The Obvious Question

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

My dad used to ask me: If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? The 2022 scores on the Nation’s Report Card were just released and the results in both reading and math were dreadful. And yet, I know that when Missourians read that 7 in 10 of our 8th graders are below grade level, they’ll ask, “But what about every other state?” Sure, we’ve gone off a cliff and are about to hit the rocky shore below, but presumably others are freefalling as well.

For the record, here is how Missouri’s scale score (a 0–500 scale for reading and a 0–300 scale for math) on each of the four assessments compares to the U.S. average. Missouri’s 4th-grade reading score dropped by 5 points between 2019 and 2022. The national 4th-grade reading score dropped by 3 points. Missouri’s 4th-grade math scores dropped by 6 points (nationally—5 point drop). Missouri’s 8th-grade reading scores dropped by 6 points (nationally—3 point drop). Finally, Missouri’s 8th-grade math scores dropped by a whopping 9 points, compared to a national drop of 8 points. In summary, Missouri’s decline was worse on all accounts.

Twenty five states had smaller declines in 4th-grade reading, and 28 did in math. The 8th-grade results are worse; 39 states had smaller declines in reading, and 30 did in math. A handful of states had score gains here or there or declines of just a point or two in their scale scores.

So, if it really matters whether Missouri did badly on its own or worse than other states—the answer is both.

Houston, We Have a Problem

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

The 2022 scores on the Nation’s Report Card (or NAEP), a test administered every other year by the U.S. Department of Education, are in—and the results are disastrous. Reading and math scores for 4th and 8th graders plummeted nationally and in every state.

Let’s be perfectly clear: Missouri has been heading toward a test score cliff for some time. The pandemic just punched the gas pedal like Thelma and Louise. In fact, Missouri’s NAEP scores peaked in about 2009, around the same time that enrollment in our public schools peaked. In 2009, nearly one third (36 percent) of Missouri 4th graders scored at the Proficient level or higher in reading and 41 percent did in math. Last year, just 30 percent hit the mark in reading and 34 percent did in math. The 8th-grade numbers are similar. Reading scores topped out in 2015 at 36 percent Proficient or higher and have been slowly declining ever since, reaching 28 percent last year. 8th-grade math scores, which reached a high of 35.5 percent in 2009, dropped like a rock in one year to 24 percent of students scoring Proficient or higher.

But here are the numbers that should really scare us. In 2022, a shocking 40 percent of 4th graders scored Below Basic in reading. On this test, “Basic” means a “partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at a given grade.” Four in ten Missouri 4th graders do not even have a partial mastery of 4th-grade reading. How can these students be expected to read and understand a math or science book? A disturbing 39 percent of 8th graders scored Below Basic in math. How will these students navigate high school and become anything close to college or career ready?

Brace yourself for the excuses—much of the blame will be placed on the pandemic—and pleas for more money. The painful truth is that on somebody’s watch, Missouri went from having about 40 percent of their students on grade level to an equal percentage not having even a basic grasp of the material. Is a blue ribbon commission really going to get to the bottom of the problem? Should we expect a reversal of fortune without changing how we do business? I’m not holding my breath.

The Silver Lining on the Blue Ribbon Commission Report

Posted on by Avery Frank

I vividly remember the days when I would ask for a new video game or pair of basketball shoes, and my dad would respond with the classic, “Son, money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Well, I wish twelve-year-old me could show him the Missouri Teacher Recruitment and Retention Blue Ribbon Commission’s report on what needs to be done in order to solve Missouri’s “teaching shortage,” because apparently, a money tree has bloomed and is ripe for the picking.

The report recommended increasing the minimum starting salary for teachers to $38,000, funding the Career Ladder Program (which rewards teachers for extra work that contributes to students’ academic outcomes), establishing a fund to help local school districts pay for the recommended salary increase, adding more paid wellness days (which means hiring more substitute teachers), funding a tuition assistance program for teachers, and providing salary supplements for teachers with National Board Certification.

