We know that it can be challenging for small communities to find Calculus, Physics, or AP teachers for their high schools. But we also know that there are bright and talented students all across the state who deserve, at the very least, the opportunity to take the courses required to apply to the University of Missouri. The legislature has cleared the way for students and parents to be able to sit down with their school counselor, figure out what classes they need, and seamlessly register to take those courses either in the building or online.

Students will also be able to enroll in MoVIP as full-time virtual students. This can be a game-changer for rural students, students who are being bullied, and for others who want options beyond their assigned public school. Providing more options for students and parents is essential to making sure that all Missouri students can reach their potential, and course access is one way to do that.

Researchers and analysts at the Show-Me Institute have traveled to Jefferson City multiple times to provide testimony on this important issue. We’ve included it in our legislative Blueprint for the last two sessions, we’ve written blog posts and essays, we’ve talked about it on the radio, and we’ve produced a video on why Missouri students deserve to have their school districts provide free access to courses that the districts are unable or unwilling to offer. It is truly a victory for Missouri families that course access is so close to being a reality.

Of course, good policy requires good implementation. The new law requires every school district and charter school to inform parents and students of their new rights under this legislation, including adding it to all registration documents and home pages. In addition, the legislation has guardrails in place to make sure that students’ progress is monitored and that they are on track with the coursework. Both of these safeguards are critical to the success of this legislation.

If this law becomes final, we will follow the progress on the implementation closely to make sure that it gets done and done right. We will also help let Missouri families know that their education choices have been expanded. But we won’t stop working to give parents even more options – from education savings accounts to charter schools in any district. For now, though, it’s time to recognize a job well done by the Missouri legislature.

The post Finally, a Victory for Parents and Students in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So, what does the STEM education landscape look like in Missouri? The Education Commission of the States has a Vital Signs database that tracks whether states give students “equitable access to high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational experiences.” According to this database, STEM jobs will grow by nine percent in Missouri over the next ten years, including an expected growth of 14 percent in advanced manufacturing jobs. In Missouri, STEM jobs earn, on average, over $34 per hour, compared to $18 per hour for non-STEM jobs.

Unfortunately, in 2013-14, over 30 percent of high school students in Missouri did not have access to Calculus courses, about 20 percent had no access to Physics, and 10 percent couldn’t access Chemistry. In terms of college readiness for STEM, just 5 percent of Missouri high school students took an AP math exam in 2015 and 6 percent took an AP science exam. By comparison, 14 percent of high school students nationwide took an AP math or science exam that year. These data are from a federal data collection, and they match the results of research by Show-Me Institute staff. In the 2015-16 school year, of the school districts in Missouri that had high schools, 40 percent had no students enrolled in advanced Physics or Calculus and over 60 percent had none enrolled in AP courses.

Are these numbers we’re willing to live with? If not, what can be done? Given that just 17 percent of Missouri 8th-graders have math teachers who majored in math and 36 percent have science teachers who majored in science, it’s not likely that we will be able to staff our way out of this any time soon. The good news is that we have the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP)—an underused online course program that could be offered to all high school students in Missouri who don’t have full access to STEM or other courses. Districts can arrange for students to take a course through MoVIP and cover the tuition. Under this scenario, a district could be expected to pay about $450 for a course per semester, and they would be free to negotiate lower rates if, for example, they have several students in the same course. Picking up the tuition for students who successfully complete an online course is a much more cost-effective solution for districts, and it can have a big impact on students’ opportunities.

As we celebrate National School Choice Week, we need to recognize that too many of our high school students have no choice when it comes to STEM classes. The structure to give them access is already in place, and this could be an easy way to meet a vital need.

The post MoVIP Program Could Bring Advanced Coursework to Missouri Students appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

THE SOLUTION: Tax credit–funded education savings accounts.

Education savings accounts (ESAs) are flexible-use savings accounts used solely for education purposes. Individuals or corporations would donate to organizations that manage these accounts, and families could use the funds to purchase school supplies, tutoring services, or even private school tuition.

WHO ELSE DOES IT: Six states have ESA programs, and 17 states have tax credit–funded scholarships.

THE OPPORTUNITY: Missouri is one of the last states without some kind of private school choice program. It does, however, have a large stock of private schools, and through the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program we have a vetted set of online courses that are ready for Missouri students to use. The supply is waiting; we just need to connect it to the demand.

KEY POINTS

• Many Missouri students are not being prepared for success.
• As educational options for students expand, parents should have the flexibility to customize their children’s education.
• ESAs are popular. According to polling by the education organization EdChoice, 49% of Americans support ESAs, and only 27% oppose them.
• ESAs have the potential to save both the state and school districts money.

