Avery Frank, Elias Tsapelas, and David Stokes join Zach Lawhorn to break down the final week of the 2026 Missouri legislative session. They discuss the constitutional amendment heading to voters that would begin the process of eliminating Missouri’s state income tax, where property tax reform efforts stand heading into the final days, the early literacy bill’s uncertain path through the Senate, the legislature’s approach to A through F school report cards, what the state budget does and does not get right, the Ferguson city council’s rejection of a major data center tax subsidy, and more.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Episode Transcript

Zach Lawhorn (00:00): Welcome to the Show-Me Institute podcast. I’m Zach Lawhorn from Show-Me Opportunity. Today I’m joined by Avery Frank, Elias Tsapelas, and David Stokes from the Show-Me Institute. It is the last week of the 2026 Missouri legislative session. Today we’re going to go through what has crossed the finish line, mostly what has not crossed the finish line, and see what these guys think about the possibility of that happening here in the home stretch. Elias, we’ll begin with something that has crossed the finish line, and that is the start of a discussion about phasing out Missouri’s state income tax. Legislation did pass. It goes to the governor, and he gets to decide when it goes on the ballot. So what do we know right now, what passed, and what are Missouri voters going to be asked sometime in the fall?

Elias Tsapelas (00:50): By May 22nd, the governor needs to decide whether this constitutional amendment will go on the August or November ballot. What it says, essentially, is to Missouri voters: do you want to start the process of getting rid of Missouri’s income tax? It comes with three main components. The first piece is the legislature will be required to enact legislation that would get rid of the state’s income tax based on revenue growth. Once that income tax is gone, it cannot be reinstituted. Previous versions of this bill had some details lined out about how the income tax rate would be cut based on revenue growth, but in later versions this was stripped back to just the legislature will decide this later. The other two pieces say you will also be authorizing the legislature to expand the state sales tax base, meaning the things the state sales tax applies to. This could also involve changing the rate, because right now Missouri’s constitution does not allow the state legislature to expand the sales tax to anything that was not taxed in 2015. But this does come with a guardrail: if the legislature does change the state sales tax, it has to be done in a revenue neutral fashion. So expanding the sales tax base or raising the rate to bring in additional tax revenues has to go towards lowering the state income tax. That gives the legislature the authority to change how much revenue comes in, which would speed up the process for getting rid of the income tax. The last piece is a component for local governments. If the state changes the number of things that the sales tax applies to, this would also increase revenues to local governments. Those additional revenues would have to go towards a list of other taxes that would be lowered. In places like St. Louis and Kansas City, that would go towards lowering the earnings tax. For other local governments, they get to choose whether it goes towards lowering the sales tax, property tax, personal property taxes, or real property taxes. The key piece being revenue neutral. This is not going to be a windfall for anyone. It is basically the start of a discussion, because they don’t say what the rate might need to go to, what the sales tax could be expanded to, or what revenues would trigger income tax elimination or cuts. This is just the start of the discussion, giving the legislature the authority to keep moving in the direction we started around 2014.

Zach Lawhorn (03:57): Taking those a piece at a time: the first one, if it passes and the income tax is eliminated at some point, it cannot come back. That seems pretty straightforward. The next two seem like responses to opposition that we hear on a regular basis. The first being the revenue triggers, which seem designed to prevent what we often hear about with Kansas, where they cut the income tax without cutting spending, leading to revenue shortfalls. And the expansion of the sales tax base seems like protection against having to raise the sales tax rate on goods. Do I have that right?

Elias Tsapelas (04:40): Yes. The revenue trigger piece is basically what Missouri has been doing for a while, waiting to see how much revenue we have before lowering the income tax by that amount. We’ve been doing that for over a decade now and have lowered the top individual income tax rate from 6% to 4.7%. We’re just continuing down that path to be sure we don’t create some enormous budget hole. Now, when you look at the sales tax, Missouri has a very complicated, out-of-date sales tax system. The state sales tax rate is 4.225%, but when you go to the store you’re paying something significantly higher, largely due to local governments and a lot of special taxing districts. Missouri also has a lot of sales tax exemptions. Missouri really needs a full look at its entire sales tax system. But economically, when thinking about switching a state from being primarily funded by income taxes to something closer to sales taxes, the best way to fund a state is to tax as broad a base as possible so you can have the lowest rate possible. You want to be taxing final consumption, not business inputs. As we start the idea of transferring to more of a consumption tax in Missouri, the goal is to make sure it doesn’t become a tax increase for some people while things change elsewhere. It’s trying to keep it level the whole way, and at least right now it seems like a pretty neutral proposal going forward.

Zach Lawhorn (06:24): David, for people who don’t think about taxes as a corresponding tax system, can you explain the idea of local governments rolling back certain taxes and how people might experience that on their property tax bills or personal property tax bills?

David Stokes (06:44): It’s trickier than you might think, but it’s vital that it be done right. If you expand the sales tax base at the state level, as Elias discussed, you don’t want local governments to start collecting significantly more sales tax revenue for no reason. At the state level we’ll do something good with that and phase out the income tax, but at the local government level we don’t want just more revenue with nothing to spend it on. You need tax relief for citizens, which is why they’re going to require rollbacks. They’ve given local governments some options in how you roll that rate back, which is a good thing, but they need to give them a few more options. For example, they said you could roll back property taxes, real property taxes, personal property taxes, or sales taxes. A few things that need to be considered: many municipalities don’t have a property tax, so they won’t be able to roll back the property tax. And it’s trickier to roll back sales taxes than you might think. Unlike property taxes and income taxes, which can be reduced in small increments, sales taxes have to be done in set increments. You can’t go from a 1% sales tax to a 0.92% sales tax. It’s just not allowed and would be incredibly difficult for retailers to implement. So local governments need even more flexibility in how they roll back taxes. I would say the utility tax, which just about every county imposes, is a great option to add to the choice mix for rollbacks. These are the sales taxes that can be placed on utilities, which unlike other sales taxes can be rolled back in small increments. That’s a very good option. The biggest challenge of all, though, is the special taxing districts that Elias mentioned earlier, such as transportation development districts and community improvement districts. These usually only have sales taxes and nothing else. You have to address what they do if their sales tax collections go up 30% and they have no legal way to roll it back by that same amount. So we need to adjust that. I would also hope that part of this whole deal would be a substantial cap on how these special taxing districts like TDDs and CIDs operate in the first place, to really restrict their continued expansion in Missouri, which has been very harmful. Those are just a few ideas out of many in how local governments are going to have to address this.

Zach Lawhorn (09:59): Finally, Elias, as you said, it’ll be on the ballot sometime in the fall. But between now and either August or November, people interested in this topic are going to see a lot of data, modeling, estimates, and projections. We want to be honest about what we can know and what we cannot know. With the legislation that has passed now, what should people keep in mind when they see some of these estimates or models or projections this summer?

Elias Tsapelas (10:39): The first thing is, if you see anything claiming this is going to generate a tremendous budget shortfall or major harm to local governments, this thing is set up to be revenue neutral. This is not something that is going to create enormous holes. Most of the time, estimates that reach that conclusion assume this would work in an entirely different way than what is allowed. So that is something you don’t necessarily need to worry about. What people are more reasonably worried about is: if you empower the legislature to expand or raise the sales tax, how is that going to impact everyone? Missouri’s state and local combined sales tax rates are relatively high already. The state’s portion is pretty low, but combined it’s relatively high. So what the state decides to do in terms of how much it expands the sales tax base, whether that involves more services versus goods, will impact different people differently, in different parts of the state and at different income levels. Anything right now that says this is definitely going to be bad for X person, we just can’t know that, because there’s not enough information out there. Everyone should keep an open mind and also recognize that the reason for this amendment and this proposal is that Missouri’s economy is falling behind. We are falling behind our neighbors in terms of tax competitiveness, and the only way to change that is to improve Missouri’s tax standing. Our sales tax system is incredibly broken, so this is something that is going to need to be fixed. At least right now we are at the point of asking: do we want to go down this path? Let’s hope the legislature does a good job. We’ll be shining a light on whatever they do, but we can’t know some of the things that people are warning about right now.

Zach Lawhorn (12:50): David, after the legislature got the income tax bills out the door, they shifted to talking about property taxes, which is something we hear a lot about. People want property tax reform. With only a few days left in the session, where do those efforts stand and what are your thoughts?

