Susan Pendergrass speaks to Mike McShane and Rick Hess about their new book Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College.

In Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College, Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane argue that America has too long suffered from the absence of a robust, coherent, and principled conservative vision for educational improvement. The problem? The right has too narrowly focused on school choice, campus speech, and shrinking Washington’s footprint, while the left has sought to subsidize and supersize the status quo. The solution? An education system imbued with shared values, respectful of family ties, and equipped for the challenges of the 21st century.

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On April 19, 2023 the Show-Me Institute hosted Jason L. Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, at the Saint Louis University Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business to discuss his book Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell.

Jason L. Riley is an opinion columnist at The Wall Street Journal, where his column, Upward Mobility, has run since 2016. He is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and provides television commentary for various news outlets. Mr. Riley, a 2018 Bradley Prize recipient, is the author of four books: “Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders” (2008); “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (2014); “False Black Power?” (2017); and “Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell” (2021). Mr. Riley joined the paper in 1994 as a copy reader on the national news desk in New York. He moved to the editorial page in 1995, was named a senior editorial page writer in 2000, and became a member of the Editorial Board in 2005. He joined the Manhattan Institute in 2015. Born in Buffalo, New York, Mr. Riley earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

About the Book:

Maverick: A biography of Thomas Sowell, one of America’s most influential conservative thinkers. Thomas Sowell is one of the great social theorists of our age. In a career spanning more than a half century, he has written over thirty books, covering topics from economic history and social inequality to political theory, race, and culture. His bold and unsentimental assaults on liberal orthodoxy have endeared him to many readers but have also enraged fellow intellectuals, the civil-rights establishment, and much of the mainstream media. The result has been a lack of acknowledgment of his scholarship among critics who prioritize political correctness. In the first-ever biography of Sowell, Jason L. Riley gives this iconic thinker his due and responds to the detractors. Maverick showcases Sowell’s most significant writings and traces the life events that shaped his ideas and resulted in a Black orphan from the Jim Crow South becoming one of our foremost public intellectuals.

Event sponsored by: Show-Me Institute, the Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, the Sinquefield charitable trust, and Show-Me Opportunity

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But boy, is there a lot of spending—some of which might be justified, such as expanding Interstate 70—but the emphasis on expanding government made the speech basically indistinguishable from a speech by a tax-and-spend liberal. The governor didn’t propose a single meaningful change to the state’s failing education system or suggest a single reduction in government. Nothing about further tax cuts. Nothing about anything truly aspirational, reform minded, or geared toward good governance at all.

It’s understandable that the governor would want to pursue some form of legacy initiative or project near the end of his final term. Frankly, redoing I-70 should be plenty. But programs that permanently expand the reach of Missouri’s welfare state—like a universal pre-K program that the Heritage Foundation has eviscerated time and again—run completely against the small government view that many politicians in Missouri had historically given lip service to.

Perhaps in future speeches and press availabilities, the governor will expand upon his State of the State remarks, adding back in some of the reform-minded small government conservatism.  The legislature has been advocating for a variety of these small government reforms, and I thought the governor’s office was in agreement. The governor can, and should, do better.

The post Missouri’s State of the Bloating State appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Watch the full presentation here:

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Questions may be submitted prior to the event by emailing them to Zach.Lawhorn@ShowMeOpportunity.org and during the event via the Q&A feature on your Zoom screen.

Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a senior editor at National Review, where he has covered national politics and policy for 25 years. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, which syndicates his articles in newspapers across the nation. He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and he serves as a contributing editor to National Affairs, the quarterly journal of conservative ideas. His articles are frequently published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In 2015, he was included in the “Politico 50,” Politico’s list of “the thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter” in American politics.

In 2014, Ponnuru contributed to and (with Yuval Levin) edited the book Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms for a Limited Government and A Thriving Middle Class. New York Times columnist David Brooks called the book “the most coherent and compelling policy agenda the American right has produced this century.” Ponnuru was subsequently featured in a New York Times magazine cover story about reform-minded conservatives. In 2013 he was a resident fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. He is a regular speaker on policy, politics, and constitutionalism at the nation’s leading college campuses and law schools. He also appears regularly on television programs about public affairs. He is the author of a book on the sanctity of human life and American politics and of a monograph on Japanese industrial policy. Previously he has been a columnist for Time magazine and WashingtonPost.com. Ponnuru grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduated from Princeton University. He now lives in the Washington, D.C., area with his wife and three children.

