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Missouri quietly released last year’s Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores for schools and districts recently. Because Missouri, like most states, currently has a chronic absenteeism problem and because Missouri chose the broadest rule for suppressing data due to privacy concerns, dozens of districts have no useable public test score data in either English/language arts (ELA) or math. How are these districts doing? I have no idea. But I do know that the average spending per student in the “no test score districts” was over $27,000 last year.

The state board of education’s reactions to last year’s statewide test scores, which were dismal, included the two standards—not enough teachers and not enough money. They threw in COVID and classroom behavior for good measure. And despite having multiple districts with fewer than 10 percent of students scoring at grade level on the MAP exam, the state board decided to keep designating 512 out of 518 school districts as fully accredited and have the remaining six be partially accredited—grade inflation at its best.

What if we leaned into testing to find out how we’re doing? What if we didn’t blame money or the kids? Success Academy, a well-known charter network in New York City that enrolls almost exclusively low-income students of color, had to rent an exhibition hall to accommodate students taking an AP exam this spring because there were so many of them. The academy’s founder and CEO, Eva Moskowitz said, “With rampant grade inflation and inconsistent state standards, AP and SAT tests are a critical tool . . . especially for low-income students of color.”

As the pandemic moves further into the rearview mirror, we need a clearer picture of the toll it has taken on Missouri’s children and their futures. We need more accountability, not less.

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There is some good news, though, for high school students in St. Louis. Believe STL Academy, a charter school, is set to open next fall. Believe STL is modeled after the Believe Circle City (BCC) high school in Indianapolis. BCC works with “historically underestimated youth” and helps them become successful adults. BCC has achieved dramatic results, such as having 30 percent of its students pass a college-level Advanced Placement exam, spurring dramatic growth in the SAT scores of its students, and having extremely high (92 percent) average daily attendance.

Sadly, SLPS is suing to prevent this school from opening. The case rests on an administrative matter—SLPS claims it wasn’t informed that the school would be opening. The charter school’s application was approved by both the Missouri Public Charter School Commission and the state board of education. Yet, the SLPS Board wants to derail it. The board president said, “There are too many schools in St. Louis right now.”

The number of schools, filled or nearly empty, has nothing to do with the quality of those schools when students are assigned to them. When students get to choose, it does. Only those schools that can attract and keep students will stay open. Blocking charter schools, especially those with proven track records, is akin to trapping children on a sinking ship. Shouldn’t we instead be building a system of schools that best serves as many students as possible?

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A couple of weeks ago CNBC released its annual list of the Top States for Business 2023. Missouri was an unimpressive 32nd out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Wondering what pulled us down? Well, this year CNBC decided that workforce quality would get the most weight of the 10 components of the index. And in that category, Missouri ranked 49th. We must not stack up too well against other states when it comes to the percentage of workers with college degrees or even industry credentials. Apparently, we also don’t compete well on the outmigration of educated workers, or on worker training programs, or on worker productivity.

So, imagine my surprise when the governor had a press conference just days later to announce a long list of Missouri’s “top” rankings. On some list we rank first in on-the-job-training. That would be for the number of participants, not quality or outcome, but still. There’s a list out there where we’re ranked second for apprenticeships and one where we are fourth for small-business jobs. The list of rankings is described as “incredible statistics that prove why Missouri is the Show-Me state.” Incredible indeed. Sadly, the governor’s list doesn’t include any source information, so we can’t tell who is saying all these complimentary things about our state.

As someone who follows the Missouri K-12 education system pretty closely, I’m not that surprised by the CNBC ranking. Education in the state is in a downward spiral. Last year, 70 percent of our fourth-graders scored below grade level on a nationally administered test. These children are moving on to the reading-to-learn years, and they haven’t learned to read. Middle school isn’t any more promising. Less than one-quarter of our eighth-graders can do math at grade level, according to the latest (2022) national assessments, and just 28 percent have grade-level reading skills.

