Joplin’s city council created the TIF district following the devastating tornado that hit Joplin in 2011. As I detailed in my 2017 case study:

While Joplin was certainly blighted, the speed with which the city was rebuilt—and the overwhelming amount of private, unsubsidized capital that was used to do so—give the lie to the claim made by Wallace Bajjali in Joplin, and other developers around Missouri, that capital just won’t move without taxpayer subsidies. In this case, the developer never delivered on promises, leaving the redevelopment corporation to just buy and sell land while the real work of redevelopment was done by individual homeowners and private companies.

What makes the Joplin experience different from most others is that for whatever reason, the partners in the development firm had a falling out. The company vacated its offices and none of its grand TIF plans were realized. This allowed us a rare opportunity to examine the rebuilding in the absence of subsidized TIF activity. When a TIF plan results in new construction, the plan itself is typically credited with the result. But in Joplin, the reconstruction was just the result of individuals and businesses rebuilding on their own.

That rebuilding was impressive, and TIF subsidized development did not play a significant role (just over $20 million was collected by the TIF district from its creation to closure, compared to more than $2 billion in insurance claims). As I observed in the 2017, this is what Joplin had accomplished a mere six years after the tornado:

Joplin has been rebuilding itself—largely from the proceeds of insurance claims that the but-for test never considered! Not only has Joplin recaptured all lost assessed property value and then some, but the city claims that the population was higher in 2015 than it was in 2010 before the tornado.

We know from study after study after study that TIF is ineffective at spurring business growth or job creation. Instead, TIF frequently just lines the pockets of developers with taxpayer cash—often for doing what there were going to do anyway. If there were any doubt of this, one need only look to the people of Joplin, who rebuilt without TIF and in a quarter of the time promised by the TIF plan.

It is long past time that Missouri legislators rein in the use and abuse of economic development incentives such as TIF. Municipal policymakers are diverting hundreds of millions of dollars away from important public projects and for no appreciable gain.

The post Good Riddance to Bad Policy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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.

For instance, Tubbs suggests charter schools in Missouri do not have to administer state tests. This is simply not true. Charters administer the same exams to students as the traditional public schools do. You can view exam data on the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website. They show that 70 percent of students at City Garden Montessori in Saint Louis scored proficient or advanced on the third grade English Language Arts Assessment in 2014, while just 64.9 percent did so at Joplin’s highest-scoring elementary school, Kelsey Norman. If you look at all the data, you’ll see charter schools in Saint Louis and Kansas City outperforming many Joplin schools.

Of course, not all charter schools are models of success; but neither are all district schools. Contrary to the claim of Tubbs, however, we do have reliable data and the effectiveness of charter schools has been measured. A 2013 study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University showed that Missouri charter school students learned significantly more than their peers in nearby public schools in both reading and math.

Tubbs’s letter also misrepresents how school funding for charter schools works. She states that charter school students will take funds away from the district schools, and that part is true. Anytime a student leaves a district, the district will lose money. If a student moves from Joplin to Carthage, the Joplin School District would lose the same amount of money. Tubbs then goes on to say, “However, that public school district must continue to maintain facilities (pay the utility bills, fix the plumbing) and provide support services (bus transportation) for the remaining students.” But she does not mention that all of the funds used for facilities, maintenance, and debt service remain in the school district. Charters do not have access to these funds.

Tubbs also states that “non-public charter schools are not required to take all applicants.” First off, there is no such thing as a “non-public charter school.” Charter schools are public schools. They are free and open to anyone who lives within the attendance boundaries. They must take all students who apply, unless they are oversubscribed. Then they must hold a lottery.

Tubbs’s letter is filled with inaccuracies that are constantly repeated as if they were true. It’s time to put a stop to arguing with these “alternative facts.” We can have a debate as to whether charter schools are right for Joplin, Missouri, or the rest of the state, but we should do it with the truth in mind.

