The St. Louis Beacon reports that concealed carry will be legal on the Arch grounds this coming February.

This policy change is not generating the kind of outrage that the MU concealed carry proposal did. The article quotes the deputy superintendent, who says the policy won’t have much practical effect, because people could be carrying conealed weapons all over the grounds now and no one would know. (That’s true of any public place.) At the few points where visitors are screened for weapons, park officials don’t necessarily confiscate guns even under the current law — to the dismay, I’m sure, of some MU students.

The change looks like wise policy to me. I’m not sure what it has to do with credit cards, though.

A journalist is convicted of espionage by a foreign nation after a short, secret trial. She starts a hunger strike in protest. Her civil rights have been violated. Freedom of the press is at stake.

Contrast her plight with the following situation: A large, bureaucratic school district is forced to lay off some teachers for financial reasons. The teachers … start a hunger strike. Am I missing something, here? I don’t see any breach of justice to warrant that degree of protest.

Teachers in Los Angeles have come face to face with one of the major drawbacks of the near-monopoly of public education. When the monolithic employer lays people off, there are few other entities to take up the slack and hire people. Proponents of a diverse education market usually emphasize the benefits for students, but the fact of the matter is, teachers are also better off when schools compete.

Schools in a competitive market fight hard to hold on to their best teachers, because otherwise those teachers would be snapped up by other schools, giving them an advantage in the race to attract students. And, when some schools do have to downsize, they’ll be balanced by more successful schools that are expanding, or by new schools that are opening.

Los Angeles teachers should give up their overwrought protests and call for market diversity instead.

Since its inception, the Show-Me Institute’s scholars have made a point of opposing “corporate welfare.” As pointed out in the institute’s statement concerning “corporate welfare” policy, “The Show-Me Institute develops policy recommendations to protect property rights and promote economic growth without caving in to demands for corporate welfare. Secure property rights encourage investment and entrepreneurship. Trying to create economic success through government intervention is a formula for failure.” With this philosophical underpinning, institute scholars such as Timothy Lee and myself have taken strong stands against governmental policies that allow the powerful and well-connected to secure subsidies and tax breaks that are not available to all, and have vigorously opposed the use of eminent domain to transfer property from one private owner to another.

In the ideal system, businesspeople would compete against each other on a level playing field, with their success or failure to be determined exclusively by those to whom they are marketing their products. This would mean that if an entrepreneur has an idea for a venture, they would either have to risk their own money by funding the project out of their own pocket, or they would have to generate seed money by convincing private investors that the prospects of success outweigh the potential for failure. If private investors don’t believe that the venture is likely to succeed, they won’t put their money at risk. On the other hand, if a few investors are willing to risk losses, they will be handsomely rewarded if the venture turns out to be successful. Thus, the risks of failure and the rewards of success are borne only by those who choose to participate in the venture.

Somewhere along the way, however, the government involved itself in the process. It began offering to subsidize certain ventures — or even entire industries — utilizing tax dollars, so that people managing subsidized businesses no longer had to persuade as many private individuals to put their own funds at risk. This is a negative development, for several reasons:

First, it gives an unfair competitive advantage to business owners who have the money or connections to influence those public officials who decide such matters. Receiving a subsidy may have less to do with the entrepreneurial merit of a proposal than with the number of elected officials with whom the businessperson has influence.

Second, it assumes that politicians will be adept at distinguishing ventures that will succeed from ventures likely to fail — a challenge even for experienced businessmen, much less for elected officials who may have no clue about how to make such evaluations (Ballpark Village, anyone? Sunset Hills?).

And, third, it gives both government officials and private developers a license to gamble with other people’s money and/or private property in what they perceive as a low-risk, high-reward situation. If a subsidized venture fails, developers are insulated from the risk because they will lose far less, financially, than they would have without the subsidy. Similarly, a politician might face some political backlash from a failed venture, but the politician can always deflect blame toward someone else. The politician won’t suffer any personal financial loss, and it is not very common for politicians to be voted out of office following such fiascos. On the other hand, if a venture is successful, the developer will personally realize enormous financial gains, despite their lessened personal investment, while the politician will claim credit for its success and may be able to parlay his role into a profitable or influential position once he has left office. As far as taxpayers are concerned, even if a subsidized venture succeeds, the government itself will reap the financial benefit — rather than the individual taxpayers from whom the funds were obtained.

