The St. Louis Public Schools District (SLPS) routinely overspends its budget. A recent state auditor’s report warns that continued deficit spending could push the district’s reserve fund below the 3% threshold—the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s formal marker for serious financial stress. In fact, the district was already downgraded from accredited to provisionally accredited by the state school board over its financial troubles.

Yet even as enrollment declines, budgets tighten, and accreditation hangs in the balance, SLPS continues to fumble basic asset management. The district has failed to sell six long-vacant school buildings in north St. Louis, many of which have sat empty for nearly two decades. It is now moving forward with plans to demolish them. So, instead of aggressively pursuing sales and accepting realistic offers, the district is preparing to charge St. Louis taxpayers for million-dollar demolitions.

This pattern is not merely troubling. It is mind-boggling, especially for a district with only 18,284 students still enrolled — a drop of more than 97,000 students since its demographic peak of 115,543 in 1967.

To be fair, selling these properties is genuinely difficult. St. Louis has suffered decades of population loss, concentrated poverty, and economic decline, making redevelopment of large, aging, and often deteriorated historic buildings a tough sell. Attracting private developers willing to take on major rehabilitation projects in these neighborhoods is no easy task.

But that reality makes the district’s track record even more damning. In one case, it seems that SLPS didn’t even bother to respond to offers on a building:

Benjamin Anderson said that he has tried to buy the 133-year-old Euclid School in the Fountain Park neighborhood for three years—he even had the property under contract for $200,000 at one time—but he couldn’t get the district to respond before the contract expired.

“They completely ghosted us,” Anderson said Friday.

The building is now slated to be demolished.

Many of these schools are among the city’s most architecturally significant buildings. Symbols of inertia and vanishing civic pride, they are simply left to decay while the district explores expensive demolition using insurance funds and city taxes. Critical resources that could support classroom instruction are thus directed toward tearing down infrastructure.

The challenges at SLPS underscore a deeper failure of accountability. When a public school district cannot control costs, manage its real estate portfolio effectively, or adapt to enrollment reality, students and taxpayers bear the costly burden of that failure.

The post A Failing Grade in School Management appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Last week we found out that it is neglecting to carry out one of the boards’ nine “major duties,” which is accrediting local school districts. The 98 percent of school districts that were fully accredited a decade ago can count on that being unchanged for at least another couple of years.

In addition, as of this writing, DESE is no longer complying with the federal requirement that state education agencies publish state, district, and school report cards detailing student performance. DESE had a school report card web page until recently, when it disappeared with no indication of whether the report cards are being updated or ever coming back.

Both of these issues bring into question whether Missouri should be receiving over $1.6 billion in education funding from the federal government since it does not “meaningfully differentiate between schools and districts” or publish the required report cards. The board and DESE are shirking their responsibilities and yet they want $10 billion from taxpayers for the FY 2026 budget. Missourians should be highly disappointed, to say the least, in their state education leaders.

The post Where Did the Report Cards Go? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For accredited districts (districts that meet the academic standards set by the state), only the local school board can sponsor a charter school. This has served as a formidable roadblock to charter school formation, as no accredited district has sponsored a charter school. However, if a school district is unaccredited (districts that fail to meet the standards set by the state) for three consecutive years, or has been provisionally accredited for three consecutive years, any of the other entities mentioned in the above paragraph can sponsor a charter school. Recently, the Missouri Charter Public School Commission created a charter school called the Leadership School in the provisionally accredited Normandy Schools Collaborative.

While the Missouri Legislature is most likely not thinking of charter schools in terms of nightclubs, the prospect of charter school expansion is being discussed to make the list less exclusive. Senate Bill (SB) 304 would allow charter schools to be created in any municipality with a population of more than 30,000 or any school district located within a county with a charter form of government. If SB 304 passed, charter schools could be established in:

• All currently eligible districts
• School districts in the following counties: St. Louis, Jackson, St. Charles, Jefferson, and Clay (a sponsor from a state-approved entity would be required)
• School districts in municipalities with more than 30,000 residents, which currently includes: Cape Girardeau, Jefferson City, Joplin, Springfield, and Columbia (a sponsor from a state-approved entity would be required)

SB 304 would be a solid first step to give parents outside of St. Louis and Kansas City more options. Columbia is a good example of a city whose residents could benefit greatly from this bill. In Columbia , English/language arts (ELA) and mathematics scores are below the state average—students in the district currently have 43.8% and 30.8% proficiency rates, respectively. Low-income students are particularly struggling, with rates of 24% and 13.1% in ELA and mathematics—around 7 points below the state average for low-income students. With these scores in mind, maybe a family in Columbia wants a charter school because it is unsatisfied with the instruction in the local district. Perhaps a low-income family could find a charter school that specializes in instruction for low-income students. Charter schools can provide these needed alternative options for Columbia families, and SB 304 would make it possible.