SHOW-ME INSTITUTE RESOURCES

Essay: Estimating the Fiscal Impact of a Tax-Credit Scholarship Program

Blog Post: ESAs Can Help Missouri Students with Dyslexia

Blog Post: Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Would Be a Boon to Missourians

Video: ESAs Empower Families in Arizona

For a printable version of this article, click on the link below. You can also view the entire 2018 Missouri Blueprint online.

The post 2018 Blueprint: Education Savings Accounts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

THE SOLUTION: Course access.

Course access programs allow students to direct a portion of their annual per-pupil funds to take—and receive college credit for—courses outside of their traditional public school course offerings.

WHO ELSE DOES IT? Eleven states across the country have some form of course access program.

THE OPPORTUNITY: Missouri has much of the infrastructure needed to create a course access program through an underused program known as the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP), which was signed into law in 2006. In addition, the Grandview R-II and Springfield school districts have created their own online programs, but these courses are not available to all students in the state. In all three cases, the course offerings are vetted by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and can be credited toward graduation.

KEY POINTS

• During the 2015–2016 school year, of the 448 school districts that offer high school in the state, 9% had no students enrolled in chemistry, 42% had none enrolled in advanced physics, 40% had none enrolled in calculus, and 63% had none enrolled in AP courses.
• Course access allows students a cost-effective way to take courses not otherwise available in their district.
• Course access increases parent/individual control over education spending.
• Missouri already has the infrastructure needed to create a course access program.

SHOW-ME INSTITUTE RESOURCES

Essay: Course Access in Missouri: Diversity, Personalization, and Opportunity

Blog Post: Missouri Students Need Access to Advanced Coursework

Video: Course Access: Opening Opportunities across Missouri

Video: Course Access Brings the Classroom to the Student

For a printable version of this article, click on the link below. You can also view the entire 2018 Missouri Blueprint online.

The post 2018 Blueprint: Course Access appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I haven’t had a chance to fully dig into the document, but at the 30,000-foot level it seems reasonable to me. The state doesn’t appear to be doing anything overly ambitious (it is only slated to intervene in the law’s minimum 5 percent of lowest-performing schools, it doesn’t appear to be using any new or fancy non–test score indicators to try to hold schools accountable) which ultimately might be the most prudent path forward. It looks like the state is going to take a hard look at the lowest-performing schools and try and leave the rest alone. Seems wise.

One area where there is an opportunity, and where I wish the plan was a bit more direct, is under Title IV. Eagle-eyed readers of this blog would remember that I wrote about flexibility that the state has under this provision in the law to provide some innovative direct services to underserved students.

On page 50 of the plan (emphasis mine):

“To overcome the lack of course availability, MO-DESE intends to improve access to advanced coursework for all students, but particularly for minorities and economically disadvantaged students and for those whose rural or small school settings reduce their access. MO-DESE may also subsidize fees for AP and IB courses. Furthermore, where advanced coursework, including advanced mathematics and science are locally unavailable, MO-DESE will subsidize course fees for the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program.”

DESE’s plan is laudable, and we’re singing from the same hymnbook when it comes to recognizing that far too many students in the state lack access to higher-level coursework, but I’d like to see more than one sentence in a 94-page document laying out how to solve the problem.  What students would be eligible? Would this be a formal “course access” program or just paying for courses ad hoc if and when funds are available? The state can spend up to 3%; will they spend that whole amount? Some fraction?

This document appears to be a step in the right direction. With some clarification, the state can take a bold step to fix the persistent problem of course availability in underserved areas.

The post State ESSA Plan Offers Opportunity for Course Access appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One path, outlined in the governor’s budget, simply funds a course access program. Missouri already has the architecture with its Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MOVIP), but there simply aren’t funds for students to take advantage of it. Governor Greitens proposed $2 million in funding so that students could access those courses.

Legislation now making its way through the legislature is taking a second path. House Bill 138 and Senate Bills 327, 238, and 360 create a course access program funded by redirecting existing funds that the state sends to school districts. If students want to take a course access program course, the fraction of funding that would have funded the class in their school of residence is used to pay for it. What’s great about these plans is that, as their fiscal notes attest, they cost the state zero additional dollars. They simply redirect existing spending.

