pavement earlier this week.

A streetcar driver noticed the problem on July 4, when the rail popped out of the ground as a train was approaching the bridge. Donna Mandelbaum, a spokesperson for the Streetcar Authority, said the driver was able to stop in time to avoid further damage or injury.

Since then the Streetcar Authority and its partners have been examining the bridge and rails to find out what caused the problem. Mandelbaum said the rail had likely bent because of thermal expansion.

Since then and in the meantime, service along the streetcar will be provided by buses which, if you’re familiar with what Show-Me Institute analysts have said about the city’s streetcar projects over the last decade, is fitting. Buses are faster, cheaper to set up, easier to reroute, and easier to keep in operation. Simply put, they’re better. That for a decade Kansas City pushed to build the line and later expand it despite its obvious drawbacks is a testament to the city’s commitment to dubious transit schemes in service to questionable economic development objectives.

Kansas City may not be alone among municipalities in the misguided effort to resurrect old-timey transit—hello St. Louis!—but the absurdity of using rails like this in Kansas City is accentuated by this tale, where four feet of broken track has shut down four miles of transit service for, likely, four weeks. For shame.

The post More than a Metaphor: The Kansas City Streetcar Nearly Goes Off the Rails appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In the United States, school choice can mean many things. It could involve public schools in open enrollment, or public charter schools, and, increasingly, it can mean choosing a private school via a scholarship tax credit, a voucher, or an education savings account program. I was contrasting choice versus a residential assignment system that does not allow for choice. Residential assignment is what most Americans have in their local public school system. My English colleague didn’t comprehend this. They have choice within their public education system, so he thought I was arguing for a private pay system where individuals must pay for their children’s education.

Once I discovered the misunderstanding, I clarified what I was talking about. He said, “You mean students are just assigned to attend a school based on where they live and don’t have any choice?” When I said “Yes,” he replied, “Well, that’s just a terrible system.”

I couldn’t agree more.

The post Residential Assignment, No School Choice: A Terrible System appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The county library announced Wednesday that the social workers will provide free assistance to connect people with resources and referrals regarding things like child care, health care, parenting resources, housing, food insecurity, substance abuse and jobs.

People used to have neighbors, fellow church members, extended family, or more to help them get through difficult situations. Simply put, you had a community. Now, apparently, you book an appointment at the local library with an “expert” who will likely do very little beyond helping people fill out government paperwork.

I am not just a middle-aged man complaining here. (Well, perhaps I am, but I have some citations.) The changes to our culture in this respect were famously documented in the book, Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. He tells the story of the decline of social interaction (otherwise known as social capital) through the lens of bowling leagues, which not long ago were a ubiquitous pastime for Americans and have now gone the way of the rotary phone. We spend so much time alone interacting with technology that most people, especially those in younger generations, have no desire to join an organization like the Rotary Club. When I speak at service clubs or other groups, I—age 51—am usually the youngest person there.

So why should anyone care how or if people choose to interact? We should care because it matters for our society.  According to economist Isabel Sawhill, “many researchers have found that [greater] social capital is associated with higher economic growth rates, better health outcomes, and more stable democracies.”

The absence of social capital has serious harms. One of those harms for people who don’t have community to rely upon in difficult times is dependency on government. The Obama Administration had Julia, the Biden Administration has Linda. (I don’t even want to guess what type of fictional female character Trump might have created.) Julia and Linda are the fictional characters used in cartoon storylines to joyfully describe how liberal policies will take care of these women and their children (men are never around) from cradle to grave. From child tax credits to free preschool, free community college, Medicaid, Medicare, and scores of other programs, the story depicts a person dependent on government for their entire lives. But that is the all-too-real alternative for people who lack the vital social connections to weather the tougher parts of life.

Interviews with people who have had their residences taken for highway projects, urban renewal, etc., often show that the most devastating part of the process was the loss of community. Everything else can be replaced—but not the sense of belonging to a group of people who cared about you. Churches, neighborhoods, and social groups used to be the charitable foundation of our country. But as those institutions have declined, government is left as the only option when aid is needed. As any political machine hack will tell you, as bad as the service may be, at least it’s something. Too many people are willing to give up too much in exchange for that governmental “something.”

Obviously, the St. Louis County library didn’t cause any of this. Libraries can be a part of building more social capital, among many other wonderful attributes. The social problems I have described require a change to our society, and one that government should only have a minimal role in. But having a taxpayer-funded organization use tax dollars (and private grants, to be fair) to help more people access what will mostly be (let’s not deny the obvious) other tax-funded government services isn’t the answer.