Charter schools of various types (classical, English as a second language, low-income, etc.) have opened in Kansas City and St. Louis. One school, University Academy, has been named a “Blue Ribbon School” (an honor bestowed by the U.S. Department of Education for schools that exemplify excellence). Families across the state want and need more options. Missouri is a diverse state, and families deserve a diverse array of options to cater to their children’s needs and hold education institutions accountable.

The post Expanding the VIP List for Charter School Eligibility appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Journal analyzed the teacher ratings of schools in Decatur, Illinois, and found that in 2018, 99.7 percent of its teachers were rated as “excellent or proficient.” These ratings are extremely generous considering the fact that only 2 percent of Black third-grade students in Decatur could read at grade level, and only 1 percent performed at grade level in math. Additionally, only 5 percent of Decatur 11^th graders could read at grade level and 4 percent were proficient in math.

While the Journal article focused on Illinois, the mismatch between educational stamps of approval and student performance is not exclusive to schools in that state. A similar jarring mismatch occurs in Missouri when looking at district accreditation and test scores. Accreditation is hard to define (due to its arbitrary nature), but I would define it as whether or not the government approves of the performance of an educational institution. Incredibly, Missouri’s Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (DESE) has granted full accreditation to 99 percent of Missouri school districts, even though rates of proficiency are dismally low in many districts.

For example, Ferguson-Florissant is fully accredited with proficiency rates of 20 percent in English and 7.6 percent in math. How can DESE approve and fully accredit this district’s performance if nine out of ten students are below grade level in math? What is the value in a grading scale if everyone gets an “A”?

As Show-Me Institute analysts have pointed out many times before, DESE’s accreditation granting has little to do with academic performance. Student performance should be the paramount benchmark for district accreditation in Missouri, and yet this has not been the case under both the Missouri School Improvement Plan (5) and the recently passed MSIP (6). MSIP 6 is built on regulatory adherence, financial status, and whether superintendents are certified. The new plan will have its first fully implemented cycle from spring 2023 to fall 2023, and academic indicators will only account for 48 percent of the total score used for granting accreditation.

District accreditation is treated as essentially a “completion assignment” in Missouri, and its perceived unimportance is exemplified by the fact that districts cannot be penalized for poor performance until 2024. Students will certainly be penalized for their performance in these schools, and it is ludicrous that adults cannot be held accountable for their errors.

Missouri may have snuck under the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page radar for now, but if the gap between reality and accountability continues to widen, it may not last forever.

The post WSJ Takes Aim at Illinois, Ignores Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Let me put it another way: If I told you that last spring, upon DESE’s recommendation, the State Board of Education reinstated fully accredited status to Kansas City Public School District, where 12 percent of students scored at a Proficient level or higher in math and 25 percent did so in English/language arts (ELA), what would be your takeaway? Would you think any more highly of the district knowing that it has DESE’s seal of approval? Or would you think instead that accreditation must not have much to do with how successful the district has been at preparing students to succeed?

DESE doesn’t appear to be very picky about which schools qualify for full accreditation. The Ferguson-Florissant School District, for example, is now fully accredited despite the fact that only 8 percent of students scored Proficient or higher in math, and 20 percent did so in ELA.

On the other hand, DESE seems to be tireless in its quest to perfect its system for evaluating school districts. It changed the test it uses four times in five years—making it difficult if not impossible to compare student test scores from consecutive years. And now, amid all the upheaval caused by the pandemic, it is replacing the Missouri School Improvement Plan (MSIP) 5 with MSIP 6. It’s an awful lot of trouble to go to just to tweak a system that has consistently accredited 99% of Missouri school districts. And that work will take time—nearly a decade will pass before school districts receive a new accreditation update from the state.

