Last year, 20 districts statewide implemented this new system as part of the Demonstration Project. Public data on this initiative will be released soon on September 30. These districts are primarily seeking exemptions because administrators in those districts do not feel the MAP is an adequate tool to improve student performance. The test is administered to students at the end of the year, which means districts do not receive test results back until the fall of the following year.

The system adopted by these district tests students  three times per year in English/language arts and math. Missouri could also consider pairing this model with a teacher rating system (like Tennessee’s) to gauge how effective a teacher’s class and curriculum are.

The fact that many districts believe that they could develop better testing than DESE speaks volumes. The MAP needs to be timelier, and it needs to be more informative for students, parents, and teachers. My colleague, James Shuls, lamented the lack of detail in a 2018 blog post.

Even with the shortcomings of the MAP test, Missouri ought to have a uniform statewide test that allows researchers, district officials, and policymakers to learn about different education strategies and trends. If a district implements a new strategy for teaching algebra, and it sees great improvement on the MAP, another district could mimic its practices.

There will be more clarity when statistics for the Demonstration Project are released in a month. If the results are encouraging, fully transitioning to this new testing system statewide might be worth considering.

The post More Districts to Try New Standardized Testing System appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This waiver is being requested in partnership with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in order to conduct a formal study (called the Demonstration Project) to determine if a new testing system should replace the existing MAP. If the exemption is granted, these districts would use their own test but would not administer the MAP. If the waiver is denied, these twenty districts would use their own test and also administer the MAP.

The MAP test is traditionally given to 3rd through 8th-grade students in Missouri at the end of the school year to evaluate their understanding in mathematics, English/language arts, and science. MAP testing also includes End of Course (EOC) tests for high school students who have completed four chosen subjects—Algebra I (or II if you took Algebra I in middle school), Government, Biology, and English II.

The Demonstration Project will use an adaptive testing system, which will test students and provide timely results three times per year. An adaptive test essentially learns who a test-taker is. As students miss questions, the prompts become easier, and vice versa. Through this process, a computer algorithm can learn a student’s skill set, provide a detailed report to the teacher, remember it, and use that student’s proficiency as a baseline for the next standardized test. In practice, a student will sit down at a computer for 90 minutes to take one 45-minute adaptive test on ELA and one 45-minute adaptive test on mathematics three times per year. Since this system is online and designed for quick feedback, a detailed breakdown of how each student performed will be provided to teachers and parents in order to help students improve throughout the year. The new state assessment will shift from a “lagging” indicator to a “leading indicator.” This system will require 280 less minutes of testing time and will cost $21.60 more per student annually.

Below are the 20 districts that are seeking exemption from the MAP:

• Affton, Branson, Center, Confluence Academies, Fayette, Lebanon, Lee’s Summit, Lewis County, Liberty, Lindbergh, Lonedell, Mehlville, Neosho, Ozark, Parkway, Pattonville, Raymore-Peculiar, Ritenour, Ste. Genevieve, and Shell Knob

These 20 districts roughly represent the demographics of Missouri, with huge districts, rural districts, and a charter school (although low-income students are underrepresented).

The study was created because of doubts about the effectiveness of the MAP; as the Demonstration Project proposal states, “The MAP was never intended as a progress monitoring tool at the student level.” Since the MAP is administered at the end of the year, districts do not receive test results until fall of the following year. Districts claim that makes it very difficult to make adjustments and corrections within the school year if a student is struggling in a certain subject. They also claim that adaptive standardized testing throughout the year would allow teachers and administrators to make adjustments to help students before the next school year. (There are reasons to take these complaints from districts with a grain of salt, which I will get into in my next blog post.)

It will be interesting to see if this trial is successful. The desire to try something different than MAP (which traces its origins back to 1993) raises plenty of questions in itself, and I will discuss those issues also in my next post.

The post 20 Missouri Districts Seek Exemption from the Missouri Assessment Program appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Advocates for Missouri’s current defined-benefit pension system argue that this type of system, where teachers are promised a generous and guaranteed pension once they retire, is needed because it increases teacher retention. Yet, there is little evidence that this type of system is a cost-effective method for increasing teacher retention. Rather, the example of these superintendents demonstrates how the system pushes out high-quality individuals. It does the same for teachers (teachers and superintendents are in the same pension system). When teachers hit 30 or 31 years, regardless of their quality or their desire to continue teaching, the financial incentive of the pension pushes them out.

