The University of Missouri (MU) recently hosted a lecture by Robert Henderson, who coined the term “luxury beliefs.” These are beliefs that signal status among the affluent while imposing little cost on them, but that burden the poor and marginalized. A common example is the idea of defunding the police: it’s easy to endorse from a safe, well-resourced neighborhood, where the consequences are less likely to be felt personally.

Once you understand the concept of luxury beliefs, you see them everywhere.

After Henderson’s visit I found myself thinking about school choice, and specifically the debate over charter schools in Columbia. Charter schools are public schools that operate independently of traditional school districts. They have more flexibility in how they educate students, but they’re also held accountable for results. Unlike traditional public schools, they can be closed if they fail to perform or attract students. The data on charter school outcomes in Missouri are unambiguous: Charter schools consistently outperform traditional public schools.

A recent state law change allows charter schools to open in Columbia, but there is vocal opposition locally. This is despite the fact that many district schools perform poorly. Moreover, the first approved charter is operated by one of the most successful Charter Management Organizations in the entire state, Frontier Schools. In the PRiME Center’s 3-Year Growth Report, Frontier has two schools in the top five statewide in terms of promoting academic growth.

Columbia Public Schools has opposed Frontier’s entry (luckily to no avail thus far). Several current and prospective school board members are also opposed, and community forums are full of what I suspect is an angry minority of citizens who don’t want Frontier to open a school in Columbia.

The opposition screams of luxury beliefs.

I wonder how many of the opposing voices send their kids to Battle High School, where of all the students who take Algebra-I, just 7 percent—this is not a typo, 7 percent!—score proficient or higher on the state’s Algebra-1 End of Course Exam. Or how many send their children to Derby Ridge Elementary School, where fewer than 5 percent of 5th graders—again, not a typo—score proficient or higher in mathematics.

How many of those in opposition send their children to any of Columbia’s low-performing schools?

I bet very few, if any.

For families with means, school choice already exists—they can buy homes in neighborhoods with higher-performing schools. Opposing charter schools costs them little. But for families without that option, the stakes are much higher.

What are those families supposed to do?

Why not allow a proven operator like Frontier to offer another path? If you were a family without means, wouldn’t you want that option?

If you’re fortunate enough to send your children to a school you like in Columbia Public Schools, I’m happy for you, genuinely. But don’t stomp on other people’s opportunities with your luxury beliefs.

The post School Choice and Luxury Beliefs appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In this episode, Susan Pendergrass is joined by Steven F. Wilson, senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research and author of The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, to discuss the rise and decline of the “no excuses” charter school movement.

They examine how once high-performing urban charter networks lost their focus on academic achievement, why ideological shifts around DEI and anti-racism took root, and what it will take to re-center public education around effective instruction. Wilson also explains the importance of urgency in school leadership, the evidence behind student outcomes, and more.

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Transcript: The Lost Decade – Steven F. Wilson with Susan Pendergrass

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(00:00) Introduction and background

Susan Pendergrass: Well, Steven Wilson, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. We were just speaking before we started recording about how long you and I have been kind of working in the—you completely in the charter space and me somewhat adjacently in the charter school space—and have just seen things change and evolve over time in ways that… some are great and some are less great.

You have a new book out, The Lost Decade: Return to the Fight for Better Schools in America, which is fantastic. You know, 20 years ago, I thought charter schools were going to be part of the answer—to competitively spur non-charter schools to do better and to give parents options and lifeboats in some of our worst urban districts. There were so many high-flying charter school networks emerging, like KIPP—the Knowledge is Power Program—that were like, “Look, it’s not the kids.”

These kids can do as much as any kids—even if they’re poor, even if they are in an urban district, even if their mom is single and has two jobs. We’re not going to give them excuses. We’re going to have high expectations and we’re going to instill discipline. And they started this whole “no excuses” thing. And I thought that was such a great thing for kids. Then… I don’t know. Please, you tell me. I’m sure you know more than I do.

(01:10) The shift away from academic excellence

Steven F. Wilson: Well, first of all, Susan, I’m delighted to be with you—and I’m even more delighted that you’ve read the book. That’s thrilling.

Yes, I think your introduction really nails it. We had found a once-in-a-century educational intervention that had extraordinary effects: the so-called “no excuses” school. (Terrible name, by the way—maybe we should clarify that for listeners.) Around 2000, or in the few years leading up to that, urban charter networks were posting extraordinary effects. They were beginning to show a way out of educational inequality in this country—and then they lost the thread.

They turned away from the North Star of achievement—of great instruction—which is what drove them and their success. And they began to embrace another ideology, another purpose, that I think has been quite destructive. That’s the theme of the book. I refer to it as anti-racist education or social justice education.