David Stokes (13:11): Unlike a lot of the property tax changes of the past few years, I actually like the property tax changes being proposed this year. At least one property tax bill is in conference committee being debated between the House and Senate right now. Another major bill has passed out of the Senate but hasn’t made it through the House yet. I’m told there are going to have to be some compromises on both sides to get a bill across the finish line, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The biggest change this year, which seems very much in the weeds but is significant, would take the way property taxes are imposed in St. Louis County and apply it to the rest of the state. St. Louis County has different tax rates for all the different types of property: residential, agricultural, commercial, and personal property, which includes your car, boat, farm equipment, livestock, and the like. Those rates adjust differently as assessments go up and down each year. This approach was originally intended to be extended to the rest of the state about 20 years ago when they did it in St. Louis County, but the following year they came back and said the rest of the state didn’t have to do it. It’s a good idea. It might sound strange to some people, but a good example of why it would be beneficial came from stories in the St. Louis Business Journal about the real decline in commercial property values in the city of St. Louis over the past year. Because they set one tax rate measured under one unified property value, residential homeowners in St. Louis end up making up with their taxes for the decline in commercial property. In St. Louis County, with the siloed tax rates, if commercial property goes down, the commercial property tax rate will go up to offset that instead of passing it on to homeowners. In rural Missouri, which has so much agricultural property, this would allow agricultural property tax rates to increase to fund goods in rural areas without as dramatically impacting commercial and residential property. I think this is a good idea and I hope it passes. There are also some good amendments that would put taxpayer protections in place to avoid the temptation of local officials to target commercial property with these new different tax rates. It’s in the weeds, but I think these are good changes this year.

Zach Lawhorn (16:24): That sounds like the other side of the coin from what’s happened in Jackson County, where over the last few years people have been very upset that their assessments have gone up by more than 20% and residential homeowners have seen gigantic leaps in their property taxes. Is this kind of like having to turn one knob one way and another knob the other way?

David Stokes (16:55): Sort of. The tricky part is that the situation in Jackson County for the past 10 years has been so bad, it’s hard to compare it to other counties. It’s been uniquely horrible for the people of Jackson County. But it does start with one basic truth: 15 to 20 years ago, Jackson County was under-assessed. The assessor was ordered to increase the valuations because they were improperly low, and probably artificially and intentionally low. The right approach would have been to raise those assessed valuations to more accurate totals while lowering the rates at the same time to avoid crushing people with higher taxes. But Jackson County’s taxing entities have not really done that, starting with the Kansas City 33 school district, a very large school district in Kansas City, which is the only taxing body in Missouri exempt from rolling back rates as values increase. So you’ve seen these giant increases within that school district and they don’t even have to roll back rates. They just get to keep their same rates, as they have frequently over the past 10 years. So people are getting walloped. And then you throw in the fact that the Kansas City Assessor’s Office has done a terrible job managing the process year after year, not hitting deadlines for notifying people about changes and not properly running the appeals process. It’s just been a terrible system in Jackson County, and almost uniquely so.

Zach Lawhorn (18:30): All right. Before we have Elias read the budget line by line, Avery, I want to get an update on the education items here in the last week of the session. Early literacy, the reading bill, we’ve been talking about it all session long. How’s it looking?

Avery Frank (18:47): When it first passed out of the House before spring break, 131 to 10, I was genuinely excited. It wasn’t necessarily that it passed so early; it was that it passed with such little resistance and such bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle. Teaching our students how to read, giving every student the best chance to become a confident, capable reader, that seems like common sense and a goal that everyone wants to work toward to help our state improve and perhaps become the next Mississippi. It looked that way before spring break, but the Senate version of the early literacy bill got filibustered and set aside. The House bill has made it through the process and is on the informal calendar for third reading, so it could be taken up at any time. If it does pass the Senate, I anticipate it would easily pass the House again. But that is the problem with a lot of education legislation: can it pass the Senate? There have been different concerns about the early literacy bills. Some people are concerned that the MAP test, or the Missouri Assessment Program, which we use to test all of our students, is not a good measure and we shouldn’t be basing anything on it. Some are concerned with third-grade retention and whether it actually helps, looking at states like Mississippi and noting that while fourth-grade scores are great, eighth-grade scores have only improved a little. Those are the main pushbacks we’re seeing. I would still say this is something we really need to do. The early literacy bill is built on two different pillars. The first is a mandatory third-grade retention policy. Missouri already tests all K through third-grade students with a reading screener to see how they’re doing with reading. What this bill would do is set a passing score for those screeners. If students don’t meet that score, they would be retained in third grade, because reading is such a foundational skill. If you don’t know how to read, that’s something worth holding back for, to make sure students get it down before moving on for the rest of their educational career. Students would still have the opportunity to retake the screener, and there would be good-cause exemptions for students with disabilities, for students who have been held back previously, and for English language learners. The second main pillar is reforming our teacher preparation programs. In 2023, the National Council on Teacher Quality conducted a survey of all of our universities and teacher preparation programs and found that half of them received an F in teaching the science of reading, which is the best evidence-based way to teach students to read. The early literacy bill would align our teacher prep programs with those best practices. If they don’t do it, they can’t certify teachers. You can see how there could be pushback and reason why people would filibuster or not want it to come to the floor. That’s where it stands right now. I’m hoping people set aside their objections and recognize that this is a great first step to get Missouri back on track. Our reading scores have been really poor, especially after the pandemic. They continue to decrease and have not bounced back at all. They’re lower now than they were the first year after the pandemic, and we have to turn things around. These early literacy bills, I hope people see the common sense in them.

Zach Lawhorn (22:30): It’s not even the perfect being the enemy of the good. It’s just people being afraid to push back against the status quo. Missouri has fallen back in reading test scores, and other states, most notably Mississippi, have found ways to improve. I don’t think it’s helpful to frame this as some kind of radical moonshot. In the final days of the session, the urgency cannot be overstated. The other thing we’ve talked about a lot this session is A through F report cards, a transparency measure. Governor Kehoe issued an executive order before the session started. What’s the status of the legislature trying to adhere to the governor’s executive order?

Avery Frank (23:19): The legislature has tried to legislate its own way into how the executive order gets implemented, because DESE, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, could implement it in their own way. The legislature wants to determine how things are going to be scored instead of letting DESE make that decision. There’s been a lot of back and forth, and a lot of different interested parties. Not to get too in the weeds, but some districts really want academic achievement, their base score on the Missouri Assessment Program, to be weighed the most heavily because that would give them the highest score. Some want growth to be weighed the most heavily for the same reason. Some want basically no grades and a lot more qualitative information. There are a lot of different factors. The best vehicle for A through F report cards right now looks like Senate Bill 1351, which continues the long legacy of education omnibus bills used in recent years in Missouri. It combines the report card, limits on screen time for young students, and a couple of other things. I’m not sure if that’s going to make it past, to be honest. People are still concerned about whether the Missouri Assessment Program is something they want to base all of this on. Personally, I think the executive order is better than the legislation as it currently stands. They got rid of one aspect I liked as a researcher: in Governor Kehoe’s executive order, there was a penalty if districts didn’t report their data properly. In the current legislation, Senate Bill 1351, if districts don’t report sufficient data, it’s just written as an aside, basically saying they have to note on their report card that there is not sufficient data, and then they’re not included in the ranking as much. I don’t like that. It gives districts, especially poorly performing ones, an incentive not to report their data so they can have this qualifier on all of their report cards. I also don’t like it because, from all the education research I’ve been doing, we really do have a data reporting problem and we need to be a lot better about transparency. I hope we get some good report cards, because right now at the Show-Me Institute we do our best with the data we have, but we have to work with unsuppressed data, meaning we don’t have data that could potentially identify certain students. So there are some districts we have no data on because they’re so small. But DESE and the state have the best data possible. They could make a really good report card even better than we could, because they have better data than we do. That’s why I’m really hoping we get a good report card, because it would be very helpful for all the parents, legislators, and researchers across the state to see which districts are doing well and learn from them, and which ones are doing poorly and need more support.

Zach Lawhorn (26:42): Let’s talk about the budget. Elias, the legislature passed the budget a little early this year. They beat the deadline by a couple of days, right?

Elias Tsapelas (26:53): They finished early, which is a little bit different than the last few years.

Zach Lawhorn (26:56): Are we spending more or less money than last year?

Elias Tsapelas (27:01): Spending less, but I’m not throwing them a party. There’s just a lot less federal money going around. There was a lot of COVID money in recent years, and Missouri hasn’t spent all of it. The current budget this year is about $54 billion. What the legislature passed is a little bit less than $50 billion, depending on whether you count different construction items. But there was a lot of federal money in that total. At the end of the day, what we’re looking at is a budget that is still going to spend more general revenue, where our income and sales tax dollars go. It’s still going to spend more than we expect to bring in. So we’re still going to exhaust all of our surplus that we built up over those years. There were some positive things that happened this year, but ultimately part of how they got the budget done early was by spending just a little bit more, so they left some of the good on the table.

