The school choice landscape in Missouri is improving, but most students are still limited to narrow district offerings.

The Solution

Fully commit to a modern school-choice landscape by requiring all school districts to participate in statewide interdistrict open enrollment, increase funding for the MOScholars program, and remove barriers to charter schools in any school district where demand exists.

Key Facts

• Because Missouri does not offer interdistrict school choice, students here are required to attend a school assigned to them based on their address, even if that school chronically underperforms academically or is persistently dangerous.
• As it is currently funded, the MOScholars program can provide scholarships for only about 20,000 of Missouri’s 880,000 public school students.
• Students have access to charter schools in just three of Missouri’s more than 500 school districts.

Interdistrict Choice

Under Kansas’s new interdistrict open enrollment law, every K-12 student can attend any public school in the state, regardless of where they live, as long as there are available seats in the desired school. School districts must participate in the program, and the Kansas Department of Education audits each district’s capacity annually to ensure compliance. Missouri students are largely denied this level of educational choice. In most cases, they are required to attend the school assigned to them based on their home address. In 2024, the Reason Foundation graded all states’ public school transfer and open enrollment laws, and Missouri received an “F.” There are many reasons why a family might want an alternative to their assigned school. The school could be too big or too small, a child may face bullying, or the school might not be able to meet the terms of an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Another issue that has come into focus of late is school safety—new federal guidance emphasizes that students who attend persistently dangerous schools must be provided with an opportunity to attend a safe public school.

Missouri students should be permitted to cross district lines to access any public school, and Missouri school districts should be required both to allow students to transfer out and to receive students from other districts when they have space. Information on available capacity should be posted on school and district web pages and monitored by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

Expanding the MOScholars Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program

MOScholars, Missouri’s private school choice program, provides scholarships for students with disabilities and for low- and middle-income families to attend private schools. These scholarships are distributed through education assistance organizations (EAOs), which receive funding from two sources: (1) $50 million in public funding appropriated during the 2025 legislative session, and (2) private donations, for which donors receive full state tax credits subject to certain limitations. The total value of tax credits is capped at $75 million annually.

The 2025 appropriation of public funding for MOScholars was a step in the right direction, but there is more to be done. If all available tax credits are used, the combined public and private funding would total $125 million— enough to provide scholarships for approximately 20,000 Missouri students. While this is great news for the students who receive funding, it accounts for only a small share of Missouri’s nearly 880,000 public school students.

Voter and parent support for school choice programs is widespread. In a survey of parents taken in June 2021, approximately 75% of parents responded that they somewhat or strongly support ESA programs like MOScholars. If the legislature is serious about supporting this program, it should continue to expand funding to reach more students.

Charter School Expansion

Flexibility, freedom from bureaucracy, and the opportunity to innovate make charter schools a valuable addition to any school district—including those in remote, rural areas. Research shows that on average, charter schools outperform traditional public schools in raising academic achievement and some charter schools deliver results that are substantially better.

In nearly every state, charter schools are available to families in every type of community. In 2022–23, there were 984 rural charter schools enrolling 394,400 public school students nationwide, including 119 schools in communities designated by the Census Bureau as “remote rural.” However, of the 43 states with charter schools, Missouri is the only one with none located in rural areas.

As of 2025, charter schools are currently available to Missouri families in just three out of more than 500 school districts (Kansas City, the City of St. Louis, and Normandy). The reason is simple: In Missouri, charter schools in accredited districts can only open with the approval of the local school board. This is effectively a ban on opening charter schools in most locales. Legislation passed in 2024 allows charter schools to open in Boone County without the sponsorship of a local school board. No charter schools are operating in Boone County yet—it takes a while to open a new school—but they should be soon.

This legislation is a step in the right direction, but the real solution is to eliminate the requirement for local board sponsorship and let the market decide where charters belong. Every Missouri family should have access to this form of school choice.

Policy Recommendations

• Allow students to choose schools outside their residentially zoned districts in order to access broader education options.
• Continue to increase public funding for the MOScholars ESA program.
• Remove restrictions on where charters can open and who must sponsor them.

The post Statewide School Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

What Is Off Limits?

As Show-Me Institute analysts have written about extensively, Missouri parents have fewer public schooling options than families in many other states, including many of our bordering states. First, Missouri does not have a cross-district open enrollment program. This means that the man I spoke with cannot have his son attend a public school outside of his zoned district unless another district chooses to accept him and he pays the tuition set by the new district.

Next, since he is zoned to attend a school district in western St. Louis County, charter schools are also off limits. Charter schools currently only exist in the City of St. Louis, Kansas City, and Normandy. Why is this the case? Charter schools require sponsors, and for accredited districts, the local school board must approve the charter school to operate. This has never happened in Missouri—the requirement of local school board sponsorship has essentially acted as a ban on charter operations in most of Missouri. And without open enrollment, no one outside of a charter school’s local district can enroll. In other states, schools like the Arizona Autism Charter School attract parents from far and wide.

