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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As more students consider moving directly from high school to the workforce, they will need quality career and technical education (CTE) at their schools to provide them with job skills and work experience that will qualify them for good jobs after graduation. Are schools ready to respond to changes in the needs and priorities of their students? If not, what will it take to get them ready? How well are CTE programs in Missouri serving students now? Any district that currently treats technical education as a backwater for kids who “don’t have what it takes” for college is already doing a disservice to its community, and the harm done will only get worse in the coming years.

Today I’m releasing two essays: Career and Technical Education and Workforce Development and Investing in the Future Workforce. Together these reports explore numerous aspects of CTE programs in Missouri and address the following questions:

• How is the current state of Missouri’s workforce affecting its economy?
• Are the priorities and practices of Missouri’s CTE programs aligned with what employers in the state say they need?
• What can Missouri learn from other states that have been successful in bolstering their workforces though CTE?
• What incentives can the state give educators to encourage them to help students earn the credentials that employers value?

To read the full reports, click on the links below.

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I’ve written  previously about IRC attainment in Missouri, using data from 2017 and 2018 that the Show-Me Institute obtained through a data request. These data were useful because IRC attainment was broken out  by district and school, allowing for a detailed analysis of where in the state specific IRCs are earned and how that could support local economies.

However, documents from the Career and Technical Education (CTE) advisory council meeting in October 2019 contained IRC attainment data from 2013–2019. These data can provide further context, such as what IRCs students have earned over the years and which IRCs are growing in popularity, as well as overall attainment trends. The data show that IRC attainment spiked from 2013 to 2016, and has since slowly increased.

But this trend doesn’t hold true for all IRCs, including some IRCs for jobs that are in demand in Missouri, such as the CompTIA credential for technology jobs. The chart below shows that some IRCs have actually experienced a decline in attainment in recent years. This should be cause for concern since Missouri needs more students graduating with in-demand credentials, not fewer. To help encourage more high schoolers to earn an IRC, Missouri should consider implementing an IRC bonus pay program. An IRC bonus pay program would give a small bonus to a teacher for each student of theirs who passes an IRC exam.

These data can call to attention the gap between the economy’s need for IRCs and the low attainment of IRCs for Missouri high school students. Missouri should be trying to strengthen its workforce, and IRCs can be an effective way to do that. 

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IRCs are awarded by third-party industry organizations and certify that students have mastered skills needed for a particular job such as a welder, automotive technician, certified nursing assistant, or software developer. Recent research from ExcelinEd shows that, in addition to improving employment prospects, earning an IRC is associated with increases in graduation rates, college enrollment, and earnings.

In the study, which was released this month, researchers looked at outcomes for hundreds of thousands of students and found overall positive outcomes for IRC earners. In Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky, earning an IRC was positively associated with graduating from high school on time. Students in Florida and Kentucky who had earned an IRC were more likely to receive an associate’s degree if they enrolled in community college. The researchers also observed up to a 12 percent boost in wages for full-time workers after high school in Florida and Indiana.

The only potentially negative effect the researchers observed was that credential earners in Kentucky were less likely to graduate with a bachelor’s degree if they enrolled at a four-year college or university. One possible explanation they provided is that “the opportunity cost of each additional year of education is higher for credential earners than non-earners.” In other words, students just may not have thought it was worth finishing a bachelor’s degree and would rather be working.

Unfortunately, high schoolers in Missouri earn only about 8,000 IRCs each year, meaning that only a small fraction of the over 180,000 high school students who participate in a career and technical education program earn an IRC.

Some states have enacted policies that reflect the value they see in credential-earning, and Missouri should take note. For instance, Florida implemented a bonus program for teachers awarding them $25 or $50 for each student who earned an IRC. During the 2007–08 school year when the program started Florida high schoolers earned only 803 credentials total. Last year, they collectively earned over 121,000 IRCs.

Missouri policymakers have already shown a willingness to invest in our workforce—the legislature just passed Fast Track this session to help adults who want to pursue degrees in high-demand fields—but are they funding programs that are proven to work? Clearly, financial incentives have worked to get more students IRCs in Florida, and students have benefitted. With such a payoff for a relatively small investment, teacher bonus pay looks like a win-win-win for the state, teachers, and students.

Listen to our podcast on this subject here.

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If we had just $10 million to spend on fixing this situation, would it be better to ensure students are career ready before they graduate from high school, or put that money towards those who were part of the 58 percent and have not been successful? To be certain, both are important. But which is the better investment? I think the former.

One of the most high-profile bills in the 2019 legislative session awarded corporate welfare to General Motors. Tacked on to that bill was a measure spending $10 million to create the Fast Track workforce development program. The program will cover tuition for Missourians who are at least 25 years old, make less than $40,000, and want to go back to school to pursue a degree in a “high demand” field. Students are allowed to transfer and can take up to one year off. And when they’re finished, they must remain in the state for three years and be employed full time within twelve months. If students don’t comply with these requirements, the grant will then convert to a loan.

