Zach Lawhorn speaks to Susan Pendergrass, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute, about her new report The Future of Missouri’s Workforce.
Read the full report here.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
Application Deadline for Close the Gap Grant is Almost Here
The application deadline for Missouri’s Close the Gap Grant Program is quickly approaching. The law was passed back in 2022, but after finally solving some logistical hurdles, the program is up and running. Parents have until October 23 to apply for a one-time grant of up to $1,500 to spend on education expenses.
So, what exactly is the “Close the Gap Grant”?
Close the Gap is a one-time grant paid to families with students enrolled in Missouri public schools—those in private school or homeschool are not eligible to receive these funds. With these tax-exempt funds, parents can pay for:
- Tutoring services
- Academic/summer camps
- Educational materials
- Computer equipment
- Internet connectivity
- Learning-relating subscriptions
- Software to support educational activities
- Before- and after-school programs
- Study skills services
- Costs associated with college credit for AP, dual credit, dual enrollment, ITV (instructional television), and international baccalaureate
- Art enrichment lessons (such as piano, singing, or dancing lessons)
Additionally, because this program was supposed to be up and running last year, parents can also request reimbursement for an allowable service or product they purchased since July 1, 2022.
After all the applications are received, grant awards will be divvied out to families below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. If there are surplus funds still available (which there could be from the $75 million budget), applicants above the stated poverty level will receive grant awards. Parents will be notified regarding the amount of their grant reward starting on November 1st. For the awardees, grant funds do not roll over and must be used by June 1, 2024. These funds are a one-time payment; these payments are not recurring and are only available for this year. Unless Missouri finds a way to carve out new funding to continue this program, there will be no grant in 2024–2025—this grant comes from emergency federal COVID relief funds in 2022.
Who is administering this program?
An organization called Odyssey will be administrating the program. The founder of Odyssey previously founded SchoolHouse, an at home micro-school company. Odyssey is a startup that manages education scholarship accounts (ESAs) and microgrant programs. Odyssey will handle basically everything required for the Close the Gap grants: all application management, marketing and outreach, marketplace creation, payments, and customer support.
Odyssey will have an online marketplace with listed vendors where individuals can see all allowable education services and products. Along with a marketplace, the Odyssey Parent Portal will also have a tab to upload receipts for reimbursement.
With the deadline quickly approaching, make sure to sign up and get your grant award now.
College Readiness Declines
ACT, the organization that administers one of the most widely used college entrance exams, just released the scores for last spring’s graduating class and the results are troubling. Scores are down nationally and in Missouri. As a reminder, this is the class of students who were freshmen when schools closed in 2020 and most likely spent at least part of their sophomore year trying to learn remotely. We now know that this was not successful for very many students and these data confirm that.
Nationally, the average composite ACT score fell from 19.8 in 2022 to 19.5 in 2023. Prior to 2022, scores hadn’t been below 20.0 in more than thirty years. In Missouri, scores fell from 20.3 to 19.8, the lowest average composite score for the state since 2000. Missouri’s average was near that point (19.86) in 2018 when the test was required for all students, whether they intended to go to college or not. That is no longer the case. Last year, 66 percent of graduating students took the exam.
So, what does this mean? As predicted, students who were at “important” points in their K-12 education are in real trouble. Nearly 40 percent of Missouri’s 3rd graders (kindergartners in Spring 2020) scored below Basic in reading last year, meaning they don’t even have a partial understanding of the subject. They missed a critical window to develop a skill that is fundamental to their future success in school.
The same can now be said of students who were starting high school. They are, as a group, less ready for postsecondary education. This has implications for their lives as well as the quality of the Missouri workforce. Our state leaders should be addressing this as the crisis that it is. It should be a policy priority. They should be talking about it routinely. Is that what you’re seeing or hearing?
