To the Beach!

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

It’s mid-March in Missouri and we all know what that means—spring break! The legislature adjourned on Thursday and won’t be back for a week and a half. The good news is that the House got caught up on its homework before everyone left. The House debated and, ultimately, passed a bill (House Bill 253) that will create more education options for Missouri families.

HB 253 is one of the open enrollment bills filed this session and it allows Missouri families to choose a public school other than the one assigned to them based on their address. They can choose a school within their home district or in a different district, provided that the school has an open seat for them. While this bill has many shortcomings, it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, unlike the open enrollment laws in 23 other states, HB 253 lets districts opt out of accepting nonresident students. And while many districts may decide to opt out initially, I’m hopeful that as Missourians get used to trusting parents, most districts will see the benefit of working to attract students. Given that every public school district in St. Louis has experienced declining enrollment in the last few years, those that sit this out will do so at their folly.

The bill was amended so that districts can limit the number of transfers out to three percent of the prior year’s enrollment. This is a nice financial guardrail, districts can use the highest of the last four year’s enrollment for state funding anyway. This gives them several years before they feel any financial pain from exiting students.

Minnesota has had a mandatory open enrollment law since 1989. Remember 1989? George H.W. Bush was sworn in as president and Rain Man won best picture. This is not a new idea. The scary and paradoxical scenario laid out by opponents of the bill that our beloved rural high schools that are the hearts of their communities will also experience heavy student losses hasn’t happened in Minnesota or Wisconsin or Ohio or any other state that has had open enrollment for decades.

When the tanned and rested legislature returns it will be up to the Senate to make open enrollment a reality for Missouri families. I look forward to seeing it happen.

Reinventing Public Education with Paul Hill

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Susan Pendergrass speaks with Dr. Paul Hill about his career in education reform, the current state of school choice, and more.

Paul T. Hill is the founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington Bothell. His current work focuses on re-missioning states and school districts to promote school performance; school choice and innovation; finance and productivity; and improving rural schools.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Stitcher 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

The results of the Missouri School Improvement Plan (MSIP) 6 have just been released, and they landed with a shrug. MSIP 6 is the accountability system adopted by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the state board of education to rate school districts (and to a much lesser extent schools) and to signal which are performing well and which are not. This author has routinely criticized MSIP 6 and its predecessor, MSIP 5, because they’re complicated and they’re only loosely related to academic performance.

Under MSIP 5, the average district received 96 percent of total possible MSIP points. MSIP 6, to be fair, has a more reasonable distribution. About one fifth of districts did not get the necessary 70 percent of their possible points, making them technically eligible for non-accreditation. Not to worry though – these scores won’t be used to actually rate districts for another year.

Another good aspect of MSIP 6 is that student academic growth actually counts. Under prior MSIPs, it only served as extra credit. Tracking academic growth is critical for students who come to school far behind their peers. It measures if and how quickly they are catching up to grade level. So, while we only have growth scores for students in grades 3–8 and the reporting is a little difficult to understand, at least it counts.

Now for the bad. Academic measures—both for percentages of students scoring on grade level in reading, math, science, and social studies and for student academic growth in reading and math—still only count for less than half of the points. Districts (unfortunately) still have a variety of ways to achieve the maximum points possible, with the highest score being 180. Academic testing is worth a maximum of 48 points for getting students to grade level and 36 points for growth. But having a school improvement plan is worth 30 points and giving a school culture and climate survey is worth 4. How many districts got all 34 of those points? All of them. Graduation rates—which can be gamed—are worth 20 points. How many districts got all 20 points? The answer is 422 out 553.

And, finally, the ugly. The ugly is the MSIP 6 APR report. The APR report assigns districts a number that represents the percentage of possible points earned. The total possible points varies from 152 to 180. How does this help sort out what a district is getting right or wrong? Why does the title have two acronyms? Why can’t districts simply be given letter grades, which all of us understand? Why don’t we have ratings for schools, as well as districts? While we’re trying to figure out what the scores mean, why don’t we ask our leaders for something we can all understand?

Six Ways to Better Understand the DESE Budget

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

How is public education financed in Missouri? How much of a district revenues are generated locally, and how much money is contributed by the the state and federal government? What impact did the COVID stimulus funds have on education financing?