The post Reading Alone appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

How do you feel about book-banning? This question was recently posed at a meeting of about 50 educators. When the question went out to the audience, you could hear the groans rising. The questioner, a librarian, was considering putting a “Banned Books” display in the library. As you can imagine, the educators were all for this. Then something curious happened. In a matter of seconds, the very educators who had voiced strong opposition to the banning of books themselves became book-banners.

Hearing the response to her question, the librarian was heartened. She shared her thoughts on the display and mentioned an example—Skippyjon Jones. Released in 2003, Skippyjon Jones was an immediate hit. It featured a loveable Siamese cat who thought he was a Chihuahua. In 2004, the book won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award from The Association of Booksellers for Children. I began teaching first grade shortly after Skippyjon Jones was released. My students loved it. They would often repeat the refrain from the book, “Yip, yippee, yippito! My name is Skippy Skippito!”

Fast-forward to 2018 and the book was listed as the eighth-most-challenged book by the American Library Association. Finding the book’s portrayal of Hispanics and stereotypes of Latinos objectionable, many have sought to remove the book from public school classrooms.

When that librarian mentioned the book to her audience of educators, I don’t think she expected what happened. The mood turned. The groans of disapproval of “bans” turned to voices saying, “Well . . . that book is problematic.”

You have heard that everyone is a critic. What you may not realize is that everyone is also a censor. Every person believes objectionable or problematic materials should not be given to unsuspecting youth in our public school classrooms. We just define what is objectionable or problematic in different ways.

In recent years, conservatives have been labeled as “book banners” for attempting to keep books that display sexual acts or that teach children about gender ideology from the classroom. The use of the phrase “book banning” is effective rhetorically, but it is not really accurate. The individuals organizing at school board meetings or in state houses are hardly seeking to ban books. Rather, they are seeking to keep some books from being purchased by government organizations for consumption in public institutions. They are seeking to censor what is being presented to children.

This notion of censorship is not a right or left issue and it is not new. Americans have long fought over the content that would be taught and the books that would be presented to children. We’ve fought over these issues for many reasons. Chief among them are that some materials are simply not appropriate for children, and that education has the ability to shape a child’s mind.

Censoring is a rational human response to objectionable material. It is something we do for ourselves, and it is something we do for our own children on a daily basis. Censoring becomes an issue in the public sphere because of how we have chosen to organize our public education system. We compel parents to send their children to school and we condition their receipt of government funding upon them sending their children to public schools. We place parents in a winner-take-all system to determine whose values and whose books are presented in the classroom. As long as we continue to organize our school system in this way, “book banning” will continue to be an issue.

Of course, the system does not have to be organized this way. We could create a system of public education in which parents are empowered to send their children to the school of their choice. We could choose to create a system where parents in the same school district could choose to send their children to different schools based on the quality of education and the alignment of the curricula to each family’s values. Strangely, the very people opposed to “banning books” are often the very people who stand in the way of proposals for educational freedom.

Sections of “Banned Books” may make great library displays or they may help drive sales at bookstores, but the fact is censoring books is emblematic of our public education system. It is not a flaw of the system; it is the design. As the educators I witnessed demonstrated, we are all censors. The question is, are we ready to do something about it? Are we ready to change the system?

The post Banning Books? Everyone Is a Censor appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The FDA decision to loosen regulations has allowed a new market for OTC hearing aids to surface. As tends to happen when the free market is allowed to function, brands now have to compete for the customer if they want to succeed, which leads to much more affordable and better-quality products.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), approximately one in three people between the ages of 65 and 74 and nearly half of adults over 75 suffer from some sort of hearing loss. It’s likely many people don’t want to admit they have trouble hearing and go through the hassle of visiting a specialist, so they don’t take any action to improve their hearing. Hopefully, this increased accessibility of hearing-loss solutions will prompt more Americans to do so. While this is a great step forward in enabling access to hearing aids for the millions of Americans who have mild to moderate hearing loss, those with severe hearing loss still have many barriers, including high costs, to overcome.

