The strongest opponents of school choice oppose vouchers, charter schools, and interdistrict open enrollment. In effect, they argue it is best if families have only one option: the public school assigned to them by their residential address.

The problem with this argument is that it ignores a simple fact: many families already exercise school choice by choosing where to live. Parents routinely pay higher housing costs or relocate to neighborhoods with schools they prefer. When a school develops a poor reputation, a nearby charter school is not required to siphon off enrollment—families with the means to move often do exactly that.

School choice is alive and well in the U.S. education system; it simply operates through the housing market.

The real question, then, is not whether school choice should exist—it’s which families get to participate. Families with financial resources already buy access to different schools through the housing market. Families without resources are frozen out.

Policies such as charter schools, vouchers, and open enrollment do not create school choice. They expand school choice opportunities to families who cannot participate via the housing market. Seen this way, the anti-school choice position becomes much harder to defend. Opponents are not preserving a world without school choice—they are preserving a world in which meaningful school choice is available to some families, while remaining out of reach for others.

I’m not anti-public school. On the contrary, I want high-quality public schools to thrive. But I do not believe traditional public schools should be protected from competition by denying lower-income families the choices that wealthier families already enjoy.

The post The Faulty Logic of the Anti-School Choice Position appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This paper shows that there is much more variation in performance across schools than is indicated by the DESE accountability system. One important manifestation of this variation is that a high percentage of low-income students in a school is associated with poorer performance at that school, which underscores the importance of tracking the progress of low-income students in all schools to ensure that they are being well served. Finally, analysis of charter schools in Missouri reveals that in general, they outperform the districts in the cities where they operate.

Click on the link below to read the entire policy study.

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Currently, only four out of ten lower-income students who enter college are graduating within six years. What’s more, few additional students graduate after six years; according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, only an additional 6.1 percent of all students entering college in 2009 graduated within eight years. Dropping out and being saddled with student loan debt makes it that much more difficult for these students to climb up the income ladder and access better-paying jobs that can help break cycles of poverty.

Here’s the data for first-time students in Missouri who started college full-time in the fall of 2011, per the Department of Education:

·         56.7 percent of those students graduated within six years, which is lower than the national average of 60.4 percent.

·         Students from the same group receiving Pell Grants from the federal government—most of which have family incomes below $30,000—have a six-year graduation rate in Missouri of only 40.6 percent, while students not receiving Pell Grants or a subsidized loan graduated at a rate of 68.3 percent.

These are startling numbers for Missouri. Not only are we behind the national average in terms of college completion, but a large number of those who fail to graduate appear to be low-income students. Those are exactly the kind of students who are least equipped to handle the burden of high student debt, especially without the benefit of a degree.

A 2013 report from the Department of Education estimated that in 2009 students who did not complete their degree had on average $9,300 of debt if they attended a public 4-year school and $10,400 if they attended a private, non-profit 4-year school. More recent data from Debt by Degree breaks down student loan debt by Pell status and individual schools; it showed Pell recipients attending Mizzou average $19,328 in federal loans.

Addressing the degree achievement gap must start at the K-12 level and, as I discussed before, competition through choice is necessary if we want better outcomes for low-income kids. But in the meantime, making changes at the college level can help lower-income students getting ready to go to college now or that are already there.

In “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” I discuss a few ways colleges can boost graduation rates among low-income students. Retention grants or emergency scholarships can fill gaps in financial aid for low-income students who are on track to graduate but would otherwise have to drop out due to lack of funds. Providing supports like mentorships and enrollment or financial aid checklists have been effective in helping first generation college students be prepared.

Not included in my essay but also worth noting is data-based guidance counseling. Georgia State University’s predictive analytics system has helped students from all economic backgrounds graduate at higher rates by connecting students struggling academically with tutors sooner rather than later and making sure students are not taking unnecessary classes that cost extra time and money.

As taxpayers, we invest too many public dollars in education at every level to have results like these. Isn’t it time to move towards a system that better serves students of all economic backgrounds and ensures that those who go to college leave with a degree?

The post The Achievement Gap for Low-income Students Continues into College appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I’ve had numerous conversations with parents of young children in St. Louis County who are trying to figure out where and how to buy a house before their child enters kindergarten. And it matters. A 1,900 square foot home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms built in 1990 will cost $240,000 in Florissant, while a similar home would cost $389,900 in Frontenac. Sure, schools aren’t the only difference between the two communities, but they’re certainly factored into that $150,000 premium.

