Susan Pendergrass speaks with Cory Koedel, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute, about Missouri education policy following the 2026 legislative session. They discuss the governor’s A to F letter grade executive order, why literacy legislation failed to pass, leadership turmoil at DESE, Show-Me’s latest Report on the effects of open enrollment, the case for expanding charter schools in Missouri, and more.

The post Missouri’s Stalled Education Reforms with Cory Koedel appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The University of Missouri (MU) recently hosted a lecture by Robert Henderson, who coined the term “luxury beliefs.” These are beliefs that signal status among the affluent while imposing little cost on them, but that burden the poor and marginalized. A common example is the idea of defunding the police: it’s easy to endorse from a safe, well-resourced neighborhood, where the consequences are less likely to be felt personally.

Once you understand the concept of luxury beliefs, you see them everywhere.

After Henderson’s visit I found myself thinking about school choice, and specifically the debate over charter schools in Columbia. Charter schools are public schools that operate independently of traditional school districts. They have more flexibility in how they educate students, but they’re also held accountable for results. Unlike traditional public schools, they can be closed if they fail to perform or attract students. The data on charter school outcomes in Missouri are unambiguous: Charter schools consistently outperform traditional public schools.

A recent state law change allows charter schools to open in Columbia, but there is vocal opposition locally. This is despite the fact that many district schools perform poorly. Moreover, the first approved charter is operated by one of the most successful Charter Management Organizations in the entire state, Frontier Schools. In the PRiME Center’s 3-Year Growth Report, Frontier has two schools in the top five statewide in terms of promoting academic growth.

Columbia Public Schools has opposed Frontier’s entry (luckily to no avail thus far). Several current and prospective school board members are also opposed, and community forums are full of what I suspect is an angry minority of citizens who don’t want Frontier to open a school in Columbia.

The opposition screams of luxury beliefs.

I wonder how many of the opposing voices send their kids to Battle High School, where of all the students who take Algebra-I, just 7 percent—this is not a typo, 7 percent!—score proficient or higher on the state’s Algebra-1 End of Course Exam. Or how many send their children to Derby Ridge Elementary School, where fewer than 5 percent of 5th graders—again, not a typo—score proficient or higher in mathematics.

How many of those in opposition send their children to any of Columbia’s low-performing schools?

I bet very few, if any.

For families with means, school choice already exists—they can buy homes in neighborhoods with higher-performing schools. Opposing charter schools costs them little. But for families without that option, the stakes are much higher.

What are those families supposed to do?

Why not allow a proven operator like Frontier to offer another path? If you were a family without means, wouldn’t you want that option?

If you’re fortunate enough to send your children to a school you like in Columbia Public Schools, I’m happy for you, genuinely. But don’t stomp on other people’s opportunities with your luxury beliefs.

The post School Choice and Luxury Beliefs appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

They say that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second-best time is now. That about sums up my opinion on the City of St. Louis’s one-percent earnings tax, the continuation of which is before St. Louis voters on the April ballot. The best time to start phasing out the earnings tax really was 20 years ago, and the second-best time is still now.

The 20 years in the saying is particularly appropriate in this case, as the Show-Me Institute released its first study on the earnings tax almost exactly 20 years ago. Professor Joseph Haslag, then at the University of Missouri, documented how the earnings tax reduces overall income and employment in the city by encouraging businesses and individuals to locate outside of the city. Additional studies conducted by Show-Me Institute analysts and others have found similar results regarding the harms of local income taxes generally.

Haslag didn’t just demonstrate the harm of the earnings tax; he also recommended a strategy to replace it in order to maintain necessary city services. Haslag suggested changing state laws to allow St. Louis to institute a land tax, which is simply a property tax on the value of the land only. Pittsburgh is one city that had beneficial results from implementing land taxation in the 1980s. Alas, while land taxes are popular with economists and fiscally beneficial, they are politically unpopular to say the least. Needless to say, land taxes have never been adopted in St. Louis (nor has state law been amended to allow them). But the harms of the earnings tax have continued to help drive St. Louis’s population and economy lower, and those fiscal harms were exacerbated during the pandemic.