The post Attacking Charter Schools with “Alternative Facts” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Superintendent Huff has been credited with helping rebuild the Joplin community after 2011’s devastating tornado. He was the 2013 Missouri Superintendent of the Year and a finalist for National Superintendent of the Year.

That said, the agreement still has some big numbers. Huff will continue to earn his regular paycheck until he retires on June 30. From July 1, 2015, to December 31, 2016, Joplin will pay Huff a total of $262,912.50 in additional compensation. According to the Kansas City Star, “the agreement requires Huff and the district not to criticize each other, and bars Huff from suing the district.” Huff will also receive $50,000 to “assist the new superintendent,” starting in June 2016.

According to the salary schedule for the Joplin Public Schools, a teacher would have to earn a master’s degree and make it to the 26th pay step in order to make $50,000 a year. That is some expensive advice.

This revelation raises a lot of questions. The first, of course, asks, Is this the best use of district funds? Clearly Superintendent Huff was a talented leader, but those 312,000-plus dollars could hire nine new teachers at the starting point on the district’s salary scale.

More than anything, this signals a need for public school finance transparency. A sunshine request from an intrepid reporter shouldn’t be necessary to get these facts into the open. How can taxpayers hold school boards accountable when they don’t even know how their tax dollars are being spent? Watch this video to hear how one legislator feels about public school spending and transparency.

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These days there are a lot of calls to make people pay their “fair share,” and no, we are not referring to the 1 percent. We are talking about smokers. The argument for raising the tax on cigarettes is straightforward—smoking is harmful to individuals, and though smoking is an individual decision, it impacts each of us. We all bear the brunt of additional health care costs incurred by smokers. These are what economists call negative externalities. They are, in theory, why smokers should be taxed more for their behavior—to offset their costs to society. Most proposals to raise the cigarette tax, however, seek to tax smokers to pay for unrelated programs, such as education.

For example, Erin Brower of Raise Your Hand for Kids is seeking to put a 50 cent increase on the ballot to fund early childhood programs. Missouri Treasurer Clint Zweifel has proposed an increase to fund college scholarships, an idea Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster supports. In a recent special to the Joplin Globe, Koster called for a 73 cent per pack increase. These are certainly not the first calls for increasing the tax. In the past 15 years, tobacco tax increases have appeared two times on the ballot. Each time Missouri voters have had the opportunity to tax smokers more, they have failed to do so. Why?

First, Missourians are leery of using “sin” taxes to fund other programs, especially education. This was the same tactic used to legalize gambling in Missouri. Lawmakers said the revenue from gambling would go to education. They did not tell voters, however, that the money would supplant not supplement existing funds to education. There are fears that the same would happen with proposals to raise tobacco taxes.

Second, using tobacco taxes to fund other programs simply does not make economic sense. Missouri’s lowest-in-the-nation tobacco taxes help draw in an untold number of shoppers across state lines, especially in Kansas City and along the Illinois border. These shoppers make it a point to buy their cigarettes in Missouri, thus creating sales for our local businesses and generating tax revenue for the state. Raising the tobacco tax would deter these shoppers.

Tobacco taxes also have the negative distinction of being one of the most regressive taxes. Smokers tend to be from lower-income households. At the same time, middle-income families would benefit from many of the programs created from increased tobacco taxes, such as college scholarships. Thus, if Zweifel and Koster’s proposal was implemented, low-income families would be subsidizing the college education of middle-income families. What is the “fair share” for smokers to pay for a middle-class student’s college education?

The truth of the matter is that smokers are an easy group to target. Few, except for other smokers, are sympathetic to their plight. At the same time, we all support better educational opportunities for Missouri students. Therefore, taxing smokers is a relatively easy way to raise taxes to fund educational programs.

If lawmakers are seriously concerned about the negative externalities causes by smokers, they should direct tobacco tax revenue directly back to smoking prevention programs and the Medicaid costs for smokers. That is the only logically and economically consistent use of the tax revenue.

