The Four-Day School Week Continues to Grow in Missouri

Posted on by Avery Frank

The four-day school week (4dsw) continues to expand rapidly in Missouri. The 4dsw grew from 34 districts in 2018–2019, or 6.5% of all Missouri districts, to 173 districts in 2023–2024, which is about 1 out of 3 districts. In just five years, almost 150 districts made the switch to a 4dsw.

Official numbers from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) have not been yet released for the 2024–2025 school year. However, according to my own compilation, the 4dsw has continued to grow, as now 187 Missouri public school districts operate on a 4dsw schedule, out of 516 total districts.

My colleague James Shuls and I addressed a wide variety of concerns with the growing 4dsw on academic achievement, district finances, teacher retention, parental preferences, demographics, and learning time effects in a recent series of papers. These include a systematic literature review, a survey, and a descriptive analysis.

In brief summary, we found the 4dsw typically lowers academic achievement and instructional time, while also showing mixed and inconclusive effects on district finances and teacher retention. Overall, there is little evidence to suggest switching to a 4dsw has a lot of benefits, so districts should be cautious when considering the switch.

The Missouri Legislature took aim at the 4dsw in the recent Senate Bill (SB) 727 (SB 727). This law requires larger districts to acquire parental approval before switching to a 4dsw, and also creates an aid bonus for districts that have 169 days of school or more (which essentially means you must be a 5dsw to receive it). As the below figure shows, the prospect of these measures coming fully into effect in 2026-2027 did not seem to stop 4dsw growth going into the 2024–2025 school year.

four-day school week, Missouri schools, education, SB 727, public schools
In rural Missouri, the 4dsw is nearing the majority, as 47% of rural districts are now using the 4dsw. In 2024-2025, every new district which made the switch to a 4dsw was a rural district. Still no city districts have adopted the measure, and no other suburban district joined the Independence 30 School District in making the switch—although some have discussed it.

It will be interesting to see how the continued growth of the 4dsw affects our state. Is there a proximity effect—do districts near each other feel more pressured to switch? There is a dearth of information on the 4dsw. Shouldn’t Missouri districts proceed with caution when considering a switch?

The Many Doom Loops of St. Louis

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

In April 2023, Show-Me Institute’s Susan Pendergrass conducted an interview with Daniel DiSalvo about big city pensions and the doom loop they face. A year later, The Wall Street Journal published a story specifically about the downtown real estate nightmare doom loop of St. Louis. And of course, as referenced in the photo above, we at the Institute have been chronicling the ever-doomed loop trolley on Delmar Boulevard.

Now there is one more “doom loop” article about the challenges facing St. Louis. Governing magazine wrote recently about how declining downtown activity leads to economic decline. Its observations are similar to those in the Journal. Cities like St. Louis, where vacant office spaces drive down property values, are experiencing a vicious cycle where diminished tax revenues lead to reduced public services, further pushing businesses and residents away. According to Jason Bram, an economist interviewed in the article, “It’s a very slow-moving, long-term trend that’s only gotten worse.”

This pattern of urban decline is related to the broader challenges facing cities that fail to address fundamental issues like public safety, infrastructure, and housing. St. Louis, already burdened by economic stagnation, could face further setbacks unless city leaders refocus on foundational public services.

Flashy developments like downtown stadia won’t cut it; St. Louis needs to avoid repeating those expensive mistakes. Instead, cities should prioritize core services. For St. Louis, that means investing in improving public safety, maintaining infrastructure, and focusing on policies that encourage growth.

Without addressing these fundamental issues, St. Louis risks being caught in a permanent cycle of decline. Other cities should also heed this warning and ensure that they focus on sustaining a healthy urban core before chasing grandiose development projects.

Kansas City Mayor Gets Basic Policing Numbers Wrong

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Kansas City Quinton Lucas recently tweeted out some charts regarding policing that need to be fact checked. While the Kansas City police are governed independently of city hall, the mayor not only oversees city funding of the police department, but every sitting mayor is automatically a member of the board that governs the police department.

The mayor is not a small player in Kansas City policing. As I argued in 2018, “No Missourian has more power over policing in Kansas City than the mayor,” so it’s a matter of concern when the mayor is promulgating incorrect numbers.

First, note that the blue columns in each chart seem to show police funding. The labels in the bottom show two years because the city’s fiscal year runs from May 1 to April 30 the following year. But the totals do not match police funding in the city’s annual reports. No explanation for the discrepancy was given.

Kansas City Councilmember (and former Show-Me Institute intern) Nathan Willett issued his own tweet regarding the mayor’s numbers, pointing out that a slightly different version of the slide failed to adjust for inflation. Were the numbers so adjusted, he pointed out, the chart would show Kansas City has yet to get back to pre-pandemic police funding levels.