An easier change (legally, if not politically) than a land tax would have been to start phasing out the earnings tax 20 years ago while increasing a combination of property and sales taxes over time to replace the lost revenues (while cutting spending where possible as well). Poor decision-making over the past two decades has made that already-difficult change almost impossible. Damaging special sales taxes such as community improvement district (CID) taxes are now ubiquitous throughout shopping areas in the city. Primarily used as a smokescreen for harmful corporate welfare, CIDs and other special sales taxes have driven sales tax rates sky high. While the sales taxes have gone up, commercial property values have plummeted. According to the St. Louis Business-Journal, downtown St. Louis office buildings have lost 19 percent of their assessed value since 2019, and even more if you go back further. The largest office building downtown, the AT&T building at 909 Chestnut, paid $5.5 million in property taxes in 2009. It paid just $200,000 in 2024. While that is the most extreme example, similar examples can be found throughout downtown.

The economic situation in the city was already bad, and the tornado that hit in May made it even worse. It was the type of disaster that could make people consider radical changes, and perhaps the land tax is the type of radical change the city needs. (For the record, the Show-Me Institute’s offices were destroyed in the tornado, and while we’re a nonprofit, our office building is subject to property taxes.)

As large parts of the Central West End and the Northside are still recovering from the tornado, St. Louis city government has commendably allowed homeowners with damaged homes to reduce their tax payments, but the long-term impacts on city tax revenues may be significant. The population of New Orleans still hasn’t recovered from Hurricane Katrina and, while the damage to St. Louis was not that severe, the risk is the same.

I suggest it is time to change state law to allow for a land tax, including on land owned by larger “nonprofits” like Barnes Hospital. The land tax could be imposed on the value of the land throughout St. Louis at a level that would gradually increase to make up for revenue lost as the earnings tax is phased out over a period of 10 years (or more). (Other changes would be necessary, including ending the tax subsidies the city gives out.) What makes land taxation so beneficial is that as homeowners and businesses rebuild their damaged property, they aren’t hit with higher taxes for the home or building. The tax is set to the land, which can’t be altered, rather than the building. So, return to the city, rebuild your home or business, make it even larger—do whatever you want—and you won’t be punished with higher taxes.

Pittsburgh in the 1970s was experiencing economic difficulties just as St. Louis is now. Land taxation helped spur investment in Pittsburgh, and it could have the same effect on St. Louis. The city has been hemorrhaging population, jobs, and wealth for decades. Honestly, at this point in its history, what does St. Louis have to lose?

The post It’s Time to Phase Out the Earnings Tax. Honestly, Nothing Else Has Worked . . . appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report is from an admissions workgroup consisting of university faculty and a handful of administrators. It focuses on a remedial math course UCSD introduced in 2016 to help freshmen fill gaps in high school–level math. The course initially enrolled about one percent of incoming students. However, instructors began to realize many students lacked even more fundamental middle- and elementary-level math skills. In response, the math department split the course into two courses: one focused on elementary and middle school math, and the other on high school math.

By 2024, more than 900 students—12.5 percent of the entering freshman class at UCSD—placed into these remedial courses.

To give a sense of the skill deficiencies among students in these remedial courses, the report shows specific math problems along with the fractions of students who could answer them correctly. Here are three example questions at the elementary level (edited very lightly for presentation here):

1. Fill in the blank: 7 + 2 = __ + 6

2. Round the number 374518 to the nearest hundred.

3. Find (13/16) ÷ 2

While it would be reasonable to expect every student who is accepted into an elite public university to be able to answer these questions correctly, many tested students could not. Just 75, 39, and 34 percent of test takers gave the correct answers to these questions, respectively.

The report identifies several factors that contribute to these disturbing—and frankly embarrassing—outcomes, including grade inflation in California’s K-12 schools that allows students to graduate with good grades but weak skills, the pandemic (every educator’s favorite scapegoat), and the UC system’s stubborn refusal to require standardized tests for admissions. But beneath all of this lies a deeper issue: a system-wide erosion of meritocracy. When merit is downplayed and standards are continually lowered, you end up with students arriving at elite universities unable to do elementary math.