None of this is to say that the MSIP 5 shouldn’t be replaced; the Show-Me Institute has repeatedly pointed out its shortcomings. Under that system, districts needed to get at least 70 percent of their possible points to be accredited. However, there were multiple opportunities for “extra credit”—including all of the points for academic growth—and plenty of non-academic points at play. That explains why accreditation has been so easy to come by, and so far removed from the academic success of students.

Under MSIP 6, academic growth is now officially counted in the point total, but academic indicators still only comprise 48 out of 100 points. Districts can now earn points for creating a Continuous School Improvement Plan. They get points for “reflecting upon current practices and data.” They get points for having the “required documentation.” All of which is to say that districts with troublingly low academic performance are still quite likely to be able to get full accreditation.

But here’s the real kicker: DESE is going to go through the laborious calculations of MSIP 6 for each district, and then it’s going to make an accreditation recommendation to the State Board of Education. The recommendation will be based on the Accreditation Score, but also on “previous department MSIP findings” (whatever those are), on financial status, on statutory and regulatory compliance (whatever that involves), and on the employment of an “appropriately certified” superintendent. In other words, we will have State Board meetings like the one earlier this year that reinstated Kansas City Public Schools full accreditation, and the decision will be subjective.

So it doesn’t bother me that it will be a couple of more years before we are officially reminded of how stubbornly DESE and the State Board of Education refuse to face reality. What bothers me is that Missouri’s accountability system, if you can call it that, is heading in the wrong direction. It is becoming less academic, more watered down, and more about the adults in the system rather than the children in the schools.

The post The Suspense Isn’t Exactly Killing Me appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Two paragraphs in the Post-Dispatch story are worth highlighting:

Normandy schools have not been fully accredited for the last decade and are under the control of the Missouri Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Starting in 2013, the district paid tuition and transportation for about 1,000 students to transfer to higher-performing districts, as allowed under state law. The district nearly went bankrupt after spending $35 million on the transfer program. It returned to provisional accreditation in 2017, effectively ending the transfer program.

The district’s test scores still rank as lowest in the state, with 15% of students proficient in English and 7% proficient in math in 2019. There have been recent improvements, including the graduation rate at Normandy High rising from 53% in 2013 to 78% in 2019.

Families are already voting with their feet. Normandy has been shedding students, either through the transfer program or now just the old fashioned way (the Post-Dispatch reports elsewhere in the story that enrollment in the district is down 316 students, or 11 percent, this school year).

It is the school board of this district that approved a resolution last month expressing its “complete discontentment” with the Missouri Charter School Commission’s process of soliciting and developing a charter school in the district, as the board wanted to be included more in the process. Why on earth should a district that has manifestly failed to educate its students or even keep its financial house in order have any say on a new school that is coming in to try and do better? Lunacy.

And it is the civic leaders quoted in the story who believe that this district should have a monopoly on education provision within the boundaries of the Normandy School District. Also lunacy.

The question has to be asked of these leaders: How can you, in good conscience, look into the eyes of the children of Normandy and tell them that they don’t deserve a different option? Why must they stay tethered to a district that has been foundering for longer than they have been alive? Would you accept this for your own children?

The post A Charter School for Normandy? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I remember having a similar feeling the first time I saw a “fully accredited” banner hanging on a school. It was in 1998 and my 3^rd grader’s school had just completed its very first year of standardized testing in Virginia. I was glad to see that her school was fully accredited, but I really had no context for what that meant. Of course the word is now fully embedded in the public education lexicon and parents are used to seeing it. Yet I’m not sure that it conveys any more real meaning to parents today than it did to me twenty years ago.

That is especially true in Missouri.  The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has made a decision—or set of decisions—that has resulted in 99 percent of Missouri school districts being fully accredited. If a word applies to everyone in a group, then it loses all meaning in distinguishing between the members of that group.

DESE plans to replace the current system of standards and accountability, MSIP 5, with a new one, MSIP 6. There’s an opportunity for the new system to have words that actually mean something—maybe “not meeting expectations,” or “exceeding expectations.” Better yet, the new system could assign letter grades to schools. Most parents understand what an “A” or a “D” means.

