Susan Pendergrass speaks with Andy Smarick, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, about Missouri’s education leadership shake-up and what comes next. They discuss how to find the right commissioner of education, why outside reformers tend to succeed where insiders struggle, what the dismantling of the US Department of Education means for state accountability systems, why public complacency about poor academic outcomes persists, and more.

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Episode Transcript

Susan Pendergrass (00:00):
Thank you so much, Andy Smarick, for joining once again on the Show-Me Institute Podcast. We love having you on and I appreciate you taking the time. You’re a busy man, so it’s really wonderful to have you back.

Andy Smarick (00:06):
I love being here. It’s a treat. Thank you for having me. I always like talking to you, but also anytime I get to talk about state-level education policy, it’s a treat.

Susan Pendergrass (00:19):
Well, I know that you have experience serving on a couple of state boards, both K-12 and higher ed. Just to bring you up to speed on what’s happening in Missouri: we have a relatively new governor, about a year in, and we had a state board of education where people stayed in expired seats, rubber-stamped decisions, and were very complacent, I feel comfortable saying. Our governor shook up that group and appointed new people who came in and said, what do you mean we don’t have bylaws? It was like, this is bananas. At the same time, the governor issued an executive order requiring letter grades on schools and districts, new school report cards. I don’t know exactly how everything went down, but our Commissioner of Education resigned, our Deputy Commissioner resigned, and our president of the state board of education resigned, all in about one week. So we are now straightening things out and there is a new board president. But this new, relatively new board now has the task of finding a commissioner. The way things have happened in Missouri is we always get a new commissioner from the ranks of the state education agency, maybe from the legislature, always from Missouri. Just a real this-is-how-we’ve-done-it mentality. And we have not been big reformers. No Chiefs for Change in Missouri. Like a lot of states, our reading scores for young kids are tanking, forty percent below basic for third and fourth graders. We have a state accountability system called the Missouri School Improvement Plan in which 516 of our 520 districts are fully accredited and about four are provisionally accredited, none unaccredited. So we have this meaningless accountability system where every district is fully accredited, even St. Louis, which I can’t even go into. So here we are, and I want to know a few things from you. Number one, if you were on the Board of Education in Missouri, how would you go about finding a new commissioner? What would you look for? And then later I want to get into what’s happening at the national level. We are not doing well academically, we have never had a bold reformer in charge, we keep doing the same thing and getting the same result. What would you do if you were in their spot?

Andy Smarick (02:59):
So in education, I’m going to wind up to this answer, so just bear with me for a second. Conservative can mean two different things. One is the traditional conservative view, which is to preserve, to stand athwart big, swift, dramatic, perpetual change. You’re trying to keep things the way they are because there’s a lot of wisdom that has gone into it and people are accustomed to it. In education, there’s also this other right-of-center conservative view, which is we have to be much more open to choice, competition, accountability metrics, and so on. And it seems that Missouri has been one of those very red states that has tended to believe in the first kind of conservatism: protect our traditional school districts, protect the hierarchies we have, protect the tradition of you grow up as a professional, as a teacher, then a superintendent, then maybe go to the state education agency. A lot of people believe that’s the way to do it.

There probably is an ethic among a lot of people to keep it that way. The only way you get out of that is if there’s a recognition among leadership that we can’t continue to preserve the status quo, that we have to change some things. That is a big step for a place that has elevated the idea of preserving for a very long time. If they get to that step, then they have to do the very tough things, which is start to pull out the Jenga pieces of that conservatism. The most important one is having board leadership and having a state superintendent who come from outside the state, and then having a board chair or board president who is not going to just do what the staff of the state education agency says or what the district superintendents say. We saw this work quite well about fifteen or twenty years ago. There was a big movement nationwide in educational reform led at the state level, and a number of states chose out-of-state superintendents and commissioners of education who did a terrific job of shaking things up and advancing a bunch of important proposals. The downside is a lot of them were so brash and so young, and I have to say so cocky, that they made unnecessary waves and kicked a lot of people in the shins in the states where they landed. So my view is a place like Missouri should pick someone from out of state for a state chief, someone with a long track record of success, but someone who isn’t so green as to think he or she knows everything. Someone with enough humility and enough time on task to know what they don’t know, and who can come in and be bold enough to make some changes, but not think that everyone in the state is a dummy who needs to be ignored. That’s how I would think about it. And if you have a board chair and board membership who get all of this, it makes things a whole lot easier. But that might be the hardest part of all. Who is your board president? Who are the board majority going to be? They have to be the ones with the backbone.

Susan Pendergrass (05:57):
Yeah. I feel like we’ve had people come in and say, well, I’m only the commissioner, it’s not my fault that the kids don’t read. And then people say, well, we’re a local control state, so it’s really the local guys’ fault that the kids can’t read. Then the legislators are like, well, who’s supposed to be making sure the kids can read? And technically, kind of they are, but them plus the board, and there’s just fingers pointing every different direction with nobody really taking responsibility. If we had the capacity for hard things, we would not have all of our districts be fully accredited. There’s even pushback on the letter grade idea because folks will say, well, then the teachers in those F schools feel bad and the parents feel bad and the kids who go there feel bad. I’ve seen some states change it to colors or something where nobody feels bad. I’ve also heard folks say it’s racist because a lot of the D and F schools enroll large percentages of students of color. So there are just all of these reasons to resist. It’s going to happen because there’s an executive order, but I feel like we’re going to have a hard time finding somebody who’s willing to do those things.

Andy Smarick (07:17):
Well, your state, like every other state, has a state constitution that makes the state ultimately responsible for education. Your state, like others, has both tradition and some laws that give a number of powers to local districts. The weird thing, and I’ve seen this in a lot of different states, is the state government ends up in a very weird position. The state can get sued and state leaders can get criticized if kids aren’t learning, because the state actually has constitutional authority to make sure kids are learning. But as a matter of practice, and often of state statutes, a lot of this power is delegated to districts. States then try to recapture some of that power through the accreditation system. It’s the way the state can say, okay, districts, you have the power to do these things, but we’re going to hold you accountable for results and we’re going to accredit you or not. And then it turns out it’s virtually impossible to take away the accreditation of these districts because of legislative pushback, and the state typically doesn’t have the capacity to run a district if it does take away accreditation. It just becomes a complete hot mess. That’s why you need state leadership who has some experience but also some backbone to say, this is how we’re going to thread the needle of state authority, state responsibility, local control, and still making sure that kids learn. This is not easy, other states have gone through it, but it isn’t the kind of thing that someone who has lived in Missouri all their life and grown up professionally there can do easily. It’s going to be hard for that person to get out of that box. Having someone from the outside who can start to do some bold things, including hiring smart, tough lawyers, having board leadership who’s going to stick by it. But I just want to emphasize this point: every state I ever talk to begins by saying, well, you know, we’re a local control state, our districts have all the power. Everybody says that. Go back to your state constitution. The state is the one that’s going to be responsible. And if the state has the backbone, it can do a whole lot. But whether it has the backbone is the operative phrase.