To become a hearing-aid specialist in Missouri, a degree in hearing instrument sciences is not enough. A Missouri law requires those who would like to become hearing-aid specialists to obtain and consistently renew a special license that allows them to diagnose, prescribe, and fit people with hearing aids. These sorts of occupational licenses in theory mitigate risks and improve overall quality of services, but they tend to hurt more than they help. A Princeton study demonstrated that even in health-related occupations, “such as dental hygienists, nurse practitioners and opticians . . . licensing restrictions raise the cost of services without improving quality.” The hearing-aid examiner license required by Missouri raises the educational costs and creates barriers for those seeking to become specialists in the field, and in turn likely results in higher healthcare costs for Missourians who need to visit a specialist to obtain their hearing aids.

Kudos to the federal government (something you don’t often hear Show-Me Institute analysts say) for removing an unnecessary healthcare regulation and making hearing aids more affordable and accessible for older Americans. If Missouri wants to help its residents receive more affordable and accessible care, it may want to consider doing the same.

The post FDA Hears the Need for Deregulation appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One of the primary problems in the affordable housing debate is that the phrase “affordable housing” means different things to different people—and, more to the point, that different people don’t know what they might be agreeing to by accepting the premise that housing is “unaffordable.”

What is meant when someone says that we don’t have affordable housing? What if my underlying definition of “unaffordable housing” is “housing that isn’t free”? To have a useful conversation about affordable housing, we must establish some consensus around what our expectations are for both “affordability” and for “housing.”

From my perspective, the first necessary point of consensus has to be that able-bodied Americans are expected to pay at least something for their housing. While that might seem like a superfluous thing to stipulate, it isn’t. If housing is in fact a “human right” as some activists assert, then assigning any dollar figure or percentage of anyone’s income is inherently a violation of that right. What sort of “human right” could be denied on the basis of cost?

If there is an expectation that people (in general) should be paying for their own housing, how much should people be expected to pay?

As the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, notes, there are many ways in which “affordability” can be defined by researchers and policymakers. Researchers and policymakers could look at average incomes in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA). They could use median incomes in a county and establish an absolute floor for affordable housing costs. They could create ratios, they could bundle together utilities with housing costs or not consider utilities at all, and they could transform data in myriad ways to come to reasonable, but radically different, conclusions.

You can see the issue.

But despite the plethora of possible (and possibly contradictory) affordable housing definitions, HUD has generally settled on a set definition of what is “affordable” that it applies to many of its programs. As the department explains on its website:

In the 1940s, the maximum affordable rent for federally subsidized housing was set at 20 percent of income, which rose to 25 percent of income in 1969 and 30 percent of income in 1981. Over time, the 30 percent [gross income] threshold also became the standard for owner-occupied housing, and it remains the indicator of affordability for housing in the United States. Keeping housing costs below 30 percent of income is intended to ensure that households have enough money to pay for other nondiscretionary costs; therefore, policymakers consider households who spend more than 30 percent of income on housing costs to be housing cost burdened.

Defining affordability can be like listening to good music—you recognize it when you hear it, and others may still disagree with you. But the HUD definition would seem to be a reasonable one, and that it has been adopted beyond the bureaucracy as a general rule makes it more compelling as a starting point for this discussion. While this “general rule” is a good starting point, the details for defining “affordable housing” matter, too. More on that in the next blog.

The post Part Three: Does Kansas City Have an Affordable Housing Problem? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Jefferson City is awash in taxpayer cash. Missouri’s state government is slated to receive $2.7 billion in federal stimulus funds from the American Rescue Plan Act along with $9 billion from the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill. In addition, the state expects to bring in nearly $2 billion more in net revenues compared to just before the pandemic. What is disconcerting is how quickly some lawmakers—including self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives—have shed sound economic principles in their rush to find ways to spend the money, forgetting the wise words of Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

The simple, alluring, and false logic is as follows: either Jefferson City spends the money or the funds get sent back to the federal government to misspend on other boondoggles. But Missouri does not have to choose whether Jefferson City or the federal government gets the privilege of misspending taxpayer money. There is another way—one in which state lawmakers apply a strict cost–benefit test to all proposed spending and in which Missouri taxpayers are the beneficiaries of direct fiscal relief from any unused funds that fail to pass such a test.

To begin, it is crucial that lawmakers be aware that misspent money today—even if it has the false appearance of being “free”—can saddle Missouri with fiscal obligations, a weaker economy, or both, in the future. Because the funds are a one-time injection rather than a reliable stream of future revenue, Jefferson City must avoid engaging in spending that creates long-term future commitments (for example, in the form of unfunded maintenance). Lawmakers should also be wary of any government investment that crowds out private-sector investment. Infrastructure spending ought to enhance the private sector, not compete with it.

