• In Nebraska, Scottsbluff High School received an innovation grant from the state department of education to establish career academies within the school. The academies began operation in 2016, and students have the opportunity to graduate with college credit, job offers, and even associate’s degrees in six different career fields.
• In Florida, the Principal Autonomy Program Initiative began in 2016 in order to encourage principals to embrace innovation by relaxing certain regulations in return for improved student achievement. What started out as a pilot program was made permanent in 2018.
• Four states—Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, and Utah—created programs to promote competency-based education, including grants to help schools transition to the competency-based instruction model. Instead of students taking classes at same speed as their peers and either passing or failing a course, competency-based learning requires students to master certain skills but allows them to do so at their own pace. They advance as their skill set grows, not because the semester or school year is over.

Of course, states need to evaluate these new programs to ensure they are working and are a worthwhile use of tax dollars. Before launching any program, school administrators should establish specific metrics and goals by which the program will be assessed. For instance, career academies should be tracking graduation rates, training-related job placement, and the number of students earning industry-recognized credentials. If programs are not meeting expectations or are too costly, then they should be phased out so resources can be directed to programs that are delivering.

Whether it is grants for new programs, waivers for certain regulations, or embracing models like charter schooling, why doesn’t Missouri’s state education policy welcome local innovation and reward high performance? Sitting on the sidelines while educators in other states experiment with new ways of teaching the next generation of students isn’t working.

The post It’s Time for Missouri to Embrace Innovation in Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

IRCs are awarded by third-party industry organizations and certify that students have mastered skills needed for a particular job such as a welder, automotive technician, certified nursing assistant, or software developer. Recent research from ExcelinEd shows that, in addition to improving employment prospects, earning an IRC is associated with increases in graduation rates, college enrollment, and earnings.

In the study, which was released this month, researchers looked at outcomes for hundreds of thousands of students and found overall positive outcomes for IRC earners. In Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky, earning an IRC was positively associated with graduating from high school on time. Students in Florida and Kentucky who had earned an IRC were more likely to receive an associate’s degree if they enrolled in community college. The researchers also observed up to a 12 percent boost in wages for full-time workers after high school in Florida and Indiana.

The only potentially negative effect the researchers observed was that credential earners in Kentucky were less likely to graduate with a bachelor’s degree if they enrolled at a four-year college or university. One possible explanation they provided is that “the opportunity cost of each additional year of education is higher for credential earners than non-earners.” In other words, students just may not have thought it was worth finishing a bachelor’s degree and would rather be working.

Unfortunately, high schoolers in Missouri earn only about 8,000 IRCs each year, meaning that only a small fraction of the over 180,000 high school students who participate in a career and technical education program earn an IRC.

Some states have enacted policies that reflect the value they see in credential-earning, and Missouri should take note. For instance, Florida implemented a bonus program for teachers awarding them $25 or $50 for each student who earned an IRC. During the 2007–08 school year when the program started Florida high schoolers earned only 803 credentials total. Last year, they collectively earned over 121,000 IRCs.

Missouri policymakers have already shown a willingness to invest in our workforce—the legislature just passed Fast Track this session to help adults who want to pursue degrees in high-demand fields—but are they funding programs that are proven to work? Clearly, financial incentives have worked to get more students IRCs in Florida, and students have benefitted. With such a payoff for a relatively small investment, teacher bonus pay looks like a win-win-win for the state, teachers, and students.

Listen to our podcast on this subject here.

The post What Does the Research Say about Earning Industry-Recognized Credentials? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

At one elementary school in Kansas, kids in kindergarten through fourth grade split time between their classrooms, a greenhouse, and a small farm right on school grounds. As a charter school, Walton Rural Life Center is able to replace traditional curriculums with a project-based program that focuses on agriculture. Students at Walton have chores and sell plants they grow and eggs from chickens they raise to supplement what they learn in the classroom.

I am thankful that my niece and nephew are able to attend Walton and I know how much the community cherishes the school, but I wonder why students in Missouri do not have access to similar opportunities. The article about the Columbia project mentions that the idea for a magnet-type nature school fizzled out because of a lack of state funding a few years ago. But using the charter school model could help solve that. A charter school, as in the case of Walton, would be eligible for additional federal funds to help defray starting costs.