The post Wednesday, May 12 – Ramesh Ponnuru: The Case for a Conservative Economic Agenda appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Andy Smarick is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where his work focuses on education, civil society, and the principles of American conservatism.

He currently serves as the chair of the Maryland Higher Education Commission and was previously the president of the Maryland State Board of Education.

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Click on the link below to download the entire report, or click here to read it online.

The post Missouri at the Crossroads: Government Union Laws and the Path to Successful Enforcement appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I was, after all, a male entering elementary school teaching. There was a chance that I’d give a child a hug or have them sit on my lap and someone would leap to the wrong conclusion. Before I knew it, I’d be falsely charged with some crime. Or, heaven forbid, a student would get hurt while under my supervision and I’d be sued for negligence. Still more likely was that I could be discriminated against, harassed, or targeted by a reckless administrator. Whatever the situation, the message was clear—I needed to join a union for the protection it offered. A union, I was told, would watch out for my interests; it would have my back.

My professors, whom I believe were well intentioned and likely just following the advice they had received, prodded and pushed me to join a student chapter. So, I did. Having spoken with many teachers over the years, I’m fairly confident this is the number one recruitment strategy of teachers’ unions in the state. If I was ever told that a union would help me grow professionally or become a better teacher, it was only an afterthought.

When I began teaching first grade in southwest Missouri, I went from student membership to a full-fledged membership. Over the next two years, however, I began to realize that my beliefs were not in line with the union’s agenda. I supported limited government, individual responsibility, and free-markets. The union, I discovered, did not.

At the same time, I also began to realize that the fear that led me to join a union was based on erroneous information. Lawsuits against teachers are not that common. In a 2009 article in the Journal of School Leadership, Diane Holben, Perry Zirkel, and Grace Caskie noted, “Empirical research on school litigation frequency suggests a decreasing, rather than increasing, basis for fear of litigation, contrary to the common conception.” The likelihood of a teacher getting sued independent of the school is miniscule, and the school district wins these cases nearly 90 percent of the time. Even if I was worried about lawsuits, I found I could get liability insurance through other means. The union wasn’t the only option for watching my back.

Fortunately, I was a public-school teacher in Missouri, where I had the right to work without joining a union. This meant I could not be compelled to join the union or forced to pay dues to support collective bargaining. It also meant that I did not have to financially support causes that violated my conscience. All workers should be so lucky.

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This is your conscience calling. I speak to all of you who call yourselves conservatives – the champions of limited government and economic freedom. Another year has come and gone and what do you have to show for it? “Too damned little,” I say, given super-majorities in both houses of the Legislature and control of the executive branch as well.

Look at what has just happened in the U.S. Congress. With far narrower majorities than you have in the Missouri Legislature, your counterparts on the national stage passed the most important pro-growth tax policy in many years – cutting the corporate income tax to 21 from 35 percent while also allowing businesses to write off the full costs of new equipment to improve operations and enhance productivity. In addition, under the new legislation, middle-income taxpayers will pay about $900 less in their 2018 tax bill than they would under the current law, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Though I may sound critical, I really do want you to succeed – for nothing is gained if you continue to ignore the chastisements of your often-troubled but ever-hopeful conscience. Here are my New Year’s Resolutions for you going into the 2018 session of the Missouri Legislature –

One, don’t be afraid to think big and act boldly. For almost three decades, Missouri has been one of the slowest-growing states in the nation. That alone should tell you that a major course correction is in order – and long overdue.

Two, say “No” to corporate welfare. Slaughter the fatted calves of tax credits for economic development (eliminating as much as $400 million in annual state expenditures).

Three, use those savings to lower taxes for all Missourians – both individuals and businesses.

Four, deregulate, deregulate, deregulate. Nationally, the undoing of many of the regulatory excesses from the Obama administration helped to power 3-percent-plus GDP growth in the second and third quarters. Further deregulation at the state and local government levels in Missouri can have a similarly beneficial effect. The governor’s No MO Red Tape initiative looks like a big step in the right direction.