The other obstacle to sound cost–benefit analysis is the mistaken belief that the cost of the stimulus and infrastructure funds is zero because Washington, D.C., will both supply the money and reclaim any unspent funds. After all, the message to lawmakers has been that states cannot use the money to offset tax cuts. But this is an oversimplification of the options available to state officials. For starters, as long as state revenues stay above their inflation-adjusted 2019 level, the American Rescue Plan Act provides a safe harbor that deems states to be in compliance with the restriction against using stimulus funds for state tax cuts. That inflation-adjusted revenue threshold is likely to be around $10.8 billion in 2023, which is $600 million less than the $11.4 billion in revenues the state is projected to take in. Thus, state lawmakers immediately start out with a cushion of $600 million that they can provide in tax relief without risking stimulus funds.

Second, the American Rescue Plan Act only prohibits state governments—not local governments—from using stimulus funds to offset tax cuts. Moreover, it explicitly allows the state to transfer some of its funds to localities. Nothing in principle stops Jefferson City from distributing money to localities on the condition that they use the money to enact temporary local sales or property tax cuts. When using such transferred funds, localities must abide by any restrictions that apply to the state, but the American Rescue Plan Act does not impose any restrictions on local tax cuts. To create an even more secure legal hedge, Jefferson City could come to an agreement with localities that they use much of their own $1.2 billion in earmarked local stimulus funds for tax cuts, and the state could transfer some of its funds to localities to put toward sound public investments. This way the funds allocated originally to Jefferson City would be used on public investments, while localities would focus on tax relief.

Lastly, the American Rescue Plan Act allows state and local governments to apply stimulus funds toward mitigating the negative economic consequences of the pandemic, chief among which is the decades-high inflation that Americans are suffering through. Seven percent inflation in 2021 caused real wages to drop 2.3 percent, which amounts to an almost $900 “inflation tax” on the average worker. Jefferson City could simply opt to send direct fiscal relief to Missouri workers to offset this tax.

With coffers flush with cash, it is true that state lawmakers have a rare opportunity to make pivotal public investments to improve private-sector productivity. However, they would be wrong to view the money as “free” or the cost of spending the funds as zero. Instead, they should apply the same cost–benefit test that they would use for spending financed from state tax dollars with the knowledge that any unspent money need not go back to Washington, DC—it can end up directly in the pockets of struggling Missouri families.

The post Flood of Federal Money Is Not a Free Pass for a Spending Binge appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But I worry that this key final step—convergence—is being lost in current “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) trainings, in particular those administered to our teachers.

“DEI” can suggest promoting the American melting pot: a breaking down of division in pursuit of a common, more prosperous, more perfect union through which all of our children can pursue happiness. But it can also imply a sociological Thunderdome where self-segregated interest groups battle it out over insatiable racial and cultural grievance.

There have already been hints of this grievance-based approach percolating through DEI materials received for the Show-Me Curricula Project. Eagle College Prep’s DEI materials capture the issue. For example, instructional material for teachers that the Institute requested and received contains the following PowerPoint slide, with the second “cage” figure of particular note:

Elsewhere, a PowerPoint on a “cycle of oppression” implies that non-whites are “colluding or surviving” by adopting notions such as:

• “Standards and norms lived by [whites] are the universal standards and norms”
• “Achievements have to do with me, not my membership in a group”
• “Things are earned through work and merit”
• “Uncapped possibility—life potential based on personal choices”

The graphic suggests that the cycle is broken by “going against conditioning” toward “liberation.” In context, this means rejecting notions of work, merit, free choice, and personal achievement.

Presumably these slides are discussed by an instructor, so there may be nuance that isn’t captured in the slides. But these materials appear to accentuate divides that work against our convergence as a country.

While the focus so far of my transparency project has been on curricula administered to children, taxpayers should also see the “curricula” and training that schools and school districts are administering to Missouri teachers. No one disputes Americans have differences, but a DEI curriculum that exploits and exacerbates them instead of emphasizing the importance of convergence—of our shared enterprise as a single community and single country—is one that does far more harm than good.

The post Complete the Idea: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion—and Convergence (DEIC) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Many Americans don’t know that anti-miscegenation laws—laws prohibiting certain races from marrying one another—were in effect well into the 20th century, including here in Missouri. They were odious laws affecting the marriages of not just the first generation, but of their children, their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children. The generational injustice of such laws was breathtaking.