Look, we all thought we were doing social justice, right? We thought we were doing anti-racism. We thought that by providing an instructionally effective path—where children could enter the middle class and not be consigned to a life of the minimum wage—we were addressing inequality in America. But we’ve unfortunately turned away from that.

I called the book The Lost Decade because we are now exactly halfway through it. We need to make a sharp pivot back to what was working. My book is really a call to action—a call to return to what works, and pick up where we left off.

(03:47) Mislabeling structure as racism

Susan Pendergrass: So when you say the anti-racist movement, I think what I remember hearing is… making kids stand in line is racist?

Steven F. Wilson: Yeah, that’s right. So a whole lot of things were labeled racist when, in fact, they were just creating the conditions under which children could be safe, respected, and have an opportunity to learn—conditions where teachers could teach.

People forget what the urban classroom looked like 30 years ago when all this began. There’s a book called Let the Lady Teach by Emily Socker. She was an education journalist who taught for a year and took stunning photos. You see New York City classrooms with graffiti-covered walls, broken desks—a scene of abject neglect and contempt for students.

The founders of the no-excuses schools did two things. First, they established order. Children needed to feel safe from gangs, violence, and low-level disorder. The balled-up paper no one picks up, the broken pencil, the kids talking over the teacher—all that had to stop. That was the foundation for joyful, effective learning environments.

Second, they adopted the pledge of no excuses. As professionals, we agreed to stop blaming poverty, racism, or lack of resources for why students weren’t learning. Those challenges are real—but we cannot let them prevent us from doing our job: educating children. That was an ennobling cultural decision—and it drove the successes that followed.

(06:38) School uniforms and equality

Susan Pendergrass: I also remember how those high-performing charter networks were some of the first public schools to require uniforms. At the time, people said, “You can’t make low-income students wear belts,” and yet… they did. Schools helped them. They found a way.

Steven F. Wilson: Exactly. Uniforms did a couple of things: they created a sense of order and purpose and they eliminated status anxiety about clothes or sneakers. They created a level playing field where all kids could feel safe and focused.

(07:54) Why charter schools changed

Susan Pendergrass: So why did things change around 2005 or so? Why were charter schools so susceptible to this shift?

Steven F. Wilson: Good question. My view—and it can be contested—is that charter schools were uniquely susceptible because of their reliance on young, novice teachers, and because they experienced higher staff turnover than traditional districts. So you had more new teachers arriving, often from elite universities. These teachers had been acculturated in anti-racist ideology and brought it with them.

With 20 to 25 percent staff attrition over four years, you can essentially have a whole new faculty. These new teachers weren’t part of the early TFA generation who felt called to close the achievement gap. Instead, they came in animated by the ideas of Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and more radical voices like Tema Okun—who claimed that objectivity and love of the written word were traits of white supremacy.

So teachers began to question whether enforcing discipline or holding students to high standards was racist. Some networks—like Success Academy and Brooke Charter Schools—held their ground. Others capitulated. They didn’t make the case for their methods or explain how they aligned with a true liberal arts education.

(11:35) Parental demand and satisfaction

Susan Pendergrass: And these were the very things that parents wanted, right? The structure, the discipline?

Steven F. Wilson: Absolutely. These schools conducted annual parent surveys—Ascend, KIPP, Achievement First. Satisfaction rates were consistently above 90%. I’ve never heard of a parent asking for more anti-racist programming. What they wanted was a better education and a secure path to college and career. That path has eroded horribly over the past five years.

(14:52) Test score declines

Susan Pendergrass: So what were the actual outcomes of the shift?

Steven F. Wilson: In New York City—the nation’s largest market—urban no-excuses charters used to dramatically outperform traditional schools on state tests. That performance premium eroded by two-thirds over five years. Now, many of them perform just slightly better than the city average. But the networks that stuck with their methods—Success Academy and Classical Charter Schools—have either maintained or improved their results.

(16:29) Can “anti-racist” schools succeed academically?

Susan Pendergrass: And you couldn’t find any high-achieving schools that had adopted the anti-racist framework?

Steven F. Wilson: I looked, and no—I couldn’t find any.

(17:24) What should we do now?

Susan Pendergrass: So what now? How do we turn this around?

Steven F. Wilson: We need to have honest conversations—conversations that have been avoided for too long. And then we need to win the contest of ideas. The no-excuses model works. RAND found that students who attend KIPP middle and high schools have nearly the same college completion rates as white students nationwide. That’s an astonishing result.

There’s growing recognition that the ideological shift hasn’t worked—but fear still dominates. I think that will change within the next year.