Zach Lawhorn (28:20): So we’re spending the surplus, as you’ve been warning about for several years, the federal money is drying up, and to circle back to the opening segment, I think part of the trust the legislature is going to have to build this summer is demonstrating we’re getting spending under control. You said you’re not throwing them a party. But is this reduction, whatever the reason, directionally good enough for the legislature to say they’re working on the spending side of things, or is it just not good enough?

Elias Tsapelas (29:00): I think I’ll know a lot more going into next year, because there were a lot better discussions this year, especially looking at spending incentives. As was mentioned, DESE is going to have a new funding formula, or at least the governor has a task force working on one. The way education is funded for K through 12 is going to change. There was also a big fight this year about how to fund higher education. What seemed to me like a common sense idea, essentially having the legislature fund colleges based on how many students are enrolled, turned out to be considered too radical and was pushed off for the future. But there’s talk of coming back with a performance funding measure going forward. There’s also some movement on changing how the state does its IT work. There are a lot of IT changes coming, including things affecting Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Missouri has a very bad track record with IT. Part of this budget moves some IT resources over to the Department of Social Services to support getting things going there, because most IT for the state of Missouri is currently consolidated in the Office of Administration. While that can seem efficient because every state department doesn’t need its own IT department, it also makes it a lot harder to hold people accountable. There has been a big issue recently with the state’s accounting software, where a contract is millions of dollars behind schedule and not working. The budget tries to get at that too, and it raises this major incentive question: are the people in charge of implementing new IT going to do their best at something that will ultimately try to eliminate their job? I think the legislature is finally starting to deal with that. Ultimately, if we go down the path of a more efficient government and a better tax system, that may mean fewer state employees, and that is something that hasn’t come up much but I think the legislature is finally starting to look at. Pushing toward better funding models, a better state workforce, all those type of things, is moving in the right direction as opposed to how it has been, where the budget just grows larger every year. They’re looking in the right direction. I would have liked to see more, but I think we’ll know a lot more in the next year, especially because the federal COVID funding will essentially be gone.

Zach Lawhorn (32:12): Our final topic, partly so we can put it in the title of the episode for clicks, but also because it seems like every week there’s a story from across the country or across the state about data centers and communities pushing back for a lot of reasons. The most recent one was Ferguson in the St. Louis area. David, can you catch us up on what was on the table for this data center in Ferguson and what happened?

David Stokes (32:40): The vote that the Ferguson city council took last week was strictly on a tax subsidy, I believe about $1.8 billion in tax abatements and various subsidies for the project. It was not a vote on approving the data center itself. This was a commercially zoned area, so it didn’t need any permission to put a data center there, and that’s a good thing. But the city nonetheless rejected the tax subsidy, which I thought was the right call. These data centers are very profitable and important, and I’m certainly not anti-data center. But the demand that they get enormous subsidies everywhere they seem to be going is improper. Festus was right to approve the data center operation there, but I think very much wrong to approve the enormous tax subsidy the city granted, which I believe was about a half a billion dollars. Avery can correct me if I’m wrong on that exact number. I like what Ferguson did, and I hope the data center moves into the old Emerson complex there nonetheless. We need data centers. Data centers produce so much tax revenue that they can generate their own tax cuts, and I don’t mean a special subsidy for the data center itself. I mean they go into a city or a small area, generate so much revenue, and you can cut taxes for everybody in that community, including the data center itself. I think that’s the road to follow, and hopefully that’s what we’ll have in Missouri. I also think we need to change the way data centers are taxed in an upcoming legislative session, taxing them a little more like utilities to reduce the incentive for one city or county to hand out a big subsidy and instead spread those tax benefits around a little more.

Zach Lawhorn (34:46): Avery, are you heartened by this rejection? Because as David said, we need the data centers, but we really want to avoid this new layer of corporate welfare that could pop up everywhere. So how do you feel about it?

Avery Frank (35:00): I’m actually very excited by the rejection in Ferguson. I’ve talked to a lot of people on both sides of the data center debate, those who have gone to the meetings and stayed up until 3 a.m. and protested, and those who want them. When I look at this Ferguson project specifically, the numbers David was talking about involved granting up to 15 years of tax abatements on real estate, personal property, and sales tax for a data center project. When I see something like that, it gets at what David was talking about. The only true significant benefit of a data center is the tax revenue it could bring. It doesn’t bring a lot of jobs. It takes a lot of electricity and a lot of water. It generates noise. It already makes a lot of people upset, and there are concerns about housing values and everything else. So if you’re not getting any tax revenue, there really is no strong incentive to have a data center project. That Emerson complex in Ferguson had thousands of employees. A data center does not take very many employees at all. So when you have people coming up and saying this data center project won’t succeed unless we get all these tax subsidies, I say that’s fine and I hope you don’t build a data center there, because the tax revenue is really the only benefit you’re getting from it. One of the bigger things is just something about Missouri in general. I’m from Tennessee and there are a lot of concerns there about having too much growth. Missouri sometimes feels like the opposite of Tennessee. We’re so desperate for growth that we’re willing to hand out a bunch of money. We don’t have enough pride. This Emerson complex is a good building and a good place. Ferguson has a STEM high school that produces very high test scores and graduates people who can work in the tech industry or an engineering industry. We shouldn’t waste a good building and a good workforce on a project that’s going to get all these tax subsidies and not bring a lot of jobs. The same thing happened over in Independence, where they gave out billions in subsidies for a data center project. Whenever I see that, I think we have to have a little bit of pride in Missouri. We can’t just be giving out all this money to get anyone to come. We have a good parcel of land, a good workforce, a lot of water, and a central location in the country. We can attract good projects, data centers or not, without giving out a bunch of subsidies. We need to understand what the benefits and costs of a data center are and what data center developers are actually looking for. They have a lot of money already. If you give them a good workforce, a place to build, and community support, I think they’ll come, even without a bunch of money.

Elias Tsapelas (38:28): I was really hoping this was the discussion we were going to have this year in Missouri’s legislature, because it started off so well with the discussion of how to get rid of the income tax and everything that goes with that. Talking about the income tax is really about how you make your state more desirable and how you grow faster. But Missouri for so long has just said: we want this industry or this type of business, so let’s give it an economic development tax credit. Let’s give out a billion dollars worth of those. Let’s give out sales tax exemptions. As far as I know, data centers in Missouri already get state and local sales tax exemptions. We just give those out. If we’re really going to start thinking about how to make the state the most desirable place, how to grow the fastest and be the most desirable for families and businesses, that’s really more about making the tax climate the best for everyone, not constantly picking winners and losers. Unfortunately, the budget didn’t see as many cuts as I had hoped. As we go into the last few days of the legislature, there are plenty of tax credit bills waiting to pass. The film tax credit is back and there’s talk of extending the sunset on it. There are other tax credits. We’re still going down that path. There are still more sales tax exemptions being considered. Missouri just needs to decide what direction we want to go, because ultimately if we do get rid of the income tax, a lot of these economic development incentives don’t even really work anymore. You have to look at different things. You have to look at what is really the criteria for families and businesses. States across the country are dealing with these issues, changing their economic conditions, their tax policy, and people are moving there. We know people are leaving Missouri. We know income is leaving Missouri. We need to change things. The status quo is not going to work going forward, and I was hoping that would have sunk in a little bit more this year than it did.

Zach Lawhorn (40:37): We will leave it there this week. We’ll talk to everyone again after the session ends over the next few days and see how everything turned out. As always, plenty more at showmeinstitute.org. David, Avery, and Elias, thank you very much.

The post Missouri’s 2026 Legislative Session Final Week appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We’ve written a lot at the Show-Me Institute lately about A–F letter grades for public schools. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) will soon begin assigning these grades to all schools and districts under an executive order from Governor Kehoe. Legislation to codify the order may follow, depending on how the 2026 session unfolds.

A central component of these letter grades is student growth. Growth measures how much students learn over the course of a year, based on state assessments. To estimate growth, the state uses a statistical model to generate a “predicted” level of progress for each student. Schools and districts are then evaluated based on how their students perform relative to those predictions. In simple terms, high-growth schools are those where students consistently outperform expectations. You can read more about the Missouri Growth Model here.

I’ve studied academic growth extensively and believe it is the most accurate indicator of school effectiveness we have. No other measure comes close.

New evidence in support of this view comes from a study by researchers at MIT. The study compares test-score growth to a popular alternative for evaluating school quality: schoolwide surveys. The authors assess how well growth-based and survey-based measures predict important student outcomes, including high school graduation, graduating with distinction, and college enrollment and persistence.

The MIT study was conducted in New York City, where the district administers surveys to students, families, teachers, and staff. The surveys are designed to capture school climate across several domains: rigorous instruction, teacher collaboration, supportive environments, and trust. School surveys are intuitively appealing, especially for those who are skeptical of standardized tests. But how do they stack up to growth when it comes to identifying schools that produce strong outcomes for students?