One of the slides details crime numbers each year, such as homicides. Assuming that these depict calendar year crimes, as opposed to the fiscal year spending numbers on which they are superimposed, they still don’t match police crime stats.

The most embarrassing slide is the one examining priority call times. I wasn’t able to quickly find the numbers they refer to, but the times on the line chart are clearly wrong. The Priority 1 Response Times (in yellow) can’t be both 8:36 in ‘19/20 and in ‘20/21, because they are placed in different places on the line graph. And the 6:95 listed in the Priority 2 Response Times (in red) isn’t even a time.

I asked Mayor Lucas for the source of the information on the chart after the Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday night. He told me to file an open records request with his office. In Kansas City, that seems a polite way of saying “get lost.”

I don’t know the purpose these charts are meant to serve. But they don’t reflect a command of the facts on this issue.

Comparing the Performance of Public Schools in the City of St. Louis

Posted on by James V. Shuls

One common argument against charter schools is that some have low test scores. It’s true that some charter schools, particularly in the City of St. Louis, have rather low test scores. However, one key difference between charter schools and traditional public schools is that low-performing charters shut down. When successful charters stick around, they should provide benefits for the student population in the area. Looking at test scores in the City of St. Louis from 2012 to the present, this idea seems borne out by the data.

Using school-level data from the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP), we evaluated four different types of schools in the City of St. Louis: charters that were open in 2012 and are still open today, charters that have closed any time between 2012 and 2024, magnet schools (which filter enrollment), and traditional public schools. We looked at the total number of students who scored proficient or advanced in each category (charter, magnet, etc.,) and divided it by the total to calculate the percentages. In these totals, grades 3–8 are all aggregated together, and Algebra I and English II students are also included.

Since the MAP has changed in the time period we are assessing, it is difficult to measure performance within schools—but it is possible to measure performance between different types of schools.

In all three subjects (math, ELA, and science), charter schools that have been open since 2012 (SO Charters) surpassed magnet schools by 2023. In ELA, SO Charters had 7 percent fewer students who were proficient or advanced than magnets, but were 3 percent higher than traditional public schools in 2012. Fast forward to 2023, and SO Charters have 4 percent more students proficient or advanced than magnets and were 13 percent higher than traditional schools. The trend also translates to mathematics. All schools have remained relatively similar in science.

The orange line represents the group of charters that have closed down. Most recently, Hawthorne Leadership School and La Salle Charter had to shutter their doors due to low performance. The design of a charter school allows for schools with less successful models to be phased out. As the figures above display, successful models have benefitted students in the City of St. Louis.

The simple ability to close serves as a mechanism for accountability and competition. New models have been tested—some have succeeded, some have failed—but the ones that have succeeded have exceeded the performance of traditional public schools and magnets. This should be taken into consideration when weighing charter school expansion.

Columbia Should Privatize Its Water and Electric Utilities

Posted on by David Stokes

A version of this commentary appeared in the Columbia Missourian.

Columbia is currently considering raising its municipal water rates. The proposed increase would be set at four percent, with higher increases for some water services during the summer. I have no criticism of the proposed increase if it is truly necessary and the revenue is properly used, but there is an even better option that Columbia citizens and leaders should consider: privatization.

There is no standard method for providing utility services in Missouri cities. Springfield, for instance, has a city-owned public utility that provides every utility service. Alternatively, almost all of the 1 million residents of Saint Louis County are customers of private utilities for water, gas, and electricity. The private sector also provides utility services in Jefferson City.

Despite the structural differences between public and private provision, there is little difference between what customers pay in Columbia and Jefferson City. Both cities are below the national averages for utility costs. According to data from payscale.com, a residential customer of Columbia’s municipal electric utility has an average monthly charge for usage of $169.75, which is four percent below the national average. In Jefferson City, that average monthly electrical bill is $162.50, or five percent below the average. That’s obviously a small difference in favor of customers of Jefferson City’s private utility compared to Columbia’s city-owned utility.

Studies have demonstrated that private utilities are generally more efficient than municipal utilities. In 2000, economist B. Delworth Gardner of Brigham Young University determined that private water utilities in Utah charged lower rates for water than comparable public utilities, even after accounting for the large advantages in taxation and regulation that public companies have. Economists Daniel Hollas and Stanley Stansell found in a 1994 study that private gas utilities were more economically efficient than public gas utilities.

