David Stokes, Elias Tsapelas, and Avery Frank join Zach Lawhorn to discuss the veto session, freezing property taxes for seniors in St. Charles County, the formation of a committee on the St. Louis earnings tax, and more.
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In an incredibly shameless move, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has submitted a budget request for 2025 that raises the dollar amount per student in the foundation formula because the number of public school students is declining. Apparently, the most important thing is to make sure districts don’t get less money when their enrollment is declining.
DESE and the state board of education would have you believe that the pandemic has led Missouri families to simply keep their kids at home—just like the parents who are working remotely. That, they say, is the culprit. Incorrect. I have been making this point routinely over the past year. Missouri, as a state, has declining enrollment. Actually, K-12 enrollment is declining at the national level as well.
If you look at the following graph of the number of Missouri public school kindergartners each year, you can see that, after growing for a decade or so, enrollment peaked in 2013. Since then, pandemics notwithstanding, cohorts have been getting smaller and smaller. That peak is now in high school. Within a few years, the number of our high school graduates will begin a steady decline.
Missouri kindergarten enrollment: 2002–2022
If we take the position that this is a temporary problem and we manipulate the formula to make sure that overall funding stays the same (DESE actually asked for a $100M increase), we will be misappropriating taxpayer dollars. We need to fund the schools and students we have, not the schools and students we used to have.
Susan Pendergrass speaks with Dalena Wallace about how to incentivize, and support outside-of-the-box approaches to education.
Dalena Wallace is a busy homeschool mom of six. She manages a co-op serving 35 local homeschoolers and operates a hybrid microschool called AIM High. She is the founder of AIM Educational Collaborative LLC which helps provide assistance and coaching for others who would like to build Autonomous, Innovative, and Missional educational models.
To learn more about her work visit: www.aimeducationks.com/
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) “is seeking input on newly proposed K-12 Learning Standards” for Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). To those in the education field, SEL is a common phrase. It is closely related to character education or helping students develop personal strengths. Of course, there are concerns on the political right about SEL because some use the term to describe questionable practices, such as sex positivity.
You can take a look at DESE’s proposed standards yourself. For the most part, they seem to be fairly straightforward standards that many could get behind. For example, the standards say students should learn “Processing and managing one’s own thoughts and behaviors to regulate emotions in a healthy manner.” Here’s another: students are to show “Respect, kindness, and civility while treating others with dignity.”
DESE breaks the standards into three categories: “Me,” “We,” and “Others.” “Me” is about developing a healthy sense of self. “We” is about building healthy relationships. “Others” is about treating others well. If you click on the link to provide feedback, you will be asked, “What comments do you have on the ‘Me’ section of the proposed standards?” You’ll have the same opportunity to reply on the “We” and “Others” standards.
DESE is asking for reactions and suggestions to its proposed standards. But this is not the question it should be asking.
The key question anyone should ask is this: What gives DESE the authority to set SEL standards?
The May 2023 Missouri State Board of Education Agenda lists Section 161.1050 of the revised statutes of Missouri as justification for implementing SEL standards. Curiously, I cannot find a single thing in this section that would even remotely give this authority to DESE. You can read the statutes for yourself. I’ve copied them below.
The statute DESE claims gives it authority pertains to the “Trauma-informed schools initiative.” Nowhere in the statute does it say anything about SEL, nor does it mention the adoption of standards of any kind.
The statute says DESE should “provide information regarding the trauma-informed approach to all schools.” It is a big leap from providing information about trauma-informed education to setting SEL standards.
Without the proper statutory authority, it doesn’t really matter what comments anyone has on the “Me,” “We,” and “Others” standards. It does not matter because based on the authority cited DESE should not be writing the standards in the first place.
161.1050. Initiative established, department duties — definitions. — 1. There is hereby established within the department of elementary and secondary education the “Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative”.
2. The department of elementary and secondary education shall consult the department of mental health and the department of social services for assistance in fulfilling the requirements of this section.
3. The department of elementary and secondary education shall:
(1) Provide information regarding the trauma-informed approach to all school districts;
(2) Offer training on the trauma-informed approach to all school districts, which shall include information on how schools can become trauma-informed schools; and
(3) Develop a website about the trauma-informed schools initiative that includes information for schools and parents regarding the trauma-informed approach and a guide for schools on how to become trauma-informed schools.
4. Each school district shall provide the address of the website described under subdivision (3) of subsection 3 of this section to all parents of the students in its district before October first of each school year.
5. For purposes of this section, the following terms mean:
(1) “Trauma-informed approach”, an approach that involves understanding and responding to the symptoms of chronic interpersonal trauma and traumatic stress across the lifespan;
(2) “Trauma-informed school”, a school that:
(a) Realizes the widespread impact of trauma and understands potential paths for recovery;
(b) Recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in students, teachers, and staff;
(c) Responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into its policies, procedures, and practices; and
(d) Seeks to actively resist retraumatization.
Susan Pendergrass speaks with James V. Shuls about his upcoming paper on character education.
James V. Shuls is the director of research and distinguished fellow of education policy at the Show-Me Institute.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
Susan Pendergrass speaks with Kansas Policy Institute president James Franko about KPI’s upcoming event “Heartland Hybrid and Micro Schools Summit With Kerry McDonald“.