James V. Shuls, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and a fellow at the Show-Me Institute, where Michael Rathbone is a policy researcher.

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According to the Joplin Globe, the destruction from the tornado resulted in a decrease of $34 million in assessed valuation for the school district (and a similar number for the city, counties, etc.). According to the rules of TIF, a new TIF would freeze the property taxes paid to all districts at that number for 23 years. In the long run, that could be very damaging to public services. Fifteen years from now, how is the school district going to fund its services when a substantial part of the district has its taxes frozen at a 2012 post-tornado level? One way they will do it is by having very high taxes on the areas outside of the redevelopment zone. If this TIF passes, I could see tax differences between the areas in and out of the zone so large that people start making decisions to move based on that, and that will start to affect property values. (See pages 33-36 here for how this can happen in such situations.) It is one thing to pay more to live in a better school district. It is another thing to pay more for a house with lower taxes than other, similar homes within the same school district.

My general objections to TIF are laid out here. There are, no doubt, different circumstances in Joplin than just moving around big box stores in Saint Louis County.

The Joplin Globe editorial board is correct in stating that the community should step back before making such an enormous decision. Once the properties within the proposed district are redeveloped, they should be required to pay, at a minimum, the pre-tornado tax levels to partly reduce the discrepancy in future property taxes between property in and out of the TIF district. (Obviously, before and during the period they are being redeveloped, the much lower tax levels should be paid.)

The post Joplin School District Right To Be Concerned About Super TIF appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The following are additional resolutions that didn’t make the final list. I tried to model these after resolutions that individuals commonly make for themselves. I thank my colleagues for their collaboration, and I encourage our Show-Me Daily readers to leave additional resolutions in the comments section.

1. Get Out of Debt:
    
   This year, state and local governments in Missouri should resolve to get a handle on their finances. Policymakers can accomplish this by holding off on the pork barrel spending projects and fitting in time for fiscal fitness. Eliminating and reducing debt will have positive fiscal consequences in the future, because the state will not be spending tax monies on interest on debt. Government should resolve to live within its means, as an individual does. There are many policy areas that could save money. For example, school districts could elect against giving superintendents health care for life.
2. Eliminate Clutter:
    
   The state government should conduct a top-down, bottom-up review of all state agencies and regulations to eliminate waste, inefficiency, and government intrusion unrelated to public health and safety. To accomplish this, policymakers may pursue public-private partnerships, privatize services, eliminate underperforming programs, etc.
3. Get Organized:
    
   The state can take measures to reduce bureaucracy and red tape, especially huge mistakes and oversights in its expenditures. For example, the state government is issuing targeted tax credits too quickly to keep track of them. According to an article from the Associated Press, 56 businesses, nonprofit groups, and individuals in Missouri have failed to meet the mandates of a 2004 state law that requires annual progress reports after receiving tax credits. The state government awarded $2 million in tax credits to a convicted embezzler for a development project in Cape Girardeau. With better organization, scandals like this would be much less likely.
4. Find a Job:
    
   The state unemployment rate continues to exceed 9 percent. Missouri would attract a greater number of businesses to the region if it implemented strategies that reduce the cost of doing business in the state. Specific strategies that policymakers can implement are: eliminating personal and corporate income taxes, reducing occupational licensing requirements, and eliminating property tax surcharges.
5. Lose Weight:
    
   Just as individuals need to lose weight to remain fit and healthy, cities and other taxing districts need to save money by cutting out the fat whenever possible in order to remain fiscally sound. Policymakers in Missouri should take steps to limit this growth. Individual governments in Missouri can share resources, consider consolidation or disincorporation when appropriate, and contract with private service providers as much as possible. Individuals make the tough choices to eat less for better health. Taxing districts can make those same hard decisions to outsource, privatize, consolidate, or share services in order to perform key public services at as low a cost as possible. (Hat tip: David Stokes!)
6. Spend More Time With the Kids:
    