To be clear, UCSD is not the only institution that has this problem, and I don’t want to punish it unduly for being transparent. In fact, the report talks about similar problems at other UC campuses, and what it describes aligns with my own experience as a professor at the University of Missouri.

There is evidence all around us of the shift away from meritocracy in education. Nationally and in Missouri, student grades, and high school and college graduation rates, are at historic or near-historic highs despite clear evidence of declining academic skills. Educational administrators at all levels of schooling have demonstrated a blatant disregard for excellence.

(Disclosure: I am a proud —though less so by the day—alumnus of UC San Diego, where I received my BA, MA, and Ph.D.)

The post We’re Destroying Meritocracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There are two aspects of the event that I really like. First, it recognized high-performing schools. Too often in education we choose not to differentiate school performance—we don’t punish poor performers, and we don’t reward excellence. I like that the event promoted the positive impacts of schools that generate high achievement growth. I was also pleased to see coverage of the recognition some schools received in the local media and in school newsletters and announcements (e.g., see here and here).

Second, I like that the event was centered on test-score growth, which is a far better measure of the impacts of schools than test-score levels or proficiency rates. Growth captures how much students learn during the year, not just where they start. This means schools in low-income communities are not penalized for low starting points as long as their students make good progress. This important design feature of growth is illustrated in this report from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Not surprisingly, the high-growth schools recognized at the event included many in high-poverty areas.

We need more events like this. When schools perform well, we need to recognize them, thank them, and remind them they are on the right path. This validation matters, especially for schools that show high growth despite low overall achievement levels due to external factors. Without acknowledgment, educators in these schools might not realize the positive impacts they’re making.

I hope the PRiME event becomes a mainstay and is the beginning of a more concerted effort in Missouri to reward academic excellence. If we want our schools to thrive, we need to show them that their success matters.

(Disclosure: As a researcher, one of my main areas of work is on growth modeling and value-added modeling in education. I am part of the team of researchers who estimate the growth model for DESE.)

The post PRiME Summit Celebrates Schools with Impressive Test Score Growth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I was interested, but skeptical. After all, many universities seem to be highly rated somewhere. Is State Tech really that good? In a 2024 article, I worked with two University of Missouri graduate students, Maxx Cook and Michael Reda, to find out. We examined State Tech’s impact on student graduation and earnings.

It quickly became apparent that State Tech students had better outcomes in the data, which is consistent with what they report on their website. However, we weren’t sure whether this was because of State Tech’s superior educational programming, or just because it attracts stronger students in the first place.

We used two strategies to sort this out. First, we used detailed data from the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development to compare students who attended State Tech with students who had similar pre-college qualifications but attended other two-year colleges in Missouri. Second, we used econometric tools to isolate a group of students who attended State Tech only because it happened to be near where they lived, rather than for other reasons. We then compared these students to otherwise similar students who happened to live farther away. This strategy helps remove a lot of potential confounding factors that might make State Tech look better than it really is.

Our findings confirm that State Tech is the real deal. It increases associate degree attainment by more than 20 percentage points compared to other two-year colleges in Missouri, and State Tech students graduate faster. It also increases earnings (measured six years after initial enrollment) by over $11,000 annually. Importantly, State Tech students outperform both non-technical and technical students elsewhere in Missouri.

We should celebrate the presence of such an excellent institution in our great state. We should also try to learn from State Tech to replicate its success. If this were any other industry, competitors would be flocking to Linn to figure out the secret sauce. But based on my years of experience studying education, I doubt this is happening. Why not? Because there is no competitive incentive to do so. In business, an exceptional company forces rivals to adapt or close. In public education—K–12 or higher ed—the risk of closure due to poor performance is almost nonexistent.

This means Missouri’s other public two-year colleges have little reason to put in the work required to emulate State Tech. It’s a missed opportunity, but we can still appreciate State Tech’s success and be proud to call it our own.