The Good News

After these options were crossed off, the family is left with the options of the local public school district, a private school, or homeschool.

Private schools charge tuition, but thankfully, Missouri has an education savings account (ESA) program—MOScholars—that can help meet some of those costs for interested families. If the student has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), or if the student’s family household income is less than 300% of the federal poverty level, the student is eligible for a scholarship that can be used for private school tuition. However, the program is capped at $75 million in total funding. That means that even if a student qualifies, there may not be enough money for every eligible applicant to actually receive a scholarship. (If you are interested in MOScholars, you can learn more here.)

Unfortunately, there are not many choices available to the parent who reached out to me, and there is no choice at all when it comes to public schools. This is true for most Missourians. The Show-Me State needs more public options for our students and families. Next year, when someone asks me a similar question, I want to have a better answer.

The post What Are My Schooling Options as a Missouri Parent? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There are two key factors to consider when answering this question: academic promotion and social promotion.

• Academic promotion is straightforward—as students gain an understanding of the material, they advance to the next level and build on what they learned in the grade before.
• Social promotion is based on age and allows students to stay with their friends and peers throughout their school experience.

Social promotion largely wins the day in schools. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 40 percent of Missouri 4th graders scored below basic on the 4^th-grade reading assessment in 2022. Additionally, 15.1 percent of the same 4th graders scored below basic on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP).

However, recently, some states have put more emphasis on academic promotion.

Some States Are Focusing More on Academic Promotion

In states such as Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida, 3rd grade students can be prevented from advancing to 4th grade if they do not meet reading requirements. This is typically referred to as a “third-grade retention policy.”

All three states have seen significant gains in reading achievement. Mississippi’s commitment to mandatory phonics instruction and 3rd-grade retention has contributed to such a large boost in reading scores, it has been referred by many as the “Mississippi Miracle.”

On the NAEP, Mississippi’s scores increased by almost 10 percentage points between 2013 and 2022. Missouri’s decreased by 6 percentage points over that time period.

Mississippi also implemented targeted reading instruction based on evidence-based reading. It is hard to disconnect 3rd-grade retention from intentional instruction.

Considerations for Weighing a 3rd-Grade Retention Policy

After the pandemic, reading scores in Missouri not only initially nosedived, but they sadly continued to decrease and remained low. Missouri may need to consider new strategies to help our students in need.

However, social promotion is not unimportant. For students who are trying hard and get left behind, this can be a very tough social situation. Having friends go on to the next grade means the student left behind has less interaction with friends—different classes, different sports teams, different lunch schedules, and more.

Additionally, kids being older than their peers can create awkward social situations and increase bullying.

Mississippi’s policy attempts to balance different priorities when considering retention. It has the :

• Limited English proficient students who had less than 2 years of instruction in an English Language Learner program.
• Students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Program (IEP) indicates that participation in statewide assessment programs is not appropriate.
• Students with disabilities who demonstrate a reading deficiency but whose IEP has provided them with intensive reading remediation for more than two years.
• Students with disabilities who demonstrate a reading deficiency but were previously retained in a K-3 grade.
• Students who meet an acceptable level of reading proficiency on an alternative standardized assessment approved by the Mississippi State Board of Education.
• Students who demonstrate a reading deficiency despite having received two or more years of intensive reading intervention and have been retained in a K-3 grade for two years without meeting exceptional education criteria.

Third-grade retention has a demonstrated track record of success in other states, and it should be given consideration as Missouri students continue to struggle in reading.

The post Should Missouri Consider a 3rd-Grade Retention Policy? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The impact and effectiveness of school choice programs and policies vary based on multiple factors. What does a theoretical “good version” of legislation related to school choice look like? Are there specific examples you can point to?

Well, if you listened to my opening remarks, it may not be hard to guess what I am going to suggest. Choice is good and we need more of it.

After more than two decades, we don’t have charter schools outside of St. Louis and Kansas City. Why is that? Because our current policy requires charters to seek school district approval if they want to open in a district that is fully accredited. This is like allowing Wal-Mart to decide whether a Dierbergs or a Schnucks can open in its town. When it comes to charter school policy, we must, first off, allow charters to open throughout the state under the sponsorship of a university or the State Charter Commission.

Second, we must allow charter schools to enroll students across district boundaries. The average school district in Missouri has something like 1,500 kids. Part of the challenge with opening a new charter school is attracting students—this is particularly challenging when you are limited to a pool of 1,500. Students should be allowed to move across district lines to attend a charter school.