Recently, DESE released a 21-page document describing the planned MSIP 6. Unfortunately, clarity and meaningful words do not seem to be a priority in the new system’s design. It contains statements like (italics mine), “Instructional staff [will] design and use appropriate, meaningful, and rigorous learning tasks for each student,” and “School system and building leaders use an intentional feedback system to improve and refine performance,” and perhaps the most perplexing “Educator teams [will] act reflectively.” This is the system that will be used to determine school quality. There’s nothing wrong with any of these tasks, but how is this going to help a parent (or any other stakeholder) learn anything about the quality of their child’s school?

Thinking about the word “accredited” and how confusing it was to me reminded me of this. The more we use words that obfuscate, the more likely that parents will only be able to rely on their gut or the grapevine to gauge their child’s school. DESE has a responsibility to fix that.

The post Words Matter appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The current Missouri School Improvement Plan’s (MSIP) accreditation system has a confusing scoring method that is far too generous to schools. As a result, zero districts were unaccredited and only 6 were provisionally accredited in 2018. Additionally, accreditation is only given at the district level and not to individual schools, so low-performing schools might get a free pass based on their district’s accreditation.

Near full accreditation is difficult to reconcile with the fact that in 2018, 25 districts had less than one-quarter of eighth graders score proficient or advanced in English language arts on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) exam, yet only 3 of those districts were provisionally accredited. 117 districts had less than one-quarter of eighth graders score proficient or advanced in math and only 4 of them were provisionally accredited. Other districts have similar or lower MAP performance levels than the provisionally accredited districts, but still receive full accreditation.

Other states have adopted more informative school grading systems. Florida has been a pioneer in school grading, using an A–F scale that grades each school and district since 1999. Florida recently announced that teachers can receive a one-time bonus for working in schools that receive Title I funds and receive a grade of D or F. This is a great example of the importance of a clear accountability system for schools and districts. Florida’s grading system was used to identify low-performing schools, and the state then implemented a policy to try and help students in those schools. A teacher incentive program won’t cure everything that ails schools in Florida, but it’s a step in the right direction that is only possible because of a quality accountability system.

A transparent grading system in Missouri could spur demand for options like charter schools or education savings accounts. But as long as 99 percent of school districts continue to receive full accreditation and parents have few ways to find important school information, low-performing schools will fly under the radar and educational choice may never appear in Missouri.

The post Missouri’s School District Accreditation Doesn’t Help Students appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In other words, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has developed a system for evaluating school districts by evaluating schools, but the accreditation label is only applied at the district level. If you find this a bit confusing, you aren’t alone. On my commute to work, I drive by schools in St. Louis that proudly display “Fully Accredited” banners. Like any reasonable parent, I assumed that the banner and the status apply to the school. Apparently, the fine print at the bottom suggests that it’s actually the St. Louis Public School District that is fully accredited, and therefore any public school in the district can advertise under that blanket designation. Given that all but six of over 500 school districts in Missouri are fully accredited, one could assume that nearly every school in the state could fly the same banner. If public schools were subject to consumer protection laws, then a number of parents might be the victims of false advertising.

What does any of this tell parents? The Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP) 5 system, in which schools and districts are rated on the percentage of possible points attained, is very confusing on its own. It’s unlikely that a parent would know that an APR score of 67 means that their child’s school got 50 out of 75 points on a scale with five sets of indicators. Why doesn’t DESE make information more easily available and understandable to parents? Why is DESE providing cover for low-performing schools.?

My colleagues and I try to be careful in our analysis; still, mistakes happen, and we need to own them. We also believe that those who serve the public need to own their mistakes. We will continue to press DESE to provide parents with accurate, complete, and usable information on each school in our state.

The post It Depends on What You Mean by “Accredited” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The state’s method of accrediting schools is based on its Annual Performance Report (APR), which uses five factors—academic achievement, subgroup achievement, high school/college/career readiness, graduation rates, and attendance rates—to assess the quality of public schools. Missouri’s APR is among the least stringent in the country, which might be why not a single district is unaccredited. The scoring of attendance is especially problematic, as perfect scores are handed out even when kids are missing for weeks.