Recently, Gov. Parson asked school superintendents to come up with a plan to increase teacher pay. One solution, which I have little hope will ever be recommended by the superintendents, is to change how we compensate teachers. A pension is basically a form of delayed compensation. We require teachers and their districts to contribute 14.5% of their salary to the pension system (the numbers are different in St. Louis City and Kanas City). That’s 29% of a teacher’s salary that is going into a pool that they may have access to if they make it to retirement.

We could give teachers in Missouri a 10% raise next year, with minimal cost to the state, if we just change this system.

Currently, teachers in the Public School Retirement System (PSRS) do not contribute to Social Security. The pension system is their only required retirement savings. In this proposed scenario, the teacher would receive a 10 percent raise on his or her salary. The teacher would begin contributing to Social Security (6.2 percent from the individual and the employer) and would be eligible for Social Security benefits. Additionally, the teacher and his or her employer could contribute a combined 5 percent of salary to a defined-contribution retirement account, such as a 401k or a cash balance plan. Of course, with a smaller raise the teacher could contribute more to retirement. 

There are numerous benefits to this proposal. First, teachers would own their retirement accounts. They would not lose any money if for some reason they do not vest at five years. They could also continue to work past 31 years and their accounts would not lose value. Teachers could also choose to invest more in their account, as many do now in 403b accounts.

The biggest benefit is that teachers would have higher salaries today. If we want to keep our best teachers and superintendents, higher salaries are a much more effective tool than outdated pension systems.

The post We Could Give Teachers a Ten Percent Raise Next Year appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

What, that’s not the norm? Well, it is exactly what the “retiring” Pattonville superintendent will be doing soon.

The Kansas City Business Journal is reporting that the longtime superintendent will be retiring from Pattonville this year and taking up the superintendent position in the Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas. This move will allow him to retire from the pension system in Missouri and begin drawing his guaranteed benefit while also earning a salary in his new district, because the two school districts are in different pension systems.

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, the Pattonville superintendent earned $267,232 in 2016–17. In Missouri’s Public School Retirement System, members can earn 75% of their final average salary (defined as their three highest consecutive years). This would easily put his annual retirement benefit over $200,000, because the listed salary does not include other benefits, such as medical, which are also included in the final average salary.

There are three important things to take away from this.

First, we have to ask if it is wise to have a system that pushes effective leaders out at a relatively early age. This superintendent, who might likely work for another decade or more in Kansas, will begin drawing his retirement immediately and will draw it for the rest of his life. Indeed, there is a tremendous incentive for individuals to retire at this point in their career.

This leads us to our second point, pushing out effective educators  may not be an effective strategy if we want to improve the quality of education. This superintendent will take his services elsewhere, but many terrific teachers, principals, and superintendents are pushed out of education all together.

Finally, when people ask why the pension system is underfunded, this should be one of the prime examples you give them. The problem is that individuals like this superintendent often do not contribute enough to the system to cover their pension benefits. He is a big time pension winner, who will be receiving much more in benefits than he contributed to the system.

Don’t get me wrong: I applaud the superintendent’s decision. It’s a smart one, and we should all be so lucky. The problem is that we can’t all be so lucky. Lavish benefits like this must be paid for by someone. As I have shown before, they are paid by teachers who leave money in the system, by low-paid teachers in other districts, and ultimately by taxpayers.

Superintendents and others like Pattonville’s are not simply getting what they put into the system; they are getting much more. Let me ask you which system seems fair: this one, or a system in which retirees receive benefits that are in line with their contributions? If you ask me, the answer seems obvious. 

The post A $200,000 Retirement Benefit and a $250,000 Salary? Deal! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While it is easy to focus on the obvious story about race here, there may be another equally important story that we are missing—some students want to transfer back into Saint Louis. Black students in Saint Louis have regularly used the transfer to attend county schools. According to the Voluntary Inter-District Choice Corporation, which oversees the transfer program, more than 4,700 city students did so in 2013. Few white county students, however—just 121—chose to transfer into the city. Typically, these students choose to go to high-performing magnet schools such as Metro High School.

Edmund’s desire to attend Gateway Science Academy tells us something amazing. His parents would rather send him to a city charter school than enroll him in the Pattonville School District, a respectable district.

This is good news for the city!

We want schools in the city that attract families. That is what we hoped charter schools would do, and that is indeed what Gateway and many fine charter schools are doing. 