Susan Pendergrass (09:41):
Yeah. So about seven years ago we developed our own school report cards with letter grades, called MOSchoolRankings. I’ll just plug it. It was with GPAs, and this year for the first time I just took the GPAs and converted them to letter grades because folks found GPAs tricky. I put up the methodology. I took all the data from our state education agency, DESE, and just tried to make it a map you can zoom in and out on, easier to navigate. And my thinking is you have to do these things, make sure you say how you do it, and then people can argue with you and debate whether it’s right or wrong or good or bad. And many people have. A lot of people don’t like that the average is a C. I’m open to discussing why the average should be anything other than a C, but you have to at some point just make the move and then be confident enough in what you did that you can defend it and change it if people point out flaws. But this is where I think we struggle at DESE. They struggle to just put that out there because they worry about every negative outcome and consequence. And it’s like, yeah, but at some point to not do it is worse than to do it.

Andy Smarick (11:10):
For sure. And I’ve gotten to the point of realizing that if you have been in a system at different ranks for thirty or thirty-five years, all of your friends, your reputation, your pension, your income, everything about your identity is wrapped up with that system. Expecting these folks to suddenly turn the corner and say, you know, we’ve messed up, tens of thousands of kids are not learning right now today in classrooms, and we have to start holding the adults accountable for that, including teachers and principals and local school board members and local superintendents, and we have to be courageous about it. That’s asking a lot of people who are of, by, and for the system. It can be a whole lot easier if you just get someone from the outside with the courage to do it.

Susan Pendergrass (11:54):
Yeah. So can you think of an example of a state that has done this well?

Andy Smarick (12:02):
Definitely during the late No Child Left Behind era and then the Race to the Top era, a number of states found people from outside. Tennessee was famous for this. Arne Duncan ended up going to a couple of different places, including Rhode Island. New Jersey ended up picking Chris Cerf. There was a movement where probably ten or fifteen states did this quite well. My state, Maryland, brought in the superintendent of Mississippi after Mississippi had had so many gains, so she could carry some of those especially reading reforms to our state. This is not uncommon. Texas did something like this for a while. Louisiana became very famous during the John White era for doing this. But in all of these cases it began often with a governor, and then some members of a state legislature who said, we just can’t keep doing things the way we’ve done in the past. We have to do things differently. Once the governor says something like that, he or she can appoint people to the Board of Education who will do things differently, and the legislature, at least his or her party, will start to fall in line, and the media then starts to understand how serious it is. It is hard to do this without the governor leaning forward and giving the blessing to the bureaucracy to do things differently. So the question for you is, is your governor going to spend any political capital on this and say things are messed up and we have to do things differently?

Susan Pendergrass (13:29):
I don’t know. I hope so. But I haven’t seen evidence of that. I suspect, though I could be wrong, that they’re looking more internally than externally. However, I just want to add one wrinkle to this context that we’ve been thinking a lot about at the Show-Me Institute. If you’re following the US Department of Education, I believe you used to work there. Is that right?

Andy Smarick (13:54):
Yes, back in the day.

Susan Pendergrass (13:55):
Last week they moved the Office of Special Education over to the Department of Health and Human Services. They moved the Office of Civil Rights over to the Department of Justice. The building where the Department of Education used to be is now vacated. All those people are over at an old Department of Energy building. It’s a significantly reduced staff. Without touching the Every Student Succeeds Act, they are effectively dismantling most of the structure over there, at a time when the current president said that sending education back to the states was one of his priorities. I’m particularly concerned that at a time when Missouri has this vacuum, we could be looking at the apron strings being cut, states being told to sink or swim from the federal perspective. You don’t have to maintain the accountability systems. The Secretary is encouraging states to submit requests to waive parts of the law. I don’t really know exactly where it’s headed, but that concerns me. Do you think they’re going to let off the gas on mandated accountability systems in exchange for flexibility?

Andy Smarick (15:15):
Such a good question. To begin with just some editorializing: it is astonishing that Congress has allowed this to happen. In general I’m a big fan of decentralizing education power to the states, but that they’ve been able to administratively dismantle a department without Congress doing anything about it is just shocking to me. Even members of the Republican Party twenty years ago, let alone forty or sixty years ago, who jealously guarded the prerogatives of the legislative branch to create departments and fund departments, would have been appalled at this. There would have been unanimous consent to stop this from happening. So that says a lot that Congress has just sort of excused itself from the discussion. It has been remarkable the extent to which that building where we used to work, and the thousands of people there, is just empty, and they are handing off all the tasks to other places. I don’t know how this is legal, but I guess they’re figuring out a way to do it.

Now, the people who are leading this from inside genuinely believe that education will be better off if Uncle Sam isn’t meddling in it so much. That requires a theory of action, or at least a theory, that the reason why things are bad is that Uncle Sam is causing them to be bad, as though if Uncle Sam backs up there’s going to be a sunnier future ahead. Or it requires believing that it is just morally wrong for Uncle Sam to get involved, and whether states sink or swim after he gets out, that’s up to them. That’s a theory, it’s an ideological approach, and they have the right to pursue it. Donald Trump was elected and he gets to hire who he wants to. But then, to your point, it starts to implicate the Every Student Succeeds Act, which still requires the federal government to do some things related to state accountability systems. And if you believe you have the power administratively to undo a cabinet department, I suspect you probably believe you have the power to ignore some federal accountability provisions and just allow states to do what they want. So we’re going to be left in this position of saying, all right, the federal government is getting out of the business of accountability, therefore the states need to do it well. And then anyone who cares about kids learning will ask, okay, are states going to do this well? And so I turn to you as a state leader. Is Missouri going to

Susan Pendergrass (17:23):
Yeah.

Andy Smarick (17:47):
kick butt and take names?