(19:47) DEI and illiberalism on both sides

Susan Pendergrass: Meanwhile, terms like “equity” and “DEI” have been politicized. What’s your take on that?

Steven F. Wilson: I support DEI—when it’s done right. Diversity, equity, and inclusion should foster a sense of belonging. What doesn’t work is dividing people into affinity groups or pushing a worldview of oppressors versus oppressed. That’s deeply harmful.

And the answer isn’t to fight illiberalism with more illiberalism—banning concepts, censoring teachers. That’s not how we solve the problem.

(22:24) Accountability, data, and racism claims

Susan Pendergrass: In Missouri, we’ve got very low accountability. Our state system gives almost every district an “A.” When we created our own school grading system, we were told assigning D’s and F’s is racist—because those schools mostly serve Black and Brown students. But parents know when their child’s school is bad. They want a way out.

Steven F. Wilson: Right. The claim that it’s racist to report poor outcomes is a distraction—usually from the teachers’ unions or anti-reformers. They say schools are just reproducing structural poverty and racism. Horace Mann would roll over in his grave.

We need competition. In many communities, the majority school systems are unreformable. The faster path to success is to build new schools around them.

(26:05) Urgency and action

Susan Pendergrass: I hear “fix the schools we have” all the time. But people have been trying that for decades. If your house is on fire, don’t just stand there—build something next door.

Steven F. Wilson: Exactly. People cling to the existing system out of habit or emotion. But it isn’t working. And as you said, we need urgency. That’s another value some now call “racist.” But if your kid is in a broken classroom, you feel that urgency.

High-performing charter schools acted on it. They made staffing changes midyear. They reopened quickly during COVID. They didn’t let failure sit.

(28:22) Conclusion

Susan Pendergrass: Yes, and that urgency made a difference. Our unaccredited districts have been that way for so long a child could attend from kindergarten to 12th grade without any improvement.

The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America couldn’t be more timely. Steven, thank you so much for coming on.

Steven F. Wilson: Such a pleasure, Susan. Great to see you.

Susan Pendergrass: Same. Thank you.

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post The Lost Decade of Education Reform with Steven F. Wilson appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri students not only have fewer days of school, but they have also been missing more days of school. Chronic absenteeism has become a major problem in our schools. Students who miss more than 10% of school days in a year are considered chronically absent.

If a student was at the minimum threshold of being chronically absent—missing 11% of school days every year—by the end of their K-12 experience they will have missed well over a full year of instruction.

Below is a graph that displays attendance trends broken down by demographics in Missouri. The graph uses proportional attendance rates. Proportional attendance rates measure the number of students who attend school 90 percent of the time or more. Let’s say a district of 10 students has a school year of 100 days. Then, let’s assume that 6 of the 10 students attend more than 90 days of school, and that the other four students attend school for 82 days. The district’s proportional attendance rate would be 60 percent.

Figure 1: Missouri Proportional Attendance Rates by Student Group

Source: Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: Current and Historical Missouri State Report Card

While COVID-19 certainly hurt attendance rates, they have not bounced back in the years following. In the 2012–2013 school year, all Missouri students had a proportional attendance rate of 88 percent. Free or reduced-price lunch students were at 83 percent, White students were at 89 percent, Black students were at 82 percent, Hispanic students were at 87 percent, and Asian students were at 94 percent. Today, the gap between all students and free or reduced-price lunch students has doubled. The gap between white students and black students has tripled.

Changing the funding formula to diminish the importance of attendance could make this problem even worse. Would giving families the option to pick the school that best meets their needs increase attendance? It is clear that state officials need to do something, and fast, before too many of our students fall too far behind.

The post Chronic Absenteeism in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The top line is that test scores are down pretty much across the board. The end-of-course (EOC) assessments in English 1 and Physical Sciences are the only two exceptions. DESE has made it very clear that last year’s scores can’t be compared to any earlier years. We can wait to do that in a couple of years. But there’s plenty of information in just this year’s scores.

Here are my takeaways (bear in mind that about 50,000 students who should have taken the tests did not. We don’t have any information on the type of students who were missing, but one can guess that most high-achieving students showed up):

• Virtual learning was a failure. Eight in ten virtual or distance learning students scored either below Basic or at Basic in math. Those students have either a minimal or a partial understanding of the material. English/Language Arts wasn’t much better. Two thirds of those students scored below grade level.
• We have a math problem. Nearly one third of students tested in math—including students who learned in person and virtually—scored below Basic. That equates to almost 150,000 Missouri students with a minimal understanding of their grade level’s math.
• We have a reading problem on the horizon. One group that I have been very concerned about during the pandemic is early readers. English/Language Arts scores dropped in all the early grades. But what’s really troubling is that out of 60,000 third graders tested, 3 in 10 scored below Basic and another 3 in 10 scored at the Basic level. That’s over 35,000 third graders that will not be able to read a math book or a science book unless we take immediate action.
• Our most disadvantaged students—Black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities, low-income students, and students learning English as a second language—were the hardest hit by the pandemic. Although the scores released by DESE for these groups bundled all three subjects together, the percentages of students who scored at the Basic level or below were dismal. Eighty-five percent of Black students, 87 percent of students with disabilities, and 74 percent of low-income students demonstrated only a minimal or partial understanding of the material.

