Find more on the performance of schools in Missouri at MoSchoolRankings.org

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Macke is the founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University.

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Traditionally, unprepared students have taken remedial classes, in which students learn high school–level content and don’t earn credit, yet still pay tuition. The percentage of Missouri public high school graduates taking remedial courses at public universities has declined notably in recent years. In 2013, remedial course taking was at 35.6 percent when college and career readiness was at 37.2 percent; by 2017 remediation had tumbled nearly 13 points to 22.8 percent. At first glance, this is a noteworthy improvement—but what caused it?

Are students simply better prepared for college than students of a few years ago? It’s unlikely. DESE’s own numbers show 37.2 percent of graduates being college- or career-ready in 2013 compared to 42.5 percent in 2017. It’s progress, but probably not enough to account for a much larger decline in remedial course-taking.

A more likely explanation might be a shift in the methods used by Missouri’s Department of Higher Education (DHE) to help underprepared students. One of DHE’s objectives is to “eliminate remedial education in favor of co-requisite models and similar proven methods.” Remedial students are less likely to finish their degree within six years, setting them even further behind and potentially saddling them with student debt. Co-requisite programs help underprepared students by enrolling them in introductory, credit-bearing courses and providing support services. The support services normally include labs and tutoring to supplement the course material, but the specific services offered vary by university. Alternative forms of remediation are offered by 92 percent of public higher education institutions. The most common is co-requisite courses, but other alternative remediation offerings include modularized courses and fast-track options.

DHE only recently began collecting data on course completion rates of co-requisite students, who already show a higher college-level course passage rate than those taking traditional remedial courses. Students in co-requisite programs (page 14) were able to pass a college-level math course in their first academic year at a rate of 53.2 percent, compared to a 19.6 percent passing rate from other types of remediation. In English, 65.5 percent of co-requisite students passed a college-level English class, whereas only 35.7 percent of students enrolled in other types of remediation passed such a class within one academic year.

It’s possible that these numbers overstate the advantage of corequisite courses. For example, remedial classes set students back a semester while corequisite courses are taken concurrently with the credit-bearing class—which means that the rate of completing of a college-level class in the first academic year might not be a fair way to compare remedial and corequisite classes. And in any case, the real test of the corequisite course model will be how likely participants are to earn their college degrees, not just pass a single college-level class.

But giving corequisites the benefit of the doubt—and giving colleges and universities due credit for finding a better way to help underprepared students—shouldn’t mean overlooking the fact that Missouri still has a public school system from which fewer than half of graduates emerge unprepared for college or a career. Rather than leaving it to colleges to finish their students’ high school education, shouldn’t Missouri public schools take a hard look at why so many kids are graduating high school without the necessary skills to succeed in adult life?

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The Missouri Department of Education and Secondary Education (DESE) publishes district-level data on standardized test results that we can use to track whether students are gaining or losing ground as they progress through the primary school grades. Student scores are tiered in four categories: below basic proficiency, basic proficiency, proficiency, and advanced proficiency.

Let’s look at math scores as an example. In 2017, 61 percent of Missouri districts had at least half of their third-graders achieving proficiency or above. (These districts show up as blue in the maps below.) There is plenty of room for improvement in these scores, but also plenty of time—third-graders have nine years of K-12 schooling ahead of them.

Unfortunately, the eighth-grade scores show that many students have fallen even further behind. Only 12 percent of districts had at least half of their eighth-grade students achieving proficiency in 2017. The eighth-grade map shows far fewer blue (above 50 percent proficiency) districts and many more orange and red (below 50 percent proficiency) districts than the third-grade map. It should hardly surprise us when these students struggle in high school—by the time they get there, they have been on a downward trajectory for several years. (Note: White areas on the map encompass districts that had so few students that they could not provide data due to concerns about student privacy.)

Show-Me Institute writers will be diving deeper in future blogs and publications to better understand how our state can get high-schoolers ready for the workforce (and for college) by the time they graduate. Workforce development depends on effective preparation of our students, which in turn (certainly in Missouri’s case) depends on a detailed and accurate view of school performance.

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(Data for maps from Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 2017 Content Area Assessment Data)

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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.

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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.

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The statistic comes from a new report released by The College Board last week. According to the report, 21.9 percent of high school graduates nationwide pass an AP test. Massachusetts had the highest percentage (31.0 percent), while Mississippi had the lowest (5.9 percent).

So how can Missouri policymakers help more students take advantage of AP courses?

A good first step would be to increase enrollment in AP classes through course access programs. Show-Me Institute analysts have written about the need for course access in Missouri for some time now, and currently bills are making their way through the legislature that would allow students to take AP courses (either online or at an approved off-site location) when those courses are not offered at their high schools.

Recently, we updated our numbers and found that 284 out of 448 school districts with high schools did not have a single student enrolled in an AP course during the 2015–2016 school year.

It is time to expand opportunities for our high schoolers to take advanced courses and prepare them to better compete in college with students from other states. 

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To illustrate the education–income relationship we use scatter plots, reproduced below. Each dot represents a county in Missouri. Let us explain how each county is located in the plot. Each county’s value (income or education) is measured relative to the state average. If a county’s median income is equal to the state average, its median income value in the plot is 1.0. If the county’s median income is less than the state average, its median income value is less than 1.0; if it is greater than the state average, its value is larger than 1.0. A similar technique is used to measure educational attainment across counties. The combination of a county’s relative median income and relative educational attainment value locates it on the scatter plot. If a county is just like the state average on both measures, it would be located at the intersection of the black lines. The vertical axis is county median family income relative to the state average in 2015. The horizontal axis is one of two education measures in 1990, again relative to the state average.