For the better part of a century, Americans tried to move past this sort of thinking. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” is the American dream, of a world defined not by who your family was but by who you are. It’s the dream of families of all colors that their children will not suffer because of the stations or sins of earlier generations.

It is right and proper that America’s tumultuous racial history is taught in every American classroom. Yet the line between racial understanding and racial grievance can be a thin one, so it’s unsurprising that there has been so much debate recently over the issue of critical race theory (CRT) and whether it should be taught in our schools.

While the precise contours of CRT vary from adherent to adherent, CRT as a belief system posits that white supremacy serves as the foundation of American institutions and government, and that white supremacy is advanced by whites as a class and who, individually, are definitionally racist regardless of their personal views. If the use of “class” sounds vaguely Marxist, it’s because CRT indeed has roots in Marxism, and some of its adherents are plain about their support for the suspension of private property rights and redistribution of wealth on the basis of race. Additionally, CRT (again, generally) gives great weight to ideas of race essentialism (that the color of our skin drives our value system,) neo-segregation (that racial groups should be regularly separated to develop their own identities), and collective guilt (that the wrongs of the past are assignable to racial groups today.)

In other words, it’s a belief system that is in direct contradiction to King’s dream. That, to me, is intolerable, and promoting such a worldview in public schools would be an alarming throwback to the bad old days of legally-enforced and culturally-accepted racism.

Some may feel differently, and that’s their right. But do Missouri parents even know whether their kids are learning this content? Have Missouri schools been transparent about whether and to what extent they agree with the principles of CRT? Parents have a right to know what’s being taught to their children regardless of the subject, but that’s especially true of contentious curricula that use CRT concepts.

For my part, I’d like to think that Missourians will reject critical race theory for themselves and their kids. Maybe that’s because of my own background and upbringing. Above all else, I think most Missourians believe we are all really part of an “American family,” with shared successes, shared disappointments, and shared history.

But being American isn’t about who our parents were or what we look like. It’s about what we choose to be . . . and what we choose to be together. As we look back at our American story, I hope we don’t lose sight of that; otherwise I fear we won’t just be looking back at the past, but falling back into its errors, as well.

The post Yes, We Should Be Concerned About Critical Race Theory appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Fact #1: Our economy and society are increasingly bifurcating along educational lines.

Fact #2: People with bachelors’ degrees are doing much better than people without them.

Fact #3: Not everyone can or should earn a bachelor’s degree. (Okay so this one is part fact, part opinion)

A recent paper by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton showed that while racial gaps in life expectancy are narrowing, the gaps in life expectancy between those with bachelor’s degrees and those without them are widening. And, tracking the last two decades of unemployment data shows that every time there is an economic contraction, those at the lowest end of the educational spectrum are hurt substantially more than those with college degrees. This is reflected in the completely different pandemic experience of more-educated Americans who were more likely to have jobs that could be performed remotely and less-educated Americans who had jobs that had to be performed in person.

If our society continues to cleave along educational lines, there will be serious negative consequences for our politics, communities, and economy.

It is tempting to respond to this problem by saying “Okay, well then everyone should get a bachelor’s degree,” but we know that many good jobs don’t require bachelor’s degrees, many people are unable or unwilling to engage with college-level work, and college is increasingly expensive.

The real question is: Is there another way?

A recent working paper published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University may offer a better way forward. Researchers from Rice University and the RAND Corporation examined occupational credentials—post-high school certifications that denote skills or knowledge relevant to a particular field.

The authors found that certifications increased the probability of employment for workers without a bachelor’s degree by 37 percent. As they put it, “this suggests that occupational credentials act as an important signal to employers in the hiring process, especially for those with less than a bachelor’s degree.” This, as one might imagine, also translates to higher earnings.

It is increasingly clear that students need some kind of post-high school education to access more stable, more rewarding, and more remunerative jobs. Creating quality certification programs and helping link students to the training that they need could go a long way in bridging the educational divide.

The post Are Occupational Credentials the Answer to Educational Polarization? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This post is intended to address a concern that my critics may raise. I can already hear the question: Don’t you think students should have a voice in important issues that affect them and society?

The answer is a resounding yes!

But we can achieve that without pushing a political ideology on students and without the explicit aim of turning students into activists. And, importantly, giving students a voice should not be the only goal of civics education. Indeed, voice by itself is neither a good or bad thing. An uninformed voice can do harm to the individual and society.