   Missouri can take measures to improve educational outcomes, such as increasing school choice. A specific strategy that policymakers can implement would be to expand access to charter schools and virtual schools, the latter of which can provide 24-hour education services to meet flexible schedules. It’s important to note that the most successful charter schools lengthen both school hours and the school year in order to help students catch up with their peers in other schools. (Hat tip: John Payne!)
7. Quit Smoking:
    
   Even staunch environmentalists now understand that the total carbon emissions from the use of ethanol are worse than the emissions from the fuel that ethanol replaces. Energy specialists recognize that it takes more energy to produce a unit of ethanol than the energy that unit returns. It’s bad for your health, your wallet, and the environment. It’s time for the state of Missouri to quit subsidizing, mandating, and abusing this substance.
8. Travel Less:
    
   Gov. Jay Nixon has the habit of holding ribbon-cutting ceremonies for subsidized projects around the state, and then billing the expenses to other agencies. These travel expenditures come at the expense of other programs because they compete for the agencies’ services. Taxpayers in Missouri would be better off if they weren’t footing the bill for these trips, because they could keep a greater proportion of their earnings. (Hat tip: Audrey Spalding!)
9. Spend More Time With Family and Friends:
    
   Just as an individual resolves to “Spend more time with family and friends,” a state government can resolve to increase the level of civil society interaction in Missouri through privatization. Instead of seeing government employees take care of your water utility, or going to a government-sponsored health clinic, we can interact with members of our community that we choose to do business with privately. This resolution could also describe hanging out with a family member or friend while they African-braid your hair or examine your horse’s teeth, even though they do not have a license.

The post New Year’s Resolutions for Missouri Public Policy: From the Cutting Room Floor appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Rather, my purpose is to show how the system works with private companies. Private utilities in Missouri are closely regulated by a variety of actors. Water utilities report to the PSC, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and local county health departments. (The bulk of the regulations are at the state level — and this does not include the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), because I believe state agencies enforce EPA guidelines.)

I am not automatically opposed to every aspect of the regulated utility system we use in Missouri. Technological improvements have demonstrated the absurdity of treating telephones and cable television like utilities and/or monopolies, and the legislative environment has properly adapted. I can at least understand the historic purpose behind telephones being regulated as utilities. Treating cable as a utility, though, was always idiotic, and often just a device for corruption. I believe electricity will eventually (in the long run) be deregulated as a utility, too.

As for water and natural gas, infrastructure issues will make it more difficult to move away from monopoly. They may be the best examples of natural monopoly, because the up-front investment costs alone make competition unprofitable. As David Henderson writes:

Economists tend to oppose regulating entry. The reason is as follows: If the industry really is a natural monopoly, then preventing new competitors from entering is unnecessary because no competitor would want to enter anyway. If, on the other hand, the industry is not a natural monopoly, then preventing competition is undesirable. Either way, preventing entry does not make sense.

My paper on privatizing the St. Louis water division dicusses one way to bring competition to the water industry on p. 17. Absent that price competition, I understand the reasons for some types of price regulations.

Back to the original subject. The PSC moved pretty quickly in addressing this potential issue. In fairness, the private company states that it attempted to move quickly, but could not move quickly enough. (The issue here could well be one of utility size, rather than a question of public vs. private.) I hope people don’t read a story like this and think the problem lies with private utilities. The problem in this case has been addressed. Fines may be imposed after the full details emerge. If there was a company failure, the company will be held accountable — the key word here being “if.” Private water, like other private utilities, works just fine under our system in Missouri.

The post Private Water Company in the News appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Only one-third the size of the 2009 program, it barely has enough funds to take care of the existing system.

Is it possible that an extraordinary set of circumstances in 2009 — perhaps a massive stimulus proposal intended to get the economy moving — might be why the 2009 program was so large, and why future programs look small by comparison? Why, we had the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that year, of course. I realize that this is a minor quibble, but comparing government funding in other years to 2009 will always be unfair. It’s like talking about Major League Baseball piching stats from 1968, or hitting stats from 1930 — you have to give some allowance for context.