Now it is time to for policies to catch up.  As I’ve written previously on the Show-Me Daily blog, Missouri should allow charter schools to enroll students across district boundaries.  This would open up numerous high-quality educational opportunities for students in Saint Louis County. It would also make it more feasible for charter schools to operate in relatively small county school districts, such as Normandy and Riverview Gardens.

Edmund Lee is caught in an unfair situation that should lead us to question the transfer rules that are currently in place. But hidden in the story is a sign of hope—that charter schools will attract more students to the city. 

The post Attracting Students to Saint Louis? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I wanted to take a moment to put this tax increase into perspective. According to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the average tax rate ceiling for school districts in Missouri was $3.70 per $100 of assessed valuation in 2015. Regionally, however, property tax rates are considerably higher. The average tax rate for Saint Louis County school districts is $4.528. On top of that, county residents pay an additional $1.2609 per $100 of assessed valuation for the special school district. This brings the county average up to $5.788.

The table that follows shows how Saint Louis’ school property tax rate would stack up to Saint Louis County school districts. For county districts, I combine both district and special school district rates.

As has been written on this blog before, Saint Louis could do other proactive things to address the budget crisis, such as selling vacant school buildings. And as Joseph Miller has pointed out, the city could help the district out a little by ending its flagrant TIF and tax abatement policies.  Nevertheless, it is certainly within the right of the school district to seek a property tax increase. If this one passes, Saint Louis will still have the lowest school taxes in the area. 

The post Should Saint Louis Raise Property Taxes for Public Schools? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Francis Howell, Pattonville, Ferguson-Florissant, and Ritenour transfer students were devastated. They had to return to a school district in which 16.8 is the average ACT score (the state average is 21.6).  In a recent Washington Post article, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux wrote:

Carmen Clemons has two teenage sons who were in advanced-placement classes. One wants to be an engineer, the other a firefighter. She describes them as “nerdy, nice kids.”

This year, they were told they had to go to Normandy High. The school didn’t have the same advanced classes they had been taking. And on Day 5 of the academic year, they told their mother they had been “jumped,” or beaten up.

“No one broke the fight up,” Clemons said. “I was never notified. I had to go running in today to talk to the principal. We’ve worked so hard to raise respectful kids. My boys are such good students, but my son came home terrified when another student said, ‘If I see those shoes on your feet, I’m gonna take them.’ ”

Now she’s calling private schools, begging for scholarships. And she and her husband, who barely make enough to pay the bills, are thinking about selling their three-bedroom house.

After Judge Michael Burton’s decision to allow the Normandy students named in the lawsuit to return to their receiving districts, Pattonville, Ferguson-Florissant, and Ritenour chose to accept all students that had reapplied for the 2014-15 school year—Francis Howell interpreted the ruling to mean only one student may return.

Since Francis Howell’s decision to reject all but one transfer student, Schindler has begun laying the groundwork for a class-action lawsuit. Watch this video to learn more about the history of the Missouri transfer law, as well as the current legal situation surrounding the law.

The post Normandy Transfers: Taking It to the Courts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

They thought the judge’s decision meant that all children were now able to return to the three school districts they had transferred to last year after the transfer law was upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court.

To their credit, this was how Ritenour and Pattonville interpreted Judge Burton’s decision. The two districts decided to accept all transfer students who had reapplied for the 2014-15 school year.

However, Francis Howell opted to accept only the one child named in the lawsuit, excluding the 350 other students who had reapplied for transfer.

Now, the fate of nine more Normandy students is in the hands of a judge. Attorney Joshua Schindler will appear in court today, fighting again for the rights of Normandy children to attend an accredited school of their choice.

Regardless of the judge’s decision concerning the several children named in this lawsuit, Francis Howell and Ferguson-Florissant should accept all Normandy transfer students.

These children have made their choice. Their choice should be respected, not just because it’s legally sound, but because it’s the right thing to do.

The post Normandy Transfer: An Evolving Story appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Through a series of legal maneuvers, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the State Board of Education attempted to prevent students, like Cotton’s children, from transferring from Normandy Schools Collaborative.

First, Normandy was unaccredited, then nonaccredited, and most recently, “accredited as a state oversight district.” However, the transfer law, which states that a student living in an unaccredited district can transfer to an accredited district, prevailed Friday when Judge Michael Burton ruled that Ritenour, Francis Howell, and Pattonville School Districts would have to accept transfer students.

Cotton rejoiced when she saw the news over the weekend, only to learn from Francis Howell School District that the decision extended to just the children named in the lawsuit. Only one Normandy student will be returning to Francis Howell. Because Cameral Cotton did not participate in the lawsuit, her children will remain at Normandy.