Susan Pendergrass (17:48):
I’m concerned. I mean, No Child Left Behind was difficult and a lot of people didn’t like it, but test scores went up. Strict accountability, test scores went up. As we backed off, the Race to the Top era with waivers, and then Every Student Succeeds, which allowed more waivers, states were able to lower a lot of bars. Some states raised bars, like you mentioned, Mississippi and Louisiana. Some states are doing a great job, especially with early literacy. Others are not. And so Missouri, I think of it like this: you have a college student and you’re paying all their bills. You’re writing the checks, ordering their textbooks, doing all that work. Then one day you say, you know what, instead of that, I’m going to give you $3,000 a month: you pay your rent, your utilities, get your own books. There are going to be kids who step up and do fine. And there are going to be a lot of kids who take that $3,000 and immediately go to Cancun. We know this. It kind of depends on what you’ve done with the kids so far. And I feel like we have lulled the states into a feeling of compliance. If we just tell you how we spend our Title I dollars, fill out this form, and report that our test scores keep going down, no one cares. There’s no stick. They don’t withhold the money. We just say our test scores this year are lower than last year, and they say, good to know, here’s your

Andy Smarick (19:14):
Yep.

Susan Pendergrass (19:22):
check. So if that’s how you were raising your kids so far, why would you expect them to step up and become suddenly responsible?

Andy Smarick (19:31):
Okay, I have to admit that I have learned a hard lesson in my years doing education policy, which is that I was wrong that the political system of its own volition will always push for big action to make sure schools are great. I believed that if we had accountability systems showing that schools were underperforming, there would be a perpetual energy within the public to say we have to fix this, that it was just a matter of making the knowledge available and then everything else would take care of itself. It turns out it just doesn’t work that way. You need leaders at the top to constantly push and say, we are not doing well enough, we have to do dramatic things to make sure kids are going to be better off. Otherwise, No Child Left Behind is in place for a while and then people get sick of it. Or you have some interesting testing regimes and then there’s pushback to that, or just resistance to Uncle Sam in general. And people like the two of us say, but kids aren’t learning anything anymore. We are seeing a cratering of student learning since the peak of No Child Left Behind’s learning gains. This is horrible. Kids just aren’t learning anymore. The Andy of twenty years ago would have assumed the nation would revolt and say, how dare we do this to our schools and our kids, we have to do something differently. Instead, I don’t want to say it’s crickets, but there has not been a major wave of energy to change things again. The only way to do this is for governors or presidents to say this is not good enough and keep pushing. It is the ultimate dog that didn’t bark. The story is why something isn’t happening. If things are so bad in student learning, why is there not a dramatic energy within the public to do things differently? So maybe I look to you. In Missouri, are people just satisfied? Do they just not want the hassle?

Susan Pendergrass (21:28):
Why do you think? Yeah, they are like, we love our schools. All the time: we love our schools. We love, love, love our rural schools. It’s hard, kids show up with a lot of baggage, it’s just hard. But we love our schools. God forbid we have tiny districts getting below fifty kids. We love it. There isn’t an appetite to say, well, thirty-some percent of our rural high schools don’t offer calculus, and we don’t think we need it. It’s like, well, those kids are going to join a world where a lot of other kids had access to these things. It’s just, I don’t know the word. Complacency for sure. And it gets exhausting to continue to talk about it because it feels like

Andy Smarick (22:20):
Yeah. So this is why it can feel that way. And listen, if I were a state superintendent, based on the things I have learned, I would always begin a big reform movement by saying, first, all of the things you just said, but sincerely, because I believe this. I would say I love our public schools. I know how much they do for kids. I know that we love our teachers. I know that these schools are part of the community. I know that they help shape young people in ways beyond reading and math scores. I know that we love to go to these sports events. I know that we love to go to our fifth-grade graduation. This is an important strand in the fabric of our community. We love these schools, we love our teachers, we need to protect them, and we have to do better. What I found in that previous movement of big, dramatic out-of-state actors who came in and took over is they were awesome at the we-have-to-do-better part and absolutely lousy at the we-love-the-schools-and-teachers part. And that just caused a lot of anger. It was toxic in the long run. It is so important to a state to hear the we-love-our-schools message. That’s why they end up picking leaders, board presidents and superintendents who are of the system, who sincerely love their schools and say that. But they’re bad at the second part: we have to do things differently. The key to leadership right now is finding someone who can say both. We love these schools. We love public education in our communities. But Lord, our kids deserve a whole lot better than this. We have to do some things differently. That’s a rare leader.

Susan Pendergrass (24:00):
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a great place to end, because what else can you say? That’s awesome. That’s what we’re looking at. We’re going to find out soon, and not just Missouri. Many states have the same problems. I would love to have you come back again, Andy. We love having you.

Andy Smarick (24:16):
I love getting emails from you or Zach asking me to come on. I’m happy to give my bad opinions on anything.

Susan Pendergrass (24:23):
No, you have such a good, crystallized view of these things, and your experience on state boards is invaluable. I do appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time. I know you’re busy and hopefully you’ll come back soon.

Andy Smarick (24:40):
Whenever you call. Have a great summer.

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post The Case for an Education Outsider in Missouri with Andy Smarick appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The authors note that how time is used matters, as it can be difficult to convert total scheduled hours into actual instructional hours. The amount of time at recess, the use of substitute teachers, snow days, etc., all can have an impact on student learning and diminish instructional time.

In their case study of the Providence Public School District in Rhode Island, Kraft and Novicoff estimate that elementary school students lose 16 percent of their instructional time, middle school students lose 21 percent, and high school students lose 25 percent. They observe that unexcused student absences account for the largest portion of the lost time (Missouri has a serious chronic absenteeism problem), but outside interruptions and teacher absences also have an impact.

The authors note that “most school systems which (sic) substantially increase total time are able to convert this additional time into at least small gains in academic achievement.” Essentially, even if the time is used poorly, there are gains to be made just by scheduling more hours in school.

In the paper, which uses national 2017–2018 statistics, Missouri ranked 46th in average number of instructional days and 24th in average number of instructional hours. It must be noted that these were our rankings prior to the passage of Senate Bill 743 in 2018, which removed the requirement for a minimum number of school days starting in the 2019–2020 school year. That was the same year the COVID-19 pandemic broke out—leaving in its wake an immense loss in instructional time, and a need to catch up.

Rather than increasing time to make up for the lost hours, Missouri schools have decreased hours—between 20-30 fewer hours per year on average. This is a small decrease, but it’s a puzzling decision given how much COVID set students back.