But onto the bigger question: How will these upcoming annual appropriations affect Missourians? I, for one, am underwhelmed by the risks. For starters, it is only logical that at some point in a state not experiencing much population growth, expansion of the transportation system will level off. Eventually, an adequate system has been built, and if the population is no longer growing, it does not need much expansion. However, I do agree with the central point of this statement by the MoDOT chairman:

“It’s not just jobs that are related to the construction of the highways. Economic development follows transportation.”

The key for me is that I’d like to see as many of those transportation improvements as possible be private, rather than public. (Note: This observation in itself does not entail a critique of MoDOT, which is also pursuing expanded opportunities for public-private partnerships and tolling, in some instances.)

I could (emphasis on the could, not would) support a gas tax increase if it were used to fund necessary transportation improvements and system upkeep that the upcoming levels might fail to meet. I see no way in which I’d support a general sales tax increase for something like our transportation system that can be paid for in a much more targeted and efficient manner — be that tolling, gax taxes, or property taxes for local roads.

Thanks to Combest for the link.

The post State’s New Road Plan Involves Fewer Roads appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Hyperbole aside, the piece does make some good points about the lack of transparency in the hearing. Only representatives of the industry were allowed to speak, and the chairman of the committee does own a payday lending business — a clear conflict of interest. Although I happen to agree with the industry in this instance, the political process should be an open one. In the long run, legislative stalling and one-sided presentations will not preserve a healthy democracy or the free market. (It is worth pointing out, however, that town hall meetings on the issue also presented only the opposing side of the debate. Admittedly, those were not official government hearings, but the principle remains the same.) An open market produces better outcomes than a monopoly, and I believe that rule applies just as much to ideas as to physical goods and services.

Finally, I think this phrase shows a misunderstanding of my argument: “Mr. Payne’s point that usury today is not as bad as it was in Shakespeare’s time provides little comfort to the working poor and to those trapped in a spiral of debt.” My point is that if payday lending is regulated out of existence, people who currently rely on those loans for short-term credit will be forced to seek out loan sharks every bit as brutal as Shylock, who will demand a pound of flesh from those who cannot pay up.

The post In Which I Am Compared to the Devil appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There has been a lot of charged rhetoric on the topic of autism mandates, and I’m positive that its proponents have had the best of intentions. (In fact, I played softball last weekend with one of the sponsors of the bill, Sen. Eric Schmitt, and he seemed like a great guy.)

It’s important, though, to understand the economic mechanisms behind mandates. Insurance becomes prohibitively expensive if the government attempts to mandate coverage of everything that could happen to anyone. As I’ve mentioned before, high-deductible health savings accounts are one of the best ways to handle these sorts of issues; once the policy owner exceeds a certain deductible, their insurance can cover the cost of treatment. The high deductible helps to minimize costs by reducing the health care wedge between patient and doctor, as well as reserving insurance for its intended purpose: large, catastrophic costs. Market competition is a more effective way to bring health coverage to all children with autism and other conditions, and not just a select few.

(Also, a quick thanks to John Combest for linking to my op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader! My op-ed will also be available in the Sunday edition of the Joplin Globe.)

The post Tune in Monday morning! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Globe thinks that the political infighting between the governor and the lieutenant governor could be ended by having them elected on a ticket, as opposed to the current system in which they each run independently. Our current system has resulted in Missouri having a governor and lieutenant governor from opposite parties five times, or for 20 cumulative years, since World War II. From 1977 to 1993, we had different parties holding the two offices every year. The Globe is certainly right that changing that system might end the infighting, although the governor and lieutenant governor in Illinois were both Democrats, and they hated each other before the governor was forced to (how should I put this nicely?) step aside in preparation for a lifestyle change. But anyway …

Even though the Globe is correct that political sniping might decrease, I don’t support electing the lieutenant governor on a ticket with the governor. My antennas go up whenever anyone advocates making government run more smoothly so they can go out and get things done for the working people of this state! (The last sentence should be read aloud, like a politician giving a stump speech.) The Globe quotes former state Sen. Richard Webster:

He proposed that the candidates for the two offices appear together as a unit on the ballot, thus encouraging a spirit of cooperation and heading off the sort of political gamesmanship evident now.