Five, and this is a plea that is meant not just for lawmakers, but for who believe in the power of free markets: Do not shirk debate and, still more, do not shrink from the important task of ridding young people of the pernicious idea (widely accepted at colleges and universities in Missouri and across the country) that free-market capitalism is an evil system that promotes social injustice.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Free-market capitalism under limited (as opposed to wide-ranging) government is the only economic system that spreads opportunity far and wide and that reliably delivers both growth and prosperity to the many and not just the few.

To you lawmakers, I say, in closing: Good luck on ringing in the New Year with the strength and conviction that come from knowing that you are capable of achieving great things.

This op-ed also appeared in th Joplin Globe.

The post Arise and Shine, Missouri lawmakers: You Have Nothing to Lose but a Long History of Bad Performance. appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Nationwide there are six liberal professors for every conservative professor.

This data point was emphasized in a recent Boston Magazine article in which Chris Sweeny records stories of students and professors afraid to express their conservative viewpoints because of the threat of backlash. While there is no single cause behind this fear, the political composition of colleges’ faculties may be a significant factor.

The 6-to-1 ratio comes from the work of Dr. Samuel Abrams, professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Interestingly, this ratio was not uniform nationwide. Of all the factors he examined—religious affiliations, departmental differences, size of college, etc.—the region in which the college is located had the biggest impact.

The West Coast matched the national average of 6 to 1 and the Plains and Southeast had the most balanced ratio, at 3 to 1. Far surpassing other regions, however, was New England—where liberal professors outnumbered their conservative colleagues 28 to 1.

While it is not surprising that university faculty in New England are more liberal than their counterparts in the Plains region, such a large disparity is disturbing. Moreover, it should concern Missourians that the University of Missouri is currently facing some problems that we might expect to see in New England schools, given their apparent lack of intellectual diversity.

In November, Mike McShane wrote about Mizzou being tied for last place on Heterodox Academy’s ranking of the top 150 universities for their policies on free speech and acceptance of different viewpoints. Since then, Mizzou has “improved,” and is now second to last according to the updated rankings. The University of Oregon, scoring 0 out of 100, is in sole possession of last place. Mizzou scored an underwhelming 6.25 out of 100 points, tying them with Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Rutgers.

While it is unlikely the ratio between liberal and conservative professors will become more balanced any time soon, universities can implement policies to protect the viewpoints of students and faculty. The University of Chicago’s commitment to Freedom of Expression is one such policy Mizzou should adopt.

In their recent paper, Mike McShane and Michael Highsmith wrote:

Freedom of speech and debate is at risk and can be protected. It seems that not a week of the school year goes by without some story emerging about efforts by a student council, residence hall, professor, or school administrator to stifle the speech of students. If we do not impress upon our students the importance of free speech and defend it vigorously, we risk creating a citizenry that does not value one of the foundational values upon which our nation was built. Luckily, institutions like the University of Chicago offer a great blueprint for fostering debate and protecting speech. Mizzou would be wise to study that blueprint carefully.

Even in an environment where conservative students and faculty are in the minority, their rights and contributions can be respected.

The post Conservatives on Campus: A Vanishing Breed? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

kicked off debate Thursday with a speech listing off a “litany of issues with unions,” including several run-ins that … involved racist comments by union members.

The senator promised to continue supporting “rank and file” union members, but added that “labor unions can’t expect carte blanche support anymore.”

The senator has a point here. The interests of the African American community and union leaders are not always aligned, and the rights of minorities are sometimes sacrificed for the good of the politically stronger labor movement.

Ironically, labor reforms such as paycheck protection are about protecting the rights of a minority from the will of a majority. Paycheck protection allows a worker to opt out of the campaign contributions and expenditures of a government labor union. Paycheck protection recognizes the fact that not everyone has the same political views as their union and that this difference of opinion should be respected.

The other labor reforms we’ve discussed, transparency and union elections, are also aimed at protecting a minority from the majority. Financial transparency would allow workers and taxpayers to see how government unions spend taxpayer-funded union dues. Union elections would give workers the chance to de-unionize their workplace every few years. All of these reforms make unions more responsive to all of their constituents, not just the majority. And all of these reforms lead to greater worker freedom.

