Susan Pendergrass talks with Cory Koedel, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute, about who is in charge of public education in Missouri after the state commissioner’s resignation, the state’s new school letter grades, and why Koedel says the state needs to keep testing. They also discuss their new paper, Missouri Education Policy with Reduced Federal Oversight, including why Koedel believes Title I funding is poorly designed and what a different approach could look like, and more.
Episode Transcript
Susan Pendergrass (00:00)
This is gonna be an interesting podcast because it’s kind of a meta one where I’m joined by Cory Koedel, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute, as well as a professor of economics at Mizzou, and we wrote a paper together recently on the federal role in public education policy at the state level. But what I wanna talk about before we get into that paper is like what’s going on in terms of, you know, where does the buck stop right now in public education? Because there’s been a lot of upheaval in Missouri at the state level, let alone what’s happening at the federal level. So what is going on right now in terms of leadership of public education in Missouri? Can you just update us?
Cory Koedel (00:41)
Yeah, so it’s nice to be on the podcast as always. What’s going on with the Department of Education right now, as you know, the interim commissioner Stacey Preis resigned after the last board meeting, which I guess was a couple of weeks ago now. And they’re in the process of looking to replace her. You know, if you ask where the buck stops, I think the short answer where the buck stops right now is with the State Board of Education.
Susan Pendergrass (01:06)
Okay, let’s just go back to why Stacey Preis was in there. So the State Board of Education has been somewhat reconfigured and there was a commissioner of education who left last summer. What happened there? Do you know?
Cory Koedel (01:20)
So over the summer there were several very contentious board meetings and an especially contentious meeting between the board and the former commissioner Karla Eslinger. I believe the June board meeting was the really contentious one, but you could just, if you listen to it, it’s kinda long and boring, but there was a stretch in there where you could really get a sense of it and you could feel the heat rising. And shortly after that board meeting, Karla resigned. And the Board of Education brought Stacey Preis in and she has been serving as the interim commissioner since. There was really no expectation she would stay on as permanent. It wasn’t even clear she would have wanted that job, but she was gonna fill in and keep things running since then. And then so the new news was her resignation, which was a bit of a surprise in October. And all the while the board is working toward getting a permanent commissioner in place.
Susan Pendergrass (02:11)
And then one of the big things that’s happening and has been happening this year is that DESE, as led by the commissioner, is supposed to be putting out letter grades for schools and districts. Is that what’s tripping up these commissioners?
Cory Koedel (02:24)
So again, we’re speculating here a little bit. I think with Karla, I do not think that was what tripped her up. I do think the board and Dr. Preis were not getting along very well, it didn’t seem like, and the letter grades were an issue that was coming up at the board meetings and clearly the sides were not getting along very well about it. To say that was the thing that caused it. I think actually someone might have asked her if that was what caused her to resign. And I think she did say no in my Marie. She had a brief press conference. So I’m not sure that I would stick it to the letter grades. I know that’s been a stressful issue for a lot of folks in Missouri and of course right there at the decision making part between the board and DESE, that’s been an issue. But I would say it’s a stretch to say that is what caused the resignation.
Susan Pendergrass (03:12)
Well, I say where does the buck stop? Because, you know, we’re gonna be talking about the fact that at the federal level, the current administration wants to air quote send education back to the state. So they’re like, We are not even supposed to be involved, it’s really a state issue. Then I hear at the state level, especially in that June meeting that you mentioned, some folks at the state level saying, Yeah, we’re a local control state. It really goes down to the superintendents and the principals and the building. And now we have the governor mandating these letter grades for schools and districts. And already in the media I’m seeing superintendents say, pay no attention to the letter grades, they don’t really tell you anything, we say like in a sense undermining that issue. And then it’s hard to know. Like who is in like if I’m unhappy with the way things are going with public education in Missouri, who should I be trying to hold responsible for that?