These questions and others are addressed in my latest report, which also presents a program-by-program account of how education dollars are spent in the state. To read the full report, click here.

To supplement the full report, below are six infographics designed to illustrate how billions of dollars flow into public education each year in Missouri, and how they flow out. Where does it come from, and where does it go?

 

 

The St. Louis Demographic Decline: One Explanation Among Many

Posted on by Maria Rivero

Most St. Louisans I know are die-hard fans of the city they call home. Maybe it’s because we are blessed with great sports culture, or simply because our Midwestern nature helps us see the good in all situations (and St. Louis has many good qualities!). Whatever the case, most of us are proud to throw on the STL merch and claim those letters as our own.

For this reason, I was surprised when I found out that only a small number of my St. Louis high school friends planned to move back home after college. I experienced a similar shock when I heard the recent Show-Me Institute podcast episode with Susan Pendergrass and Dr. Ness Sandoval. In that episode, Dr. Sandoval lays out the bleak fact that there are more people dying than people being born in the St. Louis region right now. We could rationalize this as a reflection of the overall birth rate decrease in the United States, but the data show that many U.S. cities, such as Austin and Orlando, do not face the same demographic decline.

The natural question to ask is: what is St. Louis doing wrong? Or, perhaps, what are these other cities doing right?

For one, most cities do not face the safety issue that St. Louis does. Every year, St. Louis fiercely competes against New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore for the title of “the murder capital of America.” This fact almost certainly contributes to St. Louis’s demographic decline. Who would willingly choose to move to the murder capital of America?

What many outsiders don’t realize is that the City of St. Louis is an independent municipality separate from St. Louis County. In 2020, the City of St. Louis had 300,528 residents and 263 homicides. That is a murder rate of 87 per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, St. Louis County had 1,004,125 residents in 2020 and a murder rate of 12 per 100,000 people. When news sources dub St. Louis as the #1 (or as of September, #2) murder capital of America, they are referring to the City of St. Louis, not the St. Louis region. Unfortunately, many outsiders don’t know this and the whole region suffers as a result.

John Boyd, a business relocation specialist, recently spoke about the impact crime has on a company’s decision to move: “One of the big reasons you see migration from California, New York and Philadelphia is not just high taxes, but crime statistics. St. Louis hasn’t enjoyed the type of growth Kansas City has in recent years, and crime is a big reason why.” Boyd continues, saying that companies are “not merely looking at crime statistics but how crime is and isn’t being prosecuted.” This idea is particularly relevant to St. Louis. Kim Gardner, the circuit attorney for the City of St. Louis, has faced a lot of criticism recently for the way she has handled crime.

If companies choose to relocate from St. Louis or don’t view St. Louis as an attractive relocation destination, job opportunities will be more scarce and fewer college graduates will see St. Louis as an attractive job market. That’s why it’s hard to blame my friends for choosing another city over St. Louis for their first job out of college.

While St. Louis could do a better marketing job of clearing up the perception issue and highlighting all its attractive features for new college graduates, the safety issues need to be addressed and prioritized. All the marketing in the world cannot change the reality of St. Louis City’s worrisome crime patterns.

 

Education as a Winning Issue in 2022 with Andy Smarick

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Susan Pendergrass speaks with Andy Smarick, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, about how the 2022 campaign and election cycle provided an opportunity to better understand whether national issues and narratives around education match those at the state level.

Read Andy’s full report here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Stitcher 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The Case Against Rebooting Film Tax Credits in Missouri

Posted on by Elias Tsapelas

In 2013, Missouri ended its film tax credit program. Now there’s legislation moving in Jefferson City to revive the failed program.

Legislators should leave film tax credits where they lie, on the cutting room floor.

Studies Cited:

Tax Foundation: https://bit.ly/3Zln1zy

Mackinac Center: https://bit.ly/3ZsgPWi

 

Support Us

The work of the Show-Me Institute would not be possible without the generous support of people who are inspired by the vision of liberty and free enterprise. We hope you will join our efforts and become a Show-Me Institute sponsor.

Donate
Man on Horse Charging