A third is outlined in this great piece by AEI’s Rick Hess and the Manhattan Institute’s Max Eden. The broader article is about how states can best use the flexibility inherent in the Every Student Succeeds Act (the 2015 update to No Child Left Behind), but this paragraph stands out:

State education leaders would do well to employ ESSA’s direct student-services provision, which allows states to set aside a portion of federal Title I funds in order to support districts that are expanding instructional choice (in addition to school choice) for students. This means expanding choices for students without requiring that they opt to change schools, as with “course access” programs. Such initiatives, pioneered in Louisiana and Utah, use state funds to provide students the opportunity to access a range of online courses that their school might not offer — and to pursue them at their own pace. Under ESSA, states can use up to 3 percent of federal Title I funds to deliver online-course options that give rural students access to subjects that their schools don’t offer, to give all students access to Advanced Placement, and to give high schools the ability to deliver robust career and technical training.

According to this table, Missouri school districts get a little bit north of $240 million per year in Title I dollars. Three percent of that would be $7.2 million. This could fund thousands of course enrollments.

Taken together, Missouri could draw from several wells of funding to create a robust course access program that ensures that every student in the state has access to the coursework that best fits their needs.

For an overview of course access and information on how it has been implemented in other states, see this essay that Brittany Wagner and I co-wrote last year.

The post Different Paths to Course Access appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Two slides in the presentation jumped out at me. The first one is above.

Dovetailing nicely with the research I have done on rural schools in Missouri, DESE’s slide shows there are shortages in more than 10 teacher certification categories in 16 counties across the state, and shortages in 43 counties in 5 to 9 categories.

What are these categories, you ask? The next slide tells us.

Want to learn Spanish? Are you a gifted student? Interested in learning science? Live in one of these rural counties? Tough luck.

I commend the efforts that the state is taking to try and tackle this problem, but here at SMI we’ve been promoting a solution for quite some time now that would address these shortage issues—a course access program.

MOVIP has already certified courses in these subject areas. (Check out the list for just grades 6 to 8—its huge!) For $600 a year, students in these counties could take Spanish from a vetted source and get credit for it. All they need is the flexibility to reroute 600 of the dollars that the state sends their district to these alternative providers. Course access would do that. More than a dozen states around the country have figured this out.

The state’s current efforts, while laudable, seem to constitute a complicated and labor-intensive process with a high amount of uncertainty as to whether or not they will be effective. Every once in a while the simpler solution is the best one, and I think in this case Occam’s razor favors course access. If the state wants to solve these shortage issues, the state should seriously look into it.

The post Teacher Shortage Data from DESE Makes Great Case for Course Access Program appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One of the great myths in education today is that all public schools serve all students. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nevertheless, opponents of school choice make frequent use of this falsehood in arguing against any expenditure of public money to help disadvantaged students attend private schools. They argue: “If private schools do not serve every student, they should not get tax dollars.” It is time to set the record straight: individual schools — whether public or private — do not serve all students. Nor should they.

One prime example of a public school that does not serve all students is Metro Academic and Classical High School, a magnet school in the Saint Louis Public School District. U.S. News & World Report ranks Metro as the No. 1 public school in the state, for good reason. Metro grads regularly go on to top-tier universities and perform exceptionally well on achievement tests.

There may be great things going on at Metro, but it cannot be denied that part of the school’s success is derived from its admissions process. To be admitted, a student must score proficient or advanced on the state MAP test. In 2013, nearly 14 percent of black eighth graders in Saint Louis scored proficient or advanced. That means more than 86 percent of black students in the Saint Louis Public School District do not meet the admissions criteria for Metro.

The Saint Louis Public School District has more than 25 magnet schools. Though most do not have admission standards as rigorous as those at Metro, they typically do have some requirements. By design, these admission standards keep students out.

Though they may not have magnet schools or a selective admissions process, other area districts do have special schools designed to serve their most disabled, disturbed, and/or disruptive students.

In 1992, the Parkway School District opened Fern Ridge High School. The school is designed to help “tenth through twelfth grade students, including those with disabilities, succeed when conventional methods have failed.” Students who cannot make it in the general population can be transferred to Fern Ridge. In other words, individual Parkway high schools do not serve all students.

Parkway is not alone in having a special school for students with unique challenges. In 1957, the Special School District (SSD) of Saint Louis County was established. It “was the net result of years of hard work and advocacy by parents of children whose educational needs were not being met by the existing public school system.” Today, the SSD serves approximately 23,000 students through services provided at district-run schools, independent sites, and two technical high schools.

Other students with disabilities attend the Missouri School for the Blind, the School for the Deaf, or use the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP) at home.