So now what? The good news is that we have money and lots of it. DESE has received nearly three billion dollars from the federal government in stimulus spending. Although most of the money is directly distributed to districts, several hundred million will be spent at the state level. Parents are worried about their children being behind and they want services now. Students and families should be consulted about their needs and money should be made directly available.

Hopefully, more detailed data will be released soon. We need to understand this as the crisis that it might be.

The post Troubling Test Results for Missouri Students appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The downward leg of the K is made up of several types of students, including those who were not able to quickly transition to a virtual education of even modest quality. These students probably sat out the end of the 2019–20 school year and at least part of the following one. Incredibly, as of summer 2021, nearly one-quarter of Missouri students still did not have access to high-speed internet.

The bottom leg also has students—as much as 3.5 percent of enrollment in Missouri—who simply didn’t show up for the 2020–21 school year. We’re not sure where they are or how they’re doing. Finally, we have many students who have simply struggled for the last year and lost critical time in their education—from kindergartners needing to launch, to third graders needing to read fluently, to high-school students heading out into college or careers. These same students are likely among the most disadvantaged to begin with.

Of course, there are many examples of students who thrived last year and are in the top leg of the K. They may have attended private schools that knew tuition-paying parents were not going to settle for online learning for very long. They may have been public school students who found virtual learning to be a great fit. They may be in families that realized how great the homeschool experience could be as kids can work at their own pace with no limits.

It goes without saying that policymakers in Missouri—both the legislature and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)—need to focus like a laser on the bottom leg of the K. We need high-quality diagnostic assessments that will honestly inform students and parents about any academic growth lost to the pandemic. Then, we need to make public funds available to families so that they can find the academic resources their children need, from tutoring, to part-time learning hubs or pods, to private schools. We need to empower parents and fund everything they need.

The post It’s not about the ABC’s—It’s about the K appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Northside has consistently been one of the top-performing schools in St. Louis, and it’s easy to understand why when listening to Asher talk about his passion for serving low-income students and the culture of expectations and excellence that guides the school.

North Side puts to lie the pernicious notion that because a child comes from a certain neighborhood, is of a certain racial or ethnic group, or comes from a family that is struggling, they cannot learn.

It isn’t easy. Students who come from stable, two-parent homes in safe neighbors absolutely have advantages over those who do not. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean its impossible. And just because it is hard doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth doing.

Part of the story, left unsaid in the KSDK spot, is that because of how Missouri authorizes charter schools, Northside is limited to serving students in St. Louis City even though it sits less than a 10 minutes’ drive from the boundary of the Normandy Schools Collaborative, one of the lowest-performing school districts in the state. Students born eight minutes away from the school instead of seven can’t attend, because politicians have created artificial barriers between children and opportunity.

That is not a happy story. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. It should change.

The post The City-County Line Remains a Barrier to a Good Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Busing may have been the only option for blending the two separate school systems in the South in the latter half of the last century. But today, it remains wildly unpopular with parents. White, middle-class children are the key to the policy and yet, when busing goes into effect, they tend to flee the school. Many urban districts don’t have enough white children to create any sort of balance. And suburban districts are often not interested in participating.

The research on the academic impact of such programs is labeled “variable” at best by its most ardent supporters. In fact, there is stronger evidence that having a teacher of the same race as the student improves academic outcomes. In other words, the race of the person at the front of the room can make a difference in a way that the race of the other students doesn’t.

You know what is popular with parents, and especially with low-income parents of color? Getting to choose where their children attend school rather than having them be assigned or bussed to one. And in many cases, parents would prefer to be able to choose a school where the staff looks like their child, rather than a school where the other students don’t. Researchers at Stanford have determined that low-income black and Hispanic students who attended charter schools of their choice made significant academic gains when compared to their matched peers who attended traditional public schools in the same district. This is a policy that works.

Before there were options like charter schools, the only way to get children from distressed neighborhoods out of their troubled schools was to pick them up every day and take them somewhere else. We now know that giving every parent options for where to send their children to school negates the need for districts to shuffle kids around. It’s time to stop arguing about who’s for or against a failed policy from 50 years ago and give disadvantaged parents the educational options they want and need.