The next time our elected officials want to take a stand on protecting minority rights, they might consider endorsing public policies that actually protect minority rights.

The post Did the Missouri Senate Sacrifice the Rights of Minorities for Union Executives? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Last year’s paycheck protection bill would have required government unions (such as teachers unions and unions representing state employees) to obtain permission from employees before using dues or fees for political activity. The bill would have required unions to seek permission from employees only once each year; however, for that school teacher or social worker who opposes the politics of union bosses as a matter of conscience, such protection can make a big difference.

Consider the story of Terry Bowman, who started an organization dedicated to providing a voice to union members who feel silenced and marginalized by the union political establishment. Or Andrew Palmer, a public school teacher who started Conservative Teachers of America to provide an alternative perspective on public education. Both of these men bucked the mainstream opinion of their workplaces in order to make sure their voices were heard. This can be hard to do, but it’s a lot easier when the law protects people who swim against the current.

The post Missouri Paycheck Protection Is Back for 2016 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 1937, Roosevelt wrote to the President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a government union, and gave his opinion that employee organizations have a “logical” role in government. Roosevelt believed that government employees should organize in order to ensure “fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions . . . and impartial consideration and review of grievances.”

However, Roosevelt was careful to clarify that “meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.” In particular, he believed that collective bargaining agreements were incompatible with public sector work:

The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

FDR’s issue with government collective bargaining is that in our system of government, “we the people” set public policy through the democratic process. Binding the people to a collective bargaining agreement takes authority away from the people.

FDR applies similar logic to the topic of strikes:

. . . a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. 

The issues FDR was concerned about affect us today. For example, the Monarch Fire Protection District is still bound by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement signed years ago, before voters put a new, pro-taxpayer board in charge of the district. And in University City, unrest with the firefighters union has caused a couple of incidents imperiling public safety. Now the University City firefighters union is using a collective bargaining agreement to try to limit the city manager’s discretion in contracting out for basic services and managing public safety.

Regardless of whether we should go as far as Roosevelt and prohibit collective bargaining in our government, it is important to craft labor relations laws in light of the important differences between the public and private sectors. Laws ensuring that government remains accountable, even when government workers are unionized, could be called Roosevelt laws in honor of FDR’s legacy.

The post What Was FDR’s Stance on Government Unions? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The article argued that Jesus would’ve supported Obamacare. Terry found the use of religion for partisan politics deeply offensive—especially when he was paying for it with his union dues. Terry knew he had to do something.

Terry Bowman would go on to start Union Conservatives, an organization “dedicated to bridging the gap between union workers and liberty, building an organization of like-minded voices, and strengthening unions through conservative principles.” Union Conservatives is a network of conservative union members across the nation who are pro-worker but are tired of union cultures that ignore the conservative perspective.

According to the group’s website, Union Conservatives’ mission includes “providing liberty to union members who have differing political views than their union leadership,” and “reshaping union policy to reflect the large numbers of conservative members.”

Ideally, a union is an organization that tirelessly represents the interests of all of its members. Unfortunately, many unions get involved in political causes that don’t directly benefit their members. Indeed, sometimes a union’s political activities are in conflict with the beliefs of a significant portion of its members. Groups like Union Conservatives are there to provide balance and bring together people who believe in both the free market and their union.

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After all, the government is well-equipped to bust some proverbial knee caps of their own, and it looks like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Labor Department are taking out the big bats. First, it was Boeing’s decision to move some of its operations from Washington state to South Carolina, which the NLRB is now trying to block. This week, it’s the Labor Department’s turn to do some damage, tightening requirements on employers to report their anti-unionization activities. And today, the National Review editorial board lays out the NLRB’s latest plan to help organized labor and make employer attempts to dissuade employees from unionizing that much more difficult.

It is truly worrisome that the small, ideological leadership of these bureaucracies can so easily, and unilaterally, craft American labor law and interfere with the movement of labor without even a contemporaneous, affirmative act of Congress compelling these fresh rule-making activities. We already know that Obamacare didn’t empower the administration to offer waivers to the law. We know that the Obama administration wants to enact gun control through administrative procedure. Is there anything federal bureaucrats can’t do? If not, isn’t that an enormous problem?

