A version of the following commentary appeared in the Columbia Missourian.
For years, the Show-Me Institute has scrutinized the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) —not out of malice, but out of a desperate desire to see our students succeed. The state’s commitment to education is vast, in terms of both a constitutional mandate and billions of dollars. Yet, as we examine the latest DESE budget request, it’s impossible to ignore the contrast between the department’s boldness when asking for money and its apparent bashfulness about what it will deliver to Missouri’s students. This disconnect reveals a fundamental weakness at the heart of the agency and a failure to act in a way that provides clear, student-focused leadership and results-based accountability.
In its FY 2027 budget request, DESE is seeking just under $9 billion, $7.5 billion of which comes from Missouri’s public coffers, to execute its mission. A large portion of the budget revenue is distributed to districts through the Foundation Formula. Other big-ticket items are the state institutions for students and adults with disabilities, subsidizing childcare for eligible families, and offsetting district transportation costs. Beyond this, there is a laundry list of programs managed by DESE and funded by the state, such as virtual education, teacher of the year awards, and summer enrichment programs. “And while there is a thousand-page accompanying document that explains what each budget line item is, there isn’t any real explanation for why the money is being requested or how it furthers education in Missouri.
Ideally, the budget request should correspond to the Strategic Plan created by DESE, with each line item of the budget request connected to a stated goal of the agency. Unfortunately, the two documents are only very loosely connected, and the disconnect demonstrates a lack of transparent, performance-driven accountability.
According to the DESE Strategic Plan for 2023–2026, DESE’s vision is to improve lives through education via the four pillars of (1) early learning and literacy, (2) success-ready students and workforce development, (3) safe and healthy schools, and (4) educator recruiting and retention. To accomplish this, DESE has given itself the following five performance measures and three-year targets.
Setting aside the fact that according to its Strategic Plan Scorecard it hasn’t hit any of the targets yet, this very short list of performance measures reflects an agency that is more focused on process and inputs than on measurable student outcomes. Where are the performance measures for math, science and social studies? What are the outcome goals for students with disabilities? Is all of the work of the 215 employees of the Office of Childhood to be measured by just the percentage of students entering kindergarten “ready to learn”? How does one even measure “gainful employment”? At the very least it seems like an easy number to game. How can we possibly measure the appropriateness of a 369-page, $9 billion budget request based on just these five items?
As they return to Jefferson City after the first of the year, it is time for the Missouri legislature to demand more from an agency asking for $9 billion. To hold DESE accountable and ensure taxpayer dollars are serving students first, the legislature should, at a minimum, require DESE to publicly issue an annual report that explicitly links every major budget request line item to a specific, measurable goal in its strategic plan. If a request does not directly advance a key student outcome, it should be subject to maximum scrutiny. And there should be repercussions for missing targets year after year.
The state constitution vests the responsibility for education in the legislature, not DESE. It is high time the legislature exercises its authority and forces DESE to replace its bureaucratic double-speak with real, measurable results for Missouri’s children. Our students deserve a budget that reflects a true commitment to their future, not one that simply preserves the machinery of a struggling bureaucracy.
The two largest counties in Missouri are both having difficulties. Over in Jackson County, the assessment system is still a mess, the county executive was just recalled by the voters, and the Chiefs and Royals are being coy about their future plans, which may involve leaving the county (or state).
In St. Louis County, parts of the county are still recovering from the tornado, the county executive is under indictment (everyone is innocent until proven guilty), and county government’s 2026 budget forecast says there is an $80 million budget shortfall. The last part is the focus of this post.
Every government budget can be cut, and in every government budget there is enough waste and fat to be trimmed to make a difference. That said, cutting government spending is hard (I wish it weren’t). County governments in Missouri are not bloated bureaucracies wasting money hand over foot. They tend to operate fairly efficiently, at least by government standards. So, while making cuts should be the highest priority for the budget shortfall, I doubt that there is $80 million in waste and fraud to be trimmed. Some tough choices are going to have to be made. So, beyond cutting all the waste that it can, what should St. Louis County do?
First, if you are in a hole, stop digging. St. Louis County continues to inexplicably grant tax abatements and other subsidies that never live up to their promises. If these subsidies worked—and by “worked” I mean generated long-term revenues that outweighted the short-term costs—then St. Louis County wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. St. Louis County needs to stop giving away taxpayer money as part of a delusion that government planning grows the economy. And yes, this includes getting rid of the senior property tax freeze among other subsidies.