Cory Koedel (04:02)
So two things I’ll say. One is, you know, amidst all this chaos, I think it’s important to just point out directly these letter grades I think are quite good. So, you know, folks at the Show-Me Institute have been talking about the need for this for a long time. If you don’t like our ideas, you can look at other states that have really had recent success in their education systems. They have several things that they’re doing really well, but one of them is serious accountability and letter grades for schools and districts. It’s an important component of success in a lot of states. And Governor Kehoe’s executive order that brought the letter grades in is really well written. It’s really nice. And there’s not a bunch of fluff in there. It’s about student outcomes. You know, you’re always gonna get the school systems complaining about it and telling you, you know, there’s other stuff, and of course there’s other stuff, but the most important thing about schools is what the students are learning. I hope. I don’t know. I feel that’s true. I hope that’s not too controversial. And the letter grades are based on those things. And so I think the letter grade stuff is quite nice. And, you know, despite Stacey Preis resigning, things are going forward with report cards, and my understanding is they’re gonna release preliminary grades as soon as next month, maybe in December, and then they’re gonna release the first official grades next year. So that’s all happening. To answer your question of who you should be looking to if you’re not happy with how education policy is happening right now in the state of Missouri, I think there’s two places you can look. One is our state legislature, and in particular, to be blunt, the Senate has been dysfunctional and not really doing much of anything and blocking reform. I mean, there’s a lot of controversy around some of these reforms. So I know you and I are both pro-school choice. We’d like a bigger MOScholars program, more charter schools. I get that stuff’s controversial. An area where things are much less controversial is literacy reform, making sure we’re implementing policies so our kids can read. The Senate’s not allowing that to happen either, even though my sense is there’s broad bipartisan support for this. So we have some legislative gridlock, to put it nicely, with stuff not getting done. So if you want to be upset at folks there, I think that’s very reasonable in our state senate. And then on the administration side, I really do think the state school board has taken a much more assertive role than historically has been the case. My view until very recently of our state school board is it’s been a rubber stamp for whatever DESE wants to do. That’s different now, and they are pushing to do things. And I think with that comes some accountability for what’s happening.
Susan Pendergrass (06:37)
Yeah, I think that, you know, twenty years ago No Child Left Behind got rolled out. There was a lot of backlash to this idea that we’re gonna test every kid, report the tests, and every school’s gonna be accredited or not accredited and was really top down, heavy handed from the federal government. And people didn’t like it. And they eventually watered it all down and waived everything. But there was some aspect of that that also kind of works, right? Like people don’t like feeling like they’re being told how to run their classroom. But at the same time when you don’t do that, kids learn less. Is that fair?
Cory Koedel (07:11)
Susan, I think you’re understating it even. I mean, look, it was unpleasant, but it worked. And to be honest, we all understand that happens all the time in life. There’s all kinds of unpleasant things we go through that work to get things done. And, you know, there’s some pretty well-identified research evidence that suggests that some of what happened under No Child Left Behind, some of the accountability pressures really did improve student learning. And there’s also just broad evidence that that was a period when No Child Left Behind was in place where achievement really took off in this country. And right around when they softened it all and pulled it all back is when achievement started declining. Now other stuff happened as well when things started declining. So you want to be a little careful about overinterpreting those trends, but all of the evidence suggests it worked. It’s just a matter of degree. And our school system has been struggling ever since we repealed all that accountability.
Susan Pendergrass (08:03)
So I feel like in Missouri now we have a similar kind of push pull where we have a more active board. They’re gonna hold the commissioner accountable in a way that really hasn’t been happening. And we have these kind of top down policies. And you know, as you mentioned, in the Missouri legislature, particularly the Senate, even the simplest thing is like, let’s not use a harmful approach to teaching reading, there’s pushback, right? They’re like, Well, you can’t tell us what we can and can’t do in the classroom. What do we do about that?