The post Don’t Be Nostalgic for A Failed Policy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But has education policy in the last 50 years closed that gap? Not even close. Back in the 1970s, students from poor households were as much as three to four years of schooling behind their wealthier peers. Fast forward to 2015, and that gap has virtually stayed the same despite pouring billions of dollars into the education system. Isn’t it time for a new approach—shouldn’t we start giving parents the power to control education dollars?

According to a recent study, there has been a persistent gap in academic achievement between low-income and high-income students for decades. What’s more, student performance overall hasn’t gotten better; any gains seen in earlier grades dissipate by the age of 17 when students are preparing to go to college or enter the workforce

This is despite numerous local, state, and national efforts to provide quality education for low-income kids. In the last 50 years, we have provided services to students with disabilities, evened out school funding between rich and poor districts, instituted a number of accountability systems (Missouri’s accountability system is in its sixth iteration since 1991), and increased funding overall. In fact, the report notes, “Overall school funding increased dramatically on a per-student basis, quadrupling in real dollars between 1960 and 2015.”

To show just how bad the achievement gap between high- and low-income students is in Missouri, check out the data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Beginning with 2005, the data points represent the percentage of 8^th grade students in Missouri who were at or above grade level in math and reading, separated by eligibility for the National School Lunch Program (which is for families with incomes below 185 percent of the federal poverty line).

For low-income 8^th-graders, only 16 percent were proficient or advanced in math in 2017. The number for reading is hardly better, with only 22 percent of students considered proficient or advanced. Compare that to students who were not eligible for the National School Lunch Program: 42 percent of these kids were at least proficient in math and 47 percent were proficient or advanced in reading. And the gap in both subjects has gotten larger since 2005.

What are the consequences of this failure? As I discuss in my two recent essays, “Intergenerational Poverty in Missouri” and “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” quality education and the ability to move up the economic ladder are closely linked. How can Missouri expect to break cycles of poverty if it can’t even educate low-income students well?

Meanwhile, charter schools and private school choice programs are providing opportunities unmatched by many traditional public schools. Graduates from IDEA Public Schools, a charter school network founded in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley in Texas, have a 100 percent college acceptance rate and half of the class of 2012 acquired a bachelor’s degree within six years after enrolling in college. In Florida, tax-credit scholarship recipients have higher college-going and degree completion rates, and charter school students score higher on tests than students in traditional public school students.

So where do we go from here? Should we be satisfied with reforms that just tinker around the edges of our education system and increase spending indefinitely for programs that are failing? Or should we allow more competition and innovation through choice that will make schools more responsive to families of all economic backgrounds? Based on the failure of the education bureaucracy to close the gap in the last 50 years, it seems Missouri’s best option is to start trusting parents. 

The post After 50 Years, Low-Income Students Are Still Being Left Behind-When Will Enough Be Enough? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I’ve had numerous conversations with parents of young children in St. Louis County who are trying to figure out where and how to buy a house before their child enters kindergarten. And it matters. A 1,900 square foot home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms built in 1990 will cost $240,000 in Florissant, while a similar home would cost $389,900 in Frontenac. Sure, schools aren’t the only difference between the two communities, but they’re certainly factored into that $150,000 premium.

I don’t think I even need to convince anyone of this point—parents who can will pay more money for the same house to get their kids into a school they want. Parents who don’t have the money to do that are stuck. The idea of celebrities buying a spot at USC shocks us in a way that a family scraping together the money to move to a smaller house because it’s in Webster Groves doesn’t.

The quality of a child’s education shouldn’t be connected to the real estate industry. Every parent, regardless of their background or their neighborhood, should have access to an array of choices when it comes to their child’s education.

The post Pay to Play in Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Sadly, these are easy to identify in Missouri. Just find the Census tracts where more than 20 percent of children live in poverty and circle them. The school choice spigot in Missouri is firmly turned off, with little hope that it will be turned on any time soon. The Missouri legislature has refused to transfer any power away from local school boards and into the hands of parents. As a result, students who live in areas of concentrated poverty around Springfield, in the southern part of the state, and in the bootheel have no options beyond their assigned public school. Going by the current laws governing charter schools, you would think that all the parents outside of St. Louis and Kansas City are perfectly satisfied with their children’s assigned public school.

In contrast, our two largest cities look more like charter school oases. Nearly half of all public school students in Kansas City and one-third of public school students in St. Louis attend a public charter school. Parents in these two cities aren’t unique in their desire for high-quality school options for their students—they’re just the only ones who can access them.