Privatization and outsourcing some services are always an important option for local governments. St. Louis County’s options here are limited, in that the county doesn’t operate any public utilities and it already provides many services via outsourcing. (This is, of course, all a good thing.) The biggest mistake county government has made in recent years is the debacle with the animal shelter. The county should never have taken the animal shelter back in-house. St. Louis County officials should admit their mistake and once again outsource management of the animal shelter.
One of the reasons St. Louis County is in this situation is that it has gone over a decade without a qualified county auditor catching mistakes and making suggestions for fiscal improvements. Hopefully, the recently hired county auditor can change that.
Now let’s talk about the revenue side. Nobody likes tax increases, but sometimes they are necessary. If the county were to consider raising taxes, what taxes should it either institute or increase?
St. Louis County voters have rejected a use tax several times, most recently in April, 2022. A use tax (which is a sales tax on online purchases) is probably the best tax option for the county from a revenue perspective. Two other options could be imposing a small county gas tax to help fund roads or a modest property tax increase. Both of these would be politically complicated.
Beyond all of this, cuts will have to be made. Those may be cuts to services people like, such as the police department or highway projects. But elected officials are there to make hard choices.
David Stokes, Elias Tsapelas, and Avery Frank join host Zach Lawhorn to outline what a responsible plan to eliminate Missouri’s income tax should include, from revenue triggers and spending restraint to rethinking other taxes. They also break down St. Louis County’s Bill 182 expanding prevailing wage and DBE mandates, Independence’s proposed TIF package for a new Wally’s gas station and what it says about corporate welfare, Missouri’s early literacy crisis and reforms like a universal third grade reading screener, mandatory retention, and banning three cueing, and what they are watching next on prefiled tax bills, data center policy, and rising property tax bills across the state.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Missouri’s Income Tax Elimination Plan
02:52 Strategies for Reducing Income Tax Reliance
05:19 Understanding Missouri’s Tax System
08:26 The Importance of Competitive Tax Policies
10:53 St. Louis County’s Prevailing Wage Bill Discussion
13:45 Economic Implications of Tax Subsidies
16:24 Independence’s Wally’s Gas Station Development
19:28 The Flaws in Tax Increment Financing
20:20 Addressing Early Literacy in Missouri
27:54 Looking Ahead: Legislative Priorities
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
Earlier this year, I wrote about the annual rating by Truth in Accounting (TIA), which found that Missouri earned a “B” grade after reporting a small taxpayer surplus under full‑accrual accounting. Now a new study by the Reason Foundation—its “State and Local Government Finance Report” (October 2025)—offers a different methodology and a somewhat different perspective on Missouri’s fiscal health and national peers.
The Reason study finds that U.S. state and local governments held approximately $6.1 trillion in debt at the end of FY 2023. That figure breaks down roughly as $2.66 trillion at the state level, $1.4 trillion among municipalities, $1.27 trillion in school districts, and $757 billion in counties.
For state governments alone, Reason reports $2.7 trillion in debt as of end of 2023, which is about $8,000 per person nationally. The methodology includes near‑term liabilities (like unpaid bills and payroll) plus long‑term obligations (bonds, pensions, and retiree health).
Missouri ranked 25th in combined state and local debt at $53.34 billion. Broken down per capita, Missouri ranked 43rd at $8,829.
Truth in Accounting’s evaluation looked only at the state budget and divided the amount by taxpayer—while Reason considered state and local debts and divided by population. TIA concluded Missouri had a Taxpayer Surplus™ of approximately $200 per taxpayer. Lastly, Reason relied on 2023 data while TIA used 2024 numbers.
The TIA result is reassuring at first glance—but that’s because it looks only at the state obligations. Reason’s analysis reminds us that local governments carry significant obligations beyond what the state government balance sheet shows.
Missouri’s fiscal position is better than many states—but neither the TIA nor Reason analyses justify complacency. Policymakers at every level of government in Missouri should focus on liabilities, funding discipline, and structural reform. This includes being mindful of the long-term commitments we have made to fund government employee pensions and healthcare plans.
A lot of attention is focused on cutting taxes, and that is worthwhile. But fiscal restraint is not merely about cutting taxes—we must rein in our spending too, and that includes long-term commitments.