Cory Koedel (08:29)
So there was that pushback against some of the literacy reforms and what you’re referring to is the three-cueing method of teaching kids how to read. It’s been debunked, it just it doesn’t teach kids how to read. And there is some pushback. There was legislation to try to ban the use of three-cueing in schools, and there was some pushback against banning it that it could be bad for teachers. I think we could talk about that. You know, the truth is, Susan, I’m not too worried about that because I don’t feel like that was very effective during the legislative session. I think there was testimony. I was there at some of the bill hearings and testimony was given that we shouldn’t take any tools away from teachers and you know, how dare us try and tell a teacher what they can and can’t do. But I do feel like that largely fell flat with the lawmakers. They understood that this wasn’t a good way to teach reading and things were progressing along. I think things stalled out because our Senate just refused to do anything. They refused to let any bills through in education. So I’m not as worried about the coalition of folks who just don’t want anything to change in schools, I don’t think their ideas are so effective as much as we just have gridlock in our Senate.
Susan Pendergrass (09:39)
Yeah, but there has been either through bills that have been filed or just through the rumor mill, some suggestion that maybe we don’t even need a state education agency, let alone a federal education agency. And if we go that route, that like the state shouldn’t be telling us what test to use route, then we are going to not only throw out No Child Left Behind gains, but we’re gonna throw out gains from the Missouri assessment program, right? Like we’re gonna go back to when I was in school and everyone just took the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Your parents got a piece of paper and said, I guess it looks okay. And that was that, right? Like, that to me seems like a possibility and also a real risk for the kids in Missouri.
Cory Koedel (10:24)
Yeah, I think it’s a scary idea. It is circulating in some places in Jeff City. What I always tell people is, if you’re not happy about how our schools are running right now, just wait till we stop testing. And I think whatever else is happening, if we stop testing, then we just have no more objective information about what’s happening. And that’s true. Some people don’t understand the nuance, that’s true even if we are testing, but all the districts are using different tests. If we let them all pick their own tests, we have no way to compare across districts and understand what’s going on and which schools are succeeding, which need supports, and all the stuff that we would have to do to try to have a functioning education system in Missouri. The test data provide really valuable information, and it’s really important that we keep testing.
Susan Pendergrass (11:10)
And that’s basically for the most part what these report cards will be based on as the foundation of that is this MAP test. And I know you’ve been really involved in the process, but what do you see happening when the grades, maybe not this set that’s coming out in November, December, but the air quotes real ones that come out next year, how do you see that, what kind of impact do you think that will have on the districts that get D’s and F’s and also even on the districts that get the A’s? How do you see that all kind of sifting out once we get to look at these grades?
Cory Koedel (11:40)
Well, that’s the million dollar question. What I would say the big problem the grades are solving is what in the educational research community we call the honesty gap. And the honesty gap is that kids get grades from their teachers that are all A’s and Bs, but their test scores show they’re not proficient. They’re not able to do these academic skills that they’re supposed to be able to do. And the letter grades for the schools and districts are based on the tests. And so the first thing that I think is surely going to happen is a lot of people are going to be surprised. And I know this because there’s a lot of survey data out there. When you ask parents, hey, like how is your kid doing in school? And, you know, 80% of parents say my kid’s doing great. And then, you know, only 40% of kids are proficient. And so there is this huge gap. There’s gonna be a lot of surprises when this happens. And you know, right now the Missouri letter grade policy really doesn’t have any teeth. It’s not like if you get an F, the state’s gonna come take over the school or anything, you know, wild like that. It’s just informational. But I think that could be quite powerful because I think it’s gonna lead people to ask questions. And what I feel fairly confident about is when they ask questions, they’re gonna realize that the letter grades are giving them meaningful information. You know, you’ve alluded to some district correspondence, ignore these grades, don’t worry about it, they don’t mean anything. Anyone who takes the time to look is gonna see they may not like their grade, but it’s based on real data on how kids are doing on tests and a strong academic growth measure that Missouri has that allows us to compare similar schools. And it’s gonna change the conversation, I think, about school quality in our state and where it goes from there, I’m not sure, but it’s the obvious first step.
