While we did find a fair amount of information in our review, there are many holes left in the data as some district’s websites and Facebook pages were non-existent, outdated, or didn’t include parent communications. It is also possible that some districts updated their policies after we reviewed their websites. Despite this, we were still able to get a glimpse into what many districts were doing.

Through the data we collected, we found information on grading procedures for 178 districts and charter schools. Of those, we found that fewer than 15 percent of districts and charter schools stated that they graded coursework for credit during the school shutdowns. Forty two percent opted for a hold harmless approach to grading. These schools decided on a baseline for students’ grades—possibly their grade the last day of in-person classes or 3rd quarter grades—and any work a student completed during the shutdown could only raise that grade, not lower it.

Additionally, we sent out a survey to all superintendents in the state and asked key questions about how their district educated their students during the lockdown. While the survey responses from districts and charters were not necessarily representative of the state, we did receive 70 responses. Of those, just one district responded that it was conducting grading as normal. Another nine districts responded that they were still grading, but grades counted for less than they would under normal circumstances. Thirty-nine districts, or just over half, said they chose hold harmless grading.

Given how unexpected and sudden the COVID-19 shutdowns were, some patience as districts adjusted was necessary. It may have taken some time for schools to work out any mishaps or miscommunications before grading could take place, and families were also adjusting to a sudden change in responsibilities. But still: Almost no Missouri students have done graded work for over five months. If normal grading procedures resume this fall, it would indicate that districts are again teaching material to students. If not, it could be another semester for students without much learning.

The post Did Missouri Schools Grade Coursework during the COVID-19 Shutdown? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As more students consider moving directly from high school to the workforce, they will need quality career and technical education (CTE) at their schools to provide them with job skills and work experience that will qualify them for good jobs after graduation. Are schools ready to respond to changes in the needs and priorities of their students? If not, what will it take to get them ready? How well are CTE programs in Missouri serving students now? Any district that currently treats technical education as a backwater for kids who “don’t have what it takes” for college is already doing a disservice to its community, and the harm done will only get worse in the coming years.

Today I’m releasing two essays: Career and Technical Education and Workforce Development and Investing in the Future Workforce. Together these reports explore numerous aspects of CTE programs in Missouri and address the following questions:

• How is the current state of Missouri’s workforce affecting its economy?
• Are the priorities and practices of Missouri’s CTE programs aligned with what employers in the state say they need?
• What can Missouri learn from other states that have been successful in bolstering their workforces though CTE?
• What incentives can the state give educators to encourage them to help students earn the credentials that employers value?

To read the full reports, click on the links below.

The post Career and Technical Education: Investing in Missouri’s Future appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The American Federation for Children found that 40 percent of parents nationally say they are more likely to homeschool or virtual school their children once lockdowns are over. A poll from USA Today found that 6 in 10 parents are likely to consider at-home learning options for their children, and 3 in 10 are “very likely” to do that.

Public School Options also polled parents and found that parents are largely concerned about safety for their child this fall. More than two-thirds of parents are concerned about whether or not they can safely send their children to school when schools reopen. Over 40 percent of parents in the survey are considering online options for their children.

In Missouri, the Columbia Public Schools District surveyed its community and found that roughly half of parents wanted to remain online and half wanted to return to the school building in the fall. The district is now offering families the option to choose online classes for the fall.

There are ways to keep students safe while still giving them a quality education. Safe Student Scholarships are one option that I’ve discussed before, but there are others. Of course, the coronavirus situation could change by the time school starts, and parents could change their minds. But right now, parents are clearly indicating they want more options. While Missouri has previously resisted online education, it finally might be time for the supply of online offerings to meet the demand.

The post What Type of Education Will Parents Want in the Fall? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The results of the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam revealed that just 24 percent of U.S. eighth-graders scored proficient or advanced on the civics exam. On the NAEP history exam, a mere 15 percent of eighth-grade students scored proficient or advanced. These results indicate that a majority of students are not well versed in the topics that are critical to understanding and contributing to American democracy. Unfortunately, these rates have stayed fairly consistent since 1998, in both subjects.

A higher percentage of private school students scored proficient or above in civics and history than public school students. In 2018, 41 percent of private school test takers scored proficient or above in civics, whereas only 23 percent of public school test takers scored proficient or above. On the history exam, 29 percent of private school test takers scored proficient or above, while only 14 percent of public school students did. Based on these results, while not impressive, private schools seem to be doing a better job teaching history and civics to their students.