The primary goal of civics education, apart from helping students understand how government works, should be to help students be reflective and compassionate individuals. It should be to equip them with the tools to weigh arguments and to decide on a course of action, not to leap to a course of action, consequences be damned.

In their report on action civics, Thomas Lindsay and Lucy Meckler examined 27 political projects listed on the website of Generation Citizen, an action civics organization. Let’s consider just two of the issues noted by Lindsay and Meckler—raising the minimum wage and funding a year-round homeless shelter for LGBTQ+ youth.

Action civics would have the students identify an issue (in this case, poverty), identify a cause (low wages), and advocate for a solution (increase the minimum wage). But of course, there are many other issues at play here. The goal of action civics is to have students do something about the problem. A better goal is to help students understand the issues surrounding a problem. In a discussion about the minimum wage, or any other contentious issue, a good teacher should ask students to consider various viewpoints. If those views do not come up naturally from other students, the teacher should even play devil’s advocate. They should ask: What will happen if businesses are required to raise the wages they pay? Where will the money come from? Do you think this will lead businesses to hire more or fewer workers? Who will be hurt or helped by increasing the minimum wage?

These are discussions students and teachers should have. It is okay at the end of the day for the students to still support raising the minimum wage. It is not okay for them to never hear the other arguments or question their assumptions.

Similarly, consider the project where students advocated for funding a homeless shelter for LGBTQ+ youth. Here is how the discussion between a teacher and students should go: “That’s an interesting idea. How much do you think something like that would cost? And how do you suppose the city should pay for it? Of course, city officials must balance the budget, so the money must come from somewhere. Either they will have to reduce costs somewhere else or they will have to increase revenue. Why does the government have to open the shelter? Is it possible this could be done through private philanthropy?” These are the issues students should be wrestling with.

There is a fundamental difference between the goals of action civics and what I consider to be the primary goals of civics education. Action civics proponents want students to do civics. The goal is to launch students to action, to become activists. But activism is not the goal of education; at least, not in my view.

I believe civics education should help students understand civics and civil dialogue. Not all problems require a government solution and even when they do, not all government solutions work the way we intend them. A good citizen is not one who leaps to action to impose their will on others, but one who reflectively contemplates issues from other points of view. Moreover, as the research of those supporting action civics suggests, most citizens believe being a personally responsible individual who exercises their rights as citizens is exactly what we want to see in our fellow citizens. Action civics downplays this notion of the “personally responsible citizen.” That is simply wrongheaded.

The post Action Civics: Teaching Students to Become Activists (Part 3 of 3) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The iEngage summer camp at Baylor University uses an action civics curriculum. On day one, the students are asked to consider, “What does it mean to be a good citizen?” While this question may sound innocuous, the students are likely guided to a position that many citizens would be uncomfortable with. In their seminal work on the topic, “What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy,” Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne (scholars who heavily influenced the creation of action civics) create a hierarchy for kinds of citizens.

While many citizens support the idea of a “personally responsible citizen,” Westheimer and Kahne dismiss this conservative notion as inadequate for citizens in a democracy. Next, in the hierarchy of Westheimer and Kahne is the “participatory citizen,” who actively engages in community events such as food drives. Yet, this do-gooder is still not quite the right type of citizen for Westheimer and Kahne. The highest level in their hierarchy is the “justice-oriented citizen.” This type of citizen “critically assesses social, political, and economic structures to see beyond surface causes” and “knows about democratic social movements and how to effect systemic change.” Rest assured, this is the type of citizen students participating in iEngage will be pushed towards becoming.

The next few days build on this effort to turn the students into activists:

Day 2 – “How can citizens investigate community issues?”

Day 3 – “What does it mean to advocate?”

Day 4 -“How can we advocate effectively for an issue?”

Day 5 – Advocacy project workday and issue showcase

This is the model of instruction that is being pushed to educators throughout the country. As Thomas Lindsay and Lucy Meckler note in their recent report on action civics for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, much of the language of action civics sounds good. Who wouldn’t want kids to actively learn how government works?

