Q: MO State Senator Jane Cunningham wants “open enrollment” for Missouri’s public schools. For St. Louis this would be
a bad idea: 41 [41%]
a good idea 35 [35%]
unsure 16 [16%]
a neutral idea: 6 [6%]
Other answer… 3 [3%] 1) Didnt this fail with deseg? 2) Something worth exploring. 3) A good idea IF school funding was only from the state. But its not.
The last “other” response may have hit on the key — the source of funding. But many see open enrollment as removing students from the St. Louis Public Schools. Parents chimed in via the comments:
Wouldn’t such a thing help attract suburban families to city living, since their children could attend schools in the county?
Having open enrollment will not get the right parents involved in their children’s education.
The city is totally unsustainable without schools that middle class, educated people will send their kids to.
Any changes should only include a regionally unified district not the ability to pick and chose districts.
I doubt I am long for the city for the schooling reason.
Children are not to be used for “social experiments”.
My children attend a racially & economically balanced school with high academic achievement, and I live in the only neighborhood in the St. Louis area that offers the walkable, urbane lifestyle I want to have. I believe by virtue of this choice, my children will have a better understanding of the realities of the world than they would if I lived in a typical suburb.
I think the last comment is one of the best on the schools issue. Middle-class white kids need to learn from an early age how to interact with non-white kids and those from different economic classes. Their future is one where they will be a minority. Those who grow up in diverse neighborhoods and attend diverse schools will be better prepared for the future. I don’t know that open enrollment is the best solution but I know our region needs to have some serious discussions about how better educate all our children.
Do you diligently recycle every item in your house? Have you given up buying bottled water and even bring home bottles and food containers from places where recycling isn’t available? Have you opted for more vegetarian meals and created a plan to recycle gray water to your garden? Then you are someone who believes the planet is in trouble and are willing to make lifestyle choices to support your eco-concerns.
Then there’s your significant other: well-mannered, smart, a perfect fit, and totally opposed to giving up meat even one day a week. He/she recycles when it’s convenient, refuses to give up long showers, and doesn’t believe small personal choices have any impact whatsoever on global warming.
You are at odds. It’s a source of constant friction: he scowls at the vegetarian chili; she resents the single-ply toilet paper and the constant washing of his reusable water bottle. And worst of all is the sense of moral superiority that the significant other exudes while performing small acts of green living.
According to an article this week in the New York Times, therapists are counseling more and more couples who are having a hard time reconciling their green practices. It is their observation that:
“While no study has documented how frequent these clashes have become, therapists agree that the green issue can quickly become poisonous because it is so morally charged. Friends or family members who are not devoted to the environmental cause can become irritated by life choices they view as ostentatiously self-denying or politically correct.”
As climate change becomes an ever more divisive issue, not based on the science which is irrefutable, but on different personal values, it can lead to a parting of the ways. Some couples now look deep into their future and see different journeys and destinations as their partner adopts more green values. At stake now are differing ideas on how to live, how to invest money, what to eat, and what values to pass on to the children. There may soon be a need for a new kind of therapist: a sort of eco-therapist who can help couples and families to work out differences regarding green practices.
So here’s our question: Does a green line divide your household? Between those who choose to live green and those that don’t? The weekly poll is in the right sidebar.
Despite the annual First Night event in Grand Center, I stayed at home New Years Eve. If I were more mobile and it wasn’t so cold out I might have joined the party. The question about people’s plans for New Years Eve was the poll question last week:
Q: New Year’s Eve I will celebrate:
at my home: 28 (33%)
at the home of family/friends: 28 (33%)
at a local business in my region: 9 (11%)
at a local event in my region: 9 (11%)
unsure/still deciding/not celebrating: 6 (7%)
in a region other than my own: 5 (6%)
It was a soft question to end out 2009 and the response was lower than normal. Two-thirds were going to be at home – theirs or that of others. I imagine most of us at home watched the ball drop in Times Square. Such events are held in urban spaces. You’d never see a New Years Eve celebration in a Home Depot parking lot.  People just expect celebrations (parades, festivals, etc) to take place in urban settings.
As Grand Center gets more restaurant venues, hotels and residential housing this area and the First Night event should become more and more important. Maybe this coming NYE won’t be as cold?
The question of municipal earnings taxes have been raised once again last week:
“A series of proposed ballot initiatives unveiled by the Missouri secretary of state this week could spell the end of the city’s much-maligned 1 percent earnings tax.The ballot questions – five of them – were approved only for circulation, meaning that supporters are free to begin the process of gathering the 100,000 or so signatures needed to put any one of them on the statewide ballot.
The initiatives were officially submitted to the secretary of state by a Jefferson City attorney, but the push itself is being led by – who else? – wealthy financier Rex Sinquefield, who has flooded the coffers of Missouri politicians with campaign cash.” Source: P-D Political Fix)
The following is the news release from Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (link):
The first ballot title for the petition relating to earnings taxes reads:
Shall Missouri law be amended to:
repeal the authority of certain cities to use earnings taxes to fund their budgets;
require voters in cities that currently have an earnings tax to approve continuation of such tax at the next general municipal election and at an election held every 5 years thereafter;
require any current earnings tax that is not approved by the voters to be phased out over a period of 5 years; and
prohibit any city from adding a new earnings tax to fund their budget?
