The Scholarship That Wasn’t
In addition to the nearly $3 billion in federal relief funding that Missouri received to try to right the public...
Be Skeptical of Claims St. Louis is Running A Surplus
KMOV ran a piece the other day reporting that the St. Louis comptroller claims the city has a $42.2 million...
A Report Card on DESE’s Report Card
A new report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has evaluated each state’s report card system for public...
Is There a Comeback Story in Missouri Schools?
The 2024 Summer Olympics have come to a close, and there were so many amazing storylines such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone...
Missouri Needs More Market Forces in Education
In a recent Show-Me Institute paper, Why Markets Matter in Education, Dr. Michael McShane effectively summarizes the importance of free...
Are Missouri Students in School Enough?
Recently, I came across a fascinating paper from Matthew Kraft of Brown University and Sarah Novicoff of Stanford University about...
Free Bus Fare, Still a Bad Idea
Almost exactly four years ago, I wrote in this space that the move in Kansas City to reduce bus fare...
What if We Decided to Lean in to Testing?
The College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) program teaches college-level coursework to high school students and then tests their knowledge with...
Missouri Public-School Enrollment Continues to Fall
K-12 enrollment in Missouri’s public school system has been falling for more than a decade. Today, Missouri has about 30,000...
Growing, Growing, Gone
It’s nothing new that Missouri’s state government has a spending problem, but as we head into 2024, there’s fear that...
Missouri’s Refusal to Lead
Missouri’s Medicaid program is out of control, and state lawmakers don’t seem to care. Enrollment in the state’s program keeps...
Debt Ceiling Deal Q&A
After a whirlwind period of tense negotiations, the House of Representatives and White House agreed this week on raising the...
Does Missouri Need DESE?
Several years ago, I made an interesting discovery—I had been blocked by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education...
Six Ways to Better Understand the DESE Budget
How is public education financed in Missouri? How much of a district revenues are generated locally, and how much money...
Missouri’s Ghost Students
Imagine that your taxable income on your annual income tax return wasn’t how much you earned last year, but the...
School Closings Shed Light on an Important Principle
Recently, the La Salle Charter School in North St. Louis announced its decision to close. As a state-funded and privately...
Falling Behind on Telemedicine
Not long ago, Missouri was a national leader in telemedicine. Governor Parson was among the first to waive unnecessary restrictions...
End in Sight for Runaway Enrollment?
Late last year, Congress approved a bill that will have major implications for Missouri in 2023. After nearly three years...
Does the Independence School District Have a Teacher Shortage Problem?
The Independence School District (ISD) school board recently voted to move to a four-day school week. One of the stated...
As Student Enrollment Drops, the Number of Teachers Rises
I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the findings of Missouri’s blue ribbon commission. In my last post,...