Missouri community college tuition averages $5,750 for in-state students. If a student qualifies for a Pell Grant, most of that cost would be covered. Pell Grants are generally awarded to students with total household incomes below $20,000, which means Fast Track would primarily cover people making between $20,000 and $40,000. Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that a typical Fast Track student received a quarter of their funding from the program and finished their program in two years, which is an extremely conservative estimate Under this scenario, the program could serve a maximum of 7,000 students. It’s a lot of money to put toward a complicated program that likely won’t be able to serve many students and may or may not result in a more skilled workforce in Missouri.

What about the first option—improving the career readiness of our students before they leave high school? One proven way to do this is to create financial incentives for career and technical education (CTE) teachers who make sure their students are career ready. These are students who earn an industry-recognized credential (IRC), such as the Automotive Service Excellence credential or the Certified Nursing Assistant credential. At a cost of just $500 per credential-earning student, with some of that going to the district, some to the CTE student, and some to the teacher, $10 million could improve career outcomes for 20,000 Missourians each year. States that have implemented programs like this have seen exponential growth in the number of students who leave high school with an IRC in hand.

Giving CTE teachers an opportunity to earn a few thousand extra dollars each year is a simple and direct way to improve our workforce. Creating a new government bureaucracy to manage a complex new government program very well may not be.

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During the 2017–18 school year, over 180,000 high schoolers in Missouri took at least one CTE class, but fewer than 28,000 concentrated (taking three or more classes) in any one area. What’s more, fewer than 8,000 students earned an industry-recognized credential (IRC), a signal to employers that the student has mastered some set of skills. Many Missouri students—especially those not interested in going to college—could benefit from earning an IRC and leaving high school career ready. 

A recent report from ExcelinEd shows that there are thousands of well-paying jobs that could be readily accessible to Missouri’s high schoolers if they were earning the right credentials. According to the report, Missouri met only one out of five indicators of a quality CTE program.

To put in perspective what kind of opportunities students are missing out on, let’s take a look at careers in just two industries. In 2018, some 617 students in Missouri earned an Automotive Service Excellence Certification. But there were over 3,600 job postings requiring that credential, and these jobs paid over $15 an hour last year. The unmet demand is also apparent in digital designing. There were over 3,300 job postings for Adobe Certified Associate and Adobe Certified Expert credentials each—again, these jobs pay at least $15 an hour—yet there were only 146 Missouri high school students who earned an Associate credential, and none received the Expert credential. Perhaps not enough students are interested in these careers to meet the demand, but are they even aware of these opportunities?

One way to improve awareness and options for students is through teacher bonus pay. If CTE teachers have skin in the game—for instance, $50 for every student of theirs who earns an IRC—they would have an incentive to get more students that could excel in a particular field working towards earning an IRC. Florida has such a program and students there earned over 140,000 credentials during the 2016–17 school year. Overall, one in six Florida high school students earned a credential, compared to just one in twenty high school students in Missouri.

Like many states, Missouri has a workforce problem. But with some simple changes, which other states have implemented successfully, we could increase the number of students earning credentials, while aligning those credentials to the job market. Good information paired with the right incentives can help move Missouri’s CTE in the right direction. 

The post CTE in Missouri Is Not Aligned with Needs of Students or Employers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When a student is looking to go to work right out of high school, an IRC shows the potential employer that the student has skills needed for that job. If a student is planning on going to college, an IRC can help them gain valuable experience, make some money, and potentially earn college credit. Particularly in industries like agriculture and animal science where there is a lot of student interest, Missouri should look for ways to create clearer pathways for high schools to earn IRCs.

In a recent article from the St. Joseph area, a local teacher discusses how he is observing more students interested in jobs related to agribusiness such as food safety, veterinary science, and conservation. But according to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), only three students from the St. Joseph school district passed the MO Agriculture Skill & Knowledge Assessment, an IRC that shows that students have mastered one of 15 areas including farm management and livestock evaluation. Despite interest in veterinary science, no students in the district received the Veterinary Assistant Animal Care Technologies IRC.

It is worth noting that some districts do very well in getting their students credentialed. For instance, even though Jefferson School District had fewer than 50 high schoolers enrolled in 2018, students in the district earned 23 MO Agriculture Skill & Knowledge Assessment certifications.

Nevertheless, Missouri as a whole could do a better job of helping students get a jump start on a career or college. And not just in agriculture-related fields—there are opportunities, albeit limited, for students to specialize in areas like welding, web programming and development, health care, and automotive repair. In 2018, only 7,084 IRCs were earned by Missouri high schoolers and about 2,800 of those were ag-related (for perspective, there are over a quarter-million high schoolers and over 64,000 12^th graders in Missouri).

How can we expand these opportunities and make earning an IRC for career-minded students more of the norm in Missouri? Creating an incentive for teachers and districts through bonus pay is one option. In Florida, teachers are awarded a bonus of $25 to $50 for each student that obtains an IRC. After adopting this policy, IRC obtainment increased from 803 in 2007 to over 86,000 in 2017. North Carolina also has bonus pay for high-performing instructors and over 160,000 IRCs were obtained in 2017.