Cotton’s daughter, Mar’Kita, dreams of becoming a history teacher for Teach for America. Her son, Mark, just wants to get into college. Both of these children blossomed at Francis Howell, and yet, they must remain in a school that, they believe, failed them.

If the transfer law was upheld for a few students, then it should be upheld for all students. Cameral Cotton should not have to wait for another class-action lawsuit just so her children can attend an accredited school. Burton’s decision may just apply to a few students, but the logic behind his decision applies to all Normandy students.

The post The Transfer Law: Another Disappointment appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

David Stokes’s previous appearances with McGraw Milhaven:

• on the recent privatization of the gift shop at the St. Louis Botanical Garden (2/17/14)
• on his new case study which documents examples of privatization from across the state (2/10/14)
• on new credit card parking meters in St. Louis and the ongoing legislative session in Missouri (2/3/14)
• on government subsidies in St. Louis (1/27/14)
• on a government subsidy that Kirkwood turned down (1/13/14)
• on the horse-drawn carriage industry (1/6/14)
• on the St. Louis land bank–the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) (12/23/13)
• on the Affordable Care Act (12/16/13)
• on a proposal to give $150 million in corporate welfare for Boeing (12/2/13)
• on a proposed South County connector a toll road (11/25/13)
• on property tax exemptions for non- and for-profit nursing homes (11/18/13)
• on the failed vote to unincorporate Uplands Park (11/11/13)
• on the vote to unincorporate Uplands Park and a ballot measure to increase taxes in the Pattonville School District (10/21/13)
• on the privatization of mail delivery (10/7/13)
• on St. Ann’s permanent speed trap (9/30/13)
• on the Zoo-Museum Taxing District (9/23/13)
• on the proposed tax subsidy to move Laclede Gas two blocks (9/16/13)
• on the defeat of a tax subsidy for Walmart in Ellisville (9/9/13)
• on tax subdies (TIFs) to Bass Pro (9/3/13)
• on the closing of Augusta Bottom Rd and municipal liability (8/26/13)
• recounts his role in exposing the taxi-cab scam (8/19/13)
• on the defeat of a tax increment financing (TIF) proposal in Crestwood (7/29/13)
• on how St. Louis county schools will incorporate transfer students from failing districts (7/15/13)
• on students in failing schools have the opportunity to switch schools (7/8/13)
• on St. Louis city’s fee and licensing of street performers (7/1/13)
• on patronage jobs in the St. Louis Treasurer’s office (6/24/13)
• on user fees for photographers at St. Louis county parks (6/17/13)
• on reforming city manager rules (6/10/13)
• on zoning and its alternatives (6/3/2013)
• on speeding tickets, parking meters, and why we should get rid of the penny (5/28/2013)
• on the recently completed legislative session (5/20/2013)
• on property assessments (5/6/2013)
• on Missouri’s alcohol distribution laws (4/29/2013)
• on sales taxes (4/22/2013)
• (3/25/2013)
• (2/11/2013)
• on the funding of Missouri roads (2/4/2013)
• (1/28/2013)

The post Show-Me with McGraw Monday Mornings 550 KTRS appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Take, for example, the salary schedule for the Pattonville School District in Saint Louis County. A teacher with a master’s degree starts at $42,070. Over the next 10 years, the teacher’s salary will increase by slightly more than 25 percent. This is a modest gain of nearly 2.5 percent a year. From the 11th to the 20th year, however, the teacher will see a dramatic pay increase of 48 percent — from $53,610 to $79,360. This tremendous jump occurs primarily over a two-year period between the teacher’s 16th and 18th years. I doubt a teacher improves so much between his 17th and 18th year to deserve a $10,000, or 14 percent, pay raise.

What explains the tremendous spike in teachers’ salaries toward the end of their careers? One simply does not arrive at a salary schedule of this sort through logic or sound accounting principles. More likely, unions negotiated this schedule in an attempt to get the best retirement benefits for their members. Pattonville is part of the Public School Retirement System of Missouri, which bases teachers’ retirements on their last three years of service, not on their contributions over the life of their career.

Pattonville’s pay schedule is poorly designed if the district wants to recruit and retain young teachers. However, it is expertly designed for those wishing to game the retirement system.

The post Pattonville’s Poorly Designed Pay Scale appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So, who chooses the school board members?