When students start high school without having mastered the skills they need to succeed, the effects are predictable. Last year, just 60 percent of our 2022 high school graduates met the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE’s) criteria for being college or career ready. It’s hard not to feel sorry for the 40 percent who walked across the stage and were handed a diploma even though they were unprepared for the next stage of their lives. Since we’re looking at rankings, did you know that last year Missouri ranked 43rd for the percentage of high school students who took a college-level Advanced Placement (AP) test in high school? We’re not talking about passing an AP exam; only one in five high school students even took one. Also, less than 8 percent of graduating high school students completed the Career and Technical Ed (CTE) certificate program.

What are the consequences of the poor job we’re doing of preparing our students for life after high school? According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the percentage of Missourians with bachelor’s or master’s degrees has been declining in recent years. Not by much —just from 31.9 percent for bachelor’s to 31.7—but is that the direction we want it going? There’s a similar trend line for graduate degrees, which had been increasing every year until a couple of years ago, when they began to decline.

We seem to have a workforce problem, and it appears to be getting worse. Our K-12 enrollment has been declining since before the pandemic and will continue to decline based on the size of recent kindergarten classes. And within those smaller groups of students, the percentage of kids who are at grade level is declining. Smaller percentages of smaller high school graduating classes will be ready for the next stage in their lives. We need leaders who are ready to confront those facts and do something about them. The future of the state depends on it.

These leading indicators may signal what’s next for our work force, but it’s not too late to turn things around. States all around Missouri are letting parents pick where their children attend school—public or private—and having state education money follow them. Families in these states can tailor the education of each of their children, even when those needs differ within the same family. Neighboring states are implementing aggressive early literacy programs, with Mississippi being a standout, and rethinking high schools. Innovation and true accountability are happening . . . elsewhere. Meanwhile, Missourians are being handed a cherry-picked list of statistics that we’re supposed to get excited about.

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The nonprofit yes. every. kid. released a report that discusses how allowing non-residential students (those outside the district) access to individual classes and extracurriculars could effectively complement open enrollment. Whereas open enrollment focuses on full-time transfers, this complementary policy would allow students to remain in their school and enroll part-time in individual classes—maximizing flexibility. According to the report, eight states* allow students to enroll in classes outside of their current school.  In these states, students in a smaller rural district could enroll in physics, AP calculus, or even a music program in another district if their school does not have these classes or programs available. If open enrollment finally gets its long-needed day in Missouri, this policy could create additional opportunities for families across the state.

First, how could this benefit students?

Well, the answer is pretty obvious—more classes and more opportunities to help every kid in our state!

Second, why would a school with no physics program want its own students to participate?

The number one reason is that districts should care about their students. Competition can be cooperative, and districts should all be on the same team to best educate the students of Missouri. I chose physics as my example subject because there is a legitimate shortage of qualified physics teachers. These sending districts should want every student in their district to succeed, and many simply cannot provide classes in valuable subjects. Additionally, allowing your students to participate would lower their incentive to leave. If Johnny wants to study physics in college, but your district does not have it, he may be forced to leave your district by moving or enrolling in a private school.

Third, why would a receiving school share its resources?

The freeloading problem goes like this: “This policy would incentivize bad schools to not expand or offer new programs because they can simply mooch off our resources (and tax levies).” In Arizona, one of the states that employs this policy, part-time students (those which enroll in individual classes at different schools) are funded by the state at one fourth, one half, or three fourths of a full-time student—depending on how many classes they are taking. Therefore, state funding follows the student. Missouri does not have backpack funding like Arizona does (which we need), but a similar policy could be implemented to compensate receiving districts. Additionally, if you properly paired this policy with open enrollment, these classes could attract students. It would go both ways, as many students would stay in their home district and take individual courses elsewhere so they would not have to transfer away from their friends, sports teams, or other extracurriculars.