This attendance inflation is especially concerning due to the large weight allocated to attendance in the Annual Performance Reports. The possible number of points from all categories varies by school, anywhere from 50 to 140 points, but in all cases a school must get 50 percent of the total available performance points if it is to be accredited. And here’s how attendance fits in: Regardless of how many points are possible for a given school, ten points are allotted for attendance, giving the measure different weights for different schools. This means that a 10/10 attendance score could account for anywhere from 14 to 40 percent of the necessary points for accreditation. Accordingly, a school that would otherwise lose accreditation based on the academic achievement of its students might nonetheless squeak past the 50 percent line thanks to strong attendance numbers. Considering that every Missouri school is currently accredited—even those with poor academic records—and considering the generous attendance formula (as detailed in a previous post), this scenario is hardly implausible.

Kansas City’s Central Middle School is a case in point. It is accredited with 75 percent of its possible APR points and 7.5 of its 10 possible attendance points, even though 54 percent of its student body was chronically absent (defined by the federal government as missing 15 or more days of school) in 2015–16. Its academics are among the poorest in the state, with only five percent of students proficient in math. Normandy’s 7th & 8th Grade Learning Center managed to become accredited with 37.5/70 points (54 percent), 7.5 of which were from attendance alone. The attendance boosted the Learning Center’s score by 11 percentage points, and without it, this school, in which only one in twelve kids is proficient in math, would not have been accredited.

Accreditation implies that Central and the Learning Center are preparing students to succeed, even though almost all students struggle with elementary concepts. Knowing that their schools are accredited will be cold comfort to students who find themselves unequipped for further studies or the workforce. Missouri needs to re-evaluate its educational standards and provide accurate performance reports that call attention to shortcomings in the public schooling system. The APR was never meant to provide cover to underperforming schools at the expense of students.

*DESE has informed us that they accredit exclusively at the district level, and thus do not accredit individual schools.

The post Is Success Really Just a Matter of Showing Up? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

At this point, nothing has been established—all we know is that an accusation has been made and denied. But in any case, attendance numbers are more important than many people realize. Not only do attendance data affect how much funding the district receives from the state, but they also factor in the Annual Performance Review and the district’s accreditation classification.

Last December, the State Board of Education voted unanimously to reclassify Riverview Gardens as provisionally accredited. According to state law, because the district was no longer unaccredited, students from Riverview Gardens lost the right to transfer to better-performing districts. If the accreditation of the district was based on incorrect attendance information, then students may have been unfairly deprived of better educational opportunities.

I do not doubt that there has been real progress in the district in the past few years, but the integrity of the attendance numbers is vital so that the district can be evaluated according to its true performance. We will continue to watch this story closely as it develops. 

The post Attendance Matters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But as usual, a closer look calls such clear distinctions into question. In her EducationNext article on accreditation and its possible role under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Jennifer Oldham contacted the Show-Me Institute’s Emily Stahly for a better understanding of what the reinstatement of accredited status means for Saint Louis. Unfortunately, as Emily wrote back in January, in this case the news is hardly cause for celebration. The district was accredited even though most students scored below the “proficient” level in both math and English on standardized tests, because “higher scores in the attendance and graduation-rate categories made up for poor results in academic achievement.”

Oldham’s article examines accreditation from several angles, including the effect that loss of accreditation can have on districts and communities and also the incentives that accrediting agencies face. The entire article is worth reading, and offers some ideas to consider as Missouri adapts to the ESSA standards for accountability.

The post A Closer Look at Accreditation appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Unfortunately, this situation faces 17 school districts in Missouri. According to state accreditation standards, not every school in a district has to perform above 70 percent on the annual performance review to keep accreditation—just the district as a whole. This system has left kids in failing schools while keeping alternatives like charter schools out of the area. Recent proposals in the Missouri legislature could help solve this problem.

A few weeks ago, the Missouri House of Representatives passed HB634. A similar bill is now in the Senate. While HB634 does not allow charter schools to open everywhere in the state, it would increase the number of districts where charter schools could open. One section of the law targets districts with underperforming schools, and would allow charter schools:

In any school district in which at least one school building has received a score of sixty percent or less on its annual performance report for two of the three most recent annual performance reports available as of the date on which a charter school applies to open a charter school in the district under this subdivision.

Based on the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Annual Performance Reports, 97 schools in 29 school districts would fit this criterion, including Kansas City and Saint Louis (where charter schools already operate) and the Normandy Schools Collaborative (which is unaccredited but does not have a charter school yet). Thus, this rule would add 26 new school districts to those where charter schools can operate currently:

Certainly, it is a cause for concern that Missouri has so many districts with chronically underperforming schools. There is another problem, however, with failing schools being the only option in some of these districts.