The answer: not very well. The surveys are a little better at predicting high school graduation, but much worse at predicting more meaningful and differentiated outcomes including graduating high school with an advanced diploma, enrolling in college, and persistence in college. The authors conclude: “From the point of view of parents seeking to boost their children’s odds of going to college, test information is most valuable.”

The research evidence on the value of student growth as an indicator of school quality is overwhelming. This is just the newest study to add to the list. School surveys are nice, but when it comes to identifying effective schools, objectively measured growth is far superior.

The post Test-Score Growth Is the Best Metric We Have for Understanding School Performance appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While the Missouri Legislature continues to debate A–F school report cards, the Show-Me Institute recently released our annual report card update on MOSchoolRankings.org.

Our rankings are built on a model that incorporates 10 academic indicators of student success. All data are sourced from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), and all English/language arts (ELA) and math scores are based on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP). Each component is weighted equally, and a full explanation of the methodology is available online.

Table 1 shows all 24 public school districts and charter schools that received an “A” in the 2024–2025 school year.

Suburban and rural districts dominate the top rankings, with numerous districts from St. Louis County (Ladue, Brentwood, Clayton). Many of the rural school districts are exceptionally small: Skyline has 81 students and Thornfield has 48. The largest school district on the list is Nixa Public Schools (near Springfield) with 6,518 students.

The suburban districts have relatively low rates of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL)—a common proxy for school poverty rate. Fewer than 10 percent of Ladue and Clayton students were eligible for FRPL, with Brentwood at 18 percent, Nixa at 26 percent, Festus at 28 percent, and Ozark at 35 percent. However, some rural “A” districts have a sizeable number of lower-income students.

Mansfield R-IV, which had 60 percent of its 622 students qualify for FRPL, performed above average in almost every single category (except in ELA growth). Richwoods R-VII, a small rural district about an hour from St. Louis, had 100 percent of its 125 students qualify for FRPL and had particularly impressive scores in math. These examples demonstrate that low-income schools can achieve academic success.

There is a lot more to delve into for academic performance. Table 1 is just one snapshot of what is available on MOSchoolRankings.org. Accountability tools like these can help highlight success stories, identify areas for improvement, and provide a clearer picture of how schools across Missouri are performing.

The post Looking at Missouri’s “A” Districts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Missouri House of Representatives recently passed a bill requiring that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) assign A–F letter grades to schools and districts statewide. The bill now heads to the Senate, which is also considering its own version.

The legislation is meant to build on and improve Governor Kehoe’s executive order from January. Unfortunately, it does not improve on the executive order; in fact, the version that emerged from the House is much worse.

The main problem with the House bill is that it has veered off topic. Governor Kehoe’s short and simple executive order mandates letter grades based on academic performance. This is what we need. The House bill adds language that would create new school climate ratings based on surveys of teachers, parents, and students, which would also go on the report card.

This is problematic for three reasons:

Most importantly, it will distract us from academic outcomes. Academics are where our schools are struggling, and until we focus on them, the situation is not going to improve. This is illustrated most easily with data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which is widely viewed as providing the most credible test data in the country. Here are charts showing changes over time in Missouri’s national rank on NAEP, in 4th- and 8th-grade reading, since about the turn of the century:

Our 4th-grade reading results are especially bleak—we rank 38th out of the 50 states as of 2024, whereas two decades earlier we ranked in the low twenties. Today, an alarming 42 percent of our 4th graders score Below Basic on NAEP.

Making matters worse, our ranking decline since about 2015 is in the context of generally declining test scores nationwide. Our scores are declining faster than the rest of a declining nation.

Governor Kehoe was correct to focus on academic outcomes, and the focus should stay that way.

Unlike data on academic achievement, which we already collect, survey data for this new school-climate requirement do not exist. It is difficult to develop and implement a high-quality survey with a high response rate. Have our lawmakers considered how we would get these surveys done?

As one of several concrete technical issues, consider the survey response rate. We cannot make parents fill out surveys. So, what if they don’t? What if we end up with schools and districts where fewer than 10 percent of parents fill out a survey (which is very possible)? Are we going to hold a school with a 10-percent parent response rate accountable for negative survey results? If the results look good, are we going to give the school a high rating?

Even if we ignore the first two issues, do we really want to compel DESE to undertake this work? We hear a lot of grumbling around the capitol about how DESE has gotten too big. This is how that happens. Developing and administering surveys to Missouri’s more than 800,000 students and their parents, and 70,000 teachers, across thousands of schools and hundreds of districts would require more administrative expansion. That is far outside the low-cost, straightforward scope of the original report card plan.

Governor Kehoe issued a clear and simple executive order on school and district report cards in January, which properly emphasizes academic performance. The order is fundamentally sound. There’s always room for improvement, but the legislation that came out of the House has moved this effort in the wrong direction. We hope our lawmakers can get it back on track.

The post Legislation on A–F Report Cards for Schools and Districts Has Gone Sideways appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Momentum for early literacy reform continues in Jefferson City, as House Bill (HB) 2872 recently passed out of committee.

While this version removed several provisions from the original bill, it retains the core components necessary to meaningfully improve early reading outcomes. As HB 2872 continues to move through the legislative process, it is critical to preserve two elements.

#1. A Clear, Firm, and Objective Third-Grade Retention Policy

Under HB 2872, a student who scores at the lowest level on a state-approved Missouri reading screener will be retained unless the student completes a summer reading program and scores above the lowest level on a retest opportunity, or qualifies for a good-cause exemption. Good-cause exemptions apply only to students with limited English proficiency, disabilities, or students who have already been retained.

Having a firm third-grade retention policy is important. An analysis of multiple states’ literacy policies found no consistent evidence that reading scores increase in states without a retention component. Critically, the value of the retention component is not just for students who are retained—it is also for all the students who are not retained because their reading scores improve. In most states with retention policies, the retention rate ends up being low; it is the threat of retention, more than retention itself, that spurs widespread literacy gains.

A number of states—Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Florida, and Tennessee—use a rule-based retention policy. These states have seen significant gains in reading, and all have higher test scores than Missouri.

Without a rule-based policy, teachers and parents talk themselves into promotions that are ultimately to the detriment of children. It feels mean to hold a child back. But it is no kindness to promote a child from the third to fourth grade if the child cannot read. It is not setting the child up for success.

HB 2872 requires that parents be notified if their child is identified as having a reading deficiency at any time during grades 1–3. This level of transparency can help parents be part of the solution for their children.

Retention can be a difficult experience, but research shows it is much easier on young children; it is primarily students in later grades who are negatively impacted when retained. Younger students who are retained under these types of policies benefit tremendously in terms of on-grade academic achievement, even years after retention.

#2. Accountability for Teacher Preparation Programs

It is also critical to align the training in teacher-preparation programs with evidence-based reading instruction. In 2023, the National Council on Teacher Quality evaluated teacher-preparation programs nationwide and awarded nearly half of Missouri’s participating institutions with an “F” for their coverage of scientifically based reading instruction.

HB 2872 allows the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to bring teacher preparation programs into alignment with the science of reading for the benefit of our students. Specifically, it allows DESE to review teacher preparation programs for compliance with evidence-based reading instruction and prohibit noncompliant programs from certifying new teachers.

The new version of HB 2872 that emerged from committee has changed in the following ways. The new bill:

• Has no explicit ban of the use of three-cueing (a reading method relying more on cues, guessing, and memorization rather than systematic phonics) in K-12 classrooms.
• Eliminates the proposed $500 incentive to districts for students who remediate a substantial reading deficiency.
• Redefines the Missouri Reading Screener to include multiple DESE-approved assessments rather than a single (new) statewide test.

These changes weaken the bill, but are secondary to the structural pillars of reform: an objective, assessment-based retention rule and stronger accountability for teacher preparation programs. As long as these pillars are in place (especially retention), HB 2872 represents meaningful progress.

We encourage our Missouri lawmakers to continue to take our literacy crisis seriously and to enact policies that help more Missouri students become confident, capable readers.

The post Early Literacy Reform Advances in the House appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Shortly before the end of last year, the auditor’s office released a report urging lawmakers to take “immediate action” to curb the trend of deficit spending before more drastic cuts become necessary. For longtime readers of the Show-Me Institute blog, this assessment will sound familiar. The report reinforces concerns that have been visible in Missouri’s budget data for more than half a decade.

Reviewing recent revenue and spending trends helps illustrate the problem. Between 2020 and 2025, Missouri’s general revenue collections increased by 45.8 percent, largely driven by income and sales tax growth. Over the same period, general revenue expenditures increased by 53.4 percent. That spending growth more than doubled the rate of inflation, which rose 24.5 percent during those years. Even strong revenue growth was not enough to keep pace.