Susan Pendergrass is joined by Elias Tsapelas, director of state budget and fiscal policy at the Show-Me Institute, to explain what was actually at stake in the recent federal government shutdown. They break down the debate over extended Affordable Care Act subsidies, why health insurance costs keep rising, how COVID-era provisions distorted the marketplace, and what Congress may do next.
Timestamps
00:00 Understanding the Government Shutdown
06:31 The Debate Over ACA Subsidies
09:10 Impact of the Affordable Care Act
13:24 Proposals for Health Care Reform
17:53 The Future of Health Care Costs
Transcript
Susan Pendergrass (00:00)
Well, this is going to be a very timely and interesting conversation with the Show-Me Institute’s own Elias Tsapelas. You are the Director of State Budget and Fiscal Policy, two things that are front and center right now, but I really wanted to just have you on to talk about a little bit of stuff around the recent government shutdown.
And I just want to say upfront, if I understand this correctly, the federal government can’t pay its bills unless it’s got an approved budget to pay the bills, right? And the fiscal year runs October 1st to September 30th. And if you don’t have a new budget for the next year, you can’t pay your bills. So it’s up to the Senate, the House, and the President to agree on a budget. And this past September, as has happened before, they could not agree, and Democrats were holding out, and that caused the government to shut down. What were Democrats saying they were holding out for?
Elias Tsapelas (00:52)
Well, I guess I should start with just a little caveat that some of what the Democrats were saying they were holding out for was not precisely what was on the table. So no matter what happens, health care premiums are going to be going up, that’s just a fact, because health care costs are up. Health care costs are going up everywhere. Hospitals, Medicaid, we see it everywhere.
Susan Pendergrass (00:56)
You know, fix it up for me. Why?
Elias Tsapelas (01:20)
What they were holding out for were these extended or expanded ACA subsidies, Affordable Care Act subsidies. We’re talking about the marketplace here. This is typically for people making between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty limit. For example, a couple of two: 100 percent of the federal poverty limit is about $21,000 per year, 400 percent is about $85,000 per year. That’s roughly the range you’re looking at.
Now, some small employers do purchase plans through the marketplace, but the big piece here is that the ACA provides subsidies for people. And the way it works, essentially, is that people pay a proportion of their income. If your income is 100 percent of the federal poverty limit, you’re going to pay roughly 2 percent of your income. Now, there are extended subsidies that change that calculation. But the point being, the law set out that if you make this amount of money, you’re only going to pay this much on health insurance, and the government is going to subsidize the rest. You are not sensitive to costs at all, because your costs are tied to your income.
Susan Pendergrass (02:54)
So, for example, if you earn $4,000 a month, theoretically, and I don’t know the numbers, the government would say you won’t pay any more than $300 in insurance premiums?
Elias Tsapelas (03:05)
Yep. And so that is a percentage that you pay scaled off how much income you have from that 100 to 400 percent. That is a core piece of how the Affordable Care Act worked, and everyone paid a portion based on the base subsidies.
Now, what the debate was about, or what Democrats were holding out for, was expanded subsidies, which came about during COVID as part of the American Rescue Plan, ARPA. And it did a couple things, but they were subsidies on top of regular subsidies. So this was not, “If this doesn’t happen, everyone is going to be paying unsubsidized plans.” This was an additional type of subsidy. These additional subsidies were set to expire at the end of the year, at the end of December. ARPA gave four years of subsidies.
Susan Pendergrass (04:04)
Because it was COVID related, temporary, and they said, “We’ll cover more of your premium through December 31, 2025.”
Elias Tsapelas (04:14)
Yes, I think part of the calculation was that people were going to like it so much that it would be hard to get rid of. And it’s certainly the case: if these subsidies go away, people will be paying more.
Susan Pendergrass (04:15)
Ahem.
Elias Tsapelas (04:27)
But that is not to say there would be no subsidies at all. These extended subsidies did a couple things. For people between 100 and 150 percent of the federal poverty limit, quick caveat: in Missouri, if you make under 138 percent, you’re on Medicaid, so you don’t pay anything, but in many states without Medicaid expansion, people go on the marketplace. What these expanded subsidies did is: if you made between 100 and 150 percent of the federal poverty limit, you paid zero percent of your income. You got a plan for free.
You would still have some cost sharing, and the sliding scale up to 400 percent that the normal subsidies used was lowered, so people under regular subsidies who made 400 percent of the federal poverty limit were paying about 10 percent of their income. With the expanded subsidies, you’d only pay 8.5 percent, and the subsidies no longer stopped at 400 percent. They would go all the way up. You would never pay more than 8.5 percent of your income.
