Fortunately, the Missouri Senate Government Reform Committee seems to agree. Although it still has a ways to go, Senate Bill 996 has passed out of committee and will hopefully be considered by the full Senate soon. This bill changes the way funding works for full-time virtual education students. Rather than have state funding go to the students’ home school district and then back out to the virtual program, funding would simply go from the state to the virtual program. Makes sense, right?

Of course, the usual opponents showed up to testify against the bill. It was called an attempt to privatize education and make a profit from Missouri students. An opponent of the bill from the Missouri School Boards’ Association asked: “. . . who is making sure these providers are doing right by our students?” Well, that would be the parents of the students who choose full-time virtual education over their assigned public school. Recall that this is not a passive move—students aren’t assigned to full-time virtual schools. Rather, it is an active choice by these parents and students. When someone makes a choice that is outside the mainstream, it is usually a conscious and informed decision to find something that works for them.

For more than 95 percent of the public school students in Missouri, full-time virtual education is the only public option other than their assigned public school. In the two years since the Missouri legislature passed and the governor signed the bill making full-time virtual education possible, there have been numerous examples of bad behavior on the part of public school districts intended to prevent kids from entering full-time virtual programs. Far too many parents have had to lawyer up in order to exercise their legal right to this option for their children.

In 2020, conducting school, business, or personal obligations online is no longer novel or threatening. In fact, there are circumstances that have revealed it as a very necessary approach when in-person communication isn’t possible. Missouri public school districts and their school boards need to realize that the future of public education does not look like the past. Parents want options, and we should be willing to make sure they have them.

The post Not Your Kids, Not Your Money appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As this pithily-titled piece from the Brookings Institution argues, moving elections on-cycle will both drive up turnout and minimize the effect of organized interest groups. As the author writes:

By exploiting the occasional episode in which a change in state law forced localities to move their elections “on cycle,” [UC Berkeley Political Scientist Sarah] Anzia is able to provide some pretty rigorous causal evidence that off-cycle elections decrease voter turnout and equip organized interests (e.g. teachers unions) to obtain more favorable policy outcomes. Anzia’s findings mesh nicely with other work done by University of Pennsylvania Political Scientist, Marc Meredith, who found that when school boards are given the authority to choose election dates for raising revenue (e.g. bond elections) boards will “manipulate” the timing of elections in predictable ways to ensure an electorate that is most favorable to increased school spending.

That is why I was so surprised when the Missouri School Boards Association announced that it “strongly opposed” the bill. Why would that be? Why would the organization that represents school boards want to drive down turnout in the elections that elect them? I guess they’ll have to answer that one.

A common argument for keeping elections off-cycle is that it somehow keeps politics out of education. That is simply wrong. Schools are a huge state and municipal expenditure and are tasked with imparting skills and knowledge onto the next generation of citizens. Every day, we hand over our state’s most precious resource, its children, to schools. We live in a diverse state where different people have different views about what that education should look like. Any system that we devise to try and manage that will be political.

If education is going to be political, the best thing that we can do is try and make sure that as many of our fellow citizens as possible have the opportunity to make their views known. Moving elections on-cycle allows that to happen.

The post Moving School Board Elections On-Cycle is Good for Democracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On May 16, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board invoked the historic Brown vs. the Board of Education case in a diatribe against lawmakers and the bogeyman (Rex Sinquefield). Members of the editorial board are disappointed, to say the least, with how Missouri Senate Bill 493 – the “transfer fix” – turned out. Namely, they are concerned that cutting transportation for students who transfer to other districts will limit choices. They also suggested, “The transfer fix was supposed to determine a fair amount of tuition for the sending districts to pay to the receiving districts.” Senate Bill 493, they claim, did not do that.

With all of the blame that the paper’s editorial board dished out, I was a bit surprised to find that they did not mention the real culprits standing in the way of these legislative fixes – the education establishment. In a letter to the editor, I pointed this out:

From the outset, the education lobby — the strongest lobby in the state — has fought to limit the number of students transferring out of unaccredited school districts. Thanks to lobbyists from the Missouri Association of School Administrators, the Missouri School Boards Association, and a bevy of other education groups, Senate Bill 493 was never about providing options for students. It was about neutering the transfer law.

Apparently, the editors did not take notice of my letter. Yesterday, they once again attacked lawmakers and the bogeyman. They added Kate Casas, of the Children’s Education Council of Missouri and StudentsFirst, to their list of malcontents. Yet they once again failed to mention the education lobby.

Let’s think about it for a minute. The two major problems the Post-Dispatch editors have with the bill, besides the private option, are transportation and tuition. Who would lobby to cut transportation funds? Who would lobby to keep the tuition high or not count transferring students’ test scores? I doubt any lawmaker came up with these ideas on his or her own.