This imbalance was made possible by a temporary windfall. Although Missouri operates under a constitutional balanced budget requirement, lawmakers were able to commit to higher spending because of a large influx of federal COVID relief funds, combined with stronger-than-expected tax collections. That surge produced a record general revenue balance of nearly $6 billion in 2023. Rather than treating those conditions as temporary, the state locked in higher ongoing spending through pay raises and program expansions, among other things. Since then, the surplus has been largely exhausted.

Looking ahead, fiscal pressures are likely to get worse. Governor Kehoe’s recent budget recommendations project a decline in expected revenues this fiscal year and only minimal growth in Fiscal Year 2027. The outlook deteriorates further when you consider the chance of an economic downturn. Using the worst three-year revenue decline Missouri experienced between 2003 and 2025, the auditor estimates the general revenue fund would be depleted by 2027. Under that scenario, the state would face a deficit exceeding $3.8 billion. And while Missouri’s Budget Reserve Fund (rainy day fund) holds approximately $950 million, as I’ve written before, constitutional restrictions sharply limit its usefulness in addressing an ongoing budget shortfall.

As the general assembly begins working on next year’s budget, the auditor’s report should remain front of mind. There’s still time to rein in the state’s out-of-control spending if Missouri’s lawmakers are willing to start making the tough decisions that right-sizing government entails. The question is no longer whether adjustment is needed, but instead how long until fiscal disaster strikes.

The post The Auditor Confirms Missouri’s Budget Problem appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When Governor Kehoe signed the FY 2026 budget into law last June, after vetoing more than $2 billion in spending approved by the legislature, the total came to nearly $51 billion, with $15.4 billion coming from state general revenues. Given that Missouri’s budget totaled barely $27 billion less than a decade ago, it may seem hard to believe that a $51 billion budget could still understate the cost of state government. Nevertheless, the budget left out more than $1 billion in anticipated Medicaid spending.

This is not a matter of miscounting or bad estimates. While projecting costs more than a year in advance is never perfect, what is happening here is more straightforward. State lawmakers are knowingly approving budgets that do not include enough funding to last the full fiscal year. Missouri’s budget director acknowledged as much when he testified before the House Budget Committee this past week.

Although the issue likely extends beyond Medicaid, the program provides the clearest illustration of the problem. For the vast majority of enrollees, Medicaid costs the state a predictable monthly payment to a managed care provider (essentially a health insurance company). Enrollment today is roughly the same as it was one year ago. Yet the supplemental funding request for FY 2026—the amount needed to carry the budget through June 30—exceeds $3.2 billion, with more than $1 billion devoted to Medicaid alone. That increase far outpaces any reasonable measure of inflation and reflects a budget that did not include a full year of known costs.

This is not a new pattern. When I wrote about Missouri’s budget mirage last year, the legislature was facing a nearly $2 billion supplemental request, with Medicaid again serving as a significant driver. In practical terms, the $51 billion budget approved last year is now expected to end closer to $54 billion in total spending. With the governor’s FY 2027 budget recommendations totaling $54.5 billion, including $16.3 billion from general revenue, taxpayers are left to wonder how closely that figure will track reality.

Much has been said about the need to rein in Missouri’s out-of-control spending. But a necessary first step in rightsizing state government is being clear about how much it costs in the first place. Systematically underfunding known obligations and backfilling them later makes it difficult for taxpayers to understand the true size of the budget and the choices policymakers are making. Perhaps more importantly, an understated baseline makes it harder for lawmakers to evaluate new spending proposals or identify meaningful savings because they aren’t aware of the true cost of their existing commitments.

As legislators begin work on next year’s budget, the best place for them to start is with transparency.

The post The Budget Mirage Reappears appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

House Bill 2274: Increasing Mobility for Teachers

On January 15, Show-Me Institute Senior Policy Analyst Avery Frank submits testimony to the Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee regarding an interstate teacher mobility compact.

To the Honorable Members of This Committee

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Avery Frank. I am a senior policy analyst at the ShowMe Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, Missouri-based think tank that advances sensible, well-researched, free-market solutions to state and local policy issues. The ideas presented here are my own and are offered in consideration of fostering flexibility in Missouri’s public education system.

Reducing Uncertainty for Out-of-State Teachers

In 2020, Missouri adopted a form of universal licensing reciprocity allowing most licensed professionals (with some exceptions) who have held a valid license issued by another state for at least one year to practice in Missouri at the same occupation or level, meaning that they would have Missouri examination, educational, or experience licensing requirements waived.¹

Teachers are among the many licensed professions in Missouri, and this reciprocity regime is beneficial as it currently stands. However, uncertainty remains for many out-of-state teachers who may seek to relocate to Missouri. For example, which Missouri teaching license is equivalent to their current out-of-state license?² Additionally, existing statute allows relevant licensing authorities up to six months to issue a licensing waiver.³ Together, these uncertainties can reduce Missouri’s attractiveness as a place to move and teach.

House Bill 2274 would establish the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact in order to address these challenges. If enacted, the compact would require each participating state to create and maintain a list of licenses it is willing to consider for equivalency. This would help teachers more clearly understand their potential teaching options and reduce uncertainty when considering relocation.

The interstate commission created by the compact would primarily function as a clearinghouse, or central information-sharing hub, for licensure and disciplinary information. Each state would retain full authority over who is licensed within its borders and under what conditions. While Missouri already provides a broad pathway for recognizing many out-of-state licenses, the compact would provide additional transparency and consistency that could make the state more attractive to prospective teachers.

Helping Address Teacher Shortages in High-Need Subject Areas and Schools

Missouri’s teacher shortage has received significant attention in recent years⁴. A closer examination of the state’s pipeline and hiring trends suggests that Missouri does not face a broad, statewide shortage of teachers. Instead, shortages are concentrated in specific subject areas and in particular high-need, challenged districts.⁵ 

For example, between the 2017–18 and 2021–22 school years, the Hickman Mills C-1 school district reported a substantially higher percentage of vacant teaching positions than other Kansas City–area noncharter public school districts—more than five times higher than the second-highest district, Kansas City 33.⁶

While the compact alone will not provide a targeted solution to these types of deficiencies, it should improve Missouri’s overall teacher pipeline by making it easier for qualified out-of-state teachers to fill vacancies in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas, such as special education or physics. Kansas is already a member of this compact, and facilitating mobility for teachers living near the Kansas–Missouri border could benefit western Missouri districts in particular.⁷

Conclusion

House Bill 2274 offers an opportunity for Missouri to continue leading on occupational licensing reform while modestly improving access to qualified teachers in areas of greatest need. For these reasons, this bill could help make Missouri a better place to teach and live.

The post An Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This is a much-needed improvement to school accountability in Missouri. Parents and community members will finally have access to clear information about how their local schools are performing.

Following the governor’s address, I wanted to re-up my post about school report cards from last May, which helps to explain why the letter-grade requirement is sorely needed and how it improves upon our current school report card system.

It is printed in full below.

———

Information Overload and Missouri School Report Cards

Have you ever started reading the warning label on an over-the-counter drug like aspirin or ibuprofen? Ever finished one? Probably not.

Drug warning labels are classic examples of information overload—so packed with details that they become practically useless. Unfortunately, the school report cards produced by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) suffer from the same problem.

In theory, these report cards should help parents and community members quickly understand how their local schools are performing. When well-designed, they can promote transparency and inform decision-making. But if a school report card is not organized and does not emphasize the most important information, it functions like a drug warning label. It can include a lot of detail but be of little practical value.

If you’re curious to see this for yourself, here is a link to the school report cards made available by DESE. Choose a district, then a school, and you can scroll through a vast amount of information. However, after you’ve taken the time to look through it all, you may realize you haven’t learned very much. DESE’s report cards may be comprehensive, but they fail to deliver what busy families need most: clear, accessible information about school quality.

Now, contrast the Missouri report cards with this report card for Briarmeadow Charter School in Houston, produced by the Texas Education Agency. At the very top, letter grades in four categories are displayed prominently:

• Overall Rating: A

• Student Achievement: A

• School Progress: A
• Closing the Gap: A

With just a glance, you know where this school stands.

Texas is not alone in this approach. States such as Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana also use summary performance indicators on their school report cards to give the public a clear picture of school quality. Unlike Missouri, these states are courageous enough to rate schools based on performance, and most importantly, publicly identify schools that are failing to educate their students.

It’s no coincidence that students in states with strong transparency and accountability policies, including clear and informative school report cards, consistently outperform Missouri students academically. These policies are key drivers of school improvement, and without them Missouri is only likely to fall further behind. School report cards that are informative about actual school performance are a simple way to get our state moving in the right direction.

The post Meaningful School Report Cards are on the Way appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Jokes aside, I came across a recent poll from the yes. every kid. foundation that reminded me of a vital pairing for holding education systems accountable: understandable information and comparable information.