Susan Pendergrass (13:23)
So we have a paper that’s just been released that’s not related to that exactly, but it’s related to the federal role in Jefferson City, which to the extent that folks when they send their kids off to school on the school bus every morning think about the state role, I don’t think they do. But they certainly probably don’t think about the federal role. But when this Trump administration came in, one of the things that they pledged to do was to get rid of the Department of Education and that requires Congress. So it has not happened and is not expected to happen. But the Department of Education said to states, Hey, send us your ideas for any federal law that you’d like us to waive and we want you guys to have flexibility and not just be complying with the you know, filling out forms and just complying. We do have a lot of people in Jefferson City whose salaries are paid by federal funds, basically, and they do a lot of form filling and a lot of certification on these contracts. It takes a lot of time. And they said, you know, we’re gonna try to, if you wanna take that on yourself, we’ll give you maximum flexibility. But basically what did we find out? I mean, I can tell you what we found out to a certain extent, but were you surprised that there’s not much there?
Cory Koedel (14:34)
Yeah, so that was, you know, when you do these research projects, you know, obviously you’re trying to produce a product that can teach other people things. But a lot of times you learn stuff on the way yourself and it’s a learning process, you know, for the writer. And that was certainly true in this paper. And it was kind of shocking to me how little. As you mentioned, the federal Department of Education is saying, you know, send us requests for waivers, we’ll help you out, we’ll do this stuff for ya. Just in plain terms, they can hardly do anything. The amount that they can really help you with is like a rounding error in terms of the dollars. They can help you, you know, streamline the little bureaucracy, you know, get rid of a few of these paper pushers. It sounds nice because no one wants someone sitting there just filling out forms all day. It seems like a waste of time, but in the scheme of our education budget it’s like nothing. And the big things that would really help us, you know, one thing I learned from our project is, you know, the Department of Education can’t help us. Congress has to act and I’m not very optimistic about that in the short run, but someone has to push them and they have to act for real meaningful changes to happen.
Susan Pendergrass (15:36)
Yeah, I didn’t have a very strong reaction to this idea that they’re gonna get rid of the Department of Education. I remember just after the election, somebody saying, my god, this is amazing. They’re gonna get rid of the Department of Education. I’m so excited. And I said, You’re gonna be disappointed. And then other people were like, my god, kids won’t get lunch, there won’t be money for kids with disabilities. And I said, You’re gonna be really disappointed because really you probably wouldn’t even notice all of those functions happen. Well, the Department of Education came into being in the eighties, but it’s basically governed by a law passed in the sixties. So whether there’s a building which they’ve moved out of, or whether there’s letterhead, department of education, doesn’t change the fact that sixty years ago Congress passed a law on sending money to states for districts that serve higher numbers or percentages of poor kids. And that law, I can’t even imagine Congress taking it up ’cause it would be so difficult to ever come to consensus again. I mean at some point it’s like rewriting a state constitution. At some point they need to do something, but it’s so big and unwieldy that I just can’t even imagine it changing. And as long as that law’s in place, really there’s not much flexibility.
Cory Koedel (16:43)
Yeah, and what you’re talking about specifically is the funding and mostly what we call Title I funding, which is funding that the federal government allocates to districts in poorer areas. And it’s been around for a long time and that’s the thing the State Department of Education can’t do anything about. If we sent a wonderful request of a great idea of how to repurpose that money, distribute it in a smarter way, the Department of Education can do absolutely nothing to help us. Congress would have to act to give us that flexibility. But you know, I mentioned like learning while you’re doing these research reports. The epiphany I had in working on this with you, you know, and I will say I’m a strong advocate of the government allocating more resources to low-income schools. I think that the low-income kids, to be more specific, I think that’s really important redistribution service of the government. And I’m very in favor of it, and I actually would like to redistribute even more than we do. But my epiphany is I’m very anti-Title I. The way this program is set up is terrible. And if you don’t mind me going a little bit on a tangent,
Susan Pendergrass (17:48)
No, please.