Receiving districts should care about all the students in our state trying to receive the best education they can. I can understand why one might take issue with another district benefitting from your district’s resources, but the most important thing is doing what works best for students. One may not think it is “fair,” but is it “fair” that a student cannot learn physics just because they live within arbitrary boundaries? Petty jealousies over dollars and cents should not stand in the way of opportunities for children across the state.

*Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Utah, and Wisconsin (all these states have open enrollment)

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This means that students in rural schools without a wide course selection could take any AP course. Students with irregular schedules—possibly because they’re intensely committed to a sport—could take some classes in a building and some online. Bullied students could choose to take their entire courseload online. Parents who want to homeschool, but aren’t comfortable doing it themselves, would get assistance. In other words, it means giving parents options that they want and need.

But the devil, in this case, is in the implementation. I’d heard rumors that districts weren’t complying with the law’s requirement that they make the availability of this option clear on their websites. I’d heard that Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) was interpreting the law’s requirement that the program launch in fall 2018 as a requirement to begin looking into curriculum providers in 2018.

But now, what concerned me most has happened. A parent has had to sue their child’s district to get access to the program. The parents wanted to choose an existing virtual program, known as MOVA, provided by the Grandview R-2 district. Their home district, Fulton, denied the request because they don’t use curricula from other districts. They haven’t even gone through the process of determining if it’s in the child’s best interest, as required by the law. They just gave them a flat “no.”

Survey after survey tells us that parents, especially young parents, want more choice regarding their children’s education. The powers that be may be able to deny them for a little while, as is happening in the Fulton Public School District. But parents can be a powerful force, and that approach won’t work forever.

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The combined course list shows courses available on a wide range of topics including foreign language, different types of science and even audio and visual production classes. Some of the classes are even available at the AP (Advanced Placement) level. The education providers include Mizzou, K-12, Edison Learning, and others.

Show-Me Institute analysts have written extensively about the need for course access in Missouri, and seeing it signed into law was exciting. Although DESE did not produce the list of approved providers and courses as promised at the end of 2018, we’re glad to see that it is finally available on the Missouri Course Access and Virtual School Program (MOCAP) website.  

The law also requires districts to inform parents and students about MOCAP, but not all districts are compliant yet. For example, the North Kansas City School District has a MOCAP page on its website, but the Adair County R-I School District does not. As DESE is implementing course access, districts should be informing their students about the opportunity.

Not every student has access to opportunities like AP or foreign language classes in their home district. Now, students should be able to take the classes they need to build their future without being constrained by the offerings of their local school district. As the 2019-2020 school year approaches, we look forward to seeing students enroll in MOCAP classes as they customize their education and prepare for the future.

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At Haas Hall Academy, a charter public high school in Fayetteville, 100 percent of the students took at least one AP exam, and 95 percent received a passing score on the exam that could be translated to college credit. At Rock Bridge Senior High in Columbia, just 44 percent of students took an AP exam and only 38 percent received a passing score. A high school in a college town with fewer than half of their students enrolling in college-level coursework. Hmmm.

Are the students in Fayetteville smarter than the students in Columbia? I don’t think so. Here’s the difference: Arkansas doesn’t use charter schools as punishment like Missouri does. They have charter schools in urban, suburban and rural settings. Missouri only has charter schools in two failed urban districts.

I’m sure that Haas Hall Academy offers a challenging curriculum that isn’t a good fit for every student. But students are welcome to take on that challenge, if they so choose. Students in Columbia are stuck in a public-school system designed in the early part of the last century—draw a circle around a school and everyone in that circle has to go to said school. I’m completely convinced that if a school like Haas Hall Academy opened in Columbia, it would end up with a waiting list like the one in Fayetteville. Too bad Missouri legislators won’t allow it.

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While it’s true that over half of all charter schools are in urban districts, in the 2015–16 school year there were nearly 1,800 suburban charter schools and over 1,200 in small towns and rural communities.