The bottom line is that individual schools do not serve all students. That is a good thing. There are great benefits that come from having highly specialized schools that are skilled at educating special students. Bright, gifted students are challenged and receive a tremendous education at Metro High. Students with special needs are encouraged and given the tools to succeed at Fern Ridge. By specializing, these schools are able to provide students with a better education than they might have received in a traditional school.

It is ridiculous to expect individual private schools to serve all students when individual public schools do not fulfill this task. Rather than place unrealistic expectations on private schools, or public schools for that matter, we should work to give every child access to the school that is going to best meet their needs. That may be a traditional district-run school, a magnet school, a special school, a charter school, and yes, even a private school.

Through school choice, every student can be served. As Milton Friedman once wrote, “The injection of competition would do much to promote a healthy variety of schools.” Isn’t that what we really need — a healthy variety of schools that can meet the unique needs of each of our students?

James V. Shuls, Ph.D., is the education policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy.

The post Public Schools Do Not Serve All Students appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The kicker here is that this is not an isolated incident — all unaccredited districts and districts with provisional accreditation for two years are required to pay for these courses for their students. Unfortunately, few districts make this readily known. What is more, all school districts have the option to offer MOVIP courses to their students.

As Show-Me policy analysts have noted (here and here), virtual education has tremendous potential to improve and broaden the quality of education for Missouri students. Schools should be lining up to partner with MOVIP.

Imagine a classroom full of students on computers, each taking a different virtual course. One student is making up English I, which he previously failed, while another is taking a course on web design. Other students are taking foreign language courses that the school could not offer, perhaps Chinese, German, Japanese, or Latin.

We are in a tremendous age, where technology is transforming how we operate in our daily lives. Now, technology has the potential to change how we educate our students. By partnering with MOVIP, schools can expand options for students. More students in Kansas City — or even Appleton City — should enjoy greater educational options. It is time we demand more.

The post Virtual Education, Real Opportunity appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Enrollment in the SLPS Virtual School is constrained by the district’s rule that online students spend one or more days a week in a classroom, working with Virtual School teachers in person. This policy is unusual for an online school; most such schools allow children to talk to teachers through video conferencing or by telephone, and require less frequent meetings. If SLPS made weekly in-person meetings optional, it could open enrollment to students who live far from St. Louis.

Another factor that has limited the Virtual School’s growth is its policy that elementary students must be enrolled full-time. Permitting young students to enroll in individual classes would give more children the ability to participate.

The post An Opportunity for SLPS appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Given Oregon’s track record on charters, I’m not expecting the idea to be approved easily. And I actually hope the district turns down this proposal. I see a few problems with it:

• The charter would give each student $1,000 to use for their education. Families’ ideas of educational purchases vary so widely that this is sure to lead to conflicts or allegations of misuse. What if a family thinks a golf lesson is physical education but the charter doesn’t?
• It seems extravagant to establish a school resource center for a couple hundred families who won’t spend much time there. People could just go to a public library and access most of the books, maps, or CDs that the charter would provide.
• If students in the homeschool charter perform poorly on state tests, other people might view that as an indictment of all homeschoolers. An unsuccessful homeschool charter could provoke stricter regulation of other homeschoolers who were never involved with it.

I would support a charter for homeschoolers if it were structured more like a part-time school. Students could attend the school two or three full days a week, and it could assign homework for them to do with their parents on the other days. Rather than give students money to spend, the school could lend them computers, musical instruments, or other things they need for their studies. Students would still get to spend lots of time at home, but it would be clear to everyone that the charter was a real school and not just a place to stop by for an hour.

Is a part-time charter a good idea for Missouri? Charters can form in St. Louis and Kansas City, so out-state homeschoolers won’t have this option. St. Louis families that want to combine homeschooling and public education are already free to choose the SLPS Virtual School. There might not be enough demand for a homeschooling charter there. That leaves Kansas City. I can imagine homeschooling families in Kansas City forming a charter, especially if they participated in the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program and are looking for something to take its place. However, the charter idea won’t go very far if homeschoolers are satisfied with existing homeschool coops and don’t want help from the state.

The post Homeschoolers Ask for Charter Status appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

MoVIP is not bringing students any content they didn’t have access to before. This move is comparable to including a free online dictionary in a virtual English course. There is a potential benefit: MoVIP will direct some students to resources that were out there on the Internet, but that they wouldn’t have looked for on their own. Still, adding these courses does not represent a substantive innovation, which is perhaps why there’s no mention of the news on the MoVIP website.