The poll is nationwide, but the results apply to Missouri. Parents want to hold schools accountable, but they need high-quality information to engage.

Our annual Blueprint has consistently emphasized the importance of building informational resources that are both understandable and comparable. Missouri provides some data, but there is no central, user-friendly landing place where parents can easily access and evaluate information about the quality of their children’s schools.

For instance, this data dashboard from DESE reports a number of understandable statistics for the year, but you cannot compare districts to each other. Some DESE sources are difficult to decipher and navigate altogether. And if a parent truly wants to compare districts and years, they will need to break out their Microsoft Excel skills.

Using DESE’s dashboard, a parent can see that 58 percent of Parkway C-2 students scored proficient or advanced in mathematics on the Missouri Assessment Program. But is that good? Isn’t 70 percent usually a passing score? How does it compare to last year? How does it compare to other districts across the state? Should a parent be concerned, or encouraged?

These are all important questions, and sadly, the answers require a lot of digging.

Thankfully, parents can find the answers to these questions on our own website, MOSchoolRankings.org.

There, Parkway C-2 is ranked as one of the better districts in our state: 133 out of 551 overall. In fact, its math score is the 37th best in the state. But it’s not all peachy in Parkway, as its low-income math scores ranked 378th in the state, and the overall mathematics score declined from the prior year. These statistics give meaningful context for parents to more accurately hold schools accountable.

Our website serves as a valuable resource for the state, but DESE ought to provide a similar tool—one that is even more comprehensive and accessible—using the state’s greater manpower and authority.

Taken together, survey data and practical experience point to the same conclusion: Missouri’s education system needs to be more accountable to parents. Achieving that goal requires creating resources that are both understandable and comparable.

The post Accountable, Understandable, and Comparable appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For years, the Show-Me Institute has scrutinized the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) —not out of malice, but out of a desperate desire to see our students succeed. The state’s commitment to education is vast, in terms of both a constitutional mandate and billions of dollars. Yet, as we examine the latest DESE budget request, it’s impossible to ignore the contrast between the department’s boldness when asking for money and its apparent bashfulness about what it will deliver to Missouri’s students. This disconnect reveals a fundamental weakness at the heart of the agency and a failure to act in a way that provides clear, student-focused leadership and results-based accountability.

In its FY 2027 budget request, DESE is seeking just under $9 billion, $7.5 billion of which comes from Missouri’s public coffers, to execute its mission. A large portion of the budget revenue is distributed to districts through the Foundation Formula. Other big-ticket items are the state institutions for students and adults with disabilities, subsidizing childcare for eligible families, and offsetting district transportation costs. Beyond this, there is a laundry list of programs managed by DESE and funded by the state, such as virtual education, teacher of the year awards, and summer enrichment programs. “And while there is a thousand-page accompanying document that explains what each budget line item is, there isn’t any real explanation for why the money is being requested or how it furthers education in Missouri.

Ideally, the budget request should correspond to the Strategic Plan created by DESE, with each line item of the budget request connected to a stated goal of the agency. Unfortunately, the two documents are only very loosely connected, and the disconnect demonstrates a lack of transparent, performance-driven accountability.

According to the DESE Strategic Plan for 2023–2026, DESE’s vision is to improve lives through education via the four pillars of (1) early learning and literacy, (2) success-ready students and workforce development, (3) safe and healthy schools, and (4) educator recruiting and retention. To accomplish this, DESE has given itself the following five performance measures and three-year targets.

1. The percentage of students entering kindergarten ready to learn (from 54% to 60%).
2. The percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced on the English Language Arts state assessment (from 43.5% to 50%).
3. The percentage of students pursuing gainful employment after graduation (from 91% to 94%).
4. The three-year average of initial teacher certificates issued (from 3,662 to 3,850).
5. The three-year average annual teacher retention rate (from 89.9% to 91.2%).

Setting aside the fact that according to its Strategic Plan Scorecard it hasn’t hit any of the targets yet, this very short list of performance measures reflects an agency that is more focused on process and inputs than on measurable student outcomes. Where are the performance measures for math, science and social studies? What are the outcome goals for students with disabilities? Is all of the work of the 215 employees of the Office of Childhood to be measured by just the percentage of students entering kindergarten “ready to learn”? How does one even measure “gainful employment”? At the very least it seems like an easy number to game. How can we possibly measure the appropriateness of a 369-page, $9 billion budget request based on just these five items?

As they return to Jefferson City after the first of the year, it is time for the Missouri legislature to demand more from an agency asking for $9 billion. To hold DESE accountable and ensure taxpayer dollars are serving students first, the legislature should, at a minimum, require DESE to publicly issue an annual report that explicitly links every major budget request line item to a specific, measurable goal in its strategic plan. If a request does not directly advance a key student outcome, it should be subject to maximum scrutiny. And there should be repercussions for missing targets year after year.

The state constitution vests the responsibility for education in the legislature, not DESE. It is high time the legislature exercises its authority and forces DESE to replace its bureaucratic double-speak with real, measurable results for Missouri’s children. Our students deserve a budget that reflects a true commitment to their future, not one that simply preserves the machinery of a struggling bureaucracy.

The post It’s Time to Hold DESE Accountable appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One that I found to be particularly interesting is this:

“The State Board of Education supports efforts that provide the best free and appropriate public education for all students.”

Huh. I have long supported giving parents and students access to multiple education options so that they can find the one that best suits their needs. Is the state board agreeing? This would require swapping their support for the best education for all students to the best education for each student. Or is the board saying that it supports efforts for others (the state board) to determine what is best for all students? That doesn’t make sense. Children are unique. They’re not widgets. Why is this statement even one of the 17 priorities?

The Show-Me Institute publishes a legislative Blueprint each year that lays out our priorities for improving the state of Missouri and the lives of those who live here. In many cases, these priorities have model legislation, policy briefs, and even infographics explaining the specifics.

To the extent that DESE and the state board of education have legislative priorities, they should be precise and supported by facts. They should complement the department’s strategic plan and budget. Our test scores are dismal. We’re handing high school diplomas to students who can’t read or do math. Let’s dispense with the throwaway lines.

The post Let’s Expect Better appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Perhaps you, as a parent, would be anxious about sending your young child to this building every day. Technically, you have the legal right to at least move them to a safer school. Under the Unsafe School Choice Option in the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, students in persistently dangerous schools can transfer out just for that reason. Unfortunately, DESE has not designated Oakland Middle School—or any other school in the state—as persistently dangerous. If fact, no schools in Missouri have met that definition in the 23 years that the law has been in place.

Many states acknowledge that students shouldn’t be forced to attend a school that the state categorizes as extremely low performing. Students are given an automatic out. Missouri used to have a transfer program for students in low-performing districts—meaning districts that were unaccredited—but we magically no longer have any unaccredited districts.

DESE knows where the dangerous and low-performing schools are. The students, and their parents, undoubtedly know if they’re attending one of these schools. And I would imagine that the teachers are fully aware as well. So why do we insist on locking kids into them? Just three miles from Oakland is Jefferson Middle School, which has double the test scores and no reported weapons violations.

If you’re thinking that all anxious parents should just move—please don’t. Every child, regardless of their address, deserves to attend a safe school that can effectively teach children. And if more state support and more money were the answer, these schools wouldn’t exist. We’ve been doing both for decades.

DESE should enforce the Unsafe School Choice Option law with integrity. The state board of education should, with DESE, create an open and transparent system that identifies low-performing schools and they should not force children to attend them. The state legislature should allow students in Missouri to choose a public school that fits their needs. It would be so easy to make education better for so many children in Missouri—we just need policymakers to do their part.

The post Missouri Children Deserve Better appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For the past several years, the Missouri Legislature has considered letting parents choose a public school in another public school district than the one in which they live—also known as open enrollment. It seems that DESE and the BOE are preparing for the moment that the legislature takes another crack at this idea. And by preemptively adding the word “voluntary,”, they have signaled that they prefer a weak and less effective version of this policy.

Currently, there are sixteen states, including our neighbors Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, that require all public school districts to accept transfer students, provided that there is an open seat available. According to the Reason Foundation, students using open enrollment accounted for about 7 percent of publicly funded students in those states. In other words, open enrollment doesn’t have a massive impact on the system, but it can be a game changer for the students who use it.

In states such as Ohio, which have limited open enrollment to only those districts that voluntarily agree to accept students, high-income suburban districts have declined to participate. Thus, kids in Ohio’s largest urban districts, such as Akron or Cincinnati, don’t have any feasible open enrollment options. They would have to leapfrog over the suburban rings that surround their cities.

Missouri was called out last year in a national study for having district lines that mimic old residential red lines. That legacy could be ameliorated by making those lines more porous and less exclusionary. Regardless of the executive branch’s stated priorities, let’s not start the conversation on open enrollment with an eye toward a weak policy.

