When it comes to school choice, the answers abound. Here are a few:

How do we improve educational options for students in unaccredited school districts? Allow charter schools to enroll students across district boundaries. This would give students whose needs are not being met, in unaccredited schools or otherwise, the opportunity to attend a charter school. It would also increase the likelihood that charter schools would open in unaccredited school districts.

How do we increase educational services for students with special needs? Emulate the education savings account programs created in Arizona and Florida. These programs provide the funds and flexibility that parents of special needs students need. The accounts function like a debit card that parents can use to pay school tuition, purchase educational resources, or pay for therapy.

How do we leverage greater private investment in education, expand options, and empower parents? Create a tax credit scholarship program. Seventeen tax credit scholarship programs exist. While the specific features vary from state to state, each program incentivizes individuals or businesses to support education, and they provide families with options. These programs empower parents to take charge of their child’s education and typically save taxpayers money.

Like I said, there are plenty of school choice answers. What we seem to lack in Missouri is school choice talk, especially among state policymakers. To date, not a single school choice bill has received a hearing in Jefferson City. Indeed, the “Equal Opportunity Scholarship” bill (a tax credit scholarship) seems to be collecting dust.

It’s time for Missouri lawmakers to have more conversations about school choice and hopefully take more action.

The post When Will Missouri Lawmakers Hear a School Choice Bill? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Public sentiment against teacher tenure may have risen due to the highly publicized Vergara v. California case, in which Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu ruled California teacher tenure laws violate the state’s constitution in regards to equality of education.

Tenure laws vary across states. A teacher is tenured in Missouri after teaching in the same district for five years. Tenure laws encourage a system in which school districts undergoing layoffs must keep low-quality, tenured teachers and fire high-quality, non-tenured teachers. This is an ineffective system, as research shows teacher performance has a strong correlation with student achievement.

In a 2013 StudentsFirst poll, Missourians overwhelmingly favored tenure reform—74 percent of those surveyed reported that they would favor a system in which teachers had to demonstrate performance in order to earn or keep tenure. Show-Me Institute Distinguished Fellow James Shuls found that even Missouri superintendents are in favor of teacher tenure reform.

If Missouri wants to be among the top 10 performing states by 2020, tenure reform should be a priority. Teacher tenure may protect good teachers, but it also protects bad teachers. To ensure every child receives a quality education, student welfare must take precedent over the interests of low-performing school employees. This is what the Vergara lawsuit taught the nation.

The post Will California Teacher Tenure Lawsuit Affect Missouri? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doubtful.

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

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

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

Rhee is past chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools and the founder, CEO, and president of the New Teacher Project. In 2010, she founded StudentsFirst, a non-profit organization which works on education reform issues such as ending teacher tenure. This event was co-sponsored by the Show-Me Institute.

The post Michelle Rhee: Radical: Fighting to put Students First appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Of course, Taibbi knows his role in that game and plays it as best he can. But I would like to know his source on this nifty factoid (emphasis mine):

Dan Loeb isn’t the only hedge fund manager aligned with groups like Students First, the Manhattan Institute, or local anti-benefit lobbies like the Show-Me Institute (created by billionaire Rex Sinquefield to campaign against defined benefit plans in Missouri) . . .

Oh? And what actual evidence, Matt, do you have for the assertion that the Show-Me Institute — now close to a decade old — was founded for the purpose of “campaign[ing] against defined benefit plans”?

We’re waiting.

But while we wait, Matt, I did want to tell you that I found your investment advice remarkable, compelling, and ironic (emphasis mine):

A lot of teachers and public sector workers would do just as well to just dump their money on some plain-vanilla S&P index and not pay obscene tax-sheltered fees[…]. Not only would the returns probably be a wash or close to it, but retirees at least wouldn’t be stripping themselves of their biggest asset – the political power their money represents.

That is excellent advice. And you know who helped invent the first S&P index fund? Rex Sinquefield, of course. But you knew that, right?

Right?

The post It Is Called ‘Fact-Checking,’ Rolling Stone, And You Should Try It appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The union report says it wants pension trustees to “take into account certain collateral factors, such as a manager’s position on collective bargaining, privatization [read: vouchers] or proposals to discontinue providing benefits through defined benefit plans.”