In fact, all kids should be allowed to move across district lines to attend another public school. This is especially true if your local school district moves to a four-day school week. Did you know that roughly a third of all Missouri school districts are now four-day districts? We have some new research coming out at the Show-Me Institute that you might be interested in. We surveyed 1,200 Missouri parents. You know which group was the most opposed to the four-day school week? Parents who cannot provide reliable childcare for their children—the people who will be most impacted by these decisions. I suggest full open enrollment, but at the very least, moving to a four-day school week should be an automatic trigger for open enrollment.

Close to 70% of Republicans and Democrats alike supported the idea of giving parents the right to transfer to another school district if their school moves to a four-day week. More than 60% supported offering a private school voucher.

When it comes to private school choice, again, we need more of it. Our current tax credit education savings account (ESA) program should be expanded. Now, I’m in favor of the state funding these accounts and providing every family with access to at least the state adequacy amount. We can look to Arizona and Florida as models. But I understand expansion is often incremental and there are incremental changes we can make with our current program. Here, the state needs to do three things:

First, remove all geographic limitations. There is no reason a student should be denied access to a scholarship account because they live just over a county line.

Second, increase eligibility. The program should be as near to universal as possible. Every parent should have the ability to send their children to the school of their choice.

I suppose those first two are really the same thing—increase access.

Third, we should increase the average scholarship amount. Opponents of school choice are funny in this regard. They remind me of that old quote by Woody Allen, “The food is bad and the portions are small.” They say “vouchers are bad . . . and the voucher amounts are too small.” Well, I may not be able to change their opinion on vouchers, but we can work to increase the amount!

Currently, we peg the scholarship amount to the state adequacy target, which is approaching $7,000. Yet, in public schools we weight the funding formula. We provide additional funds for special needs students, students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), and students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. We even weight the formula for places with higher cost of living. The ESA program should be allowed to do the same thing. A student with special needs or a student from a poor family should be eligible for more funds in this program, just as they are in public schools.

The bottom line is this—we should continue to push for expansion of school choice programs until every child in this state has multiple educational options. No child should have to attend their local public school because they cannot access another school. They should attend their local public school only if it is the right choice for them.

The post School Choice is Good – Part 2   appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

By now, we have all seen that wonderful photo of the young child sitting in the backseat of her parents’ car. You know, the one where the adorable blonde with buck teeth gives her mother the side eye. The meme has been shared countless times via social media. It also happens to exemplify the exact feeling I had upon reviewing the Heritage Foundation’s recently released Education Freedom Report Card.

The report ranked Missouri 17th overall in terms of education freedom. This ranking includes measures on “transparency,” “regulatory freedom,” and “spending.” But it was the ranking on “school choice” that stood out the most. The Heritage Foundation ranked Missouri 4th in the country in terms of having the best school choice environment. This ranking included considerations for private school choice, private school choice program design, charter schools, homeschooling, and public school choice.

The reason I was so shocked by this ranking should be obvious to anyone living in the Show-Me State—school choice options are almost nonexistent for anyone living outside of St. Louis or Kansas City.

This is what school choice looks like in Missouri.

Charter Schools

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that in Missouri there were 71 total charter schools in 2019—20 (Missouri ranks 27th in the number of charter schools). This accounts for 2.9 percent of total public schools (34th overall). In total, these charter schools served fewer than 25,000 students (28th overall), or 2.7% of all public school students (34th overall).

What the NCES rankings don’t reveal is that all these schools and all these students are in either St. Louis City or Kansas City. Missouri has had charter schools for more than 20 years. The first one ever to open outside of the major cities just opened this year; the Leadership School opened with 94 students in the Normandy School District, and it faced considerable opposition. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

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. In 2021, Normandy students scored lower than any district in the state in English with 14% proficiency and second lowest in math with 5% proficiency.

This is what number four looks like?

Private School Choice

The Missouri Legislature created the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program in 2021. Students are using the program for the first time this year. EdChoice reports that 51% of families in “applicable Missouri cities and counties” are eligible for the program. While that sounds impressive, it is not. The program is limited to counties eligible for charter schools or cities with more than 30,000 residents. Just as charter schools are out of reach for many in our state, these program restrictions put school choice out of reach for many Missourians. Furthermore, that 51% number includes everyone eligible based on income restrictions without taking into account other factors (200% of the federal free-and-reduced price lunch income level).

Even if you do live in Clay, Jackson, Jefferson, St. Charles, or St. Louis County (the eligible counties), or Columbia, St. Joseph, Joplin, Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau, and the City of St. Louis (the eligible cities) and you meet the income requirements, you still have other hurdles. Your child must meet one of the following criteria to be eligible: have an Individualized Education Program, be entering kindergarten or first grade, or have attended public school the previous year.

At most, based on the number of tax credits available for the program, the scholarship program could serve 3,900 Missouri students.

This is what number four looks like?