The problem is much more subtle. Students are not learning how government works—they are learning how activism works and, more importantly, they are learning a philosophical view of politics. Students engaged in an action civics curriculum are asked to consider a problem, such as homelessness or income inequality, and then asked to find solutions to these issues Forget for a moment that we are asking students to come up with solutions to perennial problems of the human condition and consider the types of solutions action civics requires of them—governmental solutions. Action civics does not ask students to consider whether it is right or proper for the government to intervene or whether there may be a more suitable non-governmental solution. The only tool in the belt appears to be a hammer in search of a nail

The goal of action civics is not to teach students how government works. The goal is to change how students see their role as citizens, and the model of citizenship that is being pushed is not politically neutral. Indeed, it is a model that many Americans, especially those who believe in a limited role for government, may fundamentally disagree with.

The post Action Civics: Teaching Students to Become Activists (Part 2 of 3) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Though it’s felt like a long time for those of us working from home or locked in small apartments, we are only six months into this economic episode. It’s difficult to determine how much the economic shutdown will affect yearly revenues after only six months, especially since we don’t know when the economy will rebound. With so much unknown, how can Chesterfield have already decided that it needs a property tax? Even if Chesterfield really does need revenue right now, is this the best time to levy additional taxes on citizens when unemployment remains high and businesses still haven’t recovered?

Is Chesterfield really in such dire need for additional funding? This certainly isn’t the first economic downturn that the city has seen and probably won’t be the last, so why does the city seem so unprepared?  Why not shift some budget priorities around until the economy picks back up?

Cities should practice some fiscal responsibility themselves before they ask taxpayers for more of their hard-earned money. Millions of Americans have had to make financial sacrifices as a result of the pandemic; cities should do the same before reaching into the pockets of taxpayers. Chesterfield is probably one of many cities that will struggle with lost revenue, but it appears to be one of the first in Missouri to try and raise taxes as a result. Hopefully this isn’t a glimpse into the future for all of us; a tax increase is the last thing that people need right now.

The post Chesterfield Quick to Demand More from Taxpayers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For Missouri families that might be considering homeschooling, I’d like to share a couple of potentially useful resources.

First, and perhaps most important, is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). HSLDA offers lots of resources on its website, including a state-by-state guide of laws and regulations related to homeschooling. For families worried about running afoul of the law, they can join HSLDA for $130 a year and get access to legal advice and protection as well as a host of other homeschooling resources.

Second, there is Khan Academy. Started as a series of YouTube videos Sal Khan created to tutor his nieces and nephews, Khan Academy has grown into a huge free online repository of lessons and projects for students. It has really stepped up during the coronavirus, creating a fully articulated school schedule for students with all the lessons and supplemental videos and articles necessary to complete it. Again, this is all available for free.

Third, Study Island by Edmentum offers a full self-paced online curriculum for students aligned to state standards. For those families thinking that homeschooling will be temporary and that their children will return to their traditional public school next year, keeping up with state requirements is important. Study Island provides its service for around $180 per student per year (though they do offer a free trial for folks looking to check it out). It is not free like Khan Academy, but is plug-and-play and standards-aligned, two key features that parents under pressure might think are worth the cost.

The fourth resource is Carol Topp, the Homeschool CPA. “Pandemic pods” are cropping up as a popular option for families to link together and share resources as they homeschool for the upcoming year. How can families set one up and potentially hire a teacher or set of tutors without running afoul of non-profit or employment law? This is where a knowledgeable CPA can help. Even for those who are homeschooling independently, tax questions can frequently arise. Her website has lots of free content, and she also offers one-on-one consulting services to help families navigate the homeschool landscape.

If you’re thinking seriously about homeschooling in Missouri this year, you are not alone. There are lots of families in the same boat, and lots of resources out there to help.

If you know of any other resources, particularly Missouri-based ones, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

The post Thinking About Homeschooling in Missouri this Year? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Milton Friedman warned us about this kind of thinking: “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.” Absurd as it sounds, we are approaching that level of thinking.

Take for instance the rise of “pandemic pods” that parents are creating in an effort to educate their children amid COVID-19 school closures. Pandemic pods are taking all kinds of shapes, but generally consist of a small band of parents organizing themselves (and sometimes even hiring private teachers) to oversee the education of their children. These enterprising parents are doing exactly what we would want any rational, thoughtful person to do. Indeed, they are doing the very thing that Alexis de Tocqueville lauded Americans for in “Democracy in America.” After traveling to the United States in the 1830s, de Tocqueville noted, “Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition, are forever forming associations.” They were taking initiative to solve the problems around them.