It turns out that curriculum really matters to middle-income parents, and many gravitate to charter schools because they offer educational models that aren’t available in traditional public schools. Some of these models are more rigorous, some are more open and creative, and some offer unique programs. There are hundreds of examples of outstanding suburban and rural charter schools, but I’ll offer just a few to ponder.

Take the BASIS charter schools: In the 2017 US News rankings of the top 10 public high schools, nine were charter schools and five of these were BASIS charter schools. BASIS currently operates 20 charter schools in Arizona, Texas, and Washington, DC. Most of them are suburban, and they serve populations that reflect their communities. Like all charter schools, BASIS schools don’t have admissions tests—students are admitted by lottery. But once they’re in, it’s not easy. In this preschool through grade 12 program, students take biology, chemistry, and physics before they start high school and all high school students are expected to pass at least 6 AP exams. The key to success in BASIS schools is having highly professional teachers who are subject matter experts. Teachers are given considerable autonomy in their classrooms, but all of them, even kindergarten math teachers, must have a college degree in the subject they teach.

Or, what about the NYOS (Not Your Ordinary School) charter school in Austin, Texas? This school was founded twenty years ago and offers smaller class sizes, year-round school and “looping” (in which a student stays with the same teachers for several years). NYOS serves 950 students in grades K through 12, but they have 3,000 more students on a waiting list for a spot.

But many small towns are taking advantage of charter schools also. Graysville, Indiana opened Rural Community Academy in 2004 when their local school was slated to close. Since then, the school has grown to 150 students and some credit it with reinvigorating the community, saving the post office, and bringing several new businesses to the area.

Rural charters aren’t always opened to save a school, though. The Upper Carmen Public Charter School in Idaho was founded in 2005 “to complement the existing public school system by providing an alternative learning environment to enable more students from Lemhi County to be successful.” This school serves no more than 90 students and emphasizes personalized learning that allows students to progress at their own pace, rather than be grouped by age. Upper Carmen Charter School has consistently ranked among the top ten percent of schools in Idaho.

Asking if there are any good charter schools outside of major cities is like asking if there are any good restaurants outside of major cities. Of course there are. Teachers, parents, and community leaders with great ideas for educating kids are everywhere. Charter schools aren’t a perfect fit for every student, but they’re a great fit for the students they serve.

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So, what does the STEM education landscape look like in Missouri? The Education Commission of the States has a Vital Signs database that tracks whether states give students “equitable access to high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational experiences.” According to this database, STEM jobs will grow by nine percent in Missouri over the next ten years, including an expected growth of 14 percent in advanced manufacturing jobs. In Missouri, STEM jobs earn, on average, over $34 per hour, compared to $18 per hour for non-STEM jobs.

Unfortunately, in 2013-14, over 30 percent of high school students in Missouri did not have access to Calculus courses, about 20 percent had no access to Physics, and 10 percent couldn’t access Chemistry. In terms of college readiness for STEM, just 5 percent of Missouri high school students took an AP math exam in 2015 and 6 percent took an AP science exam. By comparison, 14 percent of high school students nationwide took an AP math or science exam that year. These data are from a federal data collection, and they match the results of research by Show-Me Institute staff. In the 2015-16 school year, of the school districts in Missouri that had high schools, 40 percent had no students enrolled in advanced Physics or Calculus and over 60 percent had none enrolled in AP courses.

Are these numbers we’re willing to live with? If not, what can be done? Given that just 17 percent of Missouri 8th-graders have math teachers who majored in math and 36 percent have science teachers who majored in science, it’s not likely that we will be able to staff our way out of this any time soon. The good news is that we have the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP)—an underused online course program that could be offered to all high school students in Missouri who don’t have full access to STEM or other courses. Districts can arrange for students to take a course through MoVIP and cover the tuition. Under this scenario, a district could be expected to pay about $450 for a course per semester, and they would be free to negotiate lower rates if, for example, they have several students in the same course. Picking up the tuition for students who successfully complete an online course is a much more cost-effective solution for districts, and it can have a big impact on students’ opportunities.