A solid civic education is important for a healthy democratic society. Students can learn how to participate in the political process and apply historical context to current issues. Civic knowledge can also support students’ career goals and prepare them for future political, cultural, and business leadership roles. We need to hold our schools accountable for failing to teach kids these important lessons.

The post How Much History Do U.S. 8th Graders Know? Not Much. appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The good news is that school districts will have that flexibility this year. DESE recently announced that “The Missouri State Board of Education voted to grant exemptions to the school start date law that goes into effect for the 2020–2021 school year, given the unusual and extenuating circumstances COVID 19 has presented.”

This waiver is good news for districts. The start date law, however, is an unnecessary restriction aimed at supporting tourism at the cost of education. A mandated start date makes even less sense this year, given the chaos created by COVID-19.

To acquire a waiver, districts must apply to the State Board of Education. Requirements for waiver eligibility (listed under the “Calendars, Finance and Funding” tab) include showing local support for moving the start date (DESE is vague about exactly what this means), holding a public hearing on moving the start date, demonstrating how this exemption will benefit students and their learning, and explaining how this exemption will minimize the transmission of COVID-19.

If a district’s waiver is granted, districts can create a school calendar based on student needs. However, the waiver is only good for the upcoming school year. Next year and beyond districts will have to follow the start date law. The coronavirus is an extreme example of how this law can create problems for schools, but there are many other potential situations where adjusting the school calendar could be necessary.

While it’s welcome news that districts won’t be mandated to start school on a fixed date this year, the underlying problem remains. The school start date law harms kids and schools in Missouri, and lawmakers should just get rid of it.

The post School Start-Date Flexibility: A Short-Term Win for Local Control appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A Safe Students Scholarship could work like a traditional education savings account, where students apply to scholarship-granting organizations for a scholarship and then access their funds through an approved bank account. Families could then purchase things such as tuition for a different school with smaller class sizes or an online education option.

Students and schools could see other benefits if a Safe Student Scholarship law is enacted. A scholarship could provide students with the state portion of their per-pupil funding, and districts would no longer have to pay their share of a student’s funding if the student leaves the district. Cost savings will be essential as school budgets are expected to fall in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, if students use the scholarship to take online courses, there would be smaller class sizes in traditional public schools, which would make it safer for students who stay in their assigned school.

The financial hit from the coronavirus will impact family budgets. Many families will no longer be able to afford private school, leaving private schools struggling with finances and enrollment. A Safe Students Scholarship could help private schools weather enrollment declines.

A Safe Students Scholarship could bring important financial and safety benefits to Missouri schools and students. Their availability could help eliminate the need for families to choose between education and health.

The post Safe Students Scholarship appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As of now, it is up to individual districts in Missouri to establish their own guidelines for distance-learning plans. Districts can decide how much classwork students need to complete and if teachers or the district create assignments. For districts that didn’t have any online learning components before COVID-19, switching completely online has presented challenges.

Missouri schools aren’t the only ones figuring out distance learning right now. The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has created a database for the largest public school districts in the nation and compiled what each has done in response to the coronavirus. CRPE then added 18 national charter school networks, and found that many charter networks are leading examples in how schools can continue to deliver quality instruction remotely to students.

Of the 18 charter networks CRPE examined, many were able to quickly adapt to entirely remote learning despite using different approaches. CRPE found that “half had created comprehensive learning plans with formal curriculum, instruction and progress monitoring.” Some of the charter networks, like Success Academy Charter Schools or Uncommon Schools, are even incorporating synchronous teaching. This is when all students in a class are logged online at the same time and learning from their teacher. In comparison, some Missouri school districts are not grading assignments, perhaps because they are still developing remote learning practices.

Missouri school districts don’t have to reinvent online learning. But they should be learning from other schools that have implemented remote learning successfully, like some of the leading national charter school networks that are leading the way on remote learning.

The post National Charter Networks Are Leading Distance Learning Strategies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Hopefully by late summer, the pandemic will be controlled enough for students to start the next school year normally. One idea for districts attempting to make up the lost time would be to start the next school year earlier. Unfortunately, the mandated start date law from 2019 would make this impossible.