Susan Pendergrass (05:30)
Okay.
Elias Tsapelas (05:42)
But typically, people above 400 percent of the federal poverty limit don’t want to buy ACA plans because 8.5 percent of income is expensive. Still, a decent number of people were impacted. It costs a decent amount of money. The Congressional Budget Office says extending these expanded subsidies costs about $350 billion over 10 years. Very expensive. But there are a lot of issues here, which Republicans are pushing back on as they negotiate whether to extend these by the end of the year.
Susan Pendergrass (06:31)
So now we’re in this argument of whether we extend COVID subsidies or not. And like you said, Republicans seemed willing to say maybe a year, or maybe we’ll vote on it in December. Essentially the Democrats didn’t get any of what they asked for, right?
Elias Tsapelas (06:48)
Yeah. A key piece is that when Democrats passed this in ARPA, no Republicans voted for it. There’s a variety of reasons, but a big one is that it exacerbates problems with the Affordable Care Act. People buying health insurance are seeing higher prices, high deductibles, high copays, so people don’t want to buy it. These additional subsidies got more people into the market, but at a very expensive cost. And because people are not cost sensitive, their share is tied to their income, the subsidies scale regardless of what insurance companies charge. That creates unintended effects. There were allegations of fraud. And a larger discussion: if we’re going to spend $350 billion per 10 years, is there not a better way to get healthier people to buy health insurance? Is there a better way to help people?
And the people most impacted are those around 400 percent of the federal poverty limit, not very low income people. Higher income people. And often near retirement folks who aren’t working anymore but aren’t yet on Medicare. They need health insurance, they have health needs, and insurance gets very expensive. That was something the Affordable Care Act tried to deal with. But doubling down on continuously funding this subsidy system is something Republicans didn’t want to do.
Susan Pendergrass (09:10)
Yeah. So we had Brian Blase of Paragon on the podcast, and he absolutely did not want those COVID related subsidies extended. He claimed that the Affordable Care Act caused health related expenses to go up. Do you know how that works?
Elias Tsapelas (09:45)
There are a couple things going on. One big thing Brian talks about is likely enormous fraud from the expanded subsidies. Bloomberg had a good article about what happened in Florida. As soon as the federal government offered zero premium plans for people between 100 and 150 percent of the federal poverty limit, background: Florida hasn’t expanded Medicaid, so people enroll on the marketplace. What happened is that it became a business for insurance brokers to get people enrolled. Brokers make money off enrollments, and people don’t care if they aren’t paying premiums.
So you had an enormous increase in people supposedly making between 100 and 150 percent of the federal poverty limit. Census data suggests far fewer people actually make that income. Tons were getting health insurance for free, and many weren’t using it. You’d expect higher usage. There are reasons to think there was widespread fraud.
More broadly, ACA plans must cover many things people don’t need, which drives up costs. And the marketplace risk pool is heavily made up of sick people, fewer healthy people, which makes insurance expensive.
So the bigger discussion is: how do you get healthier people into the market? How do you offer plans people want? Republicans are taking a stand that doubling down on the ACA model, with subsidies disconnected from costs, won’t work long term.
Susan Pendergrass (13:24)
Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but didn’t Senator Thune or somebody suggest just sending people $5,000?
Elias Tsapelas (13:30)
I don’t know if it was exactly that amount, but yes, there have been proposals essentially saying: maybe there will need to be a one year extension of subsidies because new plans start soon and it would be hard to roll out big changes in a month. But some ideas, from Senator Cassidy, Senator Thune, and others, propose approving the same amount of money but sending it directly to people instead of insurance companies. For many people, subsidies are worth over $30,000 a year. If people got $30,000, they might not spend it all on an ACA plan costing that much. They might buy a cheaper plan, use out of pocket spending, or seek non ACA compliant plans. There are ideas: HSAs, short term plans, specialized plans. A key piece is giving the money to people, not insurance companies, so someone has an incentive to reduce costs.
Susan Pendergrass (15:47)
Yeah. Well, the shutdown ended. Nothing really changed, right?
Elias Tsapelas (15:52)
Yeah. Congress will have to work a lot in the last month of the year. I’m a little disappointed. There were almost some very interesting budget related court cases that could have come from the shutdown. One argument was whether the government must fund food stamps, or SNAP, during a shutdown, whether they must give out money not appropriated. Some judges said yes. That raises major questions: can courts tell the executive branch to spend money Congress didn’t appropriate?