As we celebrate National School Choice Week, we need to recognize that too many of our high school students have no choice when it comes to STEM classes. The structure to give them access is already in place, and this could be an easy way to meet a vital need.

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THE SOLUTION: Course access.

Course access programs allow students to direct a portion of their annual per-pupil funds to take—and receive college credit for—courses outside of their traditional public school course offerings.

WHO ELSE DOES IT? Eleven states across the country have some form of course access program.

THE OPPORTUNITY: Missouri has much of the infrastructure needed to create a course access program through an underused program known as the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP), which was signed into law in 2006. In addition, the Grandview R-II and Springfield school districts have created their own online programs, but these courses are not available to all students in the state. In all three cases, the course offerings are vetted by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and can be credited toward graduation.

KEY POINTS

• During the 2015–2016 school year, of the 448 school districts that offer high school in the state, 9% had no students enrolled in chemistry, 42% had none enrolled in advanced physics, 40% had none enrolled in calculus, and 63% had none enrolled in AP courses.
• Course access allows students a cost-effective way to take courses not otherwise available in their district.
• Course access increases parent/individual control over education spending.
• Missouri already has the infrastructure needed to create a course access program.

SHOW-ME INSTITUTE RESOURCES

Essay: Course Access in Missouri: Diversity, Personalization, and Opportunity

Blog Post: Missouri Students Need Access to Advanced Coursework

Video: Course Access: Opening Opportunities across Missouri

Video: Course Access Brings the Classroom to the Student

For a printable version of this article, click on the link below. You can also view the entire 2018 Missouri Blueprint online.

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The post Show-Me Now! Course Access: Opening Opportunities Across Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I haven’t had a chance to fully dig into the document, but at the 30,000-foot level it seems reasonable to me. The state doesn’t appear to be doing anything overly ambitious (it is only slated to intervene in the law’s minimum 5 percent of lowest-performing schools, it doesn’t appear to be using any new or fancy non–test score indicators to try to hold schools accountable) which ultimately might be the most prudent path forward. It looks like the state is going to take a hard look at the lowest-performing schools and try and leave the rest alone. Seems wise.

One area where there is an opportunity, and where I wish the plan was a bit more direct, is under Title IV. Eagle-eyed readers of this blog would remember that I wrote about flexibility that the state has under this provision in the law to provide some innovative direct services to underserved students.

On page 50 of the plan (emphasis mine):

“To overcome the lack of course availability, MO-DESE intends to improve access to advanced coursework for all students, but particularly for minorities and economically disadvantaged students and for those whose rural or small school settings reduce their access. MO-DESE may also subsidize fees for AP and IB courses. Furthermore, where advanced coursework, including advanced mathematics and science are locally unavailable, MO-DESE will subsidize course fees for the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program.”

DESE’s plan is laudable, and we’re singing from the same hymnbook when it comes to recognizing that far too many students in the state lack access to higher-level coursework, but I’d like to see more than one sentence in a 94-page document laying out how to solve the problem.  What students would be eligible? Would this be a formal “course access” program or just paying for courses ad hoc if and when funds are available? The state can spend up to 3%; will they spend that whole amount? Some fraction?

This document appears to be a step in the right direction. With some clarification, the state can take a bold step to fix the persistent problem of course availability in underserved areas.

The post State ESSA Plan Offers Opportunity for Course Access appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It is no secret that the Missouri Senate is a tumultuous place in these waning days of the legislative session. But as the final days of the calendar tick away, it’s looking increasingly likely that course access isn’t going to happen this year.  This would be a shame, for several reasons.

First, a course access program would address a serious problem in our state. As we have reported for some time now, hundreds of districts in our state have zero students enrolled in AP classes or advanced math and science classes. Other districts lack access to quality career and technical education because they simply don’t have the capacity to offer such programs. Course access could help solve this problem and amplify what smaller schools and school districts are doing to try and meet the needs of their students.