Two measures of educational attainment are used. In the top scatter plot, education is measured as the percent of adults with no high school diploma: In effect, someone who got no more than a high school education. In the second panel educational attainment is measured by adults in each county who graduated from high school and obtained some college. “Some college” is two or fewer years, which can occur at a four-year college, community college, or at technical school. By comparing the outcomes using these two education measures, what we are asking is whether counties that have more adults with educational beyond high school in 1990 are counties that generally have higher median family incomes in 2015. Does education matter for future income?

Comparing current median family incomes across these two educational outcomes shows that the average county with a higher proportion of adults who in 1990 did not finish high school (upper panel) is likely to have a lower median income today relative to the state. That relationship flips when education is extended to include some college (lower panel). The positive slant of the dots in the lower panel means that if in 1990 a county had a higher proportion of adults who had obtained some college training it is more likely that in 2015 median family income in that county is higher than the state average.

The relationships illustrated below support for policies aimed at raising educational attainment. Completing high school is important. It may be even more important economically to extend that preparation to include some post-high school training. At a minimum, policymakers should understand the positive long-term implications of funding post-secondary education.

Note: Each dot represents a Missouri county. The axes compare county values to the state average. If a county’s median income is equal to the state average, its median income value is 1.0. If the county’s median income is less than the state average, its median income value is less than 1.0; if it is greater than the state average, its value is larger than 1.0. A similar technique is used to measure educational attainment across counties. The combination of a county’s relative median income and relative educational attainment value locates it on the scatter plot.

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We can’t do a lot about our state’s geography, but neither can we accept limitations on the educational options available to students in smaller school districts. We need a way to bring advanced-level coursework to every Missouri student who wants it. An innovative program called course access offers a possible solution to this problem, and it’s the topic of an essay by the Show-Me Institute’s Brittany Wagner and Michael McShane. To find out more, click on the link below and read the essay.

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Missouri, like all other states, requires teachers to pass a series of examinations before they can become a teacher. These tests act as a barrier to entry. As I have written before, barriers to entry are only effective if they do what they are supposed to do. In this case, the tests should keep out individuals who would be bad teachers. My research has shown that the relationship between performance on licensure exams and performance in the classroom is pretty weak. Despite this fact, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary education sees licensure exams as a key driver to improving the quality of the teacher labor force.

Education is not the only area in which tests are used to screen out candidates. For example, lawyers have to take the Missouri Bar Exam, which has three parts. Compare this to the sheer number of teacher licensure exams for those wanting to work in public schools (see below). Whether you are in bankruptcy law, civil rights law, criminal law, corporate law, family law, or any other field in the law profession, you take one exam—the bar exam. In education, however, we have constructed tests for just about every single thing.

Want to be a high school biology teacher? There is a test for that. Want to teach chemistry? There is a test for that. Want to teach earth science, general science, or physics? There is a test for each of those. Oh yeah, and you will also have to take a test of your disposition, the Missouri Educator Profile; a test of general knowledge, the Missouri General Education Assessment; and you’ll be evaluated in the classroom by the Missouri Performance Assessment.

It is understandable to want to ensure that prospective teachers have basic competencies. We will not change the quality of the labor force, however, unless we change the structure of the profession. We must begin rewarding great teachers and become more diligent on removing or remediating the bad ones. As it is, we’ve simply gone test crazy when it comes to teacher certification.

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Trinity, a school ambassador, led a tour through De La Salle Middle School, a private Catholic school that serves low-income, predominantly African-American students. The school, funded largely through charitable donations, is inspiring—high class participation, positive atmosphere, and flexible grouping by ability. The most impressive quality, however, is that the students forge their own educational paths: “I want to go to Incarnate Ward,” Trinity said.

Trinity, like her peers, is highly tuned in to the various high school options available to her. Her fellow eighth and seventh graders are required to attend high school prep classes once a week, introducing them to both public and private options in the St. Louis area.

Like many other middle schools, De La Salle’s students explore colleges and careers and learn skills that will allow them to be successful in high school. The difference is that students at De La Salle decide which high school fits their own educational agenda, instead of just hoping that the school down the street will fit their personality, goals, and abilities.

“What are you looking for in a high school?” I asked Trinity.

She thought for only a moment. “Diversity,” she said.

Other students expressed different characteristics. “I want to attend a high school with a high average ACT score,” said one student. “I want to attend a school with a good sports program,” said another.

After students graduate from De La Salle, counselors continue to check in once a quarter to ensure students are adapting well to the educational environment they have selected. Individualized goal setting, family involvement, and graduate follow-up have made all the difference.

The high school graduation rate for De La Salle students is 98 percent. This is an impressive statistic considering the graduation rate for the surrounding area is 76.39 percent or less, according to IFF. The typical variables that affect graduation rates are race, income, and family status. One other variable should be considered—educational choice.

De La Salle students are beating odds because they are in the driver’s seat. Being somebody—the school’s mantra—is about choice, and De La Salle students are not just choosing high schools, they’re also choosing success.

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