Susan Pendergrass (16:54)
I think they were told that they don’t, right, in the end?
Elias Tsapelas (16:59)
The Supreme Court basically said courts needed to wrestle with the issue. It got resolved before a final answer. We don’t know for now. Judges were on different sides. Democrats pushed back noting that in previous budgets, they fought to fund things, but the executive branch simply didn’t spend the money. There’s a lot of interesting stuff: can courts force funding, can the executive disregard congressional appropriations? I’m upset that didn’t get resolved. But the ACA issue is big enough that Congress has its hands full.
Susan Pendergrass (17:53)
Some folks said that because of the SNAP benefit question, we were just getting to the point where Americans were paying attention to the shutdown and then it ended. And what’s interesting is the amount of misinformation and hard to follow information. I saw headlines about someone’s insurance premiums going from $300 to $2,600. I don’t know if any of that was right, but it got a lot of play.
Elias Tsapelas (18:28)
I don’t think it was covered especially well in terms of what was being argued, because the government shut down far before these subsidies expired. There was a lot of muddying of the waters. Some people thought if subsidies weren’t extended, no one would have subsidies, even though the people most impacted would just go from paying 8.5 percent of income to 10 percent. Not nothing, but not catastrophic.
Health care costs are going up broadly. Medicare enrollees are getting renewal notices. Everything is going up. ARPA was designed to be temporary. If it were supposed to be permanent, Congress could have made it permanent. Whether Democrats thought it would be continued forever or just help temporarily is unclear. But if Congress comes up with something that makes health insurance better, I’m all for it. There are tough decisions. Congress has struggled with ACA reform for a decade.
Susan Pendergrass (20:20)
I think we know the answer to that. At the federal level, when they want to do big splashy things, ARPA, the ACA, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, they make expenses short term to reduce the fiscal note, assuming someone will renew them later. Same thing with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. They assume future lawmakers will extend them. So it’s not unreasonable that ARPA had temporary provisions assuming they’d get extended. I guess not this time.
Elias Tsapelas (21:12)
People’s health care costs going up is a big issue. People won’t be happy regardless. But returning to issues that should have been addressed when the ACA passed is important. The marketplace is dysfunctional and too expensive. Hopefully Congress finds something better. And I don’t want to minimize issues for people close to retirement. That’s a big issue: people between 55 and 65, not on Medicare yet, often have significant health needs. If you tell a 60 year old who isn’t working that coverage is $40,000 a year, that won’t work.
Susan Pendergrass (21:53)
Yeah. That’s right.
Elias Tsapelas (22:23)
More options will be good. That is an important group that needs to be addressed.
Susan Pendergrass (23:07)
Well, thanks for explaining it so clearly and helping our listeners understand what was actually on the table. It’s a complicated topic, but we’ll watch it unfold over the next year, and hopefully you’ll come back and explain what’s happening as it unfolds.
Elias Tsapelas (23:23)
Hopefully something does happen, so there is something to explain. That would be the best case scenario.
Susan Pendergrass (23:25)
That’s right. All right, well, thanks so much, Elias. Really appreciate it.
Elias Tsapelas (23:31)
Thank you.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
In 2021, Kansas City passed an ordinance requiring large market-rate apartment developments to either set aside 20% of units at 60% of area median family income (MFI) or pay $100,000 per unit into the city’s Housing Trust Fund. Yet a recent investigation by the Kansas City Business Journal (KCBJ) found that not a single new affordable unit has been built under this mandate.
That result should raise alarms—but not eyebrows. Set-aside requirements like this often function less as solutions and more as stumbling blocks. Rather than spur construction, Kansas City’s policy has become something to work around. Developers have leaned on other incentive-granting agencies or opted for minimal in-lieu payments instead. Meanwhile, regulation continues to inflate costs and suppress supply. As I’ve written before, regulation can be a root cause of unaffordability.
The KCBJ analysis looked at 114 development incentive applications since 2021. None resulted in affordable units under the set-aside rule. Many projects qualified for exemptions—using low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs), being historic rehabs, or receiving incentives from agencies outside the city’s economic development corporation (EDCKC).
Examples:
The result is a policy with good intentions but poor results—and plenty of incentive for developers to seek workarounds.
Two themes stand out.