Cory Koedel (17:50)
Just as an analogy for Title I, the way Title I allocates money is it identifies schools and districts in poor areas and it sends them an allotment every year and no matter what happens they just get an allotment every year. I mean there’s a formula that’s complicated, but every year they just get a dump of money and that’s the federal government’s solution to try to help with poverty. And it made me think of years ago I was brought on as a consultant at a major philanthropic foundation and they had a huge endowment, well over a billion dollars and the top people at the foundation were very worried that they were wasting their money, that they weren’t doing any good. And the main threat that they identified is the way these big foundations work. When they’re a nonprofit, they have an endowment and they get tax advantages for that and the trade-off is they have to spend a certain amount of money and I think it’s about five percent. And a lot of them will spend the minimum. So say this endowment spins off five percent every year. So on a billion dollars, that’s fifty million, fifty million dollars a year. So every year on January 1st, 50 million dollars drops in your lap. No matter how good or bad of a job you do, next January 1st, 50 million drops in your lap. And they were so concerned about this. They thought this was the worst situation because no matter how poorly they did, there was no accountability for it. And the next year their program officers just get their coffers filled again and they could go waste the money the whole next year. So it was actually really nice and thoughtful, and I really enjoyed working with this foundation trying to figure this out. But the epiphany was that’s exactly how Title I works. So it just instead of philanthropic foundation, it’s just dumping money on schools in poor areas, no matter how bad of a job they do. If they don’t help the kids at all, if they hurt the kids, if someone embezzles the money, it just goes right back to me. It’s a fundamentally flawed system. And there is quite a bit of money in this to help low-income kids. And I just wish we could do something smarter about it. And of course, in the report we talk about what we’d like to do if Congress would let us.
Susan Pendergrass (19:43)
Yeah, it passed in 1965 and they started studying the impact of it in like 1968. Like immediately they started trying to find out if this program was having an impact, and they have studied it consistently over the last sixty years. And there is very, very thin evidence that there’s been any impact for any particular group of kids that’s lasted. It is for the amount of money that’s been spent, it is troubling what you cannot show has happened. And there’s no real stick or carrot. There’s a threat that if you don’t comply with reporting requirements, maybe they would withhold funds, but funds have never been withheld. In sixty years, funds have never been withheld for anything. And you know, so I think everyone knows that. And honestly, no district really has any way of checking the amount of money they get either because the formulas are so complicated and depend on all the other districts. So, you know, it’s just kind of like money going into a hole. Now in our paper we talk about a solution that has been talked about for decades now, which is turn it into the Pell Grant system, just attach it to a child living below the poverty line, which we can now easily identify these kids. We have direct certification. We know if they’re getting SNAP or CHIP. We know who these kids are, and just give them the money directly to take to school. It would have to be a school of their choice because there would have to be some incentive there. But, you know, in Missouri I think kids living below the poverty line could get fifteen hundred dollars for example and if they could choose their school, they would come with fifteen hundred dollars or their parents could use it as a scholarship account, you know, for a computer or tutoring or something else. But again, Congress which does less and less all the time would have to act and really go back and tackle that. Now there has been in the last 10 or 15 years a couple of instances where a pilot program to do that almost got through, but it didn’t get through. So a state would have to apply for a waiver and say we would like to do a pilot in two districts or three districts, and that didn’t happen. The best chance for that was under No Child Left Behind. And they ended up with something called supplemental education services. So that’s not gonna happen. So Missouri just gets the money, it funds. I don’t know, I think I figured out thirty or forty salaries in Jefferson City are paid for with federal funds and that’s just the way it’s gonna be and there’s really no incentive to change that. Which is kind of a bummer.