The post Let’s Celebrate (and learn from) State Tech, One of the Best Technical Colleges in the Country appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Dedicated funding for specific purposes creates an incentive for inefficient spending. We can think of a multitude of programs and pet projects for which policymakers might want to dedicate funds, but doing so creates restricted pots of funds that often get spent on unneeded items. For example, if funds are dedicated to technology, a school district may continually spend those funds to purchase gadgets and upgraded devices that are not really needed. Similarly, if funds are dedicated to a bullying prevention program schools will have to spend those funds on those programs. For some schools, this could be dollars well spent. In other places, this might mean hiring unneeded staff or purchasing useless curriculum.

The problem with dedicated funding for these kinds of programs is that the needs for all schools are not the same. Earmarking funds for a program will lead to useful programs in some districts and pointless spending in others.

A better policy is to provide a clear, transparent funding system that properly incentivizes school leaders to make wise decisions with their dollars. School leaders need more discretion over their spending, not less. They need the ability to shift more dollars toward curriculum when resources are needed to support instruction, or to spend more on after-school tutoring when remediation is required. Instead of telling districts how they have to spend their money, we could just let bullied students choose a school where they feel safe, like Florida has.

We can all agree that we want to see less bullying in schools, but we also want to see our tax dollars used wisely and effectively. Carving out dedicated funds for specific purposes is not the way to accomplish those goals.

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The goal of this language change would be to address concerns about diversity statements resembling “loyalty oaths” or “litmus tests,” Choi explained in his letter. MU spokesperson Christian Basi said Friday afternoon that the university does not and has not used these practices during the hiring process but wanted to clarify its practices. . . .

The Show-Me Institute, a Missouri-based think tank that advocates for “free markets and individual liberty,” also criticized the state’s universities for using diversity statements as “loyalty oaths” in the hiring process.

“We do not use loyalty oaths or litmus tests but a few of our job advertisements contained information that may give some readers the impression that such a request was inferred,” Choi wrote in his letter this week.

As reported by the Columbia Missourian, the new “values” language reads as follows:

We value the uniqueness of every individual and strive to ensure each person’s success. Contributions from individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives promote intellectual pluralism and enable us to achieve the excellence that we seek in learning, research and engagement. This commitment makes our university a better place to work, learn and innovate. In your application materials, please discuss your experiences and expertise that support these values and enrich our missions of teaching, research and engagement.

Without nitpicking, I will say that this language is an improvement over previous university job application expectations, such as noting that ideal candidates for a math professor position “employ justice-oriented frameworks (e.g., anti-racist, abolitionist, decolonial, indigenous)” in their work.

No one should blind themselves to the fact that the woke mindset has penetrated deep into Missouri’s higher academy. The incidents I cited were not isolated, and they are likely the tip of the iceberg. President Choi’s statement was good as far as it goes, but so far as I can tell no university employee was disciplined for requiring diversity statements, and the bureaucracies that produced them remain untouched.

Barring a legislative solution, we are going to see the woke agenda continue to consolidate its control over Missouri higher education.

If the system’s move was made to halt a statutory solution, Missouri legislators should not oblige. While I welcome President Choi’s improved and appropriate expectations for prospective hires, he doesn’t lead every public university in the state, and there’s nothing to stop other universities—or the University of Missouri System in the future—from falling back on woke bad habits.

President Choi’s decision to excise woke loyalty oaths from university hiring documents is encouraging. The legislature should finish the job.

The post University of Missouri System Walks Back “Loyalty Oaths” in Job Listings appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“Loyalty oaths” can mean a lot of things, but here I mean “loyalty oath” to be an ideological attestation required for public employment. Want to work at Missouri State? UMSL? UMKC? You might have to toe the DEI line first, even though doing so (1) is prejudicial to applicants, (2) undermines the free inquiry objectives of government colleges and universities by homogenizing professors, and (3) could deny Missouri students the best teachers by biasing hiring toward ideologues rather than experts.

Here’s another example: a University of Central Missouri job listing for a librarian features this remarkable sentence that starts reasonably and spirals from there:

The Cataloging and Metadata Librarian identifies and addresses metadata remediation needs, as well as the adoption of new or updated standards and vocabularies in support of James C. Kirkpatrick Libraries’ commitment to incorporating social justice into our work, focusing on the James C. Kirkpatrick Libraries’ diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racist efforts.