The post Voluntary Open Enrollment Means No Open Enrollment appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There are two aspects of the event that I really like. First, it recognized high-performing schools. Too often in education we choose not to differentiate school performance—we don’t punish poor performers, and we don’t reward excellence. I like that the event promoted the positive impacts of schools that generate high achievement growth. I was also pleased to see coverage of the recognition some schools received in the local media and in school newsletters and announcements (e.g., see here and here).

Second, I like that the event was centered on test-score growth, which is a far better measure of the impacts of schools than test-score levels or proficiency rates. Growth captures how much students learn during the year, not just where they start. This means schools in low-income communities are not penalized for low starting points as long as their students make good progress. This important design feature of growth is illustrated in this report from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Not surprisingly, the high-growth schools recognized at the event included many in high-poverty areas.

We need more events like this. When schools perform well, we need to recognize them, thank them, and remind them they are on the right path. This validation matters, especially for schools that show high growth despite low overall achievement levels due to external factors. Without acknowledgment, educators in these schools might not realize the positive impacts they’re making.

I hope the PRiME event becomes a mainstay and is the beginning of a more concerted effort in Missouri to reward academic excellence. If we want our schools to thrive, we need to show them that their success matters.

(Disclosure: As a researcher, one of my main areas of work is on growth modeling and value-added modeling in education. I am part of the team of researchers who estimate the growth model for DESE.)

The post PRiME Summit Celebrates Schools with Impressive Test Score Growth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The slow road to recovery is illustrated in the recently released preliminary results of the 2025 Missouri Assessment Program (MAP). The most recent data indicate modest improvements in mathematics, and average scores in at least some grades that are finally eclipsing pre-pandemic levels. However, the state’s stagnant reading scores continue to be a source of concern, as reading scores remain below their pre-pandemic levels in all tested grades.

Figure 1 summarizes MAP trends in the Show-Me State, including preliminary scores from the 2024–2025 school year:

Figure 1: Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) English/Language Arts Mean Scale Scores by Grade Level, 2018–2025

Source: Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

In Figure 1, the mean scale scores represent the student body’s performance as a whole. There are several important takeaways from this figure:

• Across all grades, Missouri’s reading scores have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
• Except for scores in the 3rd and 5th grades, reading scores are lower now than they were in 2020–21, when the pandemic was still strongly affecting in-person schooling.

Clearly, there is still work to be done.

Potential Solutions

This post is not meant to be doom and gloom—there is hope. States such as Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee have shown that student literacy can improve substantially with the right reforms.

These states have adopted early literacy policies that are effective, though sometimes unpopular: mandatory third-grade retention, eliminating three-cueing for teaching reading, and ensuring teacher preparation programs teach evidence-based reading practices.

Other states have proved that early literacy reforms can work. The 2026 legislative session is an opportunity to take meaningful steps toward improving educational outcomes in Missouri by taking reading reform more seriously.

The post Missouri’s Stagnant Reading Scores appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri anticipated around $80 million from these frozen programs. The Department of Education’s budget summary suggests the funding for many of these frozen programs will be consolidated and given as a lump sum under the K-12 Simplified Funding Program.

This fund seems to be designed like a block grant, as it would allow states to spend money on previously allowable activities (such as after-school programs) but with fewer administrative regulations. This model is not unprecedented, as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is currently funded using a block grant, and there have been discussions about switching Medicaid to a block grant structure as well.

The department’s actions could signal that federal funding to states may continue to decrease, and there may be fewer strings attached to federal funding. That would mean that states, including Missouri, will have to decide which programs that rely on federal funding will be sustained, and to what extent.

Evaluating Deeper Budget Decisions

Missouri likely will need to make some hard budget decisions in the coming years. Prior to COVID, federal dollars comprised about 14 percent of Missouri’s total revenue for K-12 education. In 2021–22, an additional $1 billion in federal dollars ballooned that percentage to 28. In 2022–23, the federal share fell slightly to 25 percent. In my colleague Elias Tsapelas’ paper “Saving Federalism,” he notes that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) inflation-adjusted federal spending was roughly 45% higher in fiscal year 2022 than fiscal year 2011.

This extra money is fizzling out as the pandemic spending evaporates and the Trump Administration continues to evaluate longstanding programs and rules. The changes at the federal level should incentivize Missouri to rightsize the budget by eliminating unnecessary or unhelpful spending. Establishing a Missouri Office of Government Efficiency would be a good initial step.

Beyond that, Missouri will need to take a more proactive approach to funding specific education programs. Should we increase funding for after-school programs at the expense of a program to improve teacher effectiveness? Before the recent federal policy shift, Missouri was largely guided in these decisions by what we could get federal money for. Now, DESE and school districts will need to set their priorities.

Here’s to hoping Missouri can rise to the challenge and prioritize programs with the greatest potential to benefit students.

The post A Freeze in July? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When asked why they want school choice, families often cite safety as their number one reason, which makes sense. How is a child supposed to learn if they’re afraid to be at school? Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), students trapped in persistently dangerous schools are supposed to have a way out. It’s called the Unsafe School Choice Option (USCO). Unfortunately, Missouri has all but ignored this protection—and that needs to change.

ESSA requires every state to identify persistently dangerous schools and offer students the right to transfer to a safer public school. This is not a suggestion; it is federal law. Yet in Missouri, no school has ever been labeled as “persistently dangerous,” and no families have ever been notified of this option. Either Missouri schools are perfectly safe—which is unlikely—or the state’s criteria are so vague and restrictive that no school could ever qualify.

But let’s look at that more closely. Consider Poplar Bluff High School. According to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), there were 12 violent incidents at the school in 2022, 19 in 2023, and 10 in 2024. In that same three-year period, there were 266 out-of-school suspensions. A “violent incident” in a Missouri school is one in which “a student uses physical force with the intent to cause serious bodily harm to another person.” It seems hard to believe that a school with these levels of violence would feel safe to students.

And then there’s University City Senior High School. From 2022 to 2024, according to DESE, there were 51 violent incidents and 21 weapons violations at the school. That is a lot of weapons being brought to school, and it certainly doesn’t sound like a safe environment to me. Last year in St. Louis Public Schools, teachers at Vashon High School sent a petition to the district claiming that they were teaching in a dangerous situation. In fact, one teacher had to use pepper spray on a crowd of students to get them under control.

There is no substitute for giving families an immediate exit from a dangerous situation. Additional funding, new programs, or behavior contracts might help improve school safety in the long run—but they do nothing for the student being bullied today, or for the child afraid to walk the halls because of fights, weapons, or harassment. For these families and students facing these problems, the only meaningful solution is the freedom to exercise their current legal right to transfer to a safer school.

In Missouri, for a school to be considered persistently dangerous it must have experienced at least one violent incident or one weapons violation in two out of the past three years. At least 30 schools in the state meet that criterion. However, the school must also have expelled at least five students (ten if the school enrolls more than 250 students) in each of the past three years. No school has met that criterion since the law was enacted. What if the Missouri definition were changed from violence/weapons and expulsions to violence/weapons or expulsions? Thousands of Missouri students could move to a safe learning environment—which should be the minimum standard.

Parents deserve honesty. It’s absurd to suggest that there are no unsafe schools in the state. If a school is unsafe, the state must acknowledge it and provide families with options—not pretend the problem doesn’t exist. If the state refuses to define what “persistently dangerous” means—or sets the bar so high that no school ever qualifies—then the federal requirement becomes meaningless in practice.

It’s time for Missouri to adopt clear, reasonable criteria that reflect real risks to students and activate the USCO in schools that meet those criteria. Every Missouri child deserves to attend a safe school, no matter where they live. Families in struggling districts should not be forced to wait years for conditions to improve—or worse, accept that their child’s school is unsafe with no way out.

The Unsafe School Choice Option was designed to give families an emergency exit from these situations. Missouri leaders must stop ignoring this law and start empowering parents to protect their children.

The post Missouri Families Need the “Unsafe School Choice Option” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Susan Pendergrass speaks with Noah Devine, executive director of the Missouri Charter Public Schools Association, about how charter schools in St. Louis are responding after the recent tornado damaged multiple campuses. They discuss the need for flexibility for displaced families, how charter schools are working to reopen quickly, and the broader importance of school choice, especially in times of crisis. Noah also explains why Missouri’s lack of open enrollment makes recovery harder, and shares resources for families navigating this difficult time.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Transcript: Schools After the Storm with Noah Devine

Download a copy of the transcript here

Susan Pendergrass (00:00)
Today I’m going to be talking to Noah Devine of Missouri Charter Public School Association. You basically represent, to a certain extent, the charter schools across Kansas City and St. Louis. To a certain extent, your organization helps them navigate policy processes, funding processes, and things like that in Missouri. So thanks for joining us.