Test scores have been decreasing over the last three years as well. In 2019, 39% of Missouri 4th graders scored proficient or higher on the math portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and 34% scored proficient or higher in reading. In 2022, these numbers dropped to 34% and 30%, respectively. Missouri 8th graders fared no better, dropping from 32% in math and 33% in reading to 24% and 28%.

Similarly, on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP), Missouri 4th and 8th graders have failed to bounce back from the pandemic drop. In fact, English/language arts scores are actually lower than the post-COVID year (2020-2021). In the 2021–2022 school year, 46% and 49% of Missouri 4th and 8th graders, respectively, scored above proficient. In the 2022–2023 school year, those scores fell to 43% for 4th graders and 46% for 8th graders.

Missouri students are losing out on instructional time, and our test scores are falling. There may be several reasons why scores are declining, but less time learning seems to be at least part of it. The evidence from scholars such as Kraft and Novicoff—along with common sense—makes it clear that kids are going to learn less if they have less instructional time.

Our students should be going to school more, not less.

The post Are Missouri Students in School Enough? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The United States is known for its diversity: from our landscapes, to our immigrants, and to the different states across the nation—the United States truly has a wide range of interests, individuals, and industries. Our energy sources are no different, and as shown below, we use a diverse assortment of energy sources to power our nation.

Created with mapchart.net; Source: Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)

In order to better understand energy policy for Missouri, it is important to know some background about each energy source.

Natural Gas

According to 2022 preliminary data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), natural gas generated 39.8 percent of electricity in the United States—the largest generator in our country. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, meaning it is formed from decomposing plants and animals. Companies use seismic surveys to determine where to drill for natural gas, similar to the process used for oil. The captured natural gas is then processed, and a chemical called Mercaptan is added. Mercaptan adds the smell that makes natural gas smell like rotten eggs so leaks can be detected. This now smelly natural gas is then used for combustion turbines or steam turbines to generate electricity. In recent times, combined-cycle natural gas plants have greatly increased efficiency by using both processes together. Natural gas is burned to power combustion turbines, and the heat byproduct from the combustion turbine (think of how a car engine releases heat) is used to heat water, create steam, and turn a steam turbine.

Coal

At 19.5 percent of electricity generation, coal is the second-largest energy source in the United States. Once used primarily to power locomotives and heat homes, coal is now mostly used to generate electricity by heating water to turn steam turbines. Coal, like natural gas, emerged as an electricity generator in the 1950s and grew quickly in the 1970s and 80s. However, coal emits much higher emissions than natural gas, and thus its usage is shrinking in modern times as natural gas continues to capture more market share.

Hydroelectric

Speaking of old energy sources, hydroelectric (or hydropower) is one of the oldest forms of electricity generation—with 1880 marking its first year of industrial use. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a big proponent of hydropower, which uses moving water to spin turbines. By 1940, it generated 40 percent of our nation’s electricity. However, in 2022, it only generated 6.3 percent. American hydropower has largely fallen out of favor due to safety and environmental regulations, legal obligations to Native American tribes, and the economic costs associated with them. For example, two hydroelectric dams on the Elwha River came under attack due to environmental and legal concerns over the salmon population. The owners would have been forced to add expensive fish ladders, and continued legal pressure from the tribes persisted until they decided the dam was not worth the cost.

Nuclear Energy

Making up 18.2 percent of electricity generation, nuclear is the largest clean energy source in the United States. The first commercial reactor was built in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1958, and the nuclear industry grew rapidly in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. With nuclear fission, uranium atoms are split, which causes a chain-reaction and generates an immense amount of heat—which boils water and creates steam that turns a turbine. As time has passed, stringent regulations have slowed down the construction of nuclear power plants; the average age of a reactor for the remaining 93 reactors in the United States is 42 years old. Currently, the industry is regaining momentum as it transitions from large plants built during the Cold War to safer and cheaper small-modular reactors.

Wind

Wind energy makes up 10.2 percent of electricity generation. The mechanics of wind energy are relatively straightforward. The cycle of wind is used to turn turbines which generate electricity without creating greenhouse gas. In the olden days, windmills were used to cut wood, pump water, and grind grain—but now wind turbines are used to generate electricity. Financial incentives and requirements to use renewable energy in the 1990s spurred the development of wind power, with similar incentives continuing today. These wind turbines can also be located offshore in the ocean—such as ones taller than the Statue of Liberty in Rhode Island.

Solar

Enough energy from the sun hits the planet every hour to power the entire world for a year. Comprising 3.4 percent of our electricity generation, solar energy is a relatively small source of energy in the United States. Solar energy can be harnessed in two ways—through solar thermal or solar photovoltaic. Solar thermal technology is like the hot metal slide on the playground that would make you pay for foolishly venturing down it during recess. The sun heats up metal, which heats water—creating steam and turning a turbine. Solar photovoltaic is what most people think of when they think of solar energy—panels made up of a great number of cells turned towards the sun and capturing light energy to charge up like a battery. America’s largest solar photovoltaic farm is the Solar Star Farm in California.

Petroleum

Oil is typically used in transportation, but it can also be used in electricity generation—although it makes up only a tiny 0.9 percent of generation in the United States. The process to create electricity from petroleum is similar to the process for natural gas, as it can be used in steam, combustion engines, or in a combined-cycle power plant.

Biomass

Biomass is a fancy term for burning wood or using biofuels created with corn, soybeans, etc., to turn turbines. Although it is a large U.S. export commodity, our nation only relies on biomass energy for 1.3 percent of electricity generation. Developments are in the works for converting municipal solid waste (paper, shirts, furniture), animal manure, and human sewage into electricity sources.

Geothermal

Accounting for only 0.4 percent of electricity generation, geothermal is the smallest energy source in our nation. Since the earth has an inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust (where we live), heat from pressure and magma in the outer core and mantle produce heat that we can harness for electricity. Wells are drilled into the earth’s surface (some going 2 miles deep) and the heat is used to boil water and turn a steam turbine.

Now that we have a foundation on all of America’s top energy sources, we can further explore how energy is produced and transmitted and consider what would be the best energy policies for our nation and Missouri.

The post Show-Me Energy: Today’s Energy Sources appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Even the research literature is pretty positive about the benefits of recess. For starters, recess increases physical activity, which we know has many positive effects on a child’s health and well-being. Yet, recess is more than simply physical activity. It is a time of unstructured play, which helps children develop socially and emotionally. Moreover, numerous studies have found students are more on-task in the classroom when they have had recess.

