The Columbia Daily-Tribune and the Columbia Missourian both had excellent articles in today’s editions covering the conference sponsored by the Show-Me Institute yesterday, on educational adequacy lawsuits, school-choice initiatives, and much more. We would like to thank the legislators from both parties who attended, as well as the many other participants who joined us for a very interesting day.

The best line of the entire conference, as quoted by the Missourian: 

James Guthrie, an economist at Vanderbilt University, addressed this issue and said, “When the education system has consequences for adults when children don’t learn, only then will we see results.”

I’ve discussed how more charter schools could help bring down the dropout rate in St. Louis. Now I see by way of Edspresso that Florida educators have the same idea:

Although Lee’s Life Skills Center and Richard Milburn Academy already target drop- out or at-risk students, Stiles and Victor Hall, a member of the accelerated high school board, hope to reach other students.

“We have found that Lee County has a significant dropout rate,” Stiles said.

Lee’s dropout rate was 3.5 percent in 2005-06, according to the Florida Department of Education, compared with 2 percent in Collier County and 2.5 percent in Charlotte County.

“Frankly, a lot of those students’ needs aren’t being met for a variety of reasons,” Stiles said. “They may have transportation issues. Students may physically have a need to go to work to help their family make ends meet.”

Also in the article, a district’s director of charter schools discusses why they’ve become so popular. She attributes the charters’ success to parents’ desire for different choices. And charter schools offer real alternatives to traditional public schools, because they’re free to experiment in ways that traditional public schools can’t (or won’t). For example, the article describes Florida charter schools that focus on reading and physical education and feature longer school days than most public school districts.

Other charter schools around the country are responding to parents’ desire for unique educational approaches. In Chicago, there’s a charter school that emphasizes healthy lifestyles. A charter school in Arizona requires students to take AP courses starting in ninth grade and offers foreign languages like Mandarin. A California charter school gives students extra opportunities in drama and music.

St. Louis currently lags behind Kansas City in number of charter schools. If St. Louis expanded its charter school system, parents would have these choices here too.

The MSBA blog is at it again, bashing the Show-Me Institute — I mean, writing about "religion." What these posts have to do with religion, I have no idea. Unless it’s that in their theology, the Show-Me Institute is the devil. Today they link to a report that characterizes SMI as a "conservative" think tank and describes the political causes that some board members have contributed to.

To set the record straight, the Show-Me Institute is nonpartisan, and does not support or oppose any political campaigns or candidates. We just write about sound public policy. When our board members, donors, or staff support any campaigns, they do that in their capacities as private citizens. And from what I’ve heard in casual conversations at the office, we hold diverse views on a number of issues. The first talk SMI gives to new employees is that your personal political opinions have nothing to do with the Show-Me Institute and don’t belong on the blog. Even when we write about policy, every post is accompanied by that big disclaimer at the top of the page.

Are we "conservative"? No. We promote market solutions for Missouri public policy, not political agendas. Try searching for the word "conservative" on our website. Nothing comes up.

Now that I’ve addressed the most egregious misinformation in the post, I’ll turn to the only point they made about parental choice, that it subsidizes private schools. The best answer I can find is a quote from an editorial on the Friedman Foundation website:

Some people say they object to giving state money to private entities like schools. But of course this is done all the time, and for good reasons. Government pays private parties all the time to achieve public purposes — pell grants for students, Medicare, mental health services, highway construction, support for parents via tax deductions for children. 

I think it’s a pretty good editorial, though I can’t speak for everyone at SMI.

The Show-Me Institute is today co-sponsoring a conference about issues associated with public school finance and educational adequacy lawsuits. The other conference co-sponsor is The Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

We have a conference website up, with links to the day’s agenda, working papers, and bios of presenting academics. The day is just now gearing up with an opening presentation by Mike Podgursky on the recent adequacy lawsuit here in Missouri, and a look at the correlation between increased public school funding and increased student performance (such a correlation doesn’t exist). It should shape up to be an interesting, engaging day.

While my colleagues are blogging about beauty pageant winners, the Desperate Housewives TV show, and Panera Bread, I thought I would cover something substantive. But I may be out of luck. The main story on the Post-Dispatch website reports that people are unhappy about construction on highway 40. No kidding. And over at www.johncombest.com, we learn that, according to the Washington Missourian, "Meth Labs Continue to Be a Problem." The more things change, the more they stay the same!

The Arch City Chronicle links to two stories, one from Detroit and one from DC, on issues of interest to Missouri and the Show-Me Institute. The first one, from Detroit, regards the city’s plans to sell 92 of its parks, just as the city of St. Louis recently sold (or leased, whatever it was) a small area of Forest Park to Barnes Hospital, over much protest. The Detroit Free-Press article in very interesting, particularly in that parks abutting schools might just be transferred to the school district. I also think it would be a good idea for neighborhood associations to have the first crack at buying the parks, at a discounted rate, provided they commit to maintaining them.

The other article is from the Washington Post on judicial elections. While changes may indeed be necessary for our own Missouri Plan, this article clearly shows the problems that come from large-scale judicial elections. I hope we make needed improvements to our judicial selection system, but I in no way want to move toward the elections we see over in Illinois that are described in this article.

The Beer Theory of Civilization, which is an actual theory in which I believe wholeheartedly, has taken a giant step forward with the Scholarships For Beauty Pageant Contestents Program at Lindenwood University. If this does not increase college applications and an appreciation for taller higher education, nothing will.