Despite these downsides, governments continue to insert themselves into the world of economic development and these policies only spur more demands for governmental handouts. Just last week, we saw the unveiling of a proposal that, if successful, would completely reshape a gigantic swath of North St. Louis. In accordance with the incentives created by these policies, the developer’s plan calls for a massive commitment of taxpayer dollars, the creation of a TIF district, and the use of eminent domain to accomplish the developer’s vision. The General Assembly has already played a role by approving a $95 million tax credit that will assist the developer, and this developer is now pursuing a hefty chunk of federal stimulus funds, as well as support from local officials for the potential use of eminent domain in pursuit of the project. Thus, the policies that our government officials have created are fueling ongoing misuse of governmental authority and taxpayer funds, all of which works to the detriment of both ordinary citizens and market participants who believe it would be wrong to take advantage of these flawed incentives.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Redevelopment can and does happen without corporate welfare and eminent domain abuse. My hope is that, as government officials and developers continue to consider the plan to redevelop North St. Louis, they will consider alternative approaches that will respect the rights of other citizens. Rather than committing public funds and tax credits, city and state officials who believe in the plan’s promise could work with the developer to identify private investors who are willing to invest in his vision. Instead of pursuing eminent domain, the developer should present offers that will entice local residents to part willingly with their homes and businesses — or, alternatively, he should figure out how to incorporate the remaining homes and businesses, intact, into his larger plan. If the North St. Louis redevelopment plan is as promising as its proponents suggest, it can and should be accomplished without resorting to corporate welfare or sacrificing citizens’ property rights.

This is a follow-up to my last green jobs post. Matthew Kahn, green economist par excellence, asks some questions about green jobs:

I’m still trying to understand what are the exact details of how the “green jobs” push translates into specific policies? Is this simply a relabeling of Keynesian public works projects? Is this a justification for a ramp up in basic research funding (I would support this!)?

I vote for the Keynesian public works option, but feel free to convince me otherwise in the comments.

When I said we should stay calm about education, this is the kind of unnecessary panic I was warning against. (Thanks to the ever-resourceful Panama City Renaissance School for the link.) Victor Davis Hanson has had to deal with some unhelpful customer service reps, and some of his bills got sent to the wrong address in a mix up, and somebody forged his checks. Here’s his response:

A highly complex society, staffed by those who are unable to read well and compute at basic levels, can be terrifying. One mathematically inept transcriber or an American receptionist who cannot speak fluent English can do the public a lot of damage.

A highly complex society is going to entail some errors no matter how literate the customer service reps are. Besides, if you give all those receptionists the best educations possible, they’ll go off an become scientists or programmers — they won’t stick with their low-level jobs.

Every time I have to make this kind of phone call, I hear, “Your call is being recorded for quality control.” Businesses keep their customer service staff under a lot of scrutiny. Workers aren’t left to their own devices, “embedding” their mistakes into the software of our society, as Hanson claims in the op-ed.

Of course, there are compelling reasons to strive for education reform and improvement. But we shouldn’t expect those reforms to eradicate annoying customer service moments, nor should we fear a global collapse because someone wrote down the wrong address.

In my recent study of government in Missouri, I wrote about the potential advantages of disincorporation for Missouri municipalities. I wrote:

While contracting with the county is a far more efficient use of tax dollars than would be entailed by every municipality using its own employees to perform every service, residents of certain cities in the county could get the same level of service, for less tax money, through disincorporation.

Now it looks like the financial crisis in making me quite the seer. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal and today’s Washington Independent both have articles about municipalities around the country that are looking at disincorporation as a way to escape financial situations that are no longer sustainable. These decisions are being forced by economic reality, while my analysis of some smaller towns in Missouri (mostly in St. Louis County), entailed the benefits of a more reasoned decision to look at the costs and benefits of being a small city in a big county.

There is one important difference between disincorporation in St. Louis County and the examples given in these articles.

In California and many other states, the county or state must approve such a move, he said. Most counties are ailing as badly as cities, and are unlikely to readily approve a disincorporation, he said.

With St. Louis County’s unique sales tax pool, disincorporation would automatically mean more money for county government, because the pool is divided by population, and St. Louis County’s share is determined by its unincorporated population. If cities disincorporate, that means more people in the unincorporated area and more sales tax money for the county to provide services like police and roads.

I don’t know of any Missouri cities that are on the verge of disincorporating, and in areas other than St. Louis County it would probably be a more burdensome process for the remaining governments. But it is an important option for cities in Missouri to consider, and for taxpayers to keep in mind, every time some tiny city tries to enact another tax increase.

From the Post-Dispatch article about Clayton’s imminent smoking ban:

Alderman Judy Goodman, among others, said that public health was the main issue in support of the ban. “Continuing to allow smoking in Clayton seems incompatible with our priorities and our duty to protect the health and safety of this community,” Goodman said.

In other words, allowing consumers to make choices goes against Clayton officials’ mission of protecting everyone’s health.

Protecting health doesn’t seem like a bad priority; it’s a goal that many people, both in and out of government, share. But we need to ask: Is it right for a municipality to work towards a goal like this, trampling personal freedoms on the way? Imagine when Clayton makes progress, and all public businesses meet officials’ ideal standards of health. Will they next bring their regulations into private homes, in the name of a sacred priority?

If we write off liberties for something uncontroversial like health, those freedoms won’t be there to protect us if someday officials adopt less-appealing priorities.