Maybe the Adults Need a Math Test
The media is finally catching on to a trend I’ve discussed often here. The number of elementary and secondary students is declining and has been declining since well before the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of elementary and secondary teachers only grows. This trend is alive and well in Missouri, as seen in the graph below:
Missouri Elementary and Secondary Enrollment and Teachers: 2014–15 through 2021–22
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Common Core of Data, Nonfiscal Survey, multiple years, nces.ed.gov/ccd
Missouri enrollment fell from 920,000 students in 2015 to 910,000 in 2019—before the pandemic. Even with the post-pandemic recovery, enrollment is still down over 30,000 students from six years ago. Interestingly, we now have over 3,000 more teachers to serve the smaller student body.
According to Dr. Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University, there have been three waves contributing to the growing teaching staff. The first was the post-recession hiring back of laid off teachers. Then there were seven boom years of growth in education funding (though not in enrollment). Finally, there has been the enormous influx of pandemic stimulus funds from the federal government.
Stimulus money is drying up, though. So, what happens next? The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has just submitted a budget request that has a $300 million increase. In a logic-defying move, DESE claims that fewer students means we need a higher dollar amount per student in the foundation formula. Why? Because hiring when enrollment goes down because you’ve got the money doesn’t mean you can simply fire excess teachers when the funds dry up. Public education employment contracts don’t work that way. The system needs total funding to stay the same or increase, regardless of enrollment trends. Here’s hoping the state legislature looks at the math before agreeing to this request for no accountability.
The Future of Public Transit in St. Louis with Randal O’Toole
Susan Pendergrass speaks with Randal O’ Toole about his new report “Is St. Louis Transit Built for the 2020s or the 1910s?”
Randal O’Toole is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Director of the American Dream Coalition, and Senior Economist at the Thoreau Institute. He has been Visiting Scholar at the College of Natural Resources at the University of California at Berkeley, McCluskey Conservation Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Merrill Visiting Professor of Political Science at Utah State University.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
St. Louis City Proposes Adding Additional Rules to Short-Term Rental Bill
This past June, my colleague David Stokes and I testified before the City of St. Louis Transportation and Commerce Committee regarding Board Bills 33 and 34, which would create regulations for short-term rental (STR) in the city. You can read our past testimony here.
Based on complaints (and a few horror stories), residents and officials alike have been pushing for some sort of reform in the “wild west” of STRs. I thought the original bills created a satisfactory regulatory compromise between those who enjoy the benefits of STRs and those who are subjected to the negative effects of this industry.
However, members of the Transportation and Commerce Committee are now seeking to attach additional rules that would make STR regulation even stricter. There are three key new proposed rules that would turn this proposal into an overly burdensome set of regulations.
- No STR in the City of St. Louis can allow customers to stay fewer than two nights.
The concern is people renting an STR for one night in order to throw a “rager” (I apologize for my former fraternity brother lingo). This “two-night minimum rule” is meant to curb this practice, but it still wouldn’t prevent partiers from simply renting an STR for two nights. This rule would also have negative effects for others. To illustrate one example, let’s say a student is graduating from St. Louis University and his entire extended family wants to attend. The family would be barred from renting a house for Saturday night, cheering on their graduate Sunday morning, and then leaving that afternoon (a common practice).
- The STR agent must be able to be physically present at the address within one hour if required.
An STR agent is a person or organization who operates the STR. In the original bill, the agent only had to be contactable at all times. Now, that agent must be able to show up to the STR within an hour—failure to do so can result in revocation of the permit. This rule ties the hands of any potential STR operators. This would make owning and operating an STR in St. Louis City extremely burdensome, and also nearly impossible for anyone who is traveling outside the St. Louis area.
- An owner can only operate one STR per multi-family structure (such as an apartment complex).
This was proposed in order to prevent conglomerates from buying up a large number of units in apartment complexes and creating “ghost hotels,” where residents essentially have no neighbors due to many units being converted to STRs. While this argument has some validity, as community relationships are important, the original bill already included a four-property maximum for STR owners.
Lawmakers in St. Louis City should reconsider adding these new rules to the STR reform bills. The additional rules have moved this legislation from a reasonable regulatory compromise to a burden for visitors and owners.
Common Arguments for and Against the Four-Day School Week
The number of four-day school weeks (4dsw) in Missouri has risen considerably in the past few years: from 34 in the 2017–2018 school year to 152 in the 2022–2023 school year. Based on my own compilation of district calendars, there appears to be around 170 for the 2023–2024 school year—although those numbers are not final at this time.