Cory Koedel (22:10)
Yeah, so a couple of reactions to that. So the first thing I wanna mention is you mentioned it’s fifteen hundred dollars, which knowledgeable folks paying attention are gonna say, Well that’s not that much money to educate a student and that’s true, but you know it could be combined with smart state policies like something like MOScholars, where if you’re a low income family in Missouri, you get priority access to MOScholars, which is our education savings account program, and you could top it off with federal funding and then those poor students would have a higher dollar value attached to them, which could help open up more options for them. I also think there’s other creative ways you could think about using that what we call backpacking the fund. So attaching the fund to the kid so the kid can use it what makes sense. I mean ’cause I think one issue that some of these families have is transportation. And you can imagine some interesting transportation ideas coming up using this funding to help these kids get to a school that’s better for them. And there’s all kinds of things we could do if we had the leeway to do it. I will say I’m a little skeptical about even a pilot showing the potential of this thing, because of course the pilot wouldn’t come with the broad infrastructure change that you could build around this, that would be good. So, you know, it is, you know, I guess we’re a little bit pie in the sky here ’cause I think we both agree that Congress is unlikely to take this up soon. The other reaction I have that I want to mention is I also want to be very clear. You know, we’re sitting here in our little siloed world thinking this is a great idea. There’s obvious losers of such a policy change, and that’s these districts that every year just get this pile of money dropped in their lap and they would mount a vicious defense against any changes to the plan. So it’d be very hard politically as well, but it became apparent to me in working on this that the current system just doesn’t make any sense. And as you pointed out, there’s really no evidence that it does any good. And for as much money as we spent on this thing, that’s pretty damning in itself.
Susan Pendergrass (23:58)
There is a big belief in Title I-A, though, and a big cheerleading section for all the good that it does because it goes to poor schools and it’s supposed to supplement, not supplant, so it can’t be like the state doesn’t send the money. I mean, it’s supposed to be money on top of all the other money, but folks are very disappointed to find out that there’s no evidence that it’s had an impact. I mean, we know that the gap in achievement between poor kids and non poor kids only gets wider. It has not narrowed. And that was the whole point of this program when Lyndon Johnson put his name on it. So are you optimistic about things that are happening at the state level in Missouri?
Cory Koedel (24:33)
You know, I think I am. I think it’s rocky right now. I think the commissioner turnover stuff has not been good. But what I will say, when I step back from it, you know, I moved here in ’07 and have been at the University of Missouri this whole time and recently with Show-Me, but my whole time here, I feel like our state board has been very apathetic. They didn’t seem to care about anything as our achievement was declining during the mid to late 2010s. I saw no urgency from anyone, things tanked during COVID, no urgency. What’s fundamentally different now is we have a state board that really does care. And I wish things the last few months would have gone down a little better. And I think there’s some mistakes they’ve made. But they care. And to me that’s actually a really huge step forward. And I’m optimistic that some of these missteps, they can learn from them and correct course and get on a better path and keep that caring. And we can try and make some progress and make things a little better for kids in our schools.
Susan Pendergrass (25:35)
I agree. And yeah, I know you and I have talked about this, but most people think the schools are doing fine, right? They think Missouri’s probably pretty great. I don’t know. But even since I’ve been working in Missouri for eight or nine years, Missouri’s gone from sort of top third to middle of the pack to moving to the bottom of the pack. And in the last round of national test scores that came out in 2024, I think it was fourth grade reading, we only beat New Mexico and Oregon. We were third from the bottom. And I think that that is shocking to people. I don’t think they realize that four in ten of our fourth graders are really not able to do any basic reading. So hopefully the board’s gonna, I mean, they’ve got a tough set of circumstances that they’re working within. So I’m glad that they’re not just complacent anymore.
Cory Koedel (26:22)
Yep, no, and this is the honesty gap we were talking about. And I’ve written recently about how this shows up in graduation rates. So during this decline you just described in our test scores over time falling, falling, falling, our graduation rate’s been going through the roof. And I do think that most people just don’t understand that our schools just are not performing well. I mean it’s just a fact. They’re just not performing well compared to other states, they’re not performing well compared to our own historical standards. Our kids are not learning as much as they should be in school. And yeah, it’s a tough thing.
Susan Pendergrass (26:55)
And we’ll keep working on it. And we do have a paper on the potential federal waivers that Missouri could be asking for at showmeinstitute.org. But thanks so much for joining me and discussing it.
Cory Koedel (27:06)
Thanks for having me.
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