Last year, a law passed limiting when school districts could start the school year in the hopes of advancing tourism with a few extra weeks of summer vacation. Putting tourism ahead of education was a bad idea in the first place, and there were other concerns with the law, such as a later start date perpetuating the academic summer slide. The law is an example of why we should be careful about taking away local control from schools, even for seemingly trivial matters such as school start dates. For districts that are not transitioning to remote learning, they have few options to make up the lost weeks, and this law eliminates one feasible option.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of flexibility in education policy. Local control can give districts the flexibility to properly respond to student needs.

The post One Fewer Option for School Districts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The best way to address this concern would be via an emergency tax-credit scholarship program. This tax-credit scholarship program could function much like a regular tax-credit scholarship program. Individuals and businesses donate to a scholarship-granting organization (SGO), and the SGO distributes the money to students who qualify based on the program requirements (the attached infographic has more detail on how the funding works). An emergency tax-credit scholarship could be awarded in cases such as the current pandemic, or in other cases such as natural disasters or even when individual families go through crisis.

Unfortunately, it seems very unlikely this type of program will pass this year. This is an important lesson about being proactive. If Missouri already had a tax-credit scholarship program, it would have been much easier to get kids the help they needed in a crisis. Instead, schools and districts are left scrambling to try and make something work without the resources required.

Tax-credit scholarships would help give families the ability to purchase the materials students need to keep learning even if it’s not in a traditional brick and mortar school. Lack of access to the internet or a computer are real barriers to learning for many students, but tax-credit scholarships could help fill that gap. Missouri can better prepare for unforeseen circumstances if only we would get a little creative.

The post How Can We Make Sure Missouri Students Can Still Learn? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I’ve written  previously about IRC attainment in Missouri, using data from 2017 and 2018 that the Show-Me Institute obtained through a data request. These data were useful because IRC attainment was broken out  by district and school, allowing for a detailed analysis of where in the state specific IRCs are earned and how that could support local economies.

However, documents from the Career and Technical Education (CTE) advisory council meeting in October 2019 contained IRC attainment data from 2013–2019. These data can provide further context, such as what IRCs students have earned over the years and which IRCs are growing in popularity, as well as overall attainment trends. The data show that IRC attainment spiked from 2013 to 2016, and has since slowly increased.

But this trend doesn’t hold true for all IRCs, including some IRCs for jobs that are in demand in Missouri, such as the CompTIA credential for technology jobs. The chart below shows that some IRCs have actually experienced a decline in attainment in recent years. This should be cause for concern since Missouri needs more students graduating with in-demand credentials, not fewer. To help encourage more high schoolers to earn an IRC, Missouri should consider implementing an IRC bonus pay program. An IRC bonus pay program would give a small bonus to a teacher for each student of theirs who passes an IRC exam.

These data can call to attention the gap between the economy’s need for IRCs and the low attainment of IRCs for Missouri high school students. Missouri should be trying to strengthen its workforce, and IRCs can be an effective way to do that. 

The post Trends in Industry Credentials Show Missouri Has Room to Grow appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The study examined 13 KIPP middle schools that had more applicants than seats available, so researchers were able to track the kids who got into the KIPP schools and those that didn’t. The groups of students are comparable because they all applied to KIPP schools, and thus have similar qualities like motivation and parental support. The results show that students enrolled in KIPP middle schools were 13 percent more likely to enroll in a 4–year college than students who did not. The study states that “the impact of attending a KIPP school would be almost large enough to erase the nationwide racial disparity in college enrollment rates.”

Nationally, KIPP has 242 schools and serves more than 100,000 students. St. Louis currently has six KIPP schools, including two middle schools and a high school. Kansas City has just two, including one middle school. There are so many more disadvantaged students outside of St. Louis and Kansas City who could benefit from a high-performing charter school like a KIPP school. Under Missouri’s current charter school laws, only the three percent of Missouri students in the St. Louis City or Kansas City school districts even have the option to apply for lottery admissions to KIPP schools. Charter school expansion could bring effective schools to students all over the state, giving students in urban and rural areas access to quality education.

The post Charter Schools Can Help More Students Get to College appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A bill currently circulating in the Missouri Legislature seeks to remedy this. The bill would require districts and charter schools that have three percent or more of their students identified as gifted to establish a state-approved gifted program. Currently, creating a gifted program is entirely voluntary, and there is vague language about a “sufficient number” of gifted students as the threshold for establishing a gifted program. But shouldn’t all gifted students receive an education that challenges them?