This week National Charter Schools Week is being celebrated across the country, including in those districts with at least 10 percent of their students in charter schools. One in five public school students in the U.S. attends school in one of those districts. In fact, every day nearly 3.2 million public school students head out the door to a public charter school. These schools expand public school options for parents across the country. Unfortunately, in Missouri we’ve chosen to reserve them as punishment for failing school districts and to leave everyone else thirsty.

The post A Drought of Our Own Making appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Take the results from the April 5 votes, for example. Eleven school districts proposed operating levy property tax increases—six passed, and five failed. Below I highlight the 2015 tax rate ceiling for operating funds in these school districts. The chart indicates that the districts that passed increases already had higher tax rates than the districts where a proposal was rejected.

Each of the districts is listed below. They are organized from highest to lowest based on the tax rate ceiling for operating expenses after the vote. As you can see, the six that passed also have the highest tax rates. They also tend to spend more money per pupil.

We see the same thing at the state level. Take the 50 highest-spending districts, for instance. They spend, on average, $15,537 per pupil (not weighted by the number of students). The 50 lowest-spending districts spend about half of that. The casual observer might look at this and conclude that the difference in spending was caused by property taxes. They would be partly right. The highest-spending districts tend to have more local property wealth, but they also tend to tax themselves more. The average tax rates in our highest-spending districts is $1.553 more than it is in our lowest spending districts. In other words, some of the inequalities are self-inflicted.

The state guarantees every school district a certain level of funding.  This funding formula helps close the gaps between property-rich and property-poor school districts, but gaps persist partly because wealthy school districts tend to be comfortable with taxing themselves more.  Indeed, the state assumes each district’s local effort will be $3.43 per $100 of assessed valuation. In 2015, 205 school districts taxed themselves at a rate lower than this assumed rate. In fact, 101 districts taxed themselves less than $3.00 per $100 of assessed valuation.

Here is the question we must consider: Are we comfortable allowing school districts to tax themselves more to pay for schools? If we are, then we are comfortable with some level of inequality. If you are not comfortable with giving districts this freedom, then what you are really saying is that you want to hold down spending in school districts, especially wealthy ones.

*An earlier version of this post incorrectly indicated that Laclede Co. R-I had failed to pass the proposed increase. 

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More than three-quarters of Missouri’s class of 2015 took the ACT, an admissions test that is also designed to tell whether students have a strong likelihood (a 75 percent chance) of earning a “C” or higher in introductory college courses in four subject areas. For English, the minimum required score to be deemed “college-ready” is 18, for math it is 22, for reading 22, and for science 23 (all out of 36).

Only 30 percent of students scored college-ready in all four tests. In other words, seven out of ten were judged to be unprepared for college in one or more of the four areas. While a high of 71 percent of students scored college-ready in English, the scores dropped sharply in the other subjects: 51 percent in reading, 44 percent in math, and 42 percent in science.

Even more troubling is the performance of African-American students. Only 6 percent of African-American students scored college-ready in all four tests. On the individual tests, 37 percent of African-American students scored college-ready in English, 19 percent in reading, 13 percent in math, and 12 percent in science.

On advanced placement (AP) exams—which indicate how many students are likely not only to pass, but to excel in different subject areas—the state did even worse. Here the gold standard is a score of 3 or better on a 1-to-5 scale, enabling high-scoring students to obtain advance credit for courses such as calculus and physics prior to their arrival at college.

Though class-wide numbers are still emerging, it is already clear that Missouri, once again, has under-performed all but a handful of other states in AP tests. This is the same story as last year, when only 9.5 percent of Missouri graduates passed at least one AP exam. In Massachusetts—the highest performing state—28 percent of graduating students, or three times as many as in Missouri, passed one or more of the tests of college-level proficiency in challenging subjects.

Out of approximately 20,000 African-American high school juniors and seniors in public schools in Missouri last year, only 55 black students met the standard in AP English literature, 44 did so in U.S. history, 24 in calculus, 8 in chemistry, 7 in physics, and 6 in computer science. In total, that is just seven of every thousand students who are already working at a college level in one or more of these subjects while still in high school.

The numbers tell an alarming story. First, our schools are underperforming across the state. Preparing only 30% of students for college-level work isn’t going to work. Second, our schools’ poor performance is particularly egregious for black students.

We need to upgrade our education system almost everywhere, but a good start would be providing choice for African-American students trapped in the worst public schools. A school system that empowered parents rather than bureaucrats to make the most important decisions in children’s lives would maximize the likelihood of reversing these troubling statistics.

The post All Too Many Missouri Students Are College Bound, but Primed for Failure appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Perfection!

The report shows that 31 Missouri students scored a perfect 36 on the entire test. Within individual tests, 197 students scored perfect on the English section, 108 scored perfect in math, 368 scored perfect in reading, and 289 scored perfect in science.