Second, it would help bridge the urban/rural divide. Education policy debates in the state often break along urban and rural fault lines. Rural folks think that the state is too narrowly focused on Kansas City and St. Louis, and to be honest, this is often a fair assessment. A program designed specifically to help rural school districts (though urban and suburban students would benefit as well) could help establish common ground across the state.

Finally, passage of course access legislation would be an example of bipartisan comity that the education policy community could build upon in the future. In our polarized times, there is less and less that unites people across the political spectrum. Education policy is not spared from this trend. Course access is an issue to which legislators on both sides of the aisle have contributed their support. It would be awful to squander that.

All is not lost. The legislature, and particularly the Senate, still has time to consider the course access bills before it.  Here’s hoping they make use of their final days to score a big win for students, our state, and our political culture.

The post What Happened to Course Access? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One path, outlined in the governor’s budget, simply funds a course access program. Missouri already has the architecture with its Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MOVIP), but there simply aren’t funds for students to take advantage of it. Governor Greitens proposed $2 million in funding so that students could access those courses.

Legislation now making its way through the legislature is taking a second path. House Bill 138 and Senate Bills 327, 238, and 360 create a course access program funded by redirecting existing funds that the state sends to school districts. If students want to take a course access program course, the fraction of funding that would have funded the class in their school of residence is used to pay for it. What’s great about these plans is that, as their fiscal notes attest, they cost the state zero additional dollars. They simply redirect existing spending.

A third is outlined in this great piece by AEI’s Rick Hess and the Manhattan Institute’s Max Eden. The broader article is about how states can best use the flexibility inherent in the Every Student Succeeds Act (the 2015 update to No Child Left Behind), but this paragraph stands out:

State education leaders would do well to employ ESSA’s direct student-services provision, which allows states to set aside a portion of federal Title I funds in order to support districts that are expanding instructional choice (in addition to school choice) for students. This means expanding choices for students without requiring that they opt to change schools, as with “course access” programs. Such initiatives, pioneered in Louisiana and Utah, use state funds to provide students the opportunity to access a range of online courses that their school might not offer — and to pursue them at their own pace. Under ESSA, states can use up to 3 percent of federal Title I funds to deliver online-course options that give rural students access to subjects that their schools don’t offer, to give all students access to Advanced Placement, and to give high schools the ability to deliver robust career and technical training.

According to this table, Missouri school districts get a little bit north of $240 million per year in Title I dollars. Three percent of that would be $7.2 million. This could fund thousands of course enrollments.

Taken together, Missouri could draw from several wells of funding to create a robust course access program that ensures that every student in the state has access to the coursework that best fits their needs.

For an overview of course access and information on how it has been implemented in other states, see this essay that Brittany Wagner and I co-wrote last year.

The post Different Paths to Course Access appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The statistic comes from a new report released by The College Board last week. According to the report, 21.9 percent of high school graduates nationwide pass an AP test. Massachusetts had the highest percentage (31.0 percent), while Mississippi had the lowest (5.9 percent).

So how can Missouri policymakers help more students take advantage of AP courses?

A good first step would be to increase enrollment in AP classes through course access programs. Show-Me Institute analysts have written about the need for course access in Missouri for some time now, and currently bills are making their way through the legislature that would allow students to take AP courses (either online or at an approved off-site location) when those courses are not offered at their high schools.

Recently, we updated our numbers and found that 284 out of 448 school districts with high schools did not have a single student enrolled in an AP course during the 2015–2016 school year.

It is time to expand opportunities for our high schoolers to take advanced courses and prepare them to better compete in college with students from other states. 

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But once the hard numbers were established, the article started to go off the rails.

First, the author makes the case that Physics First should be counted as “Physics” for the purpose of measuring course access. I disagree. Physics First is, by the author’s own admission, an “introductory science course.” There is absolutely nothing wrong with introductory courses, but if we allow Physics First to “count” as the only physics course offered in a district, we are defining our expectations down severely. Just like we would want a district that only offered Geometry or Algebra to step up its game, so too should we if it only offers Physics First.