With so much love for recess, it is puzzling that Rhode Island lawmakers recently felt compelled to pass legislation requiring 20 minutes of recess a day. Where had recess gone?

In fairness, recess hasn't completely been eradicated from schools. In fact, almost all elementary students in public schools have at least one recess a day. The minutes spent at recess, however, seem to be shrinking—thanks in large part to government policies. In an effort to improve public schools, lawmakers saddle them with rules and regulations.

First, states severely micromanage the calendar of schools. Some states stipulate the start and end dates and the required number of minutes in the school year (in Virginia, the law regulating the starting and ending dates even has an informal name—“The King’s Dominion Law”—after the mega-amusement park that fights to keep kids out of school until after Labor Day). With these regulations in mind, most school funding systems ensure that schools will not go above and beyond the minimum requirements, because they will not get additional dollars to support their efforts. In effect, the state has defined the length of the school year down to the minute.

Second, government agencies have placed an inordinate amount of pressure on schools and students to perform in tested subject areas. Following the infamous A Nation at Risk report of 1983, states began developing accountability systems based on academic learning standards, and schools were assessed via standardized tests. The accountability movement leapt to the national stage with No Child Left Behind in 2001. Tests give us valuable information, but they simply cannot capture everything we care about in education. Moreover, we don’t (and wouldn't want to) test students in every subject. As a result, things like art, music, and recess become “less important” in accountability systems.

With a fixed amount of time in the school year and increased pressures to perform on standardized tests, many school administrators have been motivated to shift instructional time to tested subjects, such as math and English language arts, and reduce minutes for recess.

Fortunately, there is a better way. Rather than build a system of rules and compliance, where we must regulate everything—including recess—we could build a public education system of choice. A system that provides administrators with the power to lead their schools and offers parents the ability to choose would be much more conducive to good decision-making. Just take a look at recess: the average third-grade student in a private school spends roughly 30 more minutes a week at recess than their public school counterparts.

Fewer regulations, more choice, more recess—now that's sound policy.

The post Recess-Something So Loved, Only Bureaucrats Could Kill It appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Far from it. Of the 77 U.S. cities that KPMG ranked (which was not exhaustive of all major metros), Saint Louis ranked 45th and Kansas City ranked 46th. Among the cities cheaper than Saint Louis (and Kansas City) are regional competitors like Nashville, Omaha, Cincinnati, Memphis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City, to name a few. Worse yet, Saint Louis was more expensive than all 18 Southeastern cities KPMG looked at, from Atlanta to New Orleans.

So where did the Post-Dispatch get a top ten ranking for Saint Louis? If we only consider regions with populations greater than two million (of which KPMG ranked 31), Saint Louis is the 9th cheapest. I will leave it to the readers of this blog to decide if Saint Louis should pat itself on back for being cheaper than New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, when it has higher costs for businesses than Nashville, Memphis, and just about every other regional competitor. But if we do decide to use population as criteria, it seems more justified to look at metros with populations similar to those of Saint Louis and Kansas City (between two and three million residents). When we do that, Saint Louis is 7th and Kansas City is 8th out of 14 such cities. That seems awfully middling.

That’s probably why, if one reads the study that the Post-Dispatch reports on, they’ll find that it does not claim that Saint Louis is among the most competitive cities in the country. KPMG didn’t even break down cities by population in the study, choosing instead to do so by region.  The Post-Dispatch story (while citing the study) is actually based on an ancillary KPMG press release, which lauds Cincinnati, and is careful to note context.

Titling an article “St. Louis among most cost-competitive cities for business, report says” when the report in question says no such thing is a questionable decision for a newspaper of record. But this is not just a problem with the headline. The article itself is equally misleading, and it was not a headline writer who placed this story front and center on the Post-Dispatch’s website less than a week before a vote on multiple tax issues (where the city’s business climate is an issue). 

The post Report: Saint Louis, Kansas City *Not* Among Most Cost-Friendly Cities for Business appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In order to facilitate a better understanding of how STC programs work in practice, this paper summarizes the available research on STC programs in general and presents a case study on New Hampshire’s STC program in particular.

Read the full case study: .

The post Live Free and Learn: A Case Study of New Hampshire’s Scholarship Tax Credit Program appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Everyone knows the old adage, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” However, the Missouri Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the school transfer law has proven that it is quite possible to displease people on all sides of an issue at the same time.

Suburban districts do not want to be overrun with students fleeing the failing school districts. The unaccredited districts are worried that high tuition rates for departing students will bankrupt their districts. Meanwhile, many parents with children trapped in failing schools are dismayed at the prospect of having them bused to new schools more than 20 miles from home.

If nothing else, the almost universal unhappiness about the situation should propel the search for better ways of providing improved educational options for all involved.

There are no cure-all solutions, but one promising idea that has produced excellent results in other states is a scholarship program. Individuals and corporations fund these programs and receive state tax credits for their donations. A common credit amount is 75 percent, which means a donation of $1,000 to a scholarship would earn the donor a credit (not just a tax deduction, but an actual credit) of $750 toward his or her income taxes.

Eleven states have created a program like this. Some are small, such as in Rhode Island, which serves a few hundred students. Some are large, such as Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program, which serves more than 40,000 students. Some states target scholarships to low-income students. Other states, like Indiana, make scholarships available for middle-class families as well. Missouri lawmakers floated an idea like that in the past, and it seems they are looking at this type of program again. In a recent radio appearance, House Majority Floor Leader John Diehl mentioned that private school options should be on the table.

There are several clear advantages to this approach.

First, a scholarship program maximizes individual choice; it allows students and their parents to pick the school they want, whether public or private.

Second, in providing access to a greater number of schools, a scholarship program lessens the outsized impact on a few suburban schools, which attract unusually large numbers of transfer students.

Third, a scholarship program would eliminate the financial trauma that school districts like Normandy and Riverview Gardens now are feeling from having to pay tuition and transportation costs between $10,000 and $20,000 for each transferring student.

Last, a scholarship program would provide greater certainty to all parties – beginning with the students themselves. Each scholarship recipient would have the ease of mind knowing he could continue at his school of choice until graduation – without having to worry that he could be forced to return to his district of residence if it becomes reaccredited.

An abundance of research shows that students benefit from greater school choice. More surprisingly, there is good evidence that students who remain behind in their district-run schools also benefit. In response to the current transfer mess, Normandy Superintendent Tyrone McNichols stated, “I see it as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to make a difference on a school district that has challenges.” That is the beauty of school choice; it prompts struggling schools to improve with the “fierce urgency of now.”