Funding the starting salary, Career Ladder, and tuition assistance alone would cost an additional $91.5 million—and that is not including the costs for raising other teachers’ salaries who reside above the new $38,000 floor.

While those on the commission were feeling generous endorsing the handout of government funds, similar to Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas (who would give $100 to the bartender just for keeping the ice cubes cold), they did recommend an additional salary supplement for teachers in “high-need” areas.

Show-Me Institute researchers have previously discussed how pay differentiation for teachers could help fix the shortage of specific teachers in the state. Missouri utilizes a “single salary schedule,” which sets a salary floor for teachers who are new and those with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree. The remainder of the salaries in the schedule are calculated by pay increases relating directly to experience and degree acquisition.

This type of schedule rewards teachers solely based on experience and college degrees while ignoring teacher quality, relative teacher supply, and alternative market options. A potential mathematics teacher, who would be in low supply, is therefore not offered her market equivalent wage, and may choose a higher paying vocation. If schools truly want to be competitive and recruit teachers in low-supply fields, then they must respond to competitive market forces.

Almost fifty percent of teachers said they would quit their job if differentiated pay or pay for performance was implemented. Mark Walker, the commission’s chairman, critiqued this stance, stating: “The biggest surprise to us businesspeople serving on the Blue Ribbon Commission is the lack of flexibility you all [the board] has for meeting high-need positions, it’s unbelievably inappropriate in today’s highly competitive market.”

The commission has been tasked with finding solutions to the teaching crisis, and this report could possibly be an impetus to put pay differentiation into practice. I’m glad that leaders of the commission acknowledged that the hostility to pay differentiation is fundamentally unreasonable, but I wish it had been the primary focus of a much less expensive report.

Resource Deployment Isn’t the Solution

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

“We have a problem with resource deployment.” Ya think? This quote from a member of the Missouri Teacher Recruitment and Retention Blue Ribbon Commission doesn’t even begin to address the problems facing public education in our state. The state board of education and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) are focused like lasers on making the job of teaching more attractive—more money, mental health services, tuition assistance, and bonuses, to name a few of the perks proposed by those on the commission that they think will solve the problem. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Missouri students have lost years of learning that they may never get back.

For decades, the state and the federal government have poured billions into the system to try to balance the disconnect between students living in wealthy neighborhoods and students living in poor neighborhoods. The wealth gap between neighborhoods was referred to as the “big white elephant” by the board member who provided the first quote. As it turns out, monopolistic bureaucracies are reliably terrible at solving this problem. Complicated funding formulas try to take into account how much residents of local districts could contribute to public education based on the value of all property in the district in an attempt to redistribute funds from wealthy districts to poor districts. The result is that some districts, such as Brentwood and Ladue, receive about $600 per student from the state, and others—mostly small rural districts—receive as much as $16,000 per student. The federal formula to redistribute resources to low-income districts, also known as Title I, is ridiculously Byzantine and political.

Here’s the problem with “resource deployment.” It hasn’t worked. The achievement gaps between low-income and non-low-income students in Missouri have only gotten wider. In 2019, 45 percent of non-low-income 8th graders scored Proficient or higher in reading on the Nation’s Report Card, compared to just 21 percent of low-income 8th graders. The gap in math was even larger–27 percentage points. In 2003, the gap in reading was 19 percentage points and the gap in math was 22.

We cannot equalize opportunity using a top-down approach. Resources should be deployed to families to spend at the school of their choice. I continue to assert that if low-income families were given the responsibility for choosing which schools received their children’s public education funding, four out of five families would not accept below grade level results.

WSJ Takes Aim at Illinois, Ignores Missouri

Posted on by Avery Frank

The Wall Street Journal recently published an editorial that expressed legitimate shock about the relationship between teacher ratings and rates of proficiency in reading and math on state assessments in Illinois.