The author then proceeds to use overall physics enrollment in the state to make the case that Missouri is not behind the rest of the nation when it comes to Physics. The problem is that overall enrollment numbers don’t have a lot to do with course access. Sure, Missouri might have one of the higher rates of Physics enrollment around the nation, but how is it distributed? Given the population patterns of the state, high enrollment in our cities and suburbs could mask the fact that rural students don’t have access to higher level courses. Given the author’s own findings that 178 districts don’t offer advanced Physics, this very well might be the case.

But perhaps most problematic is the blurred line between fact and opinion. Whether we should count Physics First is a judgment call on which reasonable people can disagree. The author assumes that the Governor was using the Physics course access statistic to buttress a point about Missouri being behind on academic indicators. I took it as a simple statement that not enough districts offer Physics. Again, reasonable people can disagree. When we look at the hard numbers (not counting Physics First) from 2014-15, the Governor was off by less than 5 percent. If we look at our updated 2015-16 numbers, he was off by less than 3 percent. That doesn’t strike me as being “mostly false,” but I’ll leave that for readers to decide.

That said, I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We cannot lose sight of the fact that, whatever you think on the question of defining Physics courses, far too many school districts do not offer higher-level classes. This includes not only Physics, but Calculus and AP classes as well. And those are not just statistics, but real children’s lives that are being denied the opportunity to get the education they need. Let’s focus our energy on fixing that.

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As part of that paper, we looked at the current state of course access in Missouri, and used Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) enrollment data to try and determine which districts did not have any students enroll in advanced classes like Calculus, Physics, or AP courses. We looked at this question because there is evidence that many rural districts struggle to offer these classes.

To investigate, we reached out to DESE and asked for enrollment data in Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, and AP courses from the 2014–15 school year. We counted up the number of districts that had zero students enrolled and then subtracted it from the total number of districts. Here is the figure from the report.

We wanted to update these data for the 2015–16 school year, so we again contacted DESE for the enrollment numbers.  This is what course access looks like in 2015–16:

The numbers for the 2015–16 school year are still striking.  In percentage terms, 9 percent of districts that offer high school did not have a single student enrolled in Chemistry, 42 percent did not have a single student enrolled in Physics, 40 percent did not have a single student enrolled in Calculus, and 63 percent did not have a single student enrolled in an AP class.

In the process of updating these numbers, I realized that I made a coding error in the data set upon which the figure in the original paper was based. Careful readers of the paper will see that we subtracted our enrollment numbers from 507, even though there are 518 school districts in Missouri. We did this to try and exclude from our analysis school districts that didn’t offer high school because there is no way they could offer these advanced classes. According to DESE’s 2017 “Fast Facts” page, DESE lists 448 districts that offer high school, not 507.  After chatting with the good data folks at DESE, we confirmed that in the 2014–15 school year, Missouri also had 448 districts that offered high school.  Accordingly, Figure 1 from our Course Access essay (which is also Figure 5 in this essay), should look like this:

My apologies for our original miscalculation, but our argument still stands (the figure with 2015–16 numbers uses the correct total number of districts—448). In too many school districts across the state, too few students are enrolling in higher-level coursework, and course access programs can help fill that gap.

Two notes regarding the graphs above: When counting Physics courses, in both years, we excluded a class called “Physics First,” as this is a course for 9th-graders, not what we would consider an “advanced” course for high school upperclassmen. In calculating the 2015–16 figures, we counted any AP courses both for the AP column and for the respective subject matter column.

The post Course Access in Missouri, Updated appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

To accomplish this, he expressed specific support for two policies on which Show-Me Institute writers have researched and published on extensively: course access and education savings accounts. These two policies have the potential to help thousands of students in Missouri.