College Readiness

ACT sets a “college readiness” benchmark on its exams that (they claim) correlates to a 50 percent chance of a B or higher or a 75 percent chance of a C or higher in the first-year college course in that subject. For English, it’s an 18 (out of 36), for math and reading it’s a 22, and for science it’s a 23.

Across the class of 2015, 71 percent of Missouri students scored college-ready in English, 44 percent scored college-ready in math, 51 did so in reading, and 42 percent cleared the bar in science.

Unfortunately, those groups weren’t always overlapping, because in total, only 30 percent of the class of 2015 scored college-ready in all four tested subjects.

If that wasn’t bad enough, breaking down the scores by racial groups shows even worse performance. While 34 percent of white students and 43 percent of Asian American students scored college-ready in all four subjects, only 20 percent of Hispanic students and 6 percent of African American students did.

Everywhere in Missouri, we have room to grow.

Course Access

The ACT also collects information from test takers on the courses that they have taken.

Probably the most eye-catching figure to me was the finding that 6 percent of the students who took the ACT in the class of 2015 took fewer than 3 years of math in high school. Not surprisingly, only 9 percent of those students were ready for college math. (For those students who took 3 or more years of math, 54 percent were college-ready.) The report also shows that 17 percent of the class of 2015 took fewer than 3 years of natural science courses. Preparing students for the 21st Century means preparation in math and science, and in too many places the courses simply aren’t there.

The findings from this report are a challenge to Missouri to step up its game. We won’t be an engine of economic growth, a vibrant cultural center, or a flourishing democracy if so few of our students are prepared for higher-level schooling. We have to do better.

The post Are Missouri Students Ready for College? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“I was just really stupid. I just thought that if we had enough money, people, resources, we would eradicate all poverty in St. Louis,” he said. Of course, poverty persists.

“I think it comes down to really this idea of dignity. . . . I think the biggest mistakes that can happen is to go like, ‘Hey I feel sorry for you,’ and when . . . we’re motivated out of feeling sorry . . . I think we do way more harm,” Josh reflected.

Now Josh has a different plan—“empower people to transform their neighborhoods.” The organization has been successful. Since it’s founding, Mission: St. Louis has helped men like Eddie find employment, provided after-school support for students and families, and facilitated home improvements.

Additionally, Beyond School, a division of Mission: St. Louis, has developed a summer program to combat the summer slide.

The summer slide (or summer learning loss) occurs when students in low-income communities lack learning opportunities during the summer. Many students from wealthier backgrounds have summers filled with trips to museums, camps, and other enriching activities. Low-income students do not. In fact, one study showed that more than half of the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students can be explained by students’ experiences in the summer.

While some have rallied around policy reforms such as year-round schooling to fix this problem, Mission: St. Louis demonstrates that the key to closing the gap between high- and low-income students is not only providing low-income students with learning opportunities, but also by providing a choice in what those opportunities are. This leads to more investment from the student and an all-around more positive experience.

I encourage you to check out our new video about the summer learning opportunities provided by Mission: St. Louis.

The post Mission: St. Louis Provides Summer Learning Opportunities appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When I asked students at Confluence Academy, a charter school in Saint Louis City, the age-old question, “What are you doing this summer?” most responded with, “Chillin’.”

On the makeshift survey I had passed out to students on the last day of school, they scribbled answers such as “nothing” or “hanging out” in the blank spaces. Where I had asked, “How many hours do you plan to read this summer?” most didn’t bother, not even to write a zero. One student read the question out loud and laughed to herself. Another crinkled the paper into a ball.

“We’re in the neighborhood. We’re seeing them out unsupervised, not really having a whole lot to do,” said Beyond School Director Erin Malone.

Beyond School is one division of Mission: St. Louis, a local nonprofit in the Grove neighborhood. The organization provides fourth to eighth graders with year-round expanded learning opportunities, one of which is an eight-week summer program created to combat summer learning loss. Summer learning loss, or the “summer slide,” occurs when students from low-income communities experience little to no learning outside the academic year.

One study showed that more than half of the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities. Partnering with Adams Elementary, Beyond School provides low-income students with math and reading instruction, as well as access to activities such as cross-fit, improv, and musical lessons. In the fall, Beyond School will begin a new partnership with the charter school South City Prep.

While Mission: St. Louis does not charge Adams Elementary and South City Prep for its services, the partnerships serve as an example of how organizations in the public and private sector can work together to fulfill educational needs in a low-income community.

Rising seventh-grader Christian is one of 22 students currently benefiting from the summer program. I had the opportunity to listen to her read If I Grow Up, a story about the challenges a young man faces as he grows up in the projects.