While typically a 4dsw district is a small, rural district, that could be changing in Missouri. The Independence School District in Kansas City just began its first semester using a 4dsw this year. The district had over 13,000 students in 2021–2022, which is over 10,000 more students than the second-biggest 4dsw district, Warren County R-III. It will be interesting to see if more suburban and urban districts follow Independence’s example.
Along with James Shuls, I am currently working on a systematic literature review of the best evidence on the effects of the 4dsw. We’ll get into those findings at a later date. Here, I think it is important to discuss the most common arguments for and against the 4dsw. Specifically in this post, I will list the different arguments regarding how the 4dsw could impact academic achievement.
Pros: How This Could Bolster Academic Achievement
- With a longer weekend, students can recharge more and be more attentive in class—leading to instruction hours being more productive.
- Chronic absenteeism could decrease; as kids would have more built-in days to go on hunting trips, weekend getaways, or athletic events.
- Additionally in rural districts, less time would have to be taken off to help on the family farm.
- Fewer kids would be late to class for doctor’s appointments, driver’s tests, and other necessary errands as families could schedule it on the weekday that school is off.
- Teachers would have more opportunities to improve their lesson plans and collaborate with their colleagues.
- While there is ample time to discuss these things during school breaks, having built-in professional development days could lead to improvement for some teachers—generating higher academic achievement.
- Teacher retention could increase. With a longer weekend and more days to prepare for class, teachers may have greater job satisfaction.
- With greater job satisfaction, teachers could be more motivated and help boost students’
- Potentially cutting costs from transportation, energy, or food services on the fifth day could allow districts to divert more funds to instructional costs.
- Longer class times with a 4dsw means that teachers can more easily use different teaching methods like small-group discussions as opposed to mainly lectures—potentially leading to more active participation and academic growth.
- Fewer substitute teachers are needed, as teachers can schedule appointments or recover from sickness on off days.
Cons: How This Could Decrease Academic Achievement
- One fewer day per week means less structure and less time a student is thinking about school.
- A longer weekend means less repetitions per week of material, which may make it harder for it to “stick.”
- 50% of schools that use a 4dsw report being completely closed on the fifth day, while 30% offer some sort of remedial or enrichment activity on that day.
- We all saw what happened to students’ scores when they were not routinely in-person at school.
- It is harder to stay focused over the course of a longer day.
- Many claim that attention spans have shortened in society. If a 4dsw involves longer school days, there may be more hours where students are not paying attention.
- Many times, 4dsw have about 3-4 less hours in school per week—harming academic achievement.
- A day is relatively more important in a 4dsw schedule than a 5dsw schedule.
- This could be a particular problem for Missouri which has chronic absenteeism.
- Test schedules become more tightly packed together with one fewer day, along with more homework and longer days of school.
- This can serve to increase stress on students.
- Teacher retention could decrease. One fewer day of school, that is one fewer day to earn additional income from after- and before-school programs.
- Studies show a 4dsw could be linked to increased, as older students can have an unsupervised dayoff, leading to students focusing less on school or not being in school at all.
- Students with a tough home life may face struggles being home an extra day, increasing mental health issues.
- For students with little at-home support, less time in school is more harmful to them than others.
Research should be able to give us a better idea the average effect of the 4dsw on student achievement. Whether the overall effects are positive or negative, it seems clear that the 4dsw will not impact all students in the same way. These issues are important to consider when evaluating the 4dsw, and James and I are excited to present our findings in the near future.
The Wide World of Charter Schools with Jamison White
In this episode, Susan Pendergrass speaks with Jamison White.
Jamison White is the director of data and research for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Before joining the National Alliance, Jamison worked as a data analyst and freelance consultant in Boston and the greater New York area.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
MetroLink Expansions, Airbnb Rules, and $550K Limits
David Stokes, and Avery Frank join Zach Lawhorn to discuss Show-Me Institute’s latest report “Is St. Louis Transit Built for the 2020s or the 1910s?”, short-term rental regulations in St. Louis City, property tax freezes for seniors, and more.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