I don’t think I even need to convince anyone of this point—parents who can will pay more money for the same house to get their kids into a school they want. Parents who don’t have the money to do that are stuck. The idea of celebrities buying a spot at USC shocks us in a way that a family scraping together the money to move to a smaller house because it’s in Webster Groves doesn’t.

The quality of a child’s education shouldn’t be connected to the real estate industry. Every parent, regardless of their background or their neighborhood, should have access to an array of choices when it comes to their child’s education.

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A new essay by Gail Heyne Hafer and Rik Hafer explores questions like these by examining data across Missouri counties to track not only economic outcomes but also social behavior in order to see whether different levels of education produce different outcomes at the county level and to inform debate about how educational funding should be allocated across the state.

Click on the link below to read the entire essay.

The post Education, Income, and Social Behavior Across Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A new essay by Gail Heyne Hafer and Rik Hafer explores questions like these by examining data across Missouri counties to track not only economic outcomes but also social behavior in order to see whether different levels of education produce different outcomes at the county level and to inform debate about how educational funding should be allocated across the state.

Click on the link below to read the entire essay.

The post Essay: Education, Income, and Social Behavior Across Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This information is valuable for families who want to ensure their children are assigned to good schools. And it’s also an illustration of what is, unfortunately, the most common form of school choice: moving.

According to a survey conducted by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 31 percent of parents said they moved to their current neighborhood so that their children could attend a specific school. Among families whose annual income was less than $50,000, however, only 25 percent of parents moved to a specific school district. For those making more than $150,000, it was 36 percent.

As lawmakers consider education savings accounts, charter schools, and course access this legislative session, many of their constituents have expressed doubts about these school choice initiatives. Certainly, we should consider such programs carefully; but we should also realize than many families in Missouri already practice school choice by moving out of one district and into another.

James Shuls, the Show-Me Institute Distinguished Fellow of Education Policy, called this “School Choice by Mortgage”:

Parents with the financial means can move their families to neighborhoods with good schools or they can afford private school tuition. The problem with our current system of school choice is that it leaves many parents with no options. The wealthier a family is, the more choices they have, while the most disadvantaged are left with little or no choice.

School choice programs like ESAs and charter schools are not meant to disrupt quality public schools where parent and student satisfaction is high. Rather, these programs are designed to provide opportunities to families who don’t have the means to buy a home in a good district or pay for private school tuition. Regardless of what neighborhood a family can afford to live in, shouldn’t their children have access to a quality education—whether it is at a public, charter, or private school?

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We are not alone. The quality of local schools is often one of the highest considerations for home buyers. Parents want what is best for their children. My wife and I are both traditionally certified teachers, with bachelor’s degrees in education. I taught elementary school for four years in southwest Missouri. My wife has taught high school Spanish for eight years, five in Missouri and three in Arkansas. As teachers, we know the importance of a quality education. When looking for houses, our first step was to identify the best school districts, then the best schools within those districts. Unfortunately, in many of the areas with high-performing schools, we were unable to find a home that fit our search criteria within the school boundaries. Though we are a middle class family, even we have been priced out of some great schools. Our plight is really not all that bad; luckily, there are plenty of great options which we can afford.

School choice by mortgage is the current system of choice in most of Missouri and has been around for decades. Parents with the financial means can move their families to neighborhoods with good schools or they can afford private school tuition. The problem with our current system of school choice is that it leaves many parents with no options. The wealthier a family is the more choices they have, while the most disadvantaged are left with little or no choice.

When we finally buy a house, we will pay the tuition embedded in the cost of our home for the high-performing local public school, and our kids will attend the school to which they are residentially assigned. Hopefully, we will make a good decision and our children will be well served; but if they are not, what then? It seems a sad state when a decision as important as how our children are educated comes down to where we buy our home. School choice by mortgage should not be the default system of Missouri. Instead, all parents should have access to a variety of options regardless of their ZIP code; whether they are traditional public, public charter, private, or digital.

James V. Shuls is an education policy consultant for the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy, and a Doctoral Academy Fellow at the University of Arkansas.

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