First: Incentives, not mandates, are doing the real work. Port KC has become the go-to agency for developers. Since mid-2023, it’s reviewed 17 housing proposals totaling over 5,000 units and $2.6 billion in investment. Because Port KC isn’t bound by the set-aside ordinance, many developers simply pay a lower in-lieu fee and move forward. A city spokesperson even admitted that some of these workarounds were done “at the request or with the blessing of city leaders.”
Second: Regulation continues to push costs up. Developers cited permitting delays, costly energy codes, and other burdens as key barriers. As one put it, requiring reduced rent on top of high costs is a “double negative.”
This tracks with previous findings: When regulation increases costs, it restricts the market’s ability to deliver lower-priced housing. If the goal is more affordability, then cities must lower the baseline costs—not just impose mandates.
It is with deep sadness that I share the news of the passing of Joseph Forshaw IV, longtime member of the Show-Me Institute’s Board of Directors, former treasurer, and past chairman of the board.
Joe was more than a board member to us. He was a steadfast champion of the Show-Me Institute’s mission, a source of wisdom and clarity, an incredible mentor, and a man whose integrity and good humor strengthened everyone around him.
A lifelong St. Louisan, Joe brought to our organization the same qualities that defined his life: intellectual curiosity, disciplined thinking, and generosity of spirit. Before joining the Show-Me Institute, he served for 30 years as president of Forshaw of St. Louis, the family business founded in 1871. His deep understanding of entrepreneurship and free enterprise made him an invaluable voice on our board and a trusted adviser to our team.
Joe served with humility and conviction, and he cared deeply about Missouri’s future. He was an extraordinary mentor to many of us, always ready to offer thoughtful counsel, encouragement, and the perspective that comes from a life well lived. Whether asking the question no one else had considered or reminding us to stay focused on the people we serve, he did so with grace, steadiness, and genuine kindness. His presence made our work better, and his passion for ideas strengthened the entire organization.
I extend my heartfelt condolences to his beloved wife, Liza; their children Sr. Maria Battista, Juliet, and J. Alexander; his grandson Aidan; and the entire Forshaw family. Joe’s leadership, generosity, and friendship will be deeply missed.
Details about visitation and services can be found here.
A report released earlier this month by the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) gives some startling numbers. UCSD is an elite public university—it ranks 6th among public colleges and 29th overall in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 rankings—yet a growing share of its incoming students lack even basic math skills.
The report is from an admissions workgroup consisting of university faculty and a handful of administrators. It focuses on a remedial math course UCSD introduced in 2016 to help freshmen fill gaps in high school–level math. The course initially enrolled about one percent of incoming students. However, instructors began to realize many students lacked even more fundamental middle- and elementary-level math skills. In response, the math department split the course into two courses: one focused on elementary and middle school math, and the other on high school math.
By 2024, more than 900 students—12.5 percent of the entering freshman class at UCSD—placed into these remedial courses.
To give a sense of the skill deficiencies among students in these remedial courses, the report shows specific math problems along with the fractions of students who could answer them correctly. Here are three example questions at the elementary level (edited very lightly for presentation here):
1. Fill in the blank: 7 + 2 = __ + 6
2. Round the number 374518 to the nearest hundred.
3. Find (13/16) ÷ 2
While it would be reasonable to expect every student who is accepted into an elite public university to be able to answer these questions correctly, many tested students could not. Just 75, 39, and 34 percent of test takers gave the correct answers to these questions, respectively.
The report identifies several factors that contribute to these disturbing—and frankly embarrassing—outcomes, including grade inflation in California’s K-12 schools that allows students to graduate with good grades but weak skills, the pandemic (every educator’s favorite scapegoat), and the UC system’s stubborn refusal to require standardized tests for admissions. But beneath all of this lies a deeper issue: a system-wide erosion of meritocracy. When merit is downplayed and standards are continually lowered, you end up with students arriving at elite universities unable to do elementary math.
To be clear, UCSD is not the only institution that has this problem, and I don’t want to punish it unduly for being transparent. In fact, the report talks about similar problems at other UC campuses, and what it describes aligns with my own experience as a professor at the University of Missouri.
There is evidence all around us of the shift away from meritocracy in education. Nationally and in Missouri, student grades, and high school and college graduation rates, are at historic or near-historic highs despite clear evidence of declining academic skills. Educational administrators at all levels of schooling have demonstrated a blatant disregard for excellence.
(Disclosure: I am a proud —though less so by the day—alumnus of UC San Diego, where I received my BA, MA, and Ph.D.)