With the flexibility and innovation that comes with charter schools, communities in Missouri could have customized schools that meet the needs and interest of their students instead of settling for programs that last just a few days. Whether it is project-based learning or a college-prep academy, charter schools can provide new opportunities to students in all parts of the state.

The post Charter Schools Offer Flexibility appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

During the 2017–18 school year, over 180,000 high schoolers in Missouri took at least one CTE class, but fewer than 28,000 concentrated (taking three or more classes) in any one area. What’s more, fewer than 8,000 students earned an industry-recognized credential (IRC), a signal to employers that the student has mastered some set of skills. Many Missouri students—especially those not interested in going to college—could benefit from earning an IRC and leaving high school career ready. 

A recent report from ExcelinEd shows that there are thousands of well-paying jobs that could be readily accessible to Missouri’s high schoolers if they were earning the right credentials. According to the report, Missouri met only one out of five indicators of a quality CTE program.

To put in perspective what kind of opportunities students are missing out on, let’s take a look at careers in just two industries. In 2018, some 617 students in Missouri earned an Automotive Service Excellence Certification. But there were over 3,600 job postings requiring that credential, and these jobs paid over $15 an hour last year. The unmet demand is also apparent in digital designing. There were over 3,300 job postings for Adobe Certified Associate and Adobe Certified Expert credentials each—again, these jobs pay at least $15 an hour—yet there were only 146 Missouri high school students who earned an Associate credential, and none received the Expert credential. Perhaps not enough students are interested in these careers to meet the demand, but are they even aware of these opportunities?

One way to improve awareness and options for students is through teacher bonus pay. If CTE teachers have skin in the game—for instance, $50 for every student of theirs who earns an IRC—they would have an incentive to get more students that could excel in a particular field working towards earning an IRC. Florida has such a program and students there earned over 140,000 credentials during the 2016–17 school year. Overall, one in six Florida high school students earned a credential, compared to just one in twenty high school students in Missouri.

Like many states, Missouri has a workforce problem. But with some simple changes, which other states have implemented successfully, we could increase the number of students earning credentials, while aligning those credentials to the job market. Good information paired with the right incentives can help move Missouri’s CTE in the right direction. 

The post CTE in Missouri Is Not Aligned with Needs of Students or Employers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This decrease follows some recent reforms, including improving parole and probation practices, expanding community-based treatment for mental health and substance abuse, and raising the age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18 years. Now, the legislature is considering other reforms. One would amend sentencing guidelines to allow judges the discretion to give an alternative sentence to imprisonment for certain non-violent crimes when appropriate. Additionally, lawmakers are examining regulations regarding occupational licenses for ex-offenders that can shut them out of jobs and increase the likelihood they return to prison. Reforms like these can provide taxpayers with the best public safety return on their investment make a lot of sense.

The post Good News-Criminal Justice Reform Headed in the Right Direction in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But just up the road from my hometown in central Kansas, many parents and students are throwing a fit after two school districts rolled out a new, web-based curriculum from Silicon Valley. The New York Times recently profiled the Kansas towns of McPherson and Wellington and their school districts’ adoption of Summit Learning, a personalized learning platform where students go at their own pace on their computers and teachers act more like mentors.

While personalized learning has been embraced in some parts of the country as a great innovation, the reception in Kansas has been mixed—some love it, but some hate it enough that they are looking for other options for their kids. Leaving aside the merits of the program, the problem is not every student is well-suited to this method of learning, and not every parent is happy with their child spending most of the day in front of a computer screen. Unfortunately, alternatives in rural areas are scarce or unaffordable whether you are in Kansas or Missouri.

Private school tuition is expensive, and some do not have the time or money to homeschool. Picking up and moving to a new school district is not so simple either; unlike urban or suburban areas where a few miles in any direction will land you in a new district, rural areas are spotted with towns like islands in a sea of crops and pastures. Not to mention that for those that farm, moving is completely off the table. Interdistrict transfers can help, but the next nearest school may not be close enough to commute to and from every day.

Families living in rural areas should not have to accept limited opportunities for their children’s education. Education savings accounts (ESAs) could help families homeschool or enroll in a private school that’s just five miles away instead of transferring to another traditional public school 20 miles away. Charter schools can also provide another option if parents aren’t satisfied with what’s going on in their home district.