The proposal could eliminate certain city earnings taxes. For 2010, Kansas City and the City of St. Louis budgeted earnings tax revenue of $199.2 million and $141.2 million, respectively. Reduced earnings tax deductions could increase state revenues by $4.8 million. The total cost or savings to state and local governmental entities is unknown.The second ballot title for the petition relating to earnings taxes reads:
Shall Missouri law be amended to:
repeal the authority of certain cities to use earnings taxes to fund their budgets;
require voters in cities that currently have an earnings tax to approve continuation of such tax at the next general municipal election and at an election held every 5 years thereafter;
require any current earnings tax that is not approved by the voters to be phased out over a period of 10 years; and
prohibit any city from adding a new earnings tax to fund their budget?
The proposal could eliminate certain city earnings taxes. For 2010, Kansas City and the City of St. Louis budgeted earnings tax revenue of $199.2 million and $141.2 million, respectively. Reduced earnings tax deductions could increase state revenues by $4.8 million. The total cost or savings to state and local governmental entities is unknown.The third ballot title for the petition relating to earnings taxes reads:
Shall Missouri law be amended to:
repeal the authority of certain cities to use earnings taxes to fund their budgets;
require voters in cities that currently have an earnings tax to approve continuation of such tax at the next general municipal election and at an election held every 10 years thereafter;
require any current earnings tax that is not approved by the voters to be phased out over a period of 10 years; and
prohibit any city from adding a new earnings tax to fund their budget?
The proposal could eliminate certain city earnings taxes. For 2010, Kansas City and the City of St. Louis budgeted earnings tax revenue of $199.2 million and $141.2 million, respectively. Reduced earnings tax deductions could increase state revenues by $4.8 million. The total cost or savings to state and local governmental entities is unknown.The fourth ballot title for the petition relating to earnings taxes reads:
Shall Missouri law be amended to:
repeal the authority of certain cities to use earnings taxes to fund their budgets;
require voters in cities that currently have an earnings tax to approve continuation of such tax at the next general municipal election and at an election held every 5 years thereafter;
require any current earnings tax that is not approved by the voters to be phased out over a period of 10 years; and
prohibit any city from adding a new earnings tax to fund their budget?
The proposal could eliminate certain city earnings taxes. For 2010, Kansas City and the City of St. Louis budgeted earnings tax revenue of $199.2 million and $141.2 million, respectively. Reduced earnings tax deductions could increase state revenues by $4.8 million. The total cost or savings to state and local governmental entities is unknown.The fifth ballot title for the petition relating to earnings taxes reads:
Shall Missouri law be amended to eliminate the ability of cities to use earnings taxes to fund their budgets by phasing out any existing earnings tax over a ten year period and prohibiting any city from adding such a tax as a potential source of revenue?The proposal could eliminate certain city earnings taxes. For 2010, Kansas City and the City of St. Louis budgeted earnings tax revenue of $199.2 million and $141.2 million, respectively. Reduced earnings tax deductions could increase state revenues by $4.8 million. The total cost or savings to state and local governmental entities is unknown.These five petitions relating to earnings taxes, which would amend Chapter 92 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, were submitted by Mr. Marc H. Ellinger, 308 East High Street, Ste. 301, Jefferson City, MO 65101-3237.
That is a lot to absorb. Each of the five relates to how “certain cities use earnings taxes to fund their budgets.”
If wealthy financier/political activist Rex Sinquefield (right) gets his way and eliminates the city of St. Louis’ earnings tax, city officials say the impact would be “both disastrously serious and disastrously negative,” according to documents filed with the state auditor’s office.
In fact, city officials say that if St. Louis loses the $141 million collected annually from the one-percent tax, which provides close to 40 percent of the city’s income, “it could no longer function as a viable city government.”
Loss of the earnings tax, without replacing it with a roughly equal source of revenue, “would result in cuts to public safety services so deep as to end the City’s viability as a place to live, work and visit,” officials say. (Source: St. Louis Beacon)
Tax policies can be an important growth factor for municipalities, regions and states. The wrong policies and growth can be above average. Have the wrong policy and growth can lag behind the national average. The latter is the argument put forth by Sinquefield’s Show-Me Institute:
Missouri’s economic development and growth rates are chronically below average. During the past 10 years, employment has grown 8.8 percent nationally, while Missouri has boosted jobs by only 6 percent. Economists have provided one explanation for the state’s lagging performance: Missouri’s personal income tax rates.(Source)
My gut tells me the city & state would eventually be better off if we eliminated the earnings tax. That increased population and taxable activity would make up for the loss. The trick is how to get to that point. I’m all for trying to figure out how to increase our population, our employment base and other factors. We can’t just say the earnings tax is etched in stone.
So take the poll in the upper right corner and add your thoughts below.
The map only tells park of the picture. For more we need to look at enrollment.
Wellston, that is being consolidated with Normandy, is the smallest district on the list. The troubled St. Louis district, on the other hand, is the largest. But we can’t conclude that small or large is uniformly bad. Other factors, such as the overall economic demographic of the geographic area, are just as important in determining the overall success of a school district. Districts in economically poor areas, in my view, are certain to perform below expectations regardless of the amount of money expensed per student.
The best solution may be consolidation of some and splitting up of others – with an eye toward diverse economics and neither too small or too big with respect to the total enrollment.
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historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
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