The Journal analyzed the teacher ratings of schools in Decatur, Illinois, and found that in 2018, 99.7 percent of its teachers were rated as “excellent or proficient.” These ratings are extremely generous considering the fact that only 2 percent of Black third-grade students in Decatur could read at grade level, and only 1 percent performed at grade level in math. Additionally, only 5 percent of Decatur 11th graders could read at grade level and 4 percent were proficient in math.

While the Journal article focused on Illinois, the mismatch between educational stamps of approval and student performance is not exclusive to schools in that state. A similar jarring mismatch occurs in Missouri when looking at district accreditation and test scores. Accreditation is hard to define (due to its arbitrary nature), but I would define it as whether or not the government approves of the performance of an educational institution. Incredibly, Missouri’s Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (DESE) has granted full accreditation to 99 percent of Missouri school districts, even though rates of proficiency are dismally low in many districts.

For example, Ferguson-Florissant is fully accredited with proficiency rates of 20 percent in English and 7.6 percent in math. How can DESE approve and fully accredit this district’s performance if nine out of ten students are below grade level in math? What is the value in a grading scale if everyone gets an “A”?

As Show-Me Institute analysts have pointed out many times before, DESE’s accreditation granting has little to do with academic performance. Student performance should be the paramount benchmark for district accreditation in Missouri, and yet this has not been the case under both the Missouri School Improvement Plan (5) and the recently passed MSIP (6). MSIP 6 is built on regulatory adherence, financial status, and whether superintendents are certified. The new plan will have its first fully implemented cycle from spring 2023 to fall 2023, and academic indicators will only account for 48 percent of the total score used for granting accreditation.

District accreditation is treated as essentially a “completion assignment” in Missouri, and its perceived unimportance is exemplified by the fact that districts cannot be penalized for poor performance until 2024. Students will certainly be penalized for their performance in these schools, and it is ludicrous that adults cannot be held accountable for their errors.

Missouri may have snuck under the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page radar for now, but if the gap between reality and accountability continues to widen, it may not last forever.

St. Louis County Needs a Land Bank Like I Need a Hole in My Head

Posted on by David Stokes

In truly unwelcome news for people who care about good government, a coalition has been put together to create a land bank for St. Louis County as well as any other county in the state. It’s often said that, in government, nothing succeeds like failure, and that is exactly true about land banks. Why anyone would try to expand a model that has failed in St. Louis and Kansas City and expand it statewide is beyond me.

Every county in Missouri has a land trust that takes ownership of property that comes into ownership by local government; this almost always happens because of property tax delinquency. A municipal land bank is different from a county land trust. Land banks have much more authority to proactively acquire, market, and package for sale city-owned land and buildings. In theory, land banks seem like a positive thing. But the fact is they do not work.

Three cities in Missouri have land banks: St. Louis, Kansas City, and St. Joseph. In St. Louis and Kansas City, the land banks have proved much better at acquiring property (where it is off the tax rolls) than at selling it and returning it to the private sector. Research by the Show-Me Institute and investigations by the Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Beacon have documented numerous problems with the land banks in Missouri, including political corruption, cronyism, failures to accept legitimate offers, preferences for large developments (which often never materialize) over small buyers, and much more. In St. Joseph, the land bank is very small and new, so conclusions are hard to draw, but the early indications are not promising.

As the story in the Star explains it:

“This is not an agency that is interested in selling properties, it’s more interested in regulating who gets them and under what circumstances,” development lawyer and former city councilman Mark Bryant told The Star after an offer from him and his partners at Onyx Development Corp. was rejected at a recent Land Bank meeting.

The state legislature has previously proposed bills to dramatically expand the authority to institute land banks to many more municipalities (the state legislature must approve all new land banks in Missouri). Now, there is this organized effort to expand land banks to St. Louis County. The exact wording of the newest proposal for St. Louis and other counties is unknown. It is possible it could be better organized than the other banks, but I doubt that.