We should recognize that students, no matter where they live, have different needs and interests. We can also trust parents to make sound judgments about what kind of approach is best for their own kids. Rather than just accepting whatever the local school boards decides, parents and students from rural areas are right to throw a fit when it comes to accessing more opportunities in education.

The post Rural Families Don’t Have to Accept “One Size Fits All” When it Comes to Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Currently, only four out of ten lower-income students who enter college are graduating within six years. What’s more, few additional students graduate after six years; according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, only an additional 6.1 percent of all students entering college in 2009 graduated within eight years. Dropping out and being saddled with student loan debt makes it that much more difficult for these students to climb up the income ladder and access better-paying jobs that can help break cycles of poverty.

Here’s the data for first-time students in Missouri who started college full-time in the fall of 2011, per the Department of Education:

·         56.7 percent of those students graduated within six years, which is lower than the national average of 60.4 percent.

·         Students from the same group receiving Pell Grants from the federal government—most of which have family incomes below $30,000—have a six-year graduation rate in Missouri of only 40.6 percent, while students not receiving Pell Grants or a subsidized loan graduated at a rate of 68.3 percent.

These are startling numbers for Missouri. Not only are we behind the national average in terms of college completion, but a large number of those who fail to graduate appear to be low-income students. Those are exactly the kind of students who are least equipped to handle the burden of high student debt, especially without the benefit of a degree.

A 2013 report from the Department of Education estimated that in 2009 students who did not complete their degree had on average $9,300 of debt if they attended a public 4-year school and $10,400 if they attended a private, non-profit 4-year school. More recent data from Debt by Degree breaks down student loan debt by Pell status and individual schools; it showed Pell recipients attending Mizzou average $19,328 in federal loans.

Addressing the degree achievement gap must start at the K-12 level and, as I discussed before, competition through choice is necessary if we want better outcomes for low-income kids. But in the meantime, making changes at the college level can help lower-income students getting ready to go to college now or that are already there.

In “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” I discuss a few ways colleges can boost graduation rates among low-income students. Retention grants or emergency scholarships can fill gaps in financial aid for low-income students who are on track to graduate but would otherwise have to drop out due to lack of funds. Providing supports like mentorships and enrollment or financial aid checklists have been effective in helping first generation college students be prepared.

Not included in my essay but also worth noting is data-based guidance counseling. Georgia State University’s predictive analytics system has helped students from all economic backgrounds graduate at higher rates by connecting students struggling academically with tutors sooner rather than later and making sure students are not taking unnecessary classes that cost extra time and money.

As taxpayers, we invest too many public dollars in education at every level to have results like these. Isn’t it time to move towards a system that better serves students of all economic backgrounds and ensures that those who go to college leave with a degree?

The post The Achievement Gap for Low-income Students Continues into College appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When a student is looking to go to work right out of high school, an IRC shows the potential employer that the student has skills needed for that job. If a student is planning on going to college, an IRC can help them gain valuable experience, make some money, and potentially earn college credit. Particularly in industries like agriculture and animal science where there is a lot of student interest, Missouri should look for ways to create clearer pathways for high schools to earn IRCs.

In a recent article from the St. Joseph area, a local teacher discusses how he is observing more students interested in jobs related to agribusiness such as food safety, veterinary science, and conservation. But according to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), only three students from the St. Joseph school district passed the MO Agriculture Skill & Knowledge Assessment, an IRC that shows that students have mastered one of 15 areas including farm management and livestock evaluation. Despite interest in veterinary science, no students in the district received the Veterinary Assistant Animal Care Technologies IRC.

It is worth noting that some districts do very well in getting their students credentialed. For instance, even though Jefferson School District had fewer than 50 high schoolers enrolled in 2018, students in the district earned 23 MO Agriculture Skill & Knowledge Assessment certifications.

Nevertheless, Missouri as a whole could do a better job of helping students get a jump start on a career or college. And not just in agriculture-related fields—there are opportunities, albeit limited, for students to specialize in areas like welding, web programming and development, health care, and automotive repair. In 2018, only 7,084 IRCs were earned by Missouri high schoolers and about 2,800 of those were ag-related (for perspective, there are over a quarter-million high schoolers and over 64,000 12^th graders in Missouri).