A tax credit scholarship could potentially be a win-win for everyone. It would expand options for students, ease the burden on accredited districts, and reduce the financial strain on unaccredited districts and taxpayers. No other solution promises as much.

James V. Shuls, Ph.D., is the education policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy.

The post A Real Choice For Students In Unaccredited Districts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I wonder whether they caught my recent op-ed about cigarette tax hikes. I argued that raising the rate would not solve Missouri’s budget woes. Instead, it would cause people to buy their cigarettes in other states that have lower taxes. Cigarette tax hikes are no quick fix.

In New Hampshire, they want to cut the cigarette tax by 10 cents, to $1.68 per pack. In New Jersey, even more, by 30 cents, to $2.40 — and, in Rhode Island, by a whopping $1 a pack to $2.40. All are still way above Missouri, which, at 17 cents per pack, has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation.

I’m not pro-cigarette (my Dad’s a cardiologist and very anti-cigarette), I’m pro–low taxes. Cutting taxes on cigarettes and other “sin goods” will promote economic activity and personal liberty in the state.

The post Cutting Cigarette Taxes for Budget Health appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Liquor taxes are a kind of so-called “sin tax,” a topic that that contributors to Show-Me Daily have discussed before. The primary purpose of such taxes is to discourage behaviors that may be considered socially undesirable, and the secondary purpose is to generate revenue for the government.

Sin taxes have a marginal nature, which is illustrated in this example from Massachusetts. Liquor stores that are located close to the Massachusetts border will particularly benefit as a direct consequence of the repeal — they will experience increased sales from nonresidents. Similarly, stores that are located on the other side of the border will likely experience fewer sales. This illustrates how rational individuals tend to think on the margin, another topic that we have blogged about previously. From an interview of a liquor store owner published in the Tauton Daily Gazette:

“It wasn’t a mass exodus [when Massachusetts instituted a liquor tax]” Matias said. “You would still see Rhode Island plates in the parking lot. They just wouldn’t come as often. If you saw a guy every two weeks, now he might come once a month.” The repeal is expected to be a boost for the South End stores. An Ocean State resident is more likely to make the trek to Massachusetts now that the savings is significant.

Compared to other states, Missouri assesses some of the lowest tax rates on alcoholic beverages (and on cigarettes, too). Similar to the illustration provided by the aforementioned article, a marginally higher number of individuals purchase these products in Missouri instead of in their home states because of the difference in tax rates.

Should Missouri eliminate its tax on alcoholic beverages, too? A disadvantage of that policy change would be that state government would miss out on revenue. Massachusetts, for instance will miss out on $100 million as a consequence of eliminating its tax. However, as an advantage, stores in Missouri would experience a higher volume of sales. Policymakers are always looking for ways to encourage economic activity and job creation. Perhaps repealing the liquor tax could be a means to achieve these goals, in part.

The post Massachusetts Repeals Liquor Taxes; Should Missouri, Too? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In the past decade, the nine states with the highest personal income tax rates have seen gross state product increase by 59.8%, personal income grow by 51%, and population increase by 6.1%. The nine states with no personal income tax have seen gross state product increase by 86.3%, personal income grow by 64.1%, and population increase by 15.5%.
[…]
Over the past 50 years, 11 states have introduced state income taxes exactly as Messrs. Gates and their allies are proposing—and the consequences have been devastating.

The 11 states where income taxes were adopted over the past 50 years are: Connecticut (1991), New Jersey (1976), Ohio (1971), Rhode Island (1971), Pennsylvania (1971), Maine (1969), Illinois (1969), Nebraska (1967), Michigan (1967), Indiana (1963) and West Virginia (1961).

Each and every state that introduced an income tax saw its share of total U.S. output decline. Some of the states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have become fiscal basket cases. As the nearby chart shows, even West Virginia, which was poor to begin with, got relatively poorer after adopting a state income tax.

These findings support the conclusions of a number of Show-Me Institute publications. In March, we published a policy study showing that taxes have a negative impact on economic activity. I used that data to write an op-ed. Show-Me Institute Chief Economist Joe Haslag and intern Abhi Sivasailam wrote last fall about the relative benefits of a sales tax versus an income tax. Finally, policy analysts Dave and Jenifer Roland compared the economic growth of Missouri to Tennessee, and found Missouri falling behind Tennessee, possibly because of Tennessee’s lack of an income tax.

The post More Evidence Against State Income Taxes appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Every dime that the state takes away from an individual or business, through an income tax, is essentially taken out of the productive economy. Consequently, the capital that would have been spent investing in future goods is no longer available to the entity that would have otherwise used it. This, in effect, stifles growth.

Some might argue that public spending pumps that money back into the economy, but the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a perfect example of that kind of Keynesian theory failing in practice. The bill massively increased government spending,but did little to stimulate growth in the economy; unemployment remains around 10 percent. In practice, government spending provides much less of a stimulative effect than comparable tax cuts.

It would be in Missouri’s best interest to lower — or even abolish — the state income tax, thus enabling Missourians to spend and invest more of their own money to grow our stagnant economy. As demonstrated in the table below, which displays average annual growth rates per state between 1997 and 2008, Missouri’s growth ranks seventh-worst in the nation. Abolishing or reducing the state income tax would be a step in the right direction toward positive change.

Source for GDP Numbers: Bureau of Economic Analysis

The post Growth by State appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Needless to say, I think the changes we need in Missouri require less dramatic action than this, but if this is what they had to do in Rhode Island, I hope it works out. Improving the school, not protecting jobs, is the ultimate goal of sensible education policy — and, if you read the article carefully, it sounds like up to half of the staff will likely be hired back anyway.

The post I Guess This Is One Way to Deal With Teacher Union Issues appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

He references a study that The Tax Foundation released last Thursday, “Movie Production Incentives: Blockbuster Support for Lackluster Policy,” which concluded that production incentives such as targeted tax credits do not incite economic growth.

Henchman cautions:

With Michigan so determined to pour its tax dollars into filmmakers’ pockets as the state falls apart, other states should be wary of taking them on.

I hope that Jeff City is listening!