Out of these 29 districts, 17 have “chokepoints”—schools that every student in the district will have to attend—that have been rated as failing in two of the last three years. Normandy is one such district; the others are the districts in bold in the table above. Most of the chokepoint schools are middle schools and junior high schools.

Children in these communities have no choice but to spend some part of their education career in a school that the state deems failing. Families in these districts and across Missouri deserve better options for their kids. 

The post “Chokepoints” Demonstrate Need for New Charter Schools appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The proponents of upgrading SLPS pointed to the district’s sustained score of over 70% on the Annual Performance Review (APR), along with more stable leadership, as evidence supporting accreditation.

Indeed, SLPS has improved in recent years; but does its progress warrant the state’s seal of approval? If we look at APR scores alone, we might think it does:

Here’s the problem: with the transition from provisionally accredited to fully accredited status, we would expect substantial improvements in the academic performance of the district’s students. But a look at the next table suggests that in 2016, scoring 100% in the attendance and graduation rate categories made up for poor scores in academic and subgroup achievement.  Here is the full table:

Moreover, peculiarities in the formula that takes the raw data and puts it into a point system allows for districts to achieve scores that are disproportionally high compared to their actual improvements. In the following set of tables, you can see how SLPS has made, at best, modest progress in the five areas that are scored.

In the academic achievement category, the district falls far below the state’s goals. When you examine the data behind the achievement scores, the picture looks even worse. Below are the results of the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests for SLPS for the past 3 years:

Despite the big increase between 2014 and 2015 in APR scores, there was little improvement in students’ test performance—let alone in other important areas. The following table includes SLPS’s graduation rates, attendance rates, and ACT scores over the last four years.

SLPS’s recent performance is a mixed bag: attendance is close to the goal of 90% of students attending 90% of the time. The graduation rate and the percentage of students taking the ACT are also up, but these students still score very low on the ACT and are unlikely to be prepared for college.

SLPS has made headway in the last 10 years, and it deserves credit for doing so. But we’re still talking about a school district in which just over one-third of students score proficient or advanced in English, and just over one-quarter do so in math. Is that what we accept as sufficient? If we want to improve the quality of education in our state, shouldn’t Missourians set the bar higher?

The post Is This What Full Accreditation Looks Like? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

 This may be good news for the school district, but it could be bad news for students who have transferred out of the district over the past several years. According to Missouri law, unaccredited districts must pay for students’ tuition and transportation costs if they choose to transfer to a neighboring school district or charter school. Currently, 436 students from the Riverview Gardens district attend school outside of it. Now that the district is accredited, those students have lost the right to transfer at taxpayers’ expense to another public school district.

 Participating school districts are working on an agreement to allow students to continue in their current schools after parents voiced concerns about disrupting their children’s education. According to assistant education commissioner Chris Neale, transferring students will be allowed to finish out at least this school year in their current school. Some students may be allowed to stay in their current schools until a “natural stopping point”—at the end of elementary or middle school for example—but no new students will be allowed to participate and Riverview Gardens will not provide transportation after June 2017.

 Based on the scores below, it is easy to see why parents do not want to put their children back in the Riverview Gardens school system:

While test performance is not the only factor in the APR score—graduation rate, attendance rate, and college and career readiness are other factors—it is troublesome that a district with such low scores could become fully accredited as early as next year if they keep their APR score above 70%. To the school district’s credit, Riverview Gardens is working diligently to improve performance after years of academic and fiscal mismanagement. While these gains represent progress, the district still has fewer than 15% of students scoring proficient in Math and Science for the 2016 school year. Is it in the best interest of any child to be forced to attend a school with this kind of track record?

With such a low performance threshold, Missouri’s accreditation system and transfer law create a trap for students in districts just barely performing above the threshold—the schools perform too well for the students to be allowed to leave, but not well enough to prepare the students for work or college.

Missouri families deserve to make their own educational choices and shouldn’t be bound by fluctuating quality measures of the districts where they live. For the students in Riverview Gardens, continuing the current transfer program would help them in the short term. In addition, revising Missouri charter school laws and establishing tax credit scholarship programs or education savings accounts that are available to all students would help every child get the education that best fits their needs.