I take P.J. O’Rourke’s attitude that preventing politicians from governing is like preventing a pit bull from eating your child, so needless to say I don’t give a whit about making government function more smoothly. (Streamlining government services in order to save tax dollars is a different story.)

When Missourians go to the polls on vote on the lieutenant governor, they know (at least, some of them know) that they are electing someone for two main jobs: to step in as governor during extreme circumstances (which just happened in 2000), and to serve as a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. If the people of the state want someone who belongs to a different party than the governor to serve in those roles, that should be up to them.

The fact is that Missourians chose Jay Nixon to be governor and Peter Kinder to be lieutenant governor. If they had run on a ticket, Missouri would have gotten a lieutenant governor that the majority of the state did not want to elect. I think that giving people the fullest choice possible, so they can elect the person that they wanted to elect, is the most important thing. If we have to live with a poorly functioning tourism board as a result, that is fine with me.

The post The Role of the Lieutenant Governor in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Joplin Globe has an odd article (link via John Combest) comparing the median wires along I-44 to the need for fog signs in Joplin. Now, while the usefulness of median wires cannot be argued, how useful are signs warning about fog? Fog does not jump out at your car from behind a bush, and it doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Fog isn’t hard to spot. On the contrary, fog is easy to spot. A sign saying “FOG” is the equivalent of a sign saying, “Slow down because there is a giant wall of water vapor ahead, and you won’t be able to see through it because it is so thick. So thick, in fact, that you can see it from far away, thus making this very sign redundant.” And one would think that while driving through heavy fog, nobody would need a sign telling them to slow down.

Honestly, “FOG” has to be the most redundant road sign since “Slippery When Wet.” If a driver is unwilling to slow down in heavy fog, is a sign telling them there is heavy fog truly going to make a difference? How far away are we from, “Danger: Darkness Occurs After Sunset. Use Headlights”?

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you are approaching a large area of fog, rather than look around for appropriate signage that gives instructions on how to drive, just slow down.

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This blow to our economy is something that I cannot take lightly. According to Scott Bachman, planner for MoDOT Joplin’s regional office:

“We’re hoping Congress will come up with a short-term solution, now that it’s back from the August recess. In the meantime, we’ll watch how much revenue comes into the highway trust fund and how much they pay out in ratio to the funding coming in.”

I’m sorry, but I do not want to wait in traffic and put the fate of our state’s roads in the hands of Congress. This would be a great opportunity for Missourians to flex our muscles and take the situation into our own hands. Tolling and private financing could be major options.

During one of my first weeks here in the Show-Me Institute office, one of our policy analysts (I will give you a hint) asked whether I knew the only tolled transportation facility in Missouri? Clearly, I did not know the answer. To my surprise, it was the Lake of the Ozarks Community Bridge, built in 1998. This is the only one. As a graduate student at Brandeis University (located in Waltham, Mass.), I am lucky to pass only two toll facilities (versus four or five) just to get into Boston! I really think we should keep our options open to public-private partnerships. Either that, or wait for Congress to find that pot of gold under the rainbow.

The post Expect Road Delays appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The institutional criticism stated by these editorials was that school rankings in general are a "crude tool for measuring [school] improvement" and that the Show-Me Institute’s ranking methodology was "overly simplistic."