How can we expand these opportunities and make earning an IRC for career-minded students more of the norm in Missouri? Creating an incentive for teachers and districts through bonus pay is one option. In Florida, teachers are awarded a bonus of $25 to $50 for each student that obtains an IRC. After adopting this policy, IRC obtainment increased from 803 in 2007 to over 86,000 in 2017. North Carolina also has bonus pay for high-performing instructors and over 160,000 IRCs were obtained in 2017.

Missouri has over 500 school districts, all with different strengths and challenges. Establishing a bonus pay program would give districts an incentive to find the best way for them to give more of their students a head start on a career or college.

The post Why Aren’t More Missouri Students Earning IRCs in Agriculture-Related Industries? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But has education policy in the last 50 years closed that gap? Not even close. Back in the 1970s, students from poor households were as much as three to four years of schooling behind their wealthier peers. Fast forward to 2015, and that gap has virtually stayed the same despite pouring billions of dollars into the education system. Isn’t it time for a new approach—shouldn’t we start giving parents the power to control education dollars?

According to a recent study, there has been a persistent gap in academic achievement between low-income and high-income students for decades. What’s more, student performance overall hasn’t gotten better; any gains seen in earlier grades dissipate by the age of 17 when students are preparing to go to college or enter the workforce

This is despite numerous local, state, and national efforts to provide quality education for low-income kids. In the last 50 years, we have provided services to students with disabilities, evened out school funding between rich and poor districts, instituted a number of accountability systems (Missouri’s accountability system is in its sixth iteration since 1991), and increased funding overall. In fact, the report notes, “Overall school funding increased dramatically on a per-student basis, quadrupling in real dollars between 1960 and 2015.”

To show just how bad the achievement gap between high- and low-income students is in Missouri, check out the data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Beginning with 2005, the data points represent the percentage of 8^th grade students in Missouri who were at or above grade level in math and reading, separated by eligibility for the National School Lunch Program (which is for families with incomes below 185 percent of the federal poverty line).

For low-income 8^th-graders, only 16 percent were proficient or advanced in math in 2017. The number for reading is hardly better, with only 22 percent of students considered proficient or advanced. Compare that to students who were not eligible for the National School Lunch Program: 42 percent of these kids were at least proficient in math and 47 percent were proficient or advanced in reading. And the gap in both subjects has gotten larger since 2005.

What are the consequences of this failure? As I discuss in my two recent essays, “Intergenerational Poverty in Missouri” and “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” quality education and the ability to move up the economic ladder are closely linked. How can Missouri expect to break cycles of poverty if it can’t even educate low-income students well?

Meanwhile, charter schools and private school choice programs are providing opportunities unmatched by many traditional public schools. Graduates from IDEA Public Schools, a charter school network founded in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley in Texas, have a 100 percent college acceptance rate and half of the class of 2012 acquired a bachelor’s degree within six years after enrolling in college. In Florida, tax-credit scholarship recipients have higher college-going and degree completion rates, and charter school students score higher on tests than students in traditional public school students.

So where do we go from here? Should we be satisfied with reforms that just tinker around the edges of our education system and increase spending indefinitely for programs that are failing? Or should we allow more competition and innovation through choice that will make schools more responsive to families of all economic backgrounds? Based on the failure of the education bureaucracy to close the gap in the last 50 years, it seems Missouri’s best option is to start trusting parents. 

The post After 50 Years, Low-Income Students Are Still Being Left Behind-When Will Enough Be Enough? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Distinguishing between short-term and long-term poverty could be a wise move, but how valuable would a single snapshot be in describing a multi-generational problem? Not very. While Missouri should know who is receiving entitlements and for how long, there is a better way to collect that information than what is being proposed.

Utah’s Intergenerational Poverty Initiative is now in its seventh year and has five years of data that allows the state to more accurately measure intergenerational poverty and the success of its various anti-poverty efforts. It also has a data dashboard that shows current data and the trends in intergenerational poverty since 2014. Unfortunately, similarly precise information is unavailable for Missouri, although there are ways to approximate the extent of cyclical poverty in our state.

For example, in my recent essays, “Intergenerational Poverty in Missouri” and “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” I estimated the scope of intergenerational poverty in Missouri with a combination of U.S. Census data and economic mobility data. Such extrapolation gives us a general picture of intergenerational poverty in Missouri, but detailed and up-to-date data would be that much more helpful for policymaking purposes.