The report adds the lovely threat that “The American Federation of Teachers is committed to shining a bright light on organizations that harm public sector workers, especially when those organizations are financed by individuals who earn their money from the deferred wages of our teachers.”

The report goes on to list StudentsFirst, the Show Me Institute and the Manhattan Institute as special bêtes noires that promote school and pension reform. And it helpfully lists no fewer than 34 funds whose “directors, managers, advisors and executives” have dared to support reform organizations. The funds on the blackball list include such well-known names as Appaloosa Management, Elliott Management, Khronos, KKR and Tudor Investment.

The AFT’s national report also appears to have been coordinated with a local AFT affiliate. Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a letter to the editor by Byron Clemens that assailed the Show-Me Institute and the pension work of Mike Podgursky, a Show-Me Institute board member and economist. Yet despite all of Clemens’ supposed sleuthing, the author ironically failed to reveal that he . . . is a “union organizer” with AFT. For a letter so intent on establishing “links,” it is curious Clemens did not reveal his own.

But what the AFT and Clemens did get right, explicitly and implicitly, is that if public unions such as the AFT stand in the way of reforms that would protect taxpayers and help kids, they should absolutely worry about the threat the Show-Me Institute poses to them. And to be clear, we will, with great pleasure, continue the fervent, methodical, and fact-based research that has raised their ire.

The post As Reported In The Wall Street Journal: American Federation of Teachers Attacks Show-Me appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report is not an evaluation of Missouri’s performance; rather, it is an evaluation of state policies. Of course, to evaluate a policy, you must have a position. As the organization’s name indicates, Students First’s position is that school policies should be aligned to accomplish what is best for students.

From a liberty perspective, I agree with many of the reforms suggested in the report card, including:

Tenure Reform: In Missouri, teachers earn tenure after five years. At that point, it becomes very difficult to remove low-performing teachers from the classroom. Teacher retention should be based on quality, not solely on seniority.

School Choice: Most Missouri students have few options for their education. Charter schools are not authorized to open throughout the state unless the local school district approves one, and many families cannot afford private schools. Missouri needs to expand charter options and enable families to utilize the many great private schools that are serving students.

School Grading: As we witnessed with the reaccreditation of the Saint Louis Public Schools, Missouri’s district grading system is weak and provides little useful information to parents. An A-F grading system at the school level would equip parents with the information they need to make informed choices.

Portable Pensions: Did you know that if you teach in Saint Louis County and then take a job in the Saint Louis Public School District, you will lose a great deal of your pension wealth? The same is true for Kansas City. The state has three pension systems set up for teachers, making it costly for teachers to move across sectors. Moreover, the pensions are not tied directly to an individual’s contributions.

Students First is correct, Missouri’s policies are not focused on what is best for students; rather, most of our policies are focused on adults.

The post Missouri Gets D- In Education Policies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“Won’t Back Down” highlights the important message that every child deserves good teachers. Parents do not have to let their children suffer in failing schools.

The movie follows single mother Jamie, who works two jobs and wants desperately for her daughter Malia to have a second-grade teacher who cares about teaching. But Malia’s teacher at the local public school, like many others, is focused on passing the time before she can collect her pension and get the heck out of there.

When we are unhappy with a service in the private market — our dry cleaner, for example — we can easily choose to stop bringing our clothes to that location. We have other choices. I realize that schooling is a bit more complicated than dry cleaning, but the point is this: with schools, parents often do not have the choice to send their kids to a different location that will provide a better education. Sure, your child can go to a private school if you have the money. But many Americans cannot afford it.

Almost all parents pay taxes to support public education. Why should they be forced to pay for and send their children into a system that is not working? Parents need more choices.

In “Won’t Back Down,” Jamie works tirelessly to fight for a better education for her daughter, and she succeeds with the help of caring teachers. Here in Missouri, parents face many of the same obstacles. Jamie shows us that parents do not have to accept a failing school. Change is possible.

To learn more about education issues, watch these videos: Teacher Tenure: Time for a Change, Charter School Benefits and Research, and Can We Improve Urban Schools?

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