Did the bogeyman, Kate Casas, or StudentsFirst suggest cutting transportation funding? Did they fight to keep tuition high?

Doubtful.

As far as these two issues go, I’m on the same page as the editorial board. In my testimony before the Missouri House Education Committee, I suggested a simple method for calculating a lower tuition. I also noted that the bill removed transportation and suggested creating a fund to pay for the expense.

If you think about this objectively, the only conclusion is that the education establishment is to blame for the major problems in Senate Bill 493.

The post I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“Now SB493 needs to become law this session so our district can retain the talented staff that is so hard to recruit to an urban district.” Those were the words of Normandy Superintendent Tyrone McNicols in a commentary on St. Louis Public Radio this weekend.

As readers of the Show-Me Daily blog know, Senate Bill 493 would fix many of the problems with the transfer law and would create a local private option for students. This local private option would allow students in unaccredited schools to attend a nearby nonsectarian private school.

It is this local private option that has the alphabet soup of education groups (MASA, MSBA, MNEA, etc.) railing against SB 493. As I have said before, the education establishment has taken an all-or-nothing approach on this issue. They are not interested in compromise. They are solely interested in stopping school choice.

Missouri Sen. John Lamping (R-Dist. 24) put it this way during a recent Show-Me Institute panel discussion about the topic [emphasis mine]:

The establishment is quite comfortable with nothing happening. They can’t say it publicly, but they’re very comfortable with nothing happening. Normandy will be bankrupt by July, they will lapse the district, they’ll merge with the surrounding districts. Riverview Gardens will go bankrupt next year; they’ll do the same thing. And, two or three years from now, a neighboring district will probably go through the same process of unaccreditation and becoming bankrupt. The establishment is fine with that. They will not give any reform in exchange for fixing the system.

If this bill does not pass, it is the establishment that will have killed it and in effect, sealed the fate of the Normandy School District.

Superintendent Ty McNichols doesn’t want to see that happen. He recognizes that “no bill is ever perfect, and there are issues in the bill that are controversial,” but he also recognizes when it is time for compromise. This is just such a time.

The post Normandy Superintendent Calls For Passage Of Senate Bill 493 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

First, the “fact sheet” uses the Governor’s Executive Budget recommendation in the analysis of the potential cost impact of SB 509. This is a mistake because the governor’s recommendations are just that, recommendations. The figure used is not the actual appropriation amount for the upcoming year. That has yet to be finalized.

Let’s just grant, for the sake of argument,  that SB 509 will reduce foundation formula funding to $3.13 billion next year. If you look at this year’s budget, you will notice that funding for the foundation formula is actually $3.08 billion. So even if the MSBA’s numbers are correct, the foundation formula will be getting more money next year.

However, this whole exercise is pointless because the first year that the tax cut would go into effect is 2017. Fiscal year 2015 ends in June 2015. This means there won’t even be a tax cut for two-and-a-half years. No revenue will be lost next year (or even the year after that) because of it.

I welcome healthy debate concerning major public policy issues, but people shouldn’t be scared with false facts, and that is what the “fact sheet” from the MSBA is: scare mongering filled with plainly false information.

The post Truth And Falsehoods appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 2012, the Missouri General Assembly passed a bipartisan charter school law. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, the bill “could expand charter schools statewide while making it easier to weed out underperforming ones.” That was the intent of the law, to expand and to improve charter schools in Missouri. A key part of this effort was the creation of “The Missouri Charter Public School Commission.” Last year, the Missouri Legislature approved $300,000 for operations of the commission. Yet, almost two years after being established in state statute, that commission has yet to be appointed.

Senate Bill 576 (2012) states the “commission shall consist of nine members appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate.” The governor is to select four candidates, from slates that the commissioner of education, the commissioner of higher education, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and the speaker of the House of Representatives provide. The governor appoints the remaining five candidates, but one must be selected from a slate that the Missouri School Boards Association provides.

The commission would play an important and needed role.  Like universities, it could sponsor and oversee charter schools, but it also could serve as an important safeguard. The Southeast Missourian noted, “Under current law, the State Board of Education can suspend a charter school sponsor, but the board then takes responsibility for the schools.” The passed and signed legislation “would make the Missouri Charter Public School Commission responsible for those schools.”

By not appointing this commission, the intent of the law is not being fulfilled. I’m told that the slates have been submitted, but still no appointments have been made.  There is no reason to delay these appointments further.

The post Unappointed Charter School Commission Undermines Intent Of Law appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Roger Kurtz, executive director of the Missouri Association of School Administrators (MASA), insisted that the tax cuts would take our state over the fiscal cliff. His organization sent out a document that warned each school district of the impending funding cuts that would ensue if the bill passed.