As the creator of "Show-Me: The Grades," I understand these criticisms, but that doesn’t mean that our rankings are meaningless or uninformative. A cursory glance of the schools and districts appearing at the top and bottom of our lists confirms anecdotal opinions about many of the state’s best-performing and worst-performing public school systems. And the "report card generator" application is a great tool for graphically comparing test scores by school, district, and state averages. The state should have created such an application for parents and teachers to use years ago.

I would also like to reiterate that the rankings used in "Show-Me: The Grades" are computed by using the state’s own data, which is reported somewhat ambiguously in the news coverage. So any criticism of the MAP index score methodology must ultimately be a criticism of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, rather than the Show-Me Institute’s "agenda." There will always be critics of ranking systems, regardless of methodology. For example, had the Show-Me Institute included No Child Left Behind (NCLB) data instead of MAP scores, critics of NCLB would point out that such performance numbers are suspect and easy to distort. In fact, in a congressional review of NCLB, Missouri admitted as much, stating that officials had actually lowered academic standards in order to "game the system" and report significant academic improvement. And may I remind Missourians of the problems inherent in even the most scientific of rankings.

The Show-Me Institute has not taken a particular position on the quality of Missouri’s public school system based on MAP index rankings. But, in the interest of public transparency, we wanted to make this data readily available to the public. We believe we have done this, and that "Show-Me: The Grades" is ultimately a tool to help Missourians make informed choices. Some parents will value standardized test scores more than others. If parents are happy with the educations their children are receiving at a particular public school, then we are happy too.

As I stated in my interview with the Joplin Globe, this is really about giving parents a greater choice in finding schools that meet their children’s needs:

"If a parent finds from this ranking that their school is not meeting their children’s needs, then why force them to remain in substandard schools?" Hauke said. "But if a parent is happy with where their children are going and that the teachers and staff are doing a good job, by all means it’s a good school."

Isn’t that what education should really be about?

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However, I hope the zoning changes will apply in this area in future cases. I think most of my collegues here will disagree with me, but if the residents of a township, or county, want strict zoning to prevent operations like this, I think that is reasonable.

The subtext to this post is that 22 Missouri counties actually have a township form of government. I don’t think there is anything wrong with townships when they apply statewide, like Illinois, and have existed since statehood, but it is just crazy to have them selectively in the smallest counties of Missouri. The State Auditor’s office has audited township governments in Missouri and found significant problems with their financial reporting, record keeping, sunshine law violations, and more. I read this audit a few months ago for a paper I am working on, so needless to say, this Globe article did not surprise me. One county, Wright, actually got rid of townships a few years ago after experiencing many similar problems. I suspect that, in the future, many more of these 22 counties will do the same.

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They said the state of Missouri had offered the best tax incentives for the story, which was set in a nameless Midwestern city, but that the weather was too hot, rental-property owners were greedy and the local crew was inexperienced.

Even after that bad experience, the Joplin Globe now urges lawmakers to keep expanding tax breaks:

Movies are a multibillion-dollar business. Missouri and Kansas think they can get a chunk of the action. It is worth a try. Let the cameras roll!

It’s true there’s a lot of money in movie-making, but it’s not fair to give tax incentives to huge industries while small businesses struggle under full tax burdens. Lowering taxes for everybody would be more equitable. And if you don’t play favorites, you don’t have to worry about bad press after people who don’t really want to be in Missouri come just for the tax "opportunities."

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Missourians have eschewed toll roads for much the same reason. They don’t relish paying again at a toll gate for something for which their gasoline taxes have already paid.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! The Globe could not be more wrong. It is illegal to put tolls on roads that were built with gas tax dollars. Any new transportation plan for Missouri, which I hope includes tolls, would only be able to put those tolls on new highways, or new lanes added to existing highways. You can not just take I-70 and turn it into a toll road after it was built with gas taxes. Tolled interstate highways in other states, such as Oklahoma, were either built as toll roads, or turnpikes, before the interstate highway system was created, or were built afterward using toll financing instead of gas taxes. I just wanted to make that clear for everyone. 

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