Missouri has over 500 school districts, all with different strengths and challenges. Establishing a bonus pay program would give districts an incentive to find the best way for them to give more of their students a head start on a career or college.

The post Why Aren’t More Missouri Students Earning IRCs in Agriculture-Related Industries? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In many cases, the “right” credential to have coming out of high school is an industry-recognized credential (IRC). You earn it by passing an exam that is designed not by your school, but by a professional trade organization. There’s nothing wrong with earning a CTE certificate from your school; it can reflect a broad competence in the skills required for a given profession. But an IRC indicates mastery of knowledge specifically chosen by employers who have jobs to fill. It only makes sense that schools should encourage students to earn the credential that their potential employers want them to have.

The graphic at the top of this post shows just a few of the career options that can open up for students who earn an IRC. Others include (but aren’t limited to) education, culinary arts, business, graphic design, and hospitality. Fewer than 3 percent of Missouri high school students earned an IRC in 2017. Moreover, out of 27,437 students who completed three or more CTE classes during the 2016–2017 school year, only 8,565 earned IRCs. Employers are bending over backwards to tell us what students need to learn in order to get hired; shouldn’t we listen to them?

Listen to the podcast.

IRC infographic-1.pdf

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Hundreds of career and technical education (CTE) programs across Missouri offer practical training in fields such as agriculture, business, health care, culinary arts, construction, computer science, and others. In many cases, students who complete the required coursework are issued certificates to that effect. But a school-issued certificate alone isn’t always enough to ensure students can access the workforce; they need credentials that carry weight with employers in the world beyond school.

Private-sector employers have everything to gain by ensuring that new graduates are ready to start work right away. That’s why many professional associations issue their own industry-recognized credentials (IRCs), such as Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) or Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification. CTE students don’t have to take IRC exams to graduate, but passing an exam can save students time and money at the outset of their careers. For example, a CNA certificate that could be earned as part of a student’s high school coursework might otherwise require about 5 months of coursework and several hundred dollars in tuition at a community college.

To promote IRC attainment among high school students, several states have begun offering teachers bonus pay for every student of theirs who passes an IRC exam. For example, for every student who leaves high school ASE certified, the auto shop teacher might receive $25 to $50.

Linking teacher bonuses to IRCs has boosted student IRC attainment in states that have adopted the policy. For example, Florida awards a $50 bonus to a teacher for each student who earns an IRC after taking a course that could earn them college credit in the relevant subject, and $25 for each student who earns an IRC after taking only high-school–level classes. IRC attainment has grown from 803 graduates in 2008 to over 86,000 in 2017.

Similarly, since offering CTE teachers bonus pay when students earn IRCs, North Carolina has seen a 53 percent growth in five years. In the 2016–2017 school year, over 160,000 IRCs were earned. By comparison, there were 8,566 IRCs earned in Missouri the same year (according to information provided by DESE), meaning that Missouri has plenty of room for improvement. Unbelievably, just six high school students passed the Masonry IRC exam and just five passed the Construction IRC exam in Missouri last year.

More students getting IRCs could create a stronger workforce for our state. Other states are finding creative ways to make this happen—shouldn’t Missouri?

The post How Can Missouri Get More Out of Its CTE Programs? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I was a little disappointed that the Missourian also went out of its way to portray many NoMORedTape respondents as somehow not grasping the purpose of the site, incharitably citing some of the least informed comments in its article while omitting serious responses. Indeed, I’ve found the vast majority of the comments to be enlightening.

Comments like:

I did not renew my minority women status because they made it so difficult. Faxes are no longer acceptable and the instructions were in a format that I could not open. When I used the password given me it was not acceptable. I gave up because I had no more time to spend on it.

And:

“Certificate of Need” process makes developing critically needed Senior Living buildings a political instead of market-based process. It is costing Missouri many millions of dollars of development. Our $35,000,000 development was just denied Monday in Jefferson City by anti-competition, anti-market political forces. Eliminate the “Certificate of Need” process entirely like almost ALL other states in our Union.

And:

Currently the Missouri Dept. of Elementary & Secondary Education has too strict of rules for teacher and administrator certification, specifically for CTE professionals. In a time when we need more qualified candidates, they are often discouraged by the process.

And:

The University requires vendors to have Liability insurance that covers the University Curators. We print t-shirts, when has anybody sued over a t-shirt? 4 million dollars of liability insurance! This increases our costs and limits the smaller players or unnecessarily burdens the smaller players.

And so on.

Point being, regulatory reform is a serious issue that many serious people take seriously. I hope that public colloquy projects, like NoMORedTape, become more common, not less so, and I appreciate the public policy dividends NoMORedTape has already realized by engaging the public as it has.

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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.

We can’t do a lot about our state’s geography, but neither can we accept limitations on the educational options available to students in smaller school districts. We need a way to bring advanced-level coursework to every Missouri student who wants it. An innovative program called course access offers a possible solution to this problem, and it’s the topic of an essay by the Show-Me Institute’s Brittany Wagner and Michael McShane. To find out more, click on the link below and read the essay.

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