“The first year I tested our students, every single one of them was behind,” said Malone, a former teacher and reading specialist. “The kids literally just need to read. They need to read books they can understand and that they can have conversations about. That’s kind of just what we do.”

On average, students gain about five months in reading proficiency during their time in the program. This means the student will advance more than 60 percent of a school year within eight weeks. Compared to no gain or sliding backward, this is quite an accomplishment.

College students, retired community members, and even off-duty teachers volunteer as tutors. “It’s a community mentality. It’s not their kids, but our kids,” said Malone, who hopes to eventually expand the program into other schools.

“If you really want to eradicate poverty, this is one of the ways,” she said.

The post Combating the Summer Slide-A Community Effort appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On my first day of student teaching in a low-income community, one child cursed at me; another jumped out of her seat, fell flat on her face, and had to be sent to the nurse’s office with a bloody nose; and a third knocked an iPad out of my hands, cracking the screen. I wanted to cry, or quit, or yell and stomp my feet, but I didn’t do these things. I became a teacher to make a difference, so instead, I explained my classroom expectations, wrote the nurse’s pass, and picked the shattered glass off the floor.

Over the next few months, homework completion increased, behavior improved, and I felt like I was accomplishing something. However, one day, I noticed a child staring out the window at the construction site adjacent to the building.  The student mumbled to himself, “if only school was doing construction work, then I’d have an A-plus.” I was disappointed. How much pedagogy had I applied to the classroom? Flipped instruction, technology-based learning, Socratic circles, multiple intelligences — had these research-based methods not worked?

The truth is that this child, like many in Saint Louis, is a victim: a victim of poverty, a victim of bad teachers, a victim of a weak system, where a child’s future relies on five numbers.

Maybe this student wouldn’t have done better had he been born to a family from the 63017 ZIP code. But what if he had a choice to go to Shining Rivers Waldorf School, where students are encouraged to learn through hands-on activities, or Construction Careers Center, where students prepare for technical careers, while pursuing academic excellence?  If he had a choice, he would have a chance.

Just as I became a teacher to make a difference, I joined the Show-Me Institute team to make a difference. During my time in the classroom, I realized that many of the problems students and teachers face cannot be fixed by a single individual. Many of the problems require us to rethink how we operate our public school system. That is why I am excited to be part of the Show-Me Institute policy team. Our mission is clear — to expand opportunities for students.

I invite you to engage with us and share your ideas. Together, we can build a system that ensures that all students, regardless of the five numbers of their ZIP codes, have access to great schools that meet their needs.

The post A Student Is More Than Five Numbers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. A huge chunk of these tax receipts would then be spent by government officials on building and operating supermarkets. County residents, depending upon their specific residential addresses, would be assigned to a particular supermarket. Each family could then get its weekly allotment of groceries for “free.” (Department of Supermarket officials would no doubt be charged with the responsibility for determining the amounts and kinds of groceries that families of different types and sizes are entitled to receive.)

Except in rare circumstances, no family would be allowed to patronize a “public” supermarket outside of its district.

Residents of wealthier counties – such as Fairfax County, VA and Somerset County, NJ – would obviously have better-stocked and more attractive supermarkets than would residents of poorer counties. Indeed, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in determining people’s choices of neighborhoods in which to live.
[…]
Does anyone believe that such a system for supplying groceries would work well, or even one-tenth as well as the current private, competitive system that we currently rely upon for supplying grocery-retailing services?

You should read the whole thing, but I’d like to expand on Boudreaux’s analogy to show that such a system of public supermarkets would not only be inefficient, but also inherently inequitable.

Because people would try to buy houses in districts with good stores, much of the price of groceries would be built into the price of housing. The price of housing would rise, but not uniformly. Areas with relatively good supermarkets would become more expensive while areas with very poor supermarkets would become cheaper. Less expensive housing would attract people with lower incomes, and they would quickly become locked into a system of bad supermarkets.

Even if one of the supermarkets in a low-income area managed to improve drastically and become one of the better supermarkets, this likely would not benefit those low-income residents in the long run. The improved supermarket would attract people with relatively high incomes and slowly drive out those with low incomes through increased housing prices. Considering that housing is already the single largest expense for most Americans, tying rents to supermarket service would only further restrict the already limited options for buying food that those with low incomes currently face.

The analogy to education isn’t perfect, obviously. The biggest difference is that people without school-age children don’t usually consider a district’s school system when deciding where to live. That might help to explain why more young professionals are choosing to live in Saint Louis, but the city is losing population among almost every other group. As long as lower- and middle-class residents of cities like Saint Louis and Kansas City cannot choose from a number of quality schools, they will continue to stagnate or decline, trapping the worst in their failing institutions.

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