Noah Devine (00:19)
Thanks for having me on, and yeah, you’re exactly right. We are a membership-based, dues-based organization that supports, represents, and advocates for public charter schools here in the state of Missouri.

Susan Pendergrass (00:30)
Well, like the Show-Me Institute, a few weeks ago, many schools in the St. Louis area were affected by a tornado. We lost the top floor of our building when it came through. I know that I’ve been reading that St. Louis Public Schools have about six buildings that are affected by the tornado. How many charter schools were affected?

Noah Devine (00:50)
Yeah, it was obviously really terrible what happened in St. Louis with that tornado. In total, seven charter school buildings were directly impacted. None of them will be compromised from opening this fall, so that’s a very good thing. Two of them were not able to open the week that it happened or the week immediately after. One of them has an annex that was very badly damaged, and so they’re going to have to rework how they meet the needs of their students. The building impact is very significant. What worries me the most is that they’re doing everything they can to meet the needs of their families and students who were directly impacted. Over the summer and into the fall, I think we’re going to see how things ultimately shake out. I’m quite worried that we’re going to have a large increase in students and families experiencing homelessness, and meeting those families’ needs will be really important.

Susan Pendergrass (01:41)
Why do you imagine that St. Louis Public Schools say six of their buildings can’t be used, but charter schools are going to find a way to use theirs? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Noah Devine (01:53)
Yeah, I honestly don’t know. Some of it could always be just good old-fashioned dumb luck, the location of buildings. I think that’s probably most likely. I do think the buildings that were more directly impacted and were charter schools were in better condition. I don’t know the condition of some of the SLPS buildings, but I think charter schools were able to mitigate things a little more readily.

Susan Pendergrass (02:30)
This is what I was thinking, because we had to scramble to find a place to work. Some of us are in temporary office space. Some people are working from home, and it really does affect people. I assume there are many students whose own homes were affected. It’s summer now, but we’re trying to figure out what to do in the fall. St. Louis Public Schools has said that the kids in these six schools are all being reassigned to new schools.

Wouldn’t it make sense, given that this is an emergency—an act of God type of situation—that families could be given flexibility over where their kids go? If they’re displaced, they might want their kids to stay with the same teacher and group of friends, or they might want to go somewhere closer to where they are displaced or where their job is. It seems to me this is the time for flexibility. What do you think?

Noah Devine (03:27)
Could not agree more. Setting aside the natural disaster of a tornado, we fundamentally believe, as all of our schools do, that the decision of where to send your kid—whether it be homeschool, private school, charter public school, district school, magnet school, whatever—is the decision of a family. In a time like this, we need to enact provisions, not dissimilar from what we did during COVID, to make sure families have what they need.

If a family in North St. Louis lost everything, let’s not upset the apple cart. If they want to stay at that school, we have to make sure they can get there. McKinney-Vento is the federal classification for students who are homeless. If you lost your home and are temporarily living with someone else, you meet that designation and can stay at your school. We’re working with charter schools and DESE to ensure that’s clearly communicated. But that designation comes with a cost, usually transportation.

We need help to meet that need. Big picture, we should always be trying to meet the needs of families with choice in mind. During emergencies, it’s even more necessary to push through red tape and ensure we aren’t telling families that, on top of everything else, they now have to move schools.

Susan Pendergrass (05:36)
Do you know if the governor has indicated he’s open to an emergency executive order to ensure St. Louis families have maximum flexibility?

Noah Devine (05:47)
I don’t want to speak for the governor’s office or DESE. But I’ve been extremely impressed with how they’ve moved to get direct support to families in St. Louis. During special session a couple of weeks ago, a huge pot of money was allocated to meet those needs. I’m confident they’ll do everything they can within the law. That said, Missouri does not have open enrollment, which limits flexibility. It’s come close many times, but hasn’t passed.

Susan Pendergrass (06:56)
In times of crisis, like pandemics or tornadoes, the need for flexibility becomes very apparent. You and I followed legislation last year that would have allowed students from outside the city to enroll in a charter school. It made so much sense and still couldn’t get across the finish line.

Noah Devine (07:47)
Yeah.

Susan Pendergrass (07:48)
Families often face personal emergencies too. A child being bullied, a move to live with grandparents—these are real. Charter school leaders want to keep kids where they belong. We just haven’t found the right words to convince enough people.

Noah Devine (08:21)
I couldn’t agree more. First and foremost, our thoughts are with the families impacted. But this is when policy limitations become very real. Missouri is surrounded by states that allow more enrollment flexibility. We shouldn’t lock families into bad situations, whether the crisis is natural or personal. We need to continue pushing for change.

Susan Pendergrass (10:04)
In Kansas City, many top-notch charter schools have strong reputations. If families live on the Kansas side, they can cross the river and choose from any school. Kansas has one of the strongest open enrollment laws in the country. Missouri should follow that example. Not every school is right for every child. And families shouldn’t have to move to find a better fit.

Noah Devine (11:04)
Exactly. I read an article recently about this. People often assume open enrollment would destroy public education. It won’t. Families pick different colleges for their kids based on interests and needs. Why shouldn’t the same logic apply to K-12?

Susan Pendergrass (11:58)
Pell Grants follow students to the college of their choice. It works. But in K-12, it’s somehow controversial. I was asked yesterday on the radio about some charter schools closing in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Noah Devine (12:26)
Great question. First, we can’t underestimate the impact of school closures on families. It’s very real and unfortunate. But charter schools are designed to be more accountable. If families leave or the school isn’t performing, it should close. That’s how accountability works.

We are in a period of declining enrollment nationwide. All public schools will have to make tough choices. The charter system allows closures based on whether families want to go there and whether the school is serving them well. That’s how it should work.

Susan Pendergrass (14:30)
Mm-hmm.

Noah Devine (14:45)
When you lead a charter school, you have to earn it. Every student is there by choice. That makes charter schools unique. Missouri ranks among the top five states in charter school performance, according to CREDO at Stanford. We should take that seriously.

Susan Pendergrass (15:36)
This reminds me of the Unsafe School Choice Option under federal law. If a school is deemed persistently dangerous, students have the right to transfer. Missouri has never labeled a school that way, even though the data suggests otherwise. But charter schools already give families that power. If parents feel unsafe, they can simply pull their child out.

Noah Devine (16:37)
Exactly.

Susan Pendergrass (16:50)
That’s how it should be in all public schools. If parents in St. Louis want to know what resources are available for displaced children or schools, where should they go?

Noah Devine (17:26)
Start with our website, mocharterschools.org. We have a resource page for families affected by the tornado. Also, we work with Show Me Mo Schools, which runs a common application system. Their site is schoolappstl.org. And finally, DESE’s website has guidance and updates, though it could use improvement.

Susan Pendergrass (18:12)
Good luck with that. Thanks again, Noah.

Noah Devine (18:20)
Thanks, and take care.

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post Schools After the Storm with Noah Devine appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This reminder came because most states are effectively ignoring the requirement. In 2024 only 25 schools nationwide were identified as persistently dangerous—15 of them in Arkansas alone. Missouri, despite ranking 50th in a recent analysis of School Safety, has never identified a single such school.

Missouri does have a definition on the books. Part of the definition is that a school must have an “act of school violence,” “violent behavior,” or a gun-free-schools violation in three consecutive years.  Unfortunately, there is plenty of violence and violent behavior in Missouri schools. For instance, there were 128 weapons violations and 335 violent incidents reported in Missouri schools just last year. A school safety hotline reported that they received nearly 1,600 tips of safety threats, including physical assault, threats to kill, guns, and drugs.

Yet there’s a catch. For a school to be labeled persistently dangerous in Missouri, it must also have more than five expulsions in two of three consecutive years (or more than 10 if the school enrolls over 250 students). However, schools can control expulsions and DESE data indicate that there were no expulsions of any student in the entire state in 2021, 2023, and 2024. Just 10 occurred in 2022. Meanwhile, nearly 13,500 students received out-of-school suspensions lasting 10 or more days last year.

Does it seem reasonable that no student in the entire state was expelled last year?

It is a policy failure that no schools in Missouri are classified as persistently dangerous, despite clear indications to the contrary. By allowing schools to manipulate their data—and in particular, to avoid expulsions at all costs—we are allowing them to circumvent the law. And the law exists for a good reason: to give students trapped in unsafe environments a real chance at success.

Parents have the right to expect their children will come home safely from school each day.  For children assigned to local schools that are persistently dangerous, ESSA is supposed to provide the opportunity to change schools. Missouri’s failure to take the law seriously has permitted persistently dangerous schools to operate without taking on the formal designation, and is a disservice to the children and families who are trapped in these schools.

The post Children Have a Right to a Safe Place to Learn appeared first on Show-Me Institute.