The years of data Utah has is important for establishing trends, measuring the effectiveness of programs, and having the ability to direct resources to where they could do the most good—in other words, making the most out of the state’s anti-poverty spending. It is doubtful any of that could be accomplished by the singular study that would be commissioned by this bill.

If Missouri’s policymakers are serious about addressing intergenerational poverty and making wise use of welfare expenditures, they should consider a longer-term initiative like Utah’s. As I explain in my essays, intergenerational poverty harms not just those trapped in poverty, but also the rest of the state via costly welfare spending and slower growth.  Ongoing data collection could be well worth the investment if Missouri would use that information to effectively and efficiently move people up and out of poverty. 

The post Missouri Should Be Measuring Intergenerational Poverty, but How We Do It Matters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Would that be a fair game, or even fun? Of course not. But this version of Life is reality for many Americans. Where people grow up—their zip code or place on the game board—significantly affects their chances to succeed as adults.

Without a doubt Americans, rich and poor, are much better off now than they were a hundred years ago thanks to unprecedented economic growth made possible by the free enterprise of individuals and pro-market political institutions. Nevertheless, economic mobility, or the ability to move up the income ladder, varies for children depending on where they live, and these disparities have consequences—both for children growing up in low-income families and for the rest of the state.

A recent pair of essays from the Show-Me Institute digs deeper into the data on poverty and upward mobility in Missouri and asks what, if anything, can be done to break cycles of poverty. The solution is not simply to expand entitlement spending; America has been increasing welfare benefits for over 50 years, and it’s time to change our approach.

While child poverty is decreasing in Missouri—the percentage of children in poverty dropped from 22.6 percent in 2012 to 18.6 percent in 2017—child poverty rates in Missouri range from single digits, as in St. Charles County, to over 40 percent in St. Louis City. Moreover, data on economic mobility suggest that about one-third of children born into low-income homes in the areas surrounding Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Kansas City, and St. Louis will remain in poverty as adults.

Searching for solutions to this problem is important primarily so children in poverty have more opportunities for a better future; but Missourians should also be aware of the economic impact of lifelong poverty on the state and taxpayers. Based on economic mobility data for Missouri, roughly 77,800 people who were poor as children in the late 1980s will remain poor throughout their adult lives and will collect a conservatively estimated $15 billion in lifetime welfare benefits as a group.

Having a safety net is important, but could Missouri find a better way to invest these public dollars to help people move up and out of poverty? One promising possibility is the improvement of our education system through competition and innovation to better meet the needs of low-income students.

Data show significant gaps in test scores between low-income students and their peers on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and the ACT college entrance exam in Missouri. While quality education cannot be measured by standardized test scores alone, these results do tell us that low-income students are less likely than their peers to have mastered the basic academic skills that will enable them to be successful in college or their chosen career.

Thankfully, Missourians can look to other states for examples of programs that help students from low-income families be successful, including specialized vocational high schools and emergency grants to help low-income college students stay enrolled. Whether by helping low-income kids to get a jump-start on a career of their choice or by better ensuring that they can get through college, Missouri should move toward an education system that meets the diverse needs and interests of these students though innovative schools and programs.

No single reform to education or any other policy area will end cyclical poverty. State leaders and policymakers do have the opportunity, however, to prioritize free-market solutions that enable people to provide for themselves and their families and help create surer pathways to prosperity.

The post Cyclical Poverty Is a Problem in Missouri-What Can Be Done About It? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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Currently, Missouri requires licenses for 240 occupations, 37 of which are for low- to moderate-income jobs. Many licensing boards list “good character” or not having committed “any offense involving moral turpitude” as a requirement for applicants or renewal of licenses. While it may make sense to prohibit some ex-offenders from obtaining a license, these vague statements shut out almost anyone with a criminal record regardless of the nature of their offense, the time that has lapsed since they served their time, or if they have successfully completed rehabilitation. It also precludes an employer from exercising its discretion in determining a person’s fitness for a position.