It is reasonable to suppose that private utilities would be more efficient in their costs and operations than Columbia’s current municipal utilities. Privatizing the utilities could benefit the city in a number of ways. Most importantly, the city would experience an immediate cash infusion from the sale. Eureka, in Saint Louis County, sold its municipal water and sewer utility to Missouri-American Water for $28 million in 2020.

Columbia would also see other fiscal benefits from privatizing the city utilities. The assets of the newly private utilities would become taxable, expanding the Columbia and Boone County tax bases. Finally, reducing the number of municipal employees entails scaling back the long-run taxpayer costs associated with government pensions and health care.

Currently, there is a question about how Columbia has been calculating the payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOTs) from the water department (and likely the electric department, too). The Columbia city charter states that the public utilities shall pay to the city the amount that would be due in taxes to the city if the utilities were private. However, the city has long been transferring into the city’s general fund the total taxes that would have been due to all of the local governments, such as the county and school district, which is a much higher amount. While it may seem like a harmless transfer from one city fund to another, it also looks like a questionable use of water department revenues to increase Columbia city revenues while going around the requirements of the Hancock Amendment. Heavy users of water, such as swimming-pool owners, should pay high water bills to account for their greater use of water. They should not have to pay more for water because Columbia wants to transfer more money from the water division to the general fund as a subsidy to other city services. Privatizing the water and electric utilities would stop that appearance of impropriety for good.

Private utilities are just as capable of providing quality services at a low price to the residents of Columbia, and likely more efficient, than city departments. Privatization of the Columbia Water and Light Division would bring a needed cash infusion to the city, add substantial assets to the tax rolls, and reduce long-term public employee costs. Cities around Missouri have seen positive results from such privatization efforts, and there is good reason to believe that Columbia taxpayers and residents would also benefit.

The North Side “Grant” Program is a Racket

Posted on by David Stokes

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is attempting to get more information on the St. Louis Development Corporation’s (SLDC) North St. Louis Small Business & Non-Profit Grant Program. The City of St. Louis is refusing to share information on the application process after questions have been raised about the overall grant process. My colleague, Patrick Tuohey, addressed those issues here.

I am confident that the media will get that information, and I am as interested as anyone to learn more. But let’s be honest here–what we already know about the program makes it clear that this “grant” program smells like a racket. Let’s look at what this program is giving away as part of this $32 million “grant” program.

A former state representative is getting $1.5 million to expand her consulting company to create more affordable housing and grow the economy by two—that’s right, two—new jobs.

A former mayor is getting two grants for a total of $125,000 to expand and improve the bar he owns in the city.

Sweetie Pie’s restaurant is getting $1.5 million to expand operations, despite some recent problems with management and operations at the restaurant.

Non-profits are included too, and perhaps that is more understandable, but one non-profit that was only created after the program was announced last year is in line for over $700,000. Surprisingly, the director of that non-profit is connected to a politically influential family. I know, you’re shocked . . .

The list goes on. When the program was announced, officials claimed it was a way to invest in North St. Louis. But it isn’t investing in infrastructure or things that can benefit the public. The program simply seems to be a way to give away tax dollars to North Side businesses. That’s it. There is no way this should be legal.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Consider the comments of one business owner who, admittedly, did not receive funding:

“The whole process has just been problematic from day one,” said Tameka Stigers, who applied unsuccessfully for a grant to expand her hair salon, Locs of Glory, on Delmar Boulevard and has been rallying other disgruntled business owners to lobby SLDC for reconsideration. “It’s a genuine money grab from the city to give the money to their friends.” [emphasis added]

I couldn’t have said it better myself. We will have more to come on this issue, I assure you.

Outsourcing Is Good

Posted on by David Stokes

In government outsourcing, governments contract with private-sector firms to have them perform certain services. Outsourcing is not as big of a step as privatization, because the government still owns the asset and is responsible for the service. It just pays a private company (sometime a non-profit) to perform the service being outsourced. St. Louis County government is considering outsourcing the facilities maintenance operations of county buildings to a private company. I think that is great, and I hope the county does it.

There are many successful examples of outsourcing in local government in Missouri. A lot of my work at the Institute has focused on park and recreation outsourcing, so those are the examples I’ll give. Privatizing park services is obviously unpopular with residents, as few wish to sell their parks. But outsourcing park operations is more common than people may realize.

In 2021, the St. Louis suburb of Des Peres outsourced the management and lifeguard services for its swimming facilities to Midwest Pool Management (MPM). Des Peres estimated it would save between $60,000 and $80,000 per year by outsourcing the operations.  MPM operates aquatic centers for numerous cities in the St. Louis region, as well as the Springs at Tiffany Hills in Kansas City. Other recreational facilities that are ripe for contracting and outsourcing management of include (actual examples in parenthesis): tennis centers (Shaw tennis center in Clayton), ice rinks (Steinberg rink in St. Louis City), golf courses (many locations, including Forest Park in the City of St. Louis ), and restaurant facilities within parks (Creve Coeur Lakehouse restaurant in St. Louis County).