Learn more about KPI’s September 23 event here: kansaspolicy.org/events/
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
A version of the following letter appeared on Lakeexpo.com.
There is probably no better opportunity for municipalities to share services for public benefit than in emergency 911 dispatching services. Lake Ozark and Osage Beach deserve credit for considering this change, which can improve public safety and save taxpayer money at the same time. Lake Ozark appears to be moving ahead with the necessary legislation, and Osage Beach should move forward with it as well.
In 2015, Lawrence County in southwestern Missouri began a process to consolidate and modernize all the 911 systems for its various agencies, including the county sheriff, nine municipal police and fire departments, fire districts, and ambulance districts. The municipality of Aurora stated that it would save $400,000 by joining the new, countywide 911 system and closing its own system. The combined system is currently investing in an upgraded 911 center to provide even better service to the county.
There are many more opportunities for 911 consolidation around the state and in the Lake region. Municipal police departments aren’t limited to sharing service with other police departments; they can operate together with fire districts, county sheriffs, university police departments, ambulance districts, and more. The economies of scale allow for greater enhancement of technology in larger 911 systems, and it saves taxpayer money, just like in Lawrence County and elsewhere in Missouri.
Change may not be easy, but consolidating 911 systems is the perfect opportunity to both invest in better public safety for cities and better manage tax dollars.
The Show-Me Institute has added 2021–22 finance data to the MOSchoolRankings.org website. Now users can see two years of detailed financial data for every public school district and public charter school in the state. But let’s take a minute to address a couple of issues and likely questions.
Why did the Show-Me Institute decide to include/exclude “X” category of revenue or spending?
We didn’t. These numbers all come from a report titled the Annual Secretary to the Board Report (ASBR) that each school district and charter school submits to the state. ASBRs are prepared based on guidelines in the Missouri Financial Accounting Manual. ASBRs account for each dollar that comes into a district and each that is spent. Money comes from many sources, including some that may be surprising, such as bookstore sales, food sales to parents, or tuition from other districts. Some sources, such as revenue received from issuing bonds to build a building, are large, one-time infusions of money. We didn’t distinguish between which sources are “important” or “appropriate” for users to consider. We included all money that flowed into each district from every source.
Similarly, we included every expenditure reported in the ASBR. When the site was first launched, many questioned why we included capital expenses, such as land. Again, we included everything reported and provided sufficient detail for users to disregard what they deem to not be true education expenses. Remember, however, that every dollar spent by a public school district is a dollar that wasn’t spent elsewhere for a different public purpose.
Why are the numbers so high?
When every dollar that is spent by public school districts is totaled up and divided by the number of students, the result is often higher than what the public assumes it will be. Survey after survey finds that the public grossly underestimates public education spending. In addition, public education spending-per-student data frequently excludes certain expenditures. Often what is reported is current expenditures or instruction expenditures. The expenditures per student on MOSchoolRankings.org uses the Annual Secretary to the Board Report (ASBR) Total Expenditures as the numerator and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)-reported enrollment for each district as the denominator.
Why don’t the numbers match the expenditures per student on the academic side of the website?
When the Show-Me Institute first launched MOSchoolRankings.org with academic grades for each school and district in the state, we included total expenditures per student for context. These numbers come from a DESE file titled Finance Data and Statistics Summary for All Districts/Charters. We have continued to use this file with each update for consistency. Why those numbers differ from the ASBR totals is not clear.
We hope you find the updated data on the website useful. We are committed to updating the MoSchoolRankings site to give Missourians the best data available on schools in our state.
The 2001 music video for “Weapon of Choice,” a big beat, electronic song by Fatboy Slim (with Bootsy Collins), featured Christopher Walken dancing through a deserted hotel lobby. The lyrics of the song repeated, “You can blow with this, or you can blow with that.” When I first heard the song, we didn’t have YouTube and I did not have the ability to Google the lyrics. I thought the song was saying, “You can go with this, or you can go with that.” That’s still how I hear the song today.
This is also how I would describe the recent Economics of Education Review paper by Dillon Fuchsman, Josh McGee, and Gema Zamarro. The authors surveyed more than 5,000 teachers about their stated preferences. The 15-minute survey presented teachers with two hypothetical job offers. Would they prefer a higher salary or smaller class sizes? More pay today or more pay in retirement? In other words, “you can go with this, or you can go with that.”
The paper is a good reminder that our policy choices in education are all about tradeoffs and balancing preferences. Lately, we have often heard that teacher pay in Missouri is relatively low. We don’t hear about the tradeoffs that make it that way. For example, as I’ve written before, Missouri has a very low student-to-teacher ratio—11.3 students per teacher. If Missouri increased this ratio, it could increase teacher pay. As I wrote, “If Missouri were to match Illinois’ ratio of 14.3, Missouri teachers could realize a 26.5% increase in their salaries.”
As it turns out, teachers may prefer to be paid more and have higher class sizes. Fucshman, McGee, and Zamarro find more teachers would prefer to add three students to their class and get a higher salary (78% of respondents) than to have three fewer students and lower pay (65%).
The conversation in Missouri has almost exclusively been “We need to increase teacher pay.” A more robust conversation would consider this and other trade-offs we’ve built into our systems.