On one hand, it seems wise to refuse licenses in certain cases—say someone with a history of substance abuse or drug dealing applying for a pharmacy technician license. On the other hand, blanket bans of ex-offenders create obstacles to getting jobs that may have no connection with the crime committed and make it more likely that the offender will eventually return to prison. Other states—including Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, and Tennessee—have shown there is a better way forward that strikes the balance between safety and second chances.

Instead of allowing licensing boards to have wholesale bans on those with criminal records, Fresh Start Legislation would require that boards list specific crimes that are directly related to the occupation in question and consider factors such as time passed since the last conviction and the nature of the offense. .

Under Fresh Start laws, boards may only outright deny applicants if they have a conviction within the last five years or if the conviction was for a violent or sexual crime. This means more dangerous criminals and repeat offenders would still be able to be screened out. But if someone has an older conviction for a nonviolent crime and has remained crime free since being released, their application must be considered and they are allowed to appeal the decision if denied.

Missouri’s Governor recently mentioned the need for better prisoner education so prisoners can be released ready to enter the workforce. But how much can educational programs accomplish if ex-offenders are being automatically shut out of hundreds of occupations? By removing unnecessary obstacles to ex-offenders leaving prison, a Fresh Start law would be a good first step to help these people get jobs and fully reintegrate into their communities. 

The post Giving Ex-Offenders a Fresh Start When Looking for a Job: Part Two appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Whether it is for a technical violation of the terms of their parole or because they committed a new offense, having so many people return to prison is expensive. The average cost to incarcerate just one person for one year is $21,000. Multiply that by thousands of people serving years-long sentences and the cost of recidivism for Missouri taxpayers is in the millions.

While there are several important factors that may contribute to recidivism rates, research has found that finding employment upon release strongly affects whether someone will end up back in prison. This study from the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments explains why employment for ex-offenders is important:

Employment can make a strong contribution to recidivism-reduction efforts because it refocuses individuals’ time and efforts on prosocial activities, making them less likely to engage in riskier behaviors and to associate with people who do…Employment also has important societal benefits, including reduced strain on social service resources, contributions to the tax base, and safer, more stable communities.

Last year, Show-Me Institute’s Patrick Tuohey testified on a bill that would have removed the restriction on anyone convicted of a felony from obtaining a license to sell lottery tickets—a law which essentially prohibited them from working at convenience stores or gas stations. While this bill wasn’t adopted, other states have taken an approach that Missouri should consider.

Instead of considering different licensed occupations piecemeal, Fresh Start Legislation adopted in other states requires a comprehensive review of licensing boards’ restrictions on ex-offenders. Such a review can help ex-offenders by removing unnecessary barriers to employment. Part two of this blog post will dig more into what a Fresh Start law would look like and how it could help Missouri reduce its recidivism rates.

The post Giving Ex-Offenders a Fresh Start When Looking For a Job: Part One appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

About 1,500 children and 3,800 people total live in poverty in Mississippi County, and it has Missouri’s highest overall poverty rate at 31.7 percent. In other words, one of every two kids and one of every three people in this county are living below the federal poverty line, which was $24,600 in annual income for a family of four in 2017.

Even if you take into account the large (±9.1 percentage points) margin of error for Mississippi County’s child poverty rate, in the best-case scenario it would have a child poverty rate of 41.8 percent—which would still be the second highest child poverty rate in the state. If you want to see the latest data on the rest of the state, check out these interactive maps.

While the state’s overall poverty rate is decreasing, pockets of poverty like Mississippi County should not be ignored. In a pair of forthcoming essays, I explore the consequences for the rest of the state of having such areas of poverty. For now, Missourians should at least be aware that some parts of the state are faring much worse than others.

The post The Child Poverty Rate in Mississippi County Is How High? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So how are Missouri’s counties faring? Below are four interactive maps that provide some information about the disparities between counties in Missouri with regard to the poverty rate and the child poverty rate. For reference, the federal poverty line for a family of four in 2017 was $24,600 and the child poverty rate is the percentage of children under the age of 18 whose family’s income falls below the federal poverty line. 

Here is the poverty rate for each county according to the 2013–2017 5-year estimate:

And here is the child (under age 18) poverty rate for each county according to the 2013–2017 5-year estimate:

The next maps show the percentage-point change from the 2008–2012 5-year estimate to the 2013–2017 5-year estimate. It should be noted that even with this data set, there are fairly large margins of error; still, these numbers give us an idea of the direction in which a particular county is headed.