The state legislature should reject future land bank legislation. If such legislation is enacted, counties and municipalities should reject the establishment of land banks. Land banks may sound good in theory, but in political and practical reality they have been a major failure.

Special Session Recap, KC’s Westside and Food Truck News

Posted on by Avery Frank

David Stokes, Patrick Ishmael and Avery Frank join Zach Lawhorn to discuss the special session, a property tax scheme in KC, the latest on food truck restrictions in Ladue and a new TIF in Chesterfield.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Stitcher 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

Laclede County Should Reduce Its Commercial Property Tax Surcharge

Posted on by David Stokes

A version of this commentary appeared in the Laclede County Record.

This November, Laclede County residents will vote on reducing an obscure tax that places the county at a competitive disadvantage compared to its neighboring communities.

In 1985 the State of Missouri changed the way local governments tax commercial and industrial property. It eliminated the tax on business merchandise and inventory and replaced it with a surtax on the value of commercial real estate. Every county that year calculated the new surtax (also known as the commercial surcharge) at a revenue-neutral replacement level for the lost business inventory taxes. The change, made by an amendment to the state’s constitution, was explicit that the replacement levy calculated by the counties could be lowered only by voters, not elected officials, and that the surtax would not adjust downward as assessed valuations increased. This provision puts the commercial surtax at odds with most other property taxes in Missouri, for which the tax rate is supposed to go down as assessed valuations go up.

When the rates were established in 1985, Missouri’s economy looked very different than it does today. Kansas City and the City of St. Louis played larger roles than they do today (especially St. Louis). But Laclede County, likely because of inventory taxes generated by its role as a regional manufacturing hub, bucked the trend toward low surtax rates in most counties. It set its surtax rate at $1.03 per $100 of assessed valuation. That is the 14th-highest rate among Missouri’s 115 counties, and much higher than those of its neighboring counties. By comparison, Texas County has a commercial surtax rate of $0.68, Wright’s is $0.66, Pulaski’s is $0.49, Webster’s is $0.37, Dallas’s is $0.31, and Camden’s surtax is a miniscule $0.03.

Assessed valuations have grown enormously since the tax was introduced. For example, the commercial assessments in Laclede County have gone up almost 400 percent between 1985 and 2021, from $23 million to $108 million, yet the surtax rate has never been reduced to offset that increase. The combination of a high tax rate and the difficulty of reducing it puts Laclede County at a competitive disadvantage compared to other counties in its area.

To address this problem, the Laclede County Commission decided in August to propose lowering Laclede County’s surtax rate from $1.03 to $0.51. If passed by voters, this notable reduction in the commercial surtax rate would both spur economic activity in Laclede County and reduce the perceived need for tax subsidies. In general, Laclede County and its municipalities have been hesitant to use tax subsidies to selectively benefit a small number of businesses. That is to be commended. If this surtax cut passes, the county and its cities can remain focused on setting good policies and low tax rates for everyone, not special deals for a few.

The Lebanon R-3 school district has come out in opposition to this tax reduction, projecting a loss of $275,000 from the tax cut out of total revenues of $58 million. That is just $60 per student in a district that spends over $12,500 per student and one that received over $4 million in federal stimulus funds for a now-past economic emergency. Beyond that, personal property taxes for the school district (e.g., car and boat taxes) are expected to come in significantly higher than ever before due to the dramatic increase in used car values. In short, Lebanon R-3, like many taxing districts around Missouri, has more money than it knows what to do with, yet the district is opposing a tax cut to help grow business and jobs in Laclede County.

As Laclede County continues to grow and commercial assessed valuations continue to increase, actual revenue reductions for local governments that receive the tax money will be small. That’s not voodoo economics; it simply reflects expected growth in population, business, and assessed valuation.

Laclede County leaders deserve credit for placing this surtax reduction proposal on the ballot this November so voters can have a say in making their community more economically competitive. If approved, this reasonable and beneficial tax cut will help grow Laclede County’s economy, and everyone benefits from that.

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