Voters. But some of them have more on the line than others. A school district is one of the few places where employees have some say in choosing the people who will ultimately affect the size of their paychecks.

A district employee has a greater incentive to vote for a board member who would raise school salaries than does someone not employed by the district. And, with turnout in some Missouri school districts lower than 10 percent, school employees might just be able to decide the election.

As Terry Moe noted in a 2006 article in Education Next, “district employees have strong incentives to get involved in school-board politics and to take action in trying to elect candidates who will promote their occupational interests.”

In other words, if turnout of non-school personnel is too low, district employees are a much more potent force in school board elections. So, they may ultimately choose the very people they will later bargain with for salary increases, benefits, and retirement packages, to name a few.

In many Missouri counties, a school district is no small thing. There are counties where one in five employees gets a paycheck from a school district. And, if most of them vote, that’s substantial. And potentially decisive.

Let’s look at the Pattonville School District. I’ve discussed its superintendent’s contract in an earlier post. If you recall it, you know that the Pattonville superintendent’s salary and benefit package is substantial.

Well, the Pattonville School Board approved that contract and all its attendant benefits — and the district’s voters elected the board members.

So, just how many voters showed up to choose who negotiated on their behalf for the superintendent’s pay? Well, not many. From 2000–2007, an average of just 16.31 percent of registered voters in the district turned out at the polls.

This is not to say that the voters who did turn out were only school district employees. In truth, I have no guess as to the number. But low turnout makes it that much more possible that district employees will have decisive electoral power, should they turn out in high numbers. The higher the overall turnout, the more diluted the influence of district employees.

How much say should district employees have? Well, for me, at least, that’s not the real question. The question is: How much say will taxpayers allow district employees to have by repeatedly failing to show up at the polls?

If you would like to know more about school board election turnout, or if you have ideas about the extent to which district employees affect school board election results, feel free to leave a comment below, or email me.

The post How Much Say Do They Have? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Some contracts are sparing with benefits, others chock full of them. But how big is the benefit boost?

Well, it can be very significant.

Take Pattonville R-3 School District. The superintendent’s salary for the 2007–2008 school year was $170,000. Pattonville is a district with more than 5,000 students. In comparison to other Missouri school districts, the benefit package is generous. A few of the bigger benefits are:

• A $600-per-month automobile allowance (plus reimbursement in the amount of 48.5 cents for each mile traveled outside Pattonville)
• $5,000 for an annuity (a tax-sheltered savings account)
• A $300,000 term life insurance policy
• $6,207 per year for medical, hospitalization, and dental insurance
• $700 per month for dependent health insurance
• 25 vacation days per year
• A district cellphone

Minus the life insurance, vacation time and cellphone, the benefits listed above come to $26,807. That’s more than 15 percent of the $170,000 salary.

For the 2008–2009 school year, the Springfield R-12 School District superintendent got a $44,000 annuity on top of his salary. In a faxed salary breakdown the district sent us in May, the superintendent’s total salary was listed at $156,489, and his total benefits at $80,508.09 — more than 50 percent of his salary.

So, benefits can be a big deal. Or they can be fairly small.

The Ava R-1 School District contract explicitly provides for 15 days vacation per year, but is silent on other benefits — except to say that the superintendent “will be entitled to any other additional benefits as approved by the Board.”

Surprisingly, the St. Louis superintendent has a contract that seems to fall squarely in between Ava’s sparseness and the flushness of Springfield and Pattonville. And she leads the largest school district in Missouri. While she makes $210,000 in salary per year, according to the contract that the district sent, no annuity is listed, she does not receive benefits for her dependents, and she receives the same medical, dental, vision, and disability insurance as other administrative employees in St. Louis. But she does get the largest car allowance we’ve seen: $900 per month.

While larger school superintendents tend to make more than smaller ones, student enrollment doesn’t explain all of the differences in pay. We have a hunch that local wealth plays a part.

My intent with this post is not to label school districts as angels or demons, but to comment on the broad array of benefits in Missouri superintendent contracts. And to point out that they can make a big difference. Suffice it to say that pay is not as simple as salary.

For those of you who have been following my posts about county clerks and school district voter turnout, I will get back to that. But while I’m finishing up the data entry, I thought I’d switch tacks and provide a second perspective on superintendent contracts.

As always, I’m interested in what you have to say or add to what I’ve written here. Feel free to leave a comment below, or email me.

The post From Frugal to Flush: The Benefit Boost appeared first on Show-Me Institute.