The post Riverview Gardens Students Lose the Right to Transfer appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kauffman’s goal to “create college graduates” pervades the three-building campus. University flags hang on the walls. Students are divided into groups named after the universities teaching faculty attended. Teachers connect with students by sharing personal photographs, fight songs, and university traditions from their own college years. “It continues to invest kids in this idea that the people around you want you to have the same opportunities as they had and we don’t want socioeconomic status or zip code to hold you back from that,” said Candace Potter, talent recruiter for the school.

“Kids who grow up in low-income communities, about 10 percent graduate from college by the age of 24 … and we want to break that statistic,” she added. The school seems to be on its way.

Though 82.4 percent of students are eligible for free-reduced lunch, Kauffman earned 88.6 percent of possible points on the state’s Annual Progress Report. This means the charter is only 1.4 percentage points from being classified as Accredited with Distinction, which is stunning considering, according to Potter, most students begin below grade level.

One of those students is fifth-grader Aunecia Smith. She reports both her behavior and academics have improved since arriving at Kauffman, having previously attended George Melcher Elementary, a Kansas City public school. “It’s really not like this school. Their expectations weren’t as good,” she said.

Aside from rigorous academic expectations, the school invests in four PREP values, which serve as “current and future tools for success.” At frequent awards ceremonies, students are recognized with “PREP stars.” Aunecia, who wants to be a pediatrician when she grows up, has received two. “I have to change the channel on the TV when I see kids with cancer,” she said.

Quality charter schools like Ewing Marion Kauffman exemplify how school choice can set students on the course for success. Aunecia is just one student for which a charter school has made a difference, but if charters were able to expand regardless of district accreditation status or geographic location, many more students might be affected.

Before heading back to class, Aunecia said to me, “Every kid should go to a charter school.” I think what Aunecia really means is that every child should have access to the type of high-quality education she is receiving.

The post School Visit Series: A Charter School With a Goal appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That which we call an unaccredited school by any other name would perform as well.  William Shakespeare spoke of roses, but his four-century-old logic applies to Normandy Schools Collaborative’s “nonaccredited” status.  The Missouri State Board of Education’s decision to give Normandy a “nonaccredited status” allowed the Board to take control of operations.  It essentially gave the district a do-over, but left many with questions concerning the legality of subsequent decisions:

1. Can the Missouri State School Board set a tuition ceiling?
2. Can receiving schools reject transfer students?
3. Can Normandy prohibit new students from transferring?

These questions stem from the transfer law’s wording regarding unaccredited schools.   The law refers to a “district not accredited”.  According to the state board, Normandy’s new unclassified status of “nonaccredited” is somehow different than “unaccredited” (even though, non is Latin for not, non making this up).  Because of the new classification, schools like Francis Howell decided not to allow transfer students to return.   Using the same rationale, Normandy Schools Collaborative might not receive extra money from the 2015 state budget.  The additional funding is earmarked for intensive reading instruction and pre-K programs, programs meant to help low-performing, unaccredited schools like Normandy.

Normandy has a history of low-performance—low-achievement, high drop-out rates, and low college readiness.  If the goal of the state Board of Education is to give Normandy students access to high-performing, quality schools, calling the district by another name is not the answer.

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Yesterday, the Missouri State Board of Education voted to lapse the Normandy School District. What exactly this means for the district and students, especially transfer students, remains to be seen. What we know at this point is that the district boundaries will stay the same, the district will be known as the Normandy Schools Collaborative, an appointed board will replace the elected board, and all contracts will be void.

Some have asked me if this is a good move. I have to say, “Compared to what?”

Let’s consider two scenarios.

Scenario 1: The Transfer Law Never Went Into Effect

The problems in the Normandy School District did not begin when a quarter of the students abandoned ship last fall. The district received its first accreditation designation in 1996 – provisional. For the past 18 years, the district has never been fully accredited. The four-year graduation rate for males is less than 50 percent.  In 2013, the district received an 11.1 percent on the Missouri School Improvement Program Annual Report (MSIP 5).

When the problems from Normandy began to spill into other districts, the public began to take notice.

If the transfer law had not taken effect, Normandy would probably continue to trudge along unaffected for another decade without any significant reforms.