Perhaps Ron Paul really is having an impact. Last night on Desperate Housewives (which my wife was watching while I counted the minutes until we could switch back to the World Series), Lynette announced that she was running for Wisteria Lane Neighborhood Association President as a Libertarian. In fact, much of the story revolved around what level of control neighborhood groups should have over yard fixtures like fountains and tree houses. From a land use/property rights perspective, it was pretty interesting stuff.

I’m not going to discuss the merits/drawbacks of the new St. Louis Country solid waste disposal proposal, but I will mention that it has many county residents up in arms about their loss of autonomy. A full discussion of the issue is presented in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Suffice it to say, the proposal consolidates unincorporated St. Louis County trash service (which will provide more uniform and cheaper service), but will also require each district to offer an extensive recycling service.

I personally think that this is a good idea and that it is within the government’s proper powers. But there is a certain level of arrogance in the county’s response to the criticism of the proposal:

“Giving up the right to choose their own hauler is a small sacrifice to make [in order] to achieve something the county really needs.”

I will never understand the collectivist mindset of elected officials, and their belief that what they view is “best” for someone always trumps that of the individual’s. A simple "I feel your pain" would suffice.

Panera Bread has announced that it may relocate its corporate headquarters from St. Louis to Boston when its corporate leases (in Richmond Heights and Brentwood) expire in 2010.

I’d blame this on bad governmental policy if I could (oh, I wish I could), but Panera claims that the move is necessary in order to consolidate business units, and also because it has had difficulty in finding the right office space for its expanding staff in the St. Louis metro area.

Besides, it’s not like business is going to be any cheaper in Taxachusetts.

We often hear about escalating health care costs, and policymakers debate what the state should do about it. Here’s some good news about how the free market is doing its part to address the problem:

Schnucks pharmacies on Monday will be the first in the region to offer a selection of antibiotics for free. Customers can receive up to a 21-day supply of any one of more than 54 generic, oral antibiotics at no charge.

Schnucks will offer the program at all 100 of its pharmacies across seven states.

Why is Schnucks doing this? The article discussed two main reasons. First, the owner cares about helping people get medicines they need. Second, cutting health care costs and filling some prescriptions for free is good business. Free antibiotics will draw new customers to Schnucks and allow it to compete with other stores that offer low-price prescription drugs.

Unfettered competition can help patients by driving costs down to zero. Of course, this won’t fix all health care problems. Antibiotics are so cheap that it’s feasible for a store to offer them for free. Schnucks won’t be giving out free brain surgeries. There’s still a need for good health care policy, but we should take note of what the private sector can contribute.

Mass Transit Tax Proposal takes form of: half-cent sales tax increase (or perhaps a caterpillar?). St. Louis County voters likely to take form of: bucket of cold water. Seriously, though, will Gleek get to ride on the trains if this passes? You know that his body could be used to reconnect trains in emergencies! It’s true, it really could. That is not a joke.

Anyway, what are the good parts of the proposed tax increase to fund both MetroLink expansion and support Metro’s general budget? There are indeed some good points of this proposal. I like the fact that it focuses on connecting MetroLink with employment centers. It is not clear in the article, but my knowledge of the plans is that abandoned railroad lines will be used to form the route, which will obviously save a great deal of money and limit property takings. I like the fact that Metro and St. Louis County are being honest with voters, in that if voters want MetroLink expansion, they know they will only get it with a tax increase, and if they don’t, they know they can end expansion with this vote.

Whether you support it or not, this proposal lays it out pretty clearly. I sort of like the fact that this would free up county funds for some important road projects, but, alas, those could be done without the tax increase, just by decreasing the amount the county gives to Metro now. I am NOT saying the county should decrease the Metro subsidy now, just that they could if they chose to.

I completely agree with this very clear statement from a county aide in the Post-Dispatch:

“Infrastructure precedes investment,” Jones told municipal leaders at the league meeting in Ferguson. “It provides a framework for private investment. Transportation is the first investment. You have to move goods and people,” he said.

What do I dislike about the proposal? I don’t like some of the arguments being put forth in favor of it. This one is particularly bad:

The county’s second theme is that MetroLink expansion would reduce traffic congestion. Cline said that between 1992 and 1997, cities without a rail system saw congestion increase by 52 percent and those with one had only a 32 percent boost in congestion.

Really, perhaps this is the reporter’s fault for not including supporting information, but those statistics are not proof of anything. Perhaps congestion increased more in cities without light rail because those cities tend to be newer and more open, and more people chose to move to those locations. Congestion worsened in, say, Phoenix or Las Vegas because lots of people moved there, not because they didn’t have light rail. Perhaps lower taxes, made possible by the lack of an expensive light rail system, enticed people to move there.

The above argument is a classic example of confusing correlation with causation. There are other problems with the arguments, but reducing congestion and pollution are obvious canards. Even if MetroLink expansion succeeds beyond our expectations, the number of autos taken off the roads will be so small as to have no meaningful effect on either congestion or pollution.

Supporters would be much better off just taking the direct approach to voters: If we expand MetroLink, some of you will benefit from it, and it will give employees — many of whom need mass transit — better options for getting to work. That is the argument I will use when I vote in favor of the tax increase next year. Will 50 percent plus 1 in St. Louis County join me? We’ll see.