This is the percentage-point change in the overall poverty rate between the 2008–2012 and 2013–2017 5-year estimates:

And here is the percentage-point change in the child poverty rate:

Poverty is decreasing in Missouri overall, but it appears that some parts of the state are faring better than others. 

The post Here Are the Latest Census Data on Poverty in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It’s a common problem that can cause real difficulty for anyone whose job demands aren’t always flexible, but do we need the government to fix it? Here are how some employers have chosen to deal with the issue: Companies including General Mills and Starbucks now offer a backup childcare benefit, and Best Buy recently began rolling out a new program that helps parents by giving them 10 days of subsidized childcare a year that they can access quickly through Care.com. The only cost to parents is a $10 a day co-pay.

Such programs can help both companies and their employees: The company doesn’t lose productivity from workers having to stay home, and employees don’t have to use up valuable vacation or sick days to attend to their kids when other plans fall through.

It’s a win–win scenario—a private-sector solution based on a voluntary, mutually beneficial arrangement. And it doesn’t require government intervention in the form of subsidies, which would require a decision about whether to pay for them in higher taxes or to reduce spending elsewhere. Best Buy specifically cited the lower federal corporate taxes as helping make this new backup childcare benefit possible. Wouldn’t it be better for Missouri policymakers to take a similar approach by simply making it easier for companies meet the needs of their workers?

The post Innovation in Child Care Coming from Private-Sector Employers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Free-market approaches to poverty alleviation
• Education policy goals for 2019
• How not to study economic development incentives

Click on the link below to read more.

The post Show-Me Institute’s December 2018 Newsletter appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

To understand, we need clear definitions of our terms. The federal poverty rate is based on pre-tax income of a household and is adjusted for inflation and family size. In 2017, the poverty threshold for one person was $12,060 and increased by about $4,000 for each additional household member. The consumption poverty rate, on the other hand, measures what “families are able to purchase in terms of food, housing, transportation, and other goods and services” and includes savings, access to credit, and welfare benefits, according to the authors of a recent report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

The authors of the report explain that when measured based on consumption and standard of living for the poor, the poverty rate has been steadily declining since 1980 and was 2.8 percent in 2017. The fact that the consumption poverty rate has fallen relative to the federal poverty rate is a positive development. It means that a growing percentage of people whose income place them below the federal poverty line are materially better off—that is, able to consume at a higher rate—than those who were in poverty in 1980. This improvement in standard of living for those with low incomes is due in large part to public assistance programs.

While we should not declare we are “solving” poverty through the provision of welfare benefits, we should recognize that public assistance has played a role in significant progress in alleviating the effects of poverty by providing things like food and housing assistance. The ultimate goal, however, is to help move people who currently depend on welfare for a decent standard of living toward economic independence.

It is critical that Missouri identify and then pursue policies that help people out of poverty and equip them to support themselves and their families without government assistance. Breaking cycles of poverty would allow the state to focus efforts and resources on the 2.8 percent of people at the very bottom of the economic ladder while reducing welfare expenditures overall and saving tax dollars in the long run.

The post There Is More Than One Way to Measure Poverty appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Were there health-related complaints or reports of people getting sick from the food? No—they simply did not have a permit to be serving food. The group is not a nonprofit; it is just an informal network of people in the Kansas City metro area giving of their own time and resources, so getting permits for the weekly gatherings would not be so simple.

If the group had a track record of making people sick or there were other safety concerns, then it would make sense for the Health Department to step in and shut them down. But does the city really have a good reason to disrupt this community of individuals who want to feed and build relationships with the homeless and those in need? If the city does have health or safety concerns beyond the lack of a permit, it should make that clear. But with areas of need in the city, it seems that Kansas City could use more of these organic communities, not fewer of them.

In the discussion forum on the group’s Facebook page, several people noted that the police officers and some of the inspectors were not happy with having to shut down the gathering and throw away the food—so we’re not dealing with heartless city officials here. The problem is that there are regulations in place, and they have to be enforced.

Unless there are compelling health and safety reasons to keep them in place, shouldn’t Kansas City—along with other cities in Missouri—identify and amend these kinds of regulations that get in the way of people reaching out to those who are less fortunate?

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