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are another tool that could help gifted students, particularly low-income students. ESAs could provide these students with options they previously couldn’t afford. An ESA is a flexible account with funds that families can use to purchase books, tutoring, online services or other academic programming for their students. With an ESA, students don’t have to rely on their district to meet the three percent threshold outlined in the legislation before they can get support.

In 2019, there were a total of 37,474 gifted students in the state. Of them, just under 1,000 students qualified for the Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL) program, used as a proxy for low-income status. Using an ESA program to award $1,000 to each low-income gifted student would cost around $1 million, a small portion of the $6.2 billion DESE budget in 2019. 

Kids learn at different paces. Shouldn’t our education system reflect that? Isn’t it time for Missouri to provide all gifted students with access to supplemental material so they can receive an education that matches their ability?   

The post How Missouri Can Serve Its Low-Income Gifted Students appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post House Bill 2068 and Tax-Credit Scholarships appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The program is called the Show Me a Brighter Future Scholarship Fund. The legislation would create a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for individuals and corporations that donate to a scholarship-granting organization. Qualifying students could then apply for the scholarships and use them toward private school tuition. SB 581 would allow for $25 million in tax credits. If the scholarship were fully funded at $25 million, that could mean roughly 7,100 students could receive $3,500 scholarships

Missouri would benefit from a tax-credit scholarship program. Previous research from Show-Me Institute authors has found that a tax-credit scholarship program in Missouri would save money for the state. Furthermore, there are seats open for over 28,000 students in Missouri private schools.

Eighteen other states currently have tax-credit scholarship programs, with almost 300,000 participating students as of August 2019. And even more are eager to participate. Over 8,000 students in Pennsylvania were turned away from one of the scholarship organizations because there were not enough scholarships available in 2017. When Illinois recently opened up applications for the 2020–21 school year for its scholarship program, nearly 25,000 students applied, which is more than four times as many students who are eligible to receive a scholarship.

Florida’s program has shown signs of success. A 2019 study of the program found that low-income students participating in the tax-credit scholarship program are more likely to enroll and graduate from college than those who didn’t participate in the program.

The Show Me a Brighter Future Scholarship Fund could help thousands of Missouri students access a quality private school. Private schools are a great option for many Missouri students, and a tax-credit scholarship program could help ensure that more families have that option.

The post Another Way to Create Options appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

After graduation, districts and schools follow up with their graduates to see what they’re currently doing, and then DESE compiles the data. I connected the DESE data with the federal data set that labels each district with different locale types, ranging from big cities to remote rural areas. You can see the results in the graph at the top of this post (the data may not add up to 100 percent due to data privacy and inability to contact all students).  

Looking at the 2018 data, 33 percent of rural district students entered employment and 35 percent enrolled in a 2-year college following graduation, both of which were the highest percentages for each category out of all locales. On the other hand, rural schools had 21 percent of its students attend a 4-year college or university, the lowest percentage out of all locales.

Workforce preparation for rural communities, thus, should have a strong focus on preparing students for high-demand, well-paying jobs they can enter soon after graduation. This could mean students taking the proper classes and having access to the credentials and skills training they need to be set up for a successful career immediately. Taking job-specific courses or earning college credit during high school should also be an option to help bridge students from high school to technical school.

Missouri needs to consider the data when planning for workforce development. There are good jobs available to Missourians, and the state needs to make sure students are ready to fill them.

The post Workforce Development for Rural Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Magnet schools are public schools that have a specialized focus, like STEM or the arts. They will often have admission and retention requirements, such as a minimum test score or GPA for students. Charter schools are another form of public school choice; they are granted autonomy and accept all students who apply. If a magnet school can get millions of dollars and support in Springfield, why does Missouri stifle the growth of charter schools, which could serve students outside of Kansas City and St. Louis?

I bet there have been many other ideas from would-be school leaders across the state on how to create new opportunities for students with an innovative school, but Missouri has been hostile to expanding school choice. Students in Springfield are fortunate enough to soon have access to another option. Unfortunately, many other Missouri students don’t have the chance to pick an education that’s right for them.