If people choose to buy locally grown food, that’s great. I just have a problem with them when they try to force that preference on the rest of us through subsidies and regulation. Activist locavores allege that their way of life is more “sustainable,” and use this assertion to justify their lobbying efforts. This chart illustrates why they’re wrong. Notice that no products are available in January or February. A practice that can’t even be sustained for eleven months straight isn’t all that sustainable.

An article comparing the educational performance of students in different countries has sparked some discussion on the Columbia Daily Tribune’s Homeroom blog. The article’s conclusion, with which several of the blog’s commenters agree, is that students in the United States aren’t doing as poorly as the critics would have you believe.

I’m all in favor of staying calm about education. Politicians say we need a “sense of urgency,” then use that agitation to their advantage as they push through huge spending increases. It would be wiser to weigh the pros and cons of different policies without giving in to hysteria.

But staying calm doesn’t mean ignoring the facts. For example, this is from the first section of the article:

Only about one-third of U.S. students could read and do math at current grade levels on national tests in 2007, the most recent figures available.

I’m not reassured that a few other developed nations do comparably poorly on international math and science exams, especially given that some countries do a lot better while spending less money.

There are a few legislators in our General Assembly that could really benefit from this article in the Wall Street Journal about what happened when Maryland raised its state income tax to fill budget gaps. Believe it or not, tax revenues decreased as — get ready for the big shock — some rich people actually moved out of Maryland! Maybe Maryland can pass a law making it illegal to move out of Maryland. …

Bill Schrier blogs about public service jobs, and the belief that they’re like diamonds (i.e., that they last forever):

For one thing, there’s an expectation that government is stable and long-term in its operations and its employment. It has to be. Despite the situation with the economy at large, water and electricity have to keep flowing, streets and parks need to be repaired and cleaned, 911 calls answered, cops and firefighters dispatched.

What’s missing from this analysis is the fact that technology changes. Yes, municipalities have to provide the same services year after year, but as time goes on they should become more efficient. That means employing fewer people to provide basic services.

A couple of weeks ago, David Brooks wrote about charter schools run by the Harlem Children’s Zone. The comments on his column now number in the hundreds, and several of them are suspicious of the research Brooks cites. Similar arguments can be found in the comments to a recent post of mine, “How to Compete With Charters.”

Here are a few of the criticisms of charters that come up time and again, each followed by my answers:

Charter school students’ gains are a result of their intrinsic motivation, not superior schools.

I don’t want to dismiss hard work on the part of students; obviously, learning can’t be forced on anyone and the children should rightly take credit for their own accomplishments. However, we observe that some schools allow children to succeed through hard work and others do not.

This is from an article about KIPP:

Typically students are two or three grade levels behind when they enroll at KIPP as fifth graders. A KIPP study shows that the average fifth-grade student beginning in KIPP scores in the 40th percentile in math and the 32nd percentile in reading based on norm-referenced exams, which compare a student’s performance to their peers nationally. After four years in KIPP, the youngsters tend to score in the 82nd percentile in math and 60th percentile in reading.

If KIPP’s success could be attributed solely to motivation, why were those extremely motivated students so far behind to begin with? The motivation was probably there in fourth grade as well as in fifth grade, right? So the traditional public schools could have taken that motivation and run with it, before these students ever set foot in KIPP. And not every city has KIPP schools, so we should see large groups of traditional district students making sudden, large gains during middle school in the cities where KIPP can’t siphon off the motivated children. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.

You don’t have to take my word for it — researchers like Roland Fryer and Caroline Hoxby take the motivation problem into account. When they look at student achievement, they compare students who attend charters with other students who entered charter lotteries, but who randomly were assigned to traditional public schools. Their studies find that students who attend charters do better than students who were equally motivated to apply to charters. The only difference between the two groups is that some had the luck of the draw.

It is possible that attending a school your family chose increases your motivation over time. Maybe at the beginning of the study, the charter school kids are no more motivated than their counterparts who lost the lottery. But after a few years in a charter school, they feel a sense of ownership about their schools. They could always choose to go back to their assigned district, so there’s no attitude of “I have to be here, but I don’t have to like it.” Instead, students may think, “My family made this choice, and now it’s up to me to follow through and do my part.” If it turned out that charter school students actually have extra motivation stemming from this reason, that’s an argument in favor of more charters and choice.

Charter schools can be super-selective and set strict rules, while traditional public schools have a disadvantage in that they must accept all comers.

Charter schools are public schools, and they don’t do anything that public schools can’t do. Remember the Clyde C. Miller Career Academy? I wrote a post about how wonderful this “charter” school is, only to find out it’s a district school. If the Career Academy can make students write essays and do interviews before they’re admitted, other district schools could do that too.

Traditional districts like SLPS have the talented people they need to succeed, but political forces just don’t allow them to realize their potential.

I agree completely. As competition with the charters heats up, we’re going to see more district schools like the Career Academy that are just as good as charters. SLPS has the necessary raw materials; choice is the catalyst. The district should view charter schools as its partners in battling political inertia — they’re not enemies.