The post A Small Improvement for the Virtual Instruction Program appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The reasoning behind this isn’t clear. The people quoted in the article talk about equalizing education across the state and giving everyone opportunities to take specialized courses. Those are great reasons to offer online courses — but not to force anyone to participate who doesn’t want to.

It seems like some reformers see promising new opportunities and reflexively conclude that everyone has to take advantage of them, or else. It’s this pattern that led to my concern about imitating Asia, which I briefly mentioned in this post. I’m happy about virtual schools, bilingual programs, and other reforms and innovations. Let’s keep them voluntary, and let people choose them if they wish.

The post Online Mandates appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Today, I took another look at the MoVIP website and am pleased to report that those initial problems have been straightened out. The site contains many resources, including: numbers of students enrolled at each grade level (more than 300 students are now enrolled in the middle school courses); a course demo; calendars, schedules, and other documents; and course descriptions.

The course descriptions are very thorough. They list textbooks, required projects, and course goals, so parents don’t have to guess what goes on in “Second Grade Science.” The explanations of how the program teaches reading and foreign language vocabulary are especially informative. You sometimes hear that a parent expected a school to use one teaching method and was upset to encounter another (phonics, new math, etc.). I can’t imagine that happening with MoVIP because they provide so much information up front.

With 100 to 300 students enrolled per grade level, MoVIP isn’t yet big enough to change the status quo in Missouri public education. I hope, as word spreads about this program, that it will spur healthy competition between virtual school and the traditional districts.

The post Missouri Virtual Instruction Program Update appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Coulson’s right: It’s sloppy reporting to assume America’s education system is normal while calling Sweden’s “socialist.” That’s not to say that we should drop everything and try to be just like Sweden. There are some aspects of the Swedish system that we don’t need to emulate. For example, Swedish schools aren’t allowed to charge tuition, so all schools are limited by the amount of the state voucher. They are also required to teach a national curriculum, although they have some leeway to experiment with teaching methods and to make other changes.

The good news is that we already have some of the positive aspects of Sweden’s system in place here. Parents can choose charter schools or the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program as alternatives to their assigned public schools. Unfortunately, these options are limited — charter schools operate in only two cities of Missouri, and the online instruction program is a monolithic virtual academy rather than competing programs. Sweden is impressive because it has made educational choices available to all Swedish families, and the number of independent schools there has soared since they reformed the system. We don’t need to be just like Sweden, but we should learn from them and offer a wider array of choices to everybody.

The post Scandinavian Education in the News appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In a statement released on Friday, Blunt announced that he is recommending to the state legislature a $1 million increase for MoVIP, bringing the total funding for the program to $6.2 million.

"Working with Missouri’s General Assembly, we have increased funding for elementary and secondary education by half a billion dollars," Blunt said in a news release. "The $1 million increase I am recommending for Missouri’s virtual schools will help to ensure that all Missouri students have the educational options they need to reach their full potential."

The new Virtual Instruction Program is popular with students and parents, especially those who live in rural areas with limited course offerings.

There are other public school success stories out there. When parents can choose — whether it be choosing a charter or magnet school, or an online course — they’re happy to choose public school options. But when you tell them their kids have to go to the nearest brick-and-mortar school, even if the school is failing or unresponsive to their kids’ needs, they complain.

The post Public School Successes Exist; You Just Have to Know Where to Look appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Students taking classes online can submit their assignments in e-mails, “talk” to teachers through instant messages, and interact with other students in online discussion groups.

Some students and parents say online classes make learning easier.

“These online classes have been a blessing,” said Carol Meerschaert, whose 16-year-old daughter, Claire, has an attention deficit disorder.

The Missouri Virtual Instruction Program will begin offering summer school courses in 2009, and it will charge tuition. It probably makes sense to charge tuition for high-demand subjects, but I don’t see the point of the rigid distinctions MoVIP is drawing between school-year and summer-school courses. One of the possible advantages of online education is that students can begin and finish coursework whenever they want, working at their own pace.

The post Virtual School, Summer Session appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri’s new virtual school has only a few free slots still open, but
more students can still take classes if they pay tuition, says the
director of the online education program.

Starting Monday, parents could sign up their children to take elementary or high school classes for the cost of tuition.

When you give parents options on where they would like to educate their children, they will take advantage of it. Now that the state sees that there is a great interest in the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP) it will be expanded, which will happen next year to cover middle school children. A parent had this to say about the MoVIP program, in the article:

My son is one of the high school students. What a great opportunity.

The post If You Build It, They Will Come! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.