Assets such as municipal golf courses, skating rinks, and tennis centers can be primarily funded by user fees instead of general taxes. Instead of spending tax dollars to operate these amenities, cities can enhance revenue and focus on core services by outsourcing recreational assets to companies that specialize in those areas. For example, the City of St. Louis received $402,260 in 2021 in lease payments from private operators to operate the golf courses in Forest Park (page 21 in link document).  Similarly, St. Louis leased out its Forest Park ice rink for $45,000 per year to a private operator. These arrangements provide better services for customers and a better result for taxpayers. In every example I’ve given above, local government still owns and is ultimately responsible for the asset.

According to the primary survey on this subject, about 25 percent of local governments outsource their facilities management operations. So, while it may not be standard, it isn’t rare. St. Louis County has a responsibility to negotiate hard for the taxpayers and be sure the contract isn’t too long. While the article on the deal makes it seem that the county is paying more in outsourcing, the numbers in it don’t include the long-term pension and health-care costs for government employees, and that is where savings from outsourcing really come in. As one guide on this topic put it:

Outsourcing can mitigate the long-term structural challenges faced by governments with regard to health care and retirement benefits.

In this particular instance, the county is simply having trouble filling these jobs as it is, so this outsourcing example is as much out of necessity as a choice. (It is hard for the county just to give its facilities employees a raise without giving all county employees larger raises, and that would really hit taxpayers hard.)

Local governments should privatize, outsource, or share services with other governments as much as they can. Residents, taxpayers, and voters (most people are all three, of course) all benefit from it.

Rising Concerns about St. Louis’s Teacher Pension Fund

Posted on by James V. Shuls

KSDK recently ran a report on a topic familiar to Show-Me Institute readers: teacher pensions. The report, titled “Growing pension liabilities threaten St. Louis Public Schools’ financial future,” notes that the “school district’s pension liability grew by a staggering $100 million last year.”

If only someone had warned them about this years ago. Oh, that’s right . . . we did.

The topic of public-employee pension reform has long been important to Show-Me Institute writers. Back in 2013, for example, Andrew Biggs wrote Public Employee Pensions in Missouri: A Looming Crisis. The report did not specifically analyze St. Louis’s teacher pension fund, but the point about the pending crisis applied nonetheless.

When we call attention to impending problems, we are often called alarmists. I have twice had teacher groups circulate action alerts warning members not to respond to my requests for information regarding pensions. It was so bad we actually recorded a podcast telling people we were not trying to take away their pensions. The pushback we received led me to ask, “can we have meaningful dialogue on pension reform?”

So—what changed?

Now, it is the educators themselves raising the alarm. In the KSDK report, Byron Clemens, with the American Federation of Teachers in St. Louis, and his brother, state representative Doug Clemens (D-72nd District), are both quoted on the matter. They highlight how the underfunding of pension systems is harming retirees.

Unfortunately, the Clemens brothers do not call for significant pension reform. They see the symptoms of the problem, but rather than address the structural issues that got us to this point they seem to argue for policies that would only treat the symptoms.

St. Louis’s pension system is underfunded because of the program’s design. Missouri needs to explore new options, such as defined-contribution and hybrid plans, to provide retirees a safe and secure retirement.

A Report Card on DESE’s Report Card

Posted on by James V. Shuls

A new report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has evaluated each state’s report card system for public schools. The report, State Secrets: How Transparent Are State School Report Cards About the Effects of COVID?, gives each state a letter grade based on the ease of finding longitudinal data on school performance. Missouri earned a B grade, despite some data, such as student growth measures, not being available. The grading scale, it seems, might have been a bit generous. The comments for Missouri read:

  • Bare bones design—mostly just large tables of data with no explanation.
  • The report card shows data for indicators that are not appropriate given the school level (e.g., graduation rates shown for elementary schools as a large table full of asterisks.)
  • Allows side-by-side year selection, but data presentation is unclear.

Interestingly, the website’s overall usability seems to not have factored into the grade. Missouri was one of 11 states whose website usability was rated as “poor.”

While I might quibble with the letter grades assigned by CRPE, the analysis and recommendations seem on point. For example, the authors recommend enhancing usability and increasing transparency. These are two issues the Show-Me Institute analysts have long argued for.

With a new commissioner in town, now is the time for the state board of education and the commissioner to make data accessibility and transparency a key goal of the department. Missourians have a right to know how their schools are performing.

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