From that day to today, we have seen this desire to join together for common cause and address societal ills as a good thing. For some, it seems, that view has now changed. Rather than celebrate parents who are finding innovative ways to make the most of the current situation, some are disparaging them and warning that their actions may cause irreparable harm.

In a Barron’s commentary, for instance, R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy suggests “Pandemic pods are a classic example of opportunity hoarding.” He goes on to argue: “like other forms of opportunity hoarding,” pandemic pods “tend to look as if individuals are simply making the best choices for their family, when in fact their actions will quickly concretize and widen inequalities.”

Similarly, in a Washington Post piece J.P.B. Gerald and Mira Debs equate pandemic pods to white flight. They warn, “These personal decisions, however, have a collective consequence.”

It seems Lewis-McCoy, Gerald, Debs, and others are viewing this issue through an equity lens only. On one hand, their analysis is right. When some individuals take an action that is in their own interest, it may very well create inequity. Indeed, that is the very nature of action! Any time one individual or group of individuals undertakes an activity that is designed to improve their life, they are by definition going to create some form of disparity between their station and other people’s station. Greater inequity will arise here if only affluent parents are able to organize better learning opportunities for their children.

It is in the solution, however, that these folks fall short. Lewis-McCoy has suggested we should “dissuade” parents from forming these pods. Gerald and Debs argued that instead of trying to address the problem themselves, parents should “stay and fight” for a better educational system.

Like the government handicappers of Harrison Bergeron, their solution is to stifle the creativity and opportunity of some individuals. This is what happens when you look at things ONLY through an equity lens.

Societal change and improvement are made by encouraging innovation and free association, not by stifling them. Our goal should not be to stop affluent parents from attempting to help their children, but to empower less-affluent families to do the same. We do this by increasing educational options, not by decreasing them.

Don’t get me wrong. Equity is important and we should all care about the health and welfare of the least advantaged in our society. To finish the Friedman quote: “A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”

The post The Danger of an Equity Only Lens in Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In Springfield, Missouri, for example, school officials announced students would not be returning full-time in the fall. Instead, they will be on-campus two days a week and online the other three. Many parents, especially those whose lives and careers have been greatly impacted by the COVID-induced school closures, are unhappy with this arrangement. Thus far, more than 800 people have signed a petition for the school to offer more in-person learning.

During these strange times, it is clearer than ever that a single school bureaucracy simply cannot meet the varied needs of every student and every family. Should a family with health challenges be left with no virtual option because most of their neighbors want to resume in-class schooling? Should a single mother be forced to choose between putting food on the table and educating her child if schools remain closed?  The obvious answer is a resounding No, but we wouldn’t be in this position if our public education system was set up to fund students instead of systems.

If we allowed people more control over where their educational dollars were spent, we could provide educational options to every family.

There are no easy decisions for school boards when making decisions that affect so many lives. Giving people educational options, however, is a no brainer.

The post COVID Makes it Clear – We Need Educational Options appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For the past few months, Americans have been asked to stay at home, even in situations where they’d normally go to a doctor. Telemedicine was proposed as a solution to this problem—patients could access the benefits of an in-person medical visit without potentially exposing themselves to the virus. So far, consumers are responding.  Just last week, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts reported the demand for telemedicine has skyrocketed, with a 190-fold increase in daily claims and most patients indicating a willingness to use the service again.

Now that consumers and coverage providers recognize the value of telemedicine, the government needs to get out of the way in Missouri. Prior to COVID-19, Missourians faced various barriers to receiving telemedicine services. First, it was limited to doctors already licensed in the state. And second, the doctor was required to physically see the patient in person before they could treat them using telemedicine.

In response to COVID-19, Governor Parson quickly waived those telemedicine requirements. By removing these requirements, Missourians were ensured greater access to care. This move also implicitly acknowledges the negative effects of current law. This past legislative session, Missouri’s policymakers took the strong step of granting license reciprocity to doctors from other states, but hurdles still remain for telemedicine professionals who wish to provide care in our state. Without further action, the currently waived regulations will return once the governor’s emergency declaration expires.

States across the country and health coverage providers alike are warming to telemedicine. Even though our state’s businesses are beginning to reopen, a return to normalcy may not be achieved by many for quite some time. It’s important that those who need to limit their potential exposure to the virus can maintain access to health care services. One of the best ways to do that is to embrace telemedicine and remove the current barriers permanently.

The post Embracing Telemedicine Requires Permanent Change appeared first on Show-Me Institute.