National Review‘s Kevin Williamson puts the problem this way (emphasis added):

If you are an entrepreneur thinking about starting a large industrial enterprise, or an incumbent firm thinking about building a new factory or launching a new line of production, you want to know that your tax and regulatory environment is livable — and that it is not going to change at the whim of one or two or three people in Washington, D.C. The NLRB has five seats (and four members serving; there’s a vacancy at the moment). The fact that such a tiny group of unaccountable political appointees can just wake up one fine morning, have some Pop-Tarts, and then decide to rewrite the nation’s union-election rules is terrifying. Such changes ought to require an act of Congress.

Roll out of bed, toast a pastry, pass a rule. Maybe a bat isn’t necessary after all.

The post Pop-Tartocracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That’s a quote from a video published Monday that captures two University of Missouri–St. Louis professors, identified as Judy Ancel and David Giljam, teaching a publicly funded course about labor negotiations. In the video, both Ancel and Giljam seem to advocate in favor of violence, physical intimidation, and industrial sabotage as tactics to be used during labor negotiations.

It’s a stunning video that I encourage you to watch for yourself. If these tapes accurately reflect what’s being taught in those classes, UMSL and UMKC — the two universities teaching the course — have a lot explaining to do. It appears that, at least as far as UMSL is concerned, they’re taking the matter very seriously.

Obviously, the public should not be funding, or be forced to fund, classes that advocate violent and illegal behavior against its citizens. Such instruction is precisely the opposite of what a publicly financed education is about.

But the episode raises another, arguably more important, concern: Is the University of Missouri system really in control of its labor negotiations program, or are labor unions effectively running the show on the taxpayers’ dime?

It’s an open question that needs to be explored, because if unions are essentially writing and teaching the curriculum for these classes and, not only that, violence is being advocated, it’s an outrageous exploitation of regular Missourians.

Unfortunately, there’s reason to believe that some collaboration is going on between the universities and organized labor. For those unfamiliar with the it, the Labor Tribune is a Saint Louis–based newspaper that markets itself as the “OFFICIAL VOICE OF THE AFL-CIO” in the city.

With 110 subscribing unions, the Labor Tribune is the only AFL-CIO endorsed newspaper in the bi-state metropolitan region.

Key word: “VOICE.”

Long before the videos were released, the Tribune promoted the courses that have now been caught on tape as part of a story about UMSL’s Labor Studies Certificate Program. The Tribune’s piece described the certificate program as follows:

The Labor Studies Certificate Program gives current and future union leaders, representatives and activists the background and skills needed to deal with the changing workplace and economy.

With a grounding in history, political science, law and economics, students have the opportunity to develop skills of analysis, leadership and organizing that will provide an equal footing with counterparts in the corporate and political world.

Completion of the program results in 18 credit hours toward a degree and a Certificate in Labor Studies.

Click to enlarge

But was that a news piece, or a press release? The words used in the article are essentially a copy-paste job of the words the university itself uses to describe the program:

The Labor Studies Certificate Program gives current and future union leaders, representatives, and activists the background and skills needed to deal with the changing workplace and economy. With a grounding in history, political science, law, and economics, students have the opportunity to develop skills of analysis, leadership, and organizing that will provide an equal footing with counterparts in the corporate and political world. Completion of the program earns 18 credit hours toward a degree and a Certificate in Labor Studies.

So the AFL-CIO’s “official” newspaper publishes a press release for a program for union “activists,” neutrally describing a program that actually promotes violence and industrial sabotage against Missourians — during, of all things, a recession. Adding insult to not-so-metaphorical injury, the endeavor is supported by Missouri tax dollars.

That’s a big, big problem.

Taxpayers deserve to be adequately assured that their tax dollars are not only being spent wisely, but that those tax dollars won’t be used by special interests as a cudgel — figuratively and literally — against them. Taxpayer-funded education should not be an arm, or a “VOICE,” of special interests, but a neutral arbiter enriching dialogue, not impoverishing it.

Ancel may want to teach a class on irony, too. Note the headline.

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