We are certainly glad to see the small gains Missouri has made toward greater educational freedom, but the work is not done despite this curious number four ranking.

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

This is great news. The bill has passed the House with a wide majority and now is primed for the Senate as a whole.

I am a firm believer that we will be judged by how we treated the least among us. I cannot think of students in more need than those in our foster care system and those with special needs. Creating programs that expand their educational options is the right thing to do, and I’m glad to see support for it in both the house and senate.

As I submitted in my written testimony on HB 2307 (before the bills were combined):

Students with special needs are the perfect candidates for education savings accounts. After all, when we talk about what traditional public schools must do to design an education program for a student with special needs, we call it an “individualized education plan.”

We recognize that each of these students, even though they might be diagnosed with the same learning issue, is unique and will need an education customized directly for them. There is no better way to create that customized education than through an education savings account program.

There is also a pernicious belief that school choice programs will “skim” the top performing students or the children who are easiest to educate. Creating a program specifically for students with special refutes that notion. There are educational providers all across the state who want to help students, even those with learning needs that present serious challenges, and such a program would help them to do so.

Here’s hoping the ball keeps rolling!

The post School Choice Is on a Roll! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Most recently, in a Post-Dispatch letter-to-the-editor, a Ferguson resident responded to my commentary about expanding access to public charter schools. “Charter schools can pick and choose whom they allow in, unlike the public schools who, by law, must take in everyone including troubled and handicapped students,” he wrote.

It is true that typically charter schools enroll a smaller percentage of students with disabilities than traditional public schools. Some, like the above letter writer, believe that means charter schools only accept the “crème of the crop,” taking away the “best and brightest” from traditional public schools. But that isn’t the case.

One report found that students with disabilities are simply less likely to apply to attend charter schools. This may be because parents prefer the resources their children receive at their local traditional public school. It may be because parents are counseled away from the option either by a charter school or the traditional public school their child attends. More likely than not, parents may be unaware that their child can even attend a charter school.  That’s selection on the parent’s, not the school’s, part.

If a critic wanted to find out about charters serving students with special needs, they would need to look no further than St. Louis’ own EAGLE College Preparatory School. In its application, the charter school outlines the types of services it provides to students with special needs. Today, the percentage of students with disabilities at EAGLE is 13 percent. The statewide average incidence rate of students with special needs is 12.69 percent.

When I visited EAGLE, I had the opportunity to speak with Regional Special Education Director Elisha Ferguson, who told me, “Charter schools have gotten a bad rap, because people assume they don’t offer these (disability) resources. It’s a lack of information”

According to Ferguson, all students at EAGLE receive small-group support. Even students without disabilities who have been identified as needing additional help receive special attention. This is in contrast to the complicated and time-consuming process parents, teachers, and students must go through just for a child to receive an individualized education plan (IEP). Federal law and implementing regulations do not set a timeline for the IEP process—in some cases it can take months before a child receives special accommodations.

At EAGLE, you can’t tell which child has a disability and which doesn’t—every child is treated as having unique needs. This is the exact approach that we should be supporting, not stifling.

It’s unfortunate that misperceptions about charter schools still linger in Missouri policy discussion. Falsehoods that are spread through a lack of information, or exposure to misinformation, add nothing to the conversation. In fact, they may be preventing some children from receiving a quality education.

The post Charter Schools Do Serve Students with Special Needs appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I’m happy that the dog and boy will stay together, and I’m also glad that some of the district’s infuriating arguments were disregarded. The district claims the dog is not a true service dog because he isn’t listed in the boy’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). But the boy’s doctors said he should get a dog, and the dog was specially trained for several thousand dollars, paid for by the parents — that sounds like a service dog to me.

IEP’s can’t be as comprehensive as full medical evaluations; they’re basically lists of learning goals, and shouldn’t override doctors’ orders. And, because the district doesn’t want the dog in class, of course they wouldn’t recommend a dog in an IEP. You can’t conclude that the boy doesn’t need the dog just because the district left dogs out of the document.

This statement by the district Superintendent is misleading:

“If 230 students were to bring animals, it would be catastrophic to the degree it would be uncontrollable and very unhealthy to the students,” Settles said.

We’re not talking about pets brought for show and tell, but animals (usually dogs; I don’t know which other animals the district is expecting) that help children cope with serious medical problems. Dogs have to go through a lot of screening and training before they are given to patients. “Uncontrollable” animals don’t make the cut. I should hope the district would not advance similar arguments against a service dog used because of epilepsy or vision impairment. Autism deserves equal consideration.

Although the judge issued an injunction in the boy’s favor, I’m standing by my assertion that he would be better off with tuition tax credits. No one should have to attend a school that resents his service dog and that fought hard in court to exclude it.

The post Service Dog Update appeared first on Show-Me Institute.