Commenting on the tax cuts, Bruce Moe, executive director of the Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA), stated, “Now is not the time to turn our backs on our teachers and their students.”

The Missouri School Boards’ Association (MSBA) actively lobbied against last session’s tax cut bill. In recent months, they have continued warning their members about the evil tax cuts.

Not to be outdone, the Missouri National Education Association (MNEA) placed television ads against the tax cut bill:  “It’s hard to believe. Corporate special interests got an $800 million tax break, paid for by cuts to local schools.”

With the vocal opposition of the MSBA, MASA, MSTA, and MNEA to broad tax cuts and their insistence that Missouri shouldn’t cave to “corporate special interests,” we should have heard a lot from these groups in the past few weeks. After all, the legislature reconvened in Jefferson City to contemplate $150 million annually in tax subsidies to “corporate special interests.”

What did we hear from the alphabet soup of education groups?

The post Education Establishment On Boeing Tax Subsidies: Crickets appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On Nov. 9, the Washington Missourian published a letter to the editor in which I wrote that the Missouri School Boards’ Association (MSBA) uses your tax dollars to fight for keeping your taxes high.

Well, as you might expect, MSBA took issue with my letter. The funny thing is the part of the letter with which they took issue.

Was it my claim that MSBA is gearing up to battle against tax cuts in the next legislative session? No.

Was it my claim that they are hosting a series of anti-tax cut meetings? No.

Was it my claim that they hadn’t invited anyone who is pro-tax cuts to the meetings or that they are not interested in a debate on the issue? No again.

Was it my statement that our tax dollars go to MSBA to fund their efforts to keep our taxes high? Sadly, no.

Carter Ward, executive director of MSBA, took issue with my claim that I would have had to join MSBA if I had been elected to the school board. He wrote, “The decision to join MSBA is made by local boards of education as a whole and is voluntary. No school board in the state is required to belong to MSBA or to spend any money with the association.” Of course, state statute requires every school board member to undergo training that only the MSBA can provide, but never mind that.

He went on to claim that Missouri is a low-tax state and cutting our taxes further would be a “recipe for disaster.”

There you have it, MSBA thinks your taxes are low enough and they will fight to keep it that way.

The post MSBA Verifies That They Are Fighting To Keep Taxes High appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In fact, all school board elections in Missouri are nonpartisan, according to Kelli Hopkins, a director of education policy for the Missouri School Boards Association. Board candidates don’t run as Republicans or Democrats.

Theoretical papers argue that nonpartisan school board members are beholden to all citizens, not just those of a particular party, and that without partisanship there’s a wide variety of candidate choice — not just Republicans and Democrats.

To even further divorce all school elections from partisanship, districts rarely hold elections in November. Many elections run in February, April, June, or August, but most often in April — a month least linked with partisan elections.

“The separation of school board elections from general elections was a deliberate attempt by Progressive-era reformers to reduce partisan influence in the school election process,” write Ann Allen and David Plank in a 2005 paper for the Politics of Education Association.

Still, there is controversy surrounding both the timing of school elections and school board candidate partisanship. Some have argued that partisan school board elections would bring up lagging turnout. Others, that holding school elections in November would do the same. The question is, is it worth it?

These arguments have some serious implications for school district governance. But would partisanship or November school elections do what advocates say? Would turnout increase dramatically?

Right now, I can only comment on the timing. 

If we look at school elections held in April and those on the ballot in November, the difference in turnout is often startling. And, from what I’ve seen, November school elections always have higher turnout than those in April.

The Lathrop R-2 School District put bond issues on the ballot, once in November 2000, once in April 2006. The bond amounts were $4,300,000 and $7,350,000, respectively. So it would seem that the April bond issue, with a significantly higher dollar amount, would garner the most attention.

In fact, turnout in the April election was 39.04 percent, while in November it was 81.94 percent, more than double the April turnout.

Some caveats: this definitely falls into the realm of the anecdotal, and it is likely most instances are less dramatic, as with Clinton 124 School District, where turnout for a bond issue in April 2000 was 31.38 percent, as opposed to 54.58 percent for one in November 2002.

It could be that voting in the school race was incidental only. More people vote in national elections, so there are more potential voters at the polls.  

Regardless, turnout increases in school elections when they are held in conjunction with more high-profile elections. Whether this actually captures voter interest or merely highlights irresponsible, uninformed voting is debateable. But if the goal is higher turnout, here’s at least one avenue to further explore.

The post Remarriage? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I don’t expect this new blog to be a local version of Cato-at-Liberty, but I’m looking forward to the exchange of ideas it’s sure to trigger.

The post MSBA Joins the Blogosphere appeared first on Show-Me Institute.