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.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
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?
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?
Susan Pendergrass speaks with AEI’s Andrew G. Biggs about what can be done to address the looming crisis of the insolvency of America’s social security system.
Read Dr. Biggs’ recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: on.wsj.com/3KSCwet
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
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.
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.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
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
A version of this commentary appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
When Missouri voters approved the ballot initiative legalizing marijuana last year, one part of the plan authorized cities and counties to enact a three-percent tax on marijuana sales in their communities (once again upon voter approval). Not surprisingly, many local governments in the St. Louis-region are attempting to do just that this coming April. The argument in favor of voters approving the tax is straightforward enough, but the debate over what to do with the new tax revenue is more complex.
“Pigouvian” taxes are taxes levied on certain goods to address their negative effects. They are common and include special taxes in Missouri on items like cigarettes, alcohol, and pool tables (yes, really, pool tables). Tobacco and alcohol consumption impose certain costs on society, and the extra tax revenue is used to fund services to address those negative effects, like lung cancer research and drunk driving enforcement. In addition, the taxes simply make the item more expensive, thereby reducing consumption. Elsewhere, for example, gas taxes may be quite high not only to fund roads but also to encourage public transit. Marijuana legalization will indisputably have some negative societal effects, and the three-percent local sales tax on it can help fund services like county health departments and municipal police efforts to mitigate those negative impacts. Also, life is not a Cheech and Chong movie—dare to dream that it were! —and cheap pot really doesn’t do anyone much good. I generally support neither new nor high taxes, but the argument in favor of these new local marijuana sales taxes is very strong.
What to do with the money is more difficult. There are two questions: Should the revenue be dedicated to certain uses or sent to the general fund? And should it serve as new revenue or be used to cut taxes elsewhere? Economists have long debated the costs and benefits of earmarking taxes for specific uses. Directing taxes into the general fund gives local officials more flexibility to address local needs, but earmarking taxes improves both voter and elected-official decision-making and accountability. In some cases, as with cigarettes, the harms to society are easy to determine. Accordingly, the choice to earmark tobacco taxes to health-related fields, as we generally do in Missouri, is defensible. Legal marijuana, however, will be more like alcohol, with costs and harms (also called externalities) to society spreading across a variety of sectors. Should the tax revenues go to policing? Health care? Family services? Frankly, who knows? This is why alcohol taxes generally are not earmarked in our state, nor should local marijuana taxes be.
Politicians will try, as is their wont, to treat the new marijuana tax revenue as manna from heaven. Voters should demand more from them as we approach the elections. A new marijuana tax should not just be an opportunity to raise more revenue. It should also be an opportunity to replace other, more economically harmful taxes. St. Louis County, with its high commercial property surtax, should use the marijuana revenue as a justification for a surtax reduction. Cities such as University City with the woeful economic development sales tax—a misnomer if there ever was one—should use the marijuana revenue to replace that useless tax. It could be a small part of a larger package to help phase out the earnings and payroll taxes in St. Louis city. And, yes, at a minimum it should replace the anachronistic pool table taxes implemented long ago in the days of seedy pool halls, gangster molls, and bathtub hooch.
There is, unfortunately, one question mark hanging over the upcoming votes. The question of whether a county-level marijuana sales tax will apply countywide or only in the unincorporated areas is unclear and will likely be determined in court. The budgetary implications for counties are enormous, as the revenue difference between the two options is substantial. If county taxes are determined to be in addition to municipal taxes, that could make the total sales tax for marijuana purchases well above twenty percent. A sales tax that is too high is concerning because it might encourage the illegal market for marijuana to continue, as has happened in California. This would nullify one of the purported benefits of legalization.
Marijuana taxes are an opportunity to improve both the current budgets and the long-term tax environment for cities and counties. Voters should demand a plan that does both.