The post Why Does Missouri Make it So Difficult? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The DQC publication is a resource for parents, explaining why growth data is important for understanding student progress and how it can provide insight into their child’s school. It even explains different types of growth measurements in non-academic terms and could help parents work through jargon that may be on a school report card.

Unfortunately, the Missouri school report cards produced by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) don’t clearly explain growth data like the DQC does. In fact, the report cards don’t effectively inform parents about student growth at all, let alone explain what growth means.

To be sure, Missouri school report cards currently have a “growth” column in a section labeled “Federal (ESSA) Data”. The screenshots below are from three different district report cards. The growth numbers are all indecipherable.

The explanation on the report card doesn’t help much either. The report card states that numbers above 50% represent positive growth. ‘S’ and ‘N’ indicate whether the data was statistically significant or not. However, DESE doesn’t indicate how much growth the 50 percent benchmark represents, or even what defines growth. This “information” is not useful for parents who want to gauge how their child’s school is performing.

DQC’s approach actually informs parents. To explain how growth is calculated, DQC asks, “Did teachers help students in this school do better than we expected them to perform, even if they didn’t get to a grade-level target?” Framed in this way, there is context to the meaning of growth data and what it tells us about a school. DESE and the DQC are both talking about growth, but the different ways they present and communicate the information can make a major difference.

Parents should be able to easily find how much a school teaches students each year. But as long as student growth information is hidden behind statistical jargon and vague definitions, parents may never know how much students are learning at their child’s school.

The post Making Growth Understandable appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Of course, there’s no reason to wait for the final minute to report. Nineteen other states, including Illinois, have already released school-level spending ahead of the deadline. But Illinois takes it a step further and breaks out that spending by subcategory, including spending for instructional purposes, teacher salary and benefits, and classroom supplies. The state also has a high quality, organized school report card website that allows people to easily compare schools. Parents and school leaders can compare schools’ spending and academic performance at the same time.

The screenshot below shows a few randomly selected schools in Illinois and their spending comparisons, and also shows how much of school funding comes from different sources (local, state, federal or evidence-based funding). Further comparisons might reveal districts where one school spends more money per student and does poorly in academics, while another school that receives less money but does very well in academics.

Information about school-level funding will provide more detail and context for how schools are performing. Parents in Illinois and other states that have already published this information can use it to form a more complete picture of school performance. Why does it seem like DESE always waits until the last possible minute to comply?

The post Why Can’t Missouri Be Like . . . Illinois? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Annual Performance Report (APR) on the DESE website does contain some information. However, as Show-Me Institute writers have pointed out, this report doesn’t show how many students are performing at grade level. It lacks clear labels, leaving the reader confused about what the terms mean. It also doesn’t present the raw data, it only gives results, on an undefined 100–500 color-coded scale, after DESE has gone through the APR calculations. Those calculations are not explained.

Within the APR summary report is the subgroup achievement section. That’s a likely place to look for achievement gaps, but this section isn’t helpful either. It is hard to tell how students in different subgroups are doing because DESE uses a “super subgroup.” The super subgroup is a combination of scores from Black students, Hispanic students, students who quality for free and reduced-price lunch (indicating a low family income), students with disabilities, and English Language Learners. There is no information about performance from each group separately.  

In contrast, resources like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” show student’s academic achievement and disparities between different groups of students.

Missouri’s NAEP result data can easily be broken out to provide a clear picture of achievement gaps. The starkest gaps are for students with disabilities. Only 6 percent of Missouri’s 8^th grade students with disabilities were proficient in math, and only 8 percent were proficient in reading. That’s 26 and 25 percent lower than the state average, respectively. Other subgroups, including students who qualify for free and reduced price lunch programs and Black and Hispanic students, also have lower rates of proficiency than the state average, as shown in the graph at the top of this post.

The NAEP results provide valuable information for parents about how Missouri students are performing. DESE’s APR Report, with its “super subgroup” that hides more than it reveals, leaves parents in the dark.

Why should Missouri parents have to go searching beyond DESE’s website for information they need? They shouldn’t. DESE should be helping, not hindering parents (and taxpayers) who want to know how their schools are performing.

The post DESE’s APR Summary Reports Hide Achievement Gaps appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

You can view the booklet here, or download the .pdf at the link below.

The post Condition of Education in Missouri: 2019 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.