Scenario 2: Normandy School District Remains Unchanged

Whether Missouri Senate Bill 493 passes or not, the Normandy School District must continue to make adjustments, especially in regards to staffing. This has been a tough year for the district financially. The transfer program came as a sudden shock and the district did not have time to prepare. Normally, a business losing a quarter of its customers would make immediate and deep cuts. This was problematic for a district locked into long-term contracts and collective bargaining agreements.

If the district were to continue to operate under the current or SB 493 version of the transfer law, they would still have to deal with these realities. Essentially, they would be forced to adapt without having the freedom to adapt.

Conclusion

We still do not know all the details of the new Normandy Schools Collaborative plan; but given these two alternative scenarios, the new plan looks immeasurably better. If the State Board of Education appoints a board that is willing to make substantial changes to the way the district operates, this could be a very positive reform.

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For them, the tiny provision that would allow students in unaccredited schools to attend a private school crosses the line. In their view, public dollars simply should not go to private schools. There is just one problem with that view – they already do. In fact, there is tremendous precedent for allowing public dollars to go to private schools and private organizations. Students use public dollars to attend private colleges and universities. K-12 public schools contract with private providers of all kinds of services, from school maintenance to food service; some even contract with private schools to help deliver educational services.

Take ACE Learning Centers, for example. ACE is one of the few private schools that would meet the narrowly defined criteria in SB 493. The school is located in an unaccredited school district and recently received accreditation from the North Central Association on Accreditation and School Improvement.

ACE currently has 12 centers and serves students from at least six school districts. An external review that AdvancEd conducted of ACE Learning Centers noted that the 2012-13 graduation rate was 86 percent. This is markedly higher than the nearby unaccredited public schools, where nearly half of students fail to graduate on time. This fact is especially remarkable when you consider that ACE serves students who are at risk of dropping out.

Speaking of his ACE experience, student Josiah said, “ACE is giving me another shot to finish high school and graduate with a diploma. I would recommend ACE to any student having trouble in their home school. I’m able to get a lot done with my classes here at ACE – I learn much better here.”

ACE Learning Centers and other private schools throughout the state are already using public dollars to serve students in Missouri. These schools are no less valuable to the public simply because they are privately run. The beauty of the private option in SB 493 is that it might allow more students like Josiah (and Adam, Bianca, Georgia, Eddie, etc.) to attend ACE Learning Centers.

The education establishment is wrong to draw a line in the sand on this issue. If they want to fix the problems with the transfer program and save the Normandy and Riverview Gardens School Districts from impending bankruptcy, they cannot sit this dance out.

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Several representatives saying they’d like to see intervention even earlier when a school’s scores are dropping #moleg #MOTransfers

— Alex Stuckey (@alexdstuckey) April 9, 2014

There is a lot of talk these days in Jefferson City about being proactive in public schools. Currently, when a school drops below a set performance mark, the district becomes unaccredited. Students are then able to transfer out of the district to a nearby accredited one. Many view this as a reactive, nuclear option. What we need, they say, is early intervention. We need to be proactive when a school starts to struggle. I hate to get tied up in semantics, but by definition, targeting schools that are struggling is reactive, not proactive. It is a reaction to their declining performance.

Lawmakers have their hearts in the right place, but they place too much confidence in their ability to dictate solutions from Jefferson City. After I testified before the Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee about the student transfer issue, one representative asked me what lawmakers should do to help those struggling school districts.

“What advice would you give us?” she asked.

“I would tell you that you cannot mandate excellence and you cannot dictate innovation,” I said.

“You would have us do nothing?” she asked.

“No, I would have you get out of the way,” I said. “Remove unnecessary restrictions and burdensome regulations. Free the local schools to innovate.”

Missouri could:

Reform teacher tenure policies; remove Last In, First Out provisions; and reform teacher pensions so schools have more flexibility in staffing decisions.

Change seat time and class restrictions that inhibit some blended learning and online learning models.

Try something like Kentucky’s “Districts of Innovation,” where school districts can become “exempt from certain administrative regulations and statutory provisions.”

Responding to government failure with more government action is not being proactive. Policies like the ones cited above are proactive. They put the power into the hands of the school leaders on the ground. A proactive system is one that gives school leaders the freedom to be innovative and gives parents the ability to choose.

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