Supporters for film productive incentives argue that they encourage employment, but I see little evidence that this is happening in Michigan. Far and away, Michigan continues to have the highest unemployment rate in the nation: 14.7 percent. (Rhode Island is the runner up, with “only” 12.7 pecent). I also want to note that, despite the fact that Michigan’s unemployment rate decreased from 15.1 percent in October, its labor force shrunk by 4,346 people during that period. This can probably be attributed partly to people giving up their job hunts or moving out of state to find work.

The post New Study Says Film Production Incentives Don’t Incite Economic Growth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“Most other day habilitation services hire staff who have experience working with people with disabilities, but we took a backwards approach,” he said. “We hired artists and musicians and are training them to work with people with disabilities. It’s been a really cool thing.”

The “you don’t have research” education naysayers could learn a lot from Resources for Human Development (RHD). RHD didn’t wait around for a university to do a controlled study on arts and disabled adults. It tried out the idea in a few places — Boston and Rhode Island — and then decided to open a new center in St. Louis when those early results were encouraging. Furthermore, RHD recognized that credentials are just a proxy for knowledge and skills, rather than an end in themselves. Artists can be trained to work with disabled adults, just as mid-career scientists can be trained to teach high school chemistry.

RHD’s flexibility and innovation should serve as an inspiration to other organizations in the public sector.

The post Keep Up the Good Work! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This being the case, I believe our disagreement rests squarely on certain conflicting notions of the proper scope of political power and the value of individual liberty.

It seems to me that the gist of David’s recent post was that the “liberty” the Founders spoke of and wrote into the Constitution is not especially broad in scope. In his formulation, constitutional protections of “liberty” should be sufficient to require that property owners cannot be denied the opportunity to make simple modifications to their properties, like fencing or (presumably) “reasonable” additions to a house, and the Constitution would prevent governments from curtailing one’s eccentric tastes in decoration. But if a citizen wants to use their property in a way that could arguably impose a significant inconvenience on their neighbors, whether by increasing traffic, noise, or offensive smells, Stokes’ argument suggests that part of the population would be entitled to utilize the power of government to forbid the undesired use. In other words, “liberty,” in its constitutional sense, is not really infringed when the government applies force against some of its citizens in order to protect other citizens from inconvenience or annoyance. Another way of stating this proposition is that some liberties don’t really merit protection and, therefore, exist solely at the tolerance of the majority. Even more succinctly, one person’s freedoms end where they create a critical mass of irritation among their neighbors.

While I am open to hearing a principled argument that would establish where the constitutional line of demarcation should be drawn on the spectrum of irritation between “Ugh, my neighbor’s yard is loaded with plastic pink flamingos” and “Whooo-eeee, my neighbor’s hog farm sure do kick up a stink,” I do think that it would be difficult to make. If one concedes that some level of irritation (short of empirically demonstrable harm) is sufficient to justify legislative restriction of liberty, then the only question left is who gets to decide where the line will be drawn. As David pointed out, that will usually be the majority, and the majority can — and will — re-draw that line as it suits their interests, regardless of the cost to the liberty of those not in the mainstream.

I know Mr. Stokes too well to simply lump him in with the petty tyrants for whom I have such great distaste, but the position he took in his post does put him in some unsavory company. Those with conventional, mainstream sensibilities have always loved the idea that they might somehow force those around them to conform to their standards — all-too-frequently by drawing the aforementioned line of demarcation in a fashion very restrictive of liberty. This crew does not always utilize the power of government — after all, there are plenty of neighborhood associations working to police homeowners’ aesthetic standards — but zoning laws have long since become the favorite tool to dictate how citizens may be allowed to use what belongs to them. This is mostly because (as Mr. Stokes implied) the desired results are both easier to achieve and more certain when obtained by persuading local politicians to pass restrictive laws, rather than seeking remedy in the courts.

Those who pursue governmentally-enforced restrictions on property rights always argue (as, indeed, they must) that “[t]he fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness do not and ha[ve] never entailed the idea that anyone can form their own city, state, or country if they don’t like the democratic decisions of the majority of Americans.” Mr. Stokes added, “I believe we actually fought a war about this issue.” These are statements that deserve a thorough response.

Stokes is right insofar as we did fight a war about whether people have an inherent right to reject a government that denies their freedoms — it was called the American Revolution. When Jefferson wrote about the unalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he stated that “whenever any Form of Government becomes  destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it” (emphasis added). The Revolution was fought to secure our natural right to liberty, not so that the tyranny of the British Monarchy could be replaced by a tyranny of elected representatives.

It is vital to point out that a great many of the American colonies (Plymouth, Maryland, Rhode Island, etc.) and also several American states (Texas, West Virginia, Utah, among others) were founded precisely because a group of people was unwilling to live under the laws established by the majority to which they were formerly subject. The founding generation clearly would have approved of these acts, as it produced numerous works expressing concern that the people must be protected against what Alexis de Tocqueville called the “tyranny of the majority.” James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” thoroughly acknowledged this problem in Federalist 10, citing worries that “measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” The American people demanded the creation of a Bill of Rights because they recognized the danger that even citizens of a democratic republic might one day produce laws that would violate individual freedoms, and they wisely intended to prevent future majorities from succeeding in that regard.

Even on a local level, the proper authority of government has not always been understood to allow majorities to dictate extensive limitations on liberty. Before the Missouri Supreme Court swayed from its original interpretation of the state Constitution, it did, in fact, hold that communities were and ought to be powerless to deny individuals the right to use their property as they saw fit, so long as the selected use did not threaten the health, safety, or welfare of the community. The court repeatedly stuck down local efforts to restrict citizens’ use of their property, arguing in State ex rel. Rosenblatt v. Sargent (1882) that a government that holds the property of its citizens subject to the unlimited control of “even the most democratic depository of power” would still be a despotism. That meant that cities were not permitted to limit the height, location, or use of buildings on their property unless the government demonstrated a threat to the neighborhood’s health or safety that would otherwise result. Only when the government had made such a demonstration — and, importantly, this did not include hypothetical or merely potential threats — would the courts permit cities to restrict their citizens’ liberties and property rights.

The final point I’ll make here has to do with David’s concern that applying the Constitution properly would require some to “go up against [some powerful business’] law firm to try to get some money from them.” I’ll admit that it is terribly frustrating for people to have to go to litigation to seek redress of harms that they have suffered, but do we really want to sacrifice individual liberty for the sake of convenience? The American founders certainly didn’t think so, and neither did the Missouri Supreme Court until the late 1920s. Our legal system, while definitely imperfect, is a far better surety for freedom and justice than the capricious whims of those eager to force their neighbors to conform to their own ideas of what is proper and acceptable.