Touching on course access, Gov. Greitens described a serious need of the high school students in our state:

Over half of Missouri school districts do not offer a single Advanced Placement class. Over 200 of our 520 school districts did not have a single student in physics. Over 100 did not have a single student enrolled in chemistry.

We need to expand course access programs, so that every child in Missouri can use technology to get the education they need.

We appreciate the Governor recognizing this problem and committing to expanding course access programs. Here are more resources for those interested in learning more about course access and its relation to rural school performance:

• 2017 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward with Course Access
• Course Access in Missouri: Diversity, Personalization, and Opportunity
• Rural School Reform
• Rural Schools Need Course Access
• Teacher Shortage Data from DESE Makes Great Case for Course Access Program

Regarding education savings accounts (ESAs), Governor Greitens stated:

We also need to make sure that every child in Missouri, especially those kids with special needs, get a fair shot at the American Dream. I will work with you to implement education savings accounts for children with special needs.

Again, we completely agree with the Governor that ESAs would help Missouri students, especially students with disabilities. Here is some of our work on ESAs:

• 2017 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward with ESAs
• ESAs Can Help Missouri Students with Dyslexia
• Malachi’s School Choice Story
• ESAs Found Constitutional in Nevada
• Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Would be a Boon to Missourians

It is encouraging to see that the Governor is an ally of school choice, and we look forward to seeing what he and the Missouri State Legislature accomplish.

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There’s no other way to put it: Missouri schools simply aren’t giving African-American students a chance.

This was made particularly clear to me last month, when the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation released The Path Forward: Improving Educational Opportunities for African-American Students. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to help collect and analyze the data for the report, and I attended the launch event co-sponsored by the Chamber and the NAACP in Washington, DC.

The Path Forward broke down African-American student performance state by state. The results for Missouri were beyond disheartening:

·         On the 2015 National Assessment for Educational Progress, only 15 percent of Missouri’s African-American 4th graders were deemed proficient in reading and only 15 percent were proficient in math.

·         By the time they got to 8th grade it was even worse, with only 14 percent of African-American students proficient in reading and only 11 percent proficient in math.

·         While the graduation rate stood at 72 percent, only 6 percent of African-American students scored college-ready in all four tested subjects on the ACT.

·         Only 2.7 percent of African-American students graduated having passed at least one AP test during their time in high school. That was the third-worst rate in the nation.

There are over 151,000 African-American students in the state’s K-12 schools—16.5 percent of the overall student population. Our state will never reach its potential if that many students are failed by our education system.

So what can we do?

First, we have to break down the barriers between African-American students and quality schools. Right now, tens of thousands of students are trapped in low-quality schools because of where they live. Several of the small, almost entirely African-American districts of St. Louis County have only one high school. If students are not being served there, they have nowhere else to go. Elsewhere in the state, the geographic assignment of schooling often requires African-American students to attend schools that do not meet their needs. By allowing students to enroll across district lines—or even better, by allowing independent charter schools to open and draw students from across district boundaries—the link between where a child lives and where he or she goes to school can be severed.

Second, we have to engage the whole community in creating quality educational environments for African-American students. Statistics like those above remind us that this is an all-hands-on-deck crisis. Granting funding flexibility for students to attend the school that best serves them, regardless of whether it is a public or private school, would encourage churches, nonprofits, and other social organizations to get involved in schooling and reach out to children in need.

Third, we have to push for higher, not lower, expectations for African-American students. In the No Child Left Behind era, schools have been judged based on how well they meet basic targets of proficiency or how well they do at getting students to graduate from high school. Clearly, these are important stepping stones on the way to a well-rounded education, but they are far from sufficient. Passing AP tests, scoring well on college entrance exams and thus not needing remediation, and other more advanced indicators need to be part of the suite of metrics we use to judge student, school, and district success.

The Missouri Constitution calls for the state to fund and support a system of schools because knowledge and intelligence are “essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people.” An education system that fails to educate a large swath of our students is a threat to our rights and liberties, and fixing it should be a priority of our leaders.

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