The post Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Competition for Rhode Island’s charter schools is fierce. Nine of the state’s 11 charter schools are so popular, they conduct lotteries each spring to fill the few dozen places each has available. Hundreds of students languish on wait lists with little hope of ever getting in.

What sets this article apart from most of the press coverage of charter schools is that it focuses on the families that hope to send their children to charters. The Providence Journal interviewed some of these parents, who discuss their children’s unique characteristics and explain why the charter schools they’re interested in would be a good fit.

Charter school critics have argued that much of the charters’ success can be attributed to the parents who are involved and making choices for their kids. What they overlook is that the more options there are, the more likely parents are to become involved and to make choices. Some parents will research schools even if they’re very difficult to get into, like the Rhode Island charter schools. But if their kids have a more realistic chance of admission, if there are more charter schools and more open spaces, many more parents will take the time to learn about the available schools. So, if you want engaged parents, give them choices.

The post Parents Are Enthusiastic About Charters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The controversy in the Boone County case involved several issues: The bonding agent lacked a license to work in Boone County (not a big deal, in my opinion); the bonding company itself did not have the assets to guarantee such a large bond (a very big deal, obviously); and the unusual structure through which the family of the accused agreed to pay the bonding company (I have no idea whether this is a big deal). To sum it up quickly, the court rejected the bond after the accused was released, and he was taken back into custody at a higher bond. Because the suspect is accused of a heinous crime — murder — I have no problem with the higher bond requirement.

The Times article focuses on the big scheme of things in the bonding world, and contains a number of quotes that could have been written by somebody at a free-market think tank. Here are a couple:

The system costs taxpayers nothing, [Professional Bail Agents of the United States spokesman Bill] Kreins said, and it is exceptionally effective at ensuring that defendants appear for court. […]

“Here’s what everybody forgets,” [bail bondsman Wayne Spath] said. “The taxpayers have to pay for these programs. Why should they pay for them? Why should they? When we can provide the same service for free.”

Sounds good to me. But this is the key question: Does the system work? From the article (emphasis added, for all quotations throughout this post):

According to the Justice Department and academic studies, the clients of commercial bail bond agencies are more likely to appear for court in the first place and more likely to be captured if they flee than those released under other forms of supervision.

Why does the system work?

That may be because bail bond companies have financial incentives and choose their clients carefully.

Wait a minute … are they saying that incentives work? There are, of course, critics of the industry:

“The bail bond system is rife with corruption,” said Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore. Since bond companies do not compete on price, they have every incentive to collude with lawyers, the police, jail
officials and even judges to make sure that bail is high and that
attractive clients are funneled to them.

Mr. Kreins, the industry spokesman, acknowledged scandals in Illinois, where “basically all the agents were in collusion with the judges,” and in Louisiana, where sheriffs were also in the mix.

The first part is a legitimate critique, if it’s true. While the amount of bail set should not be a matter of debate or competition, the fee percent charged by various bail bondsmen can certainly fluctuate, unless governments regulate that fee as part of the licensing requirements? If that is the reason agents don’t compete on price, it’s the regulation that should be gotten rid of — not the industry. As for the second critique of corruption in Illinois and Louisiana, those two states have corruption even in the kindergarten industry, along with everything else. Corruption in those two states (plus Rhode Island) is a problem with the entire system, not just one industry.

Since the critique comes from Oregon, what does the article say has happened since Oregon banned the bail bond industry?

Mr. Marquis, the Oregon prosecutor, said doing away with commercial bonds had affected the justice system in a negative way as well. “The fact of the matter is,” he said, “that in states like Oregon the failure-to-appear rate has skyrocketed.”

What does the rest of the world do (except for the Philippines, which uses our system, certainly a leftover from colonialism)? Please trust that the inserted sarcastic comments in brackets below are mine, and were not in the original article:

Some simply keep defendants in jail until trial [oh, that’s a much better solution for someone who is poor and genuinely innocent]. Others ask defendants to promise to turn up for trial [’cause a criminal would’nt lie]. Some make failure to appear a separate crime [I am sure someone facing 20 years is very worried about the addition of a failure-to-appear charge]. Some impose strict conditions on release, like reporting to the police frequently [I can’t see any possible way around that, like stopping at the police station while on your way to the bus station]. Some make defendants liable for a given sum should they fail to appear but do not collect it up front [see above comment on separate crime]. Others require a deposit in cash from the defendant, family members or friends, which is returned when the defendant appears. [Because taking money from a poor family is preferable to taking it from a for-profit business? What the hell?]

There are very good, historical reasons why our system evolved as it did. The Times article is outstanding, and it goes through those reasons. But it only hints at the fact that our bail system — like our overall criminal system — is much more favorable than the systems in the rest of the world toward people accused, but not yet convicted, of a crime. The rights to counsel, the presumption of innocence, the bail system itself, and many more aspects are all indicative of a system that favors the rights of the people, until those rights are abrogated by a conviction in court — not the other way around.

Plus, Charles Grodin was lying when he said he wasn’t able to fly. That part was funny.

The post Stokes Posts Bail appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Big Picture Co. is a Rhode Island-based company that operates 46 schools across 13 states. The schools follow an unorthodox lesson plan — one that is uniquely tailored to each individual student. The idea is that large public schools aren’t effective at reaching some students. When these students can’t relate to their peers or their lessons, they fall behind academically and often become disruptive in class.

The St. Louis School Board voted last spring to set up “alternative” schools, such as those operated by Big Picture, in an effort to reach students that conventional schools weren’t adequately serving. Big Picture subsequently opened three new schools in St. Louis to fill that gap.

What makes Big Picture schools so effective is their flexibility. Rather than being constrained by the Legislature or the local school board with a fixed lesson plan targeted at the median student, Big Picture schools can work with students and their parents to find what motivates them specifically, and then cultivate it. Matt Spengler, the director of development for Big Picture Co., summarizes:

A big part of what we do is building trust and the relationship between individual teachers and families. They know the kid the best. You find out what has worked in the past and what hasn’t worked. And as the relationship develops over time, families feel more comfortable sharing when problems or issues arise.

We’ve often written that one of the greatest benefits of school choice is that it introduces flexibility and competition to education, rather than the static “one-size-fits-all" solutions generated by centralized bureaucracy. Every child learns differently, and it is imperative that schools recognize this — especially at an early age. Students that lose interest in school early in their lives often never catch up to their peers, and that has negative consequences for all of us.

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