A math professor listing for Mizzou notes that an applicant who can “employ justice-oriented frameworks (e.g., anti-racist, abolitionist, decolonial, indigenous)” to their work would be a preferred applicant.

Taxpayers should be paying to “decolonize” math, huh?

Employees of America’s higher education system have long been left of center on average, but taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize this special kind of nonsense. Compelling librarians and math professors to commit to the Left’s preferred politics is viewpoint discrimination that encourages groupthink and creates an academic environment where everyone who’s hired to educate is part of some political in-group. That’s unhealthy if you want an academic environment that challenges biases rather than affirms them.

Hiring practices like those required in these “loyalty oaths” could discourage highly qualified subject matter experts from even applying for jobs that have no, or should have no, political or social justice component. Florida is in the process of uprooting this sort of caustic academic culture entirely, dismantling DEI programs in colleges and universities statewide. All other things being equal, are Missouri taxpayers really willing to cede qualified conservative and moderate professors to states like Florida? I don’t think so.

Missouri institutions of higher learning should focus on creating a welcoming environment by treating employees and students as individuals instead of trying to engineer campus-wide groupthink through the way that they hire teachers. Woke loyalty oaths have no business in the state’s hiring documents.

Update: University of Missouri President Mun Choi responded to this post with the following statement:

University of Missouri President on faculty recruiting practices:

The UM System does not have loyalty oaths

——-

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A recent post from the Show-Me Institute references “loyalty oaths” related to faculty hiring at higher education institutions. I want to be very clear — we do not have loyalty oaths of any kind at the University of Missouri System.

We strive to ensure that every UM System university has employees who are committed to an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone. Currently, we have students and scholars from every county in Missouri, all 50 states and more than 50 countries, among them individuals from various walks of life, including from rural and metro areas, military veterans and first-generation students — each with a different point of view.

———–

We hire the best faculty who exemplify the highest standards of teaching and research, and we do not compromise on quality.

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Dr. James V. Shuls will serve as Director of Research and a Senior Fellow and Elias Tsapelas as Director of State Budget and Fiscal Policy

 St. Louis, MO – Dr. James V. Shuls has been named the new director of research and senior fellow and Elias Tsapelas the director of state budget and fiscal policy at the Show-Me Institute. Previously, Dr. Shuls held the title of distinguished fellow of education policy at the Institute and Tsapelas was a senior analyst.

“I am honored to serve the Institute in this new role,” Shuls said. “While the opportunity to focus on policy areas beyond education is new to me, the goal remains the same—to provide high-quality research that helps promote free markets and individual liberty for all Missourians.”

“Research is at the center of everything we do at the institute,” Show-Me Institute CEO Brenda Talent said. “James and Elias bring knowledge and experience to their respective roles that will be invaluable as we continue to address the challenges facing our state.”

James V. Shuls is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He earned his Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Arkansas. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Missouri Southern State University and a master’s degree from Missouri State University, both in elementary education. Prior to pursuing his doctorate, James taught first grade and fifth grade in southwest Missouri.

Elias Tsapelas earned his master of arts degree in economics from the University of Missouri in 2016. Before joining the Institute he worked for the State of Missouri’s Department of Economic Development and Office of Administration, Division of Budget & Planning.

Dr. Susan Pendergrass, who previously served as director of research, has returned to the role of director of education policy in order to focus on education research.

Tsapelas is the institute’s first director of state budget and fiscal policy.

Media Contact: Zach Lawhorn

Zach.Lawhorn@ShowMeOpportunity.org

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A push by the attorney general’s office for the emails of professors and staff at the University of Missouri has academic freedom advocates concerned the office is being weaponized to stifle free speech and deter researchers’ work.

In June, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office sent two records requests to the university….

“When I see these requests, it really makes me worried about how this kind of request for faculty information can be used to burden faculty or hassle them where they’re engaging in research or scholarship that state actors might disagree with,” said Anne Marie Tamburro, program officer for student press and campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE.

Your mileage will vary on the utility of the Attorney General’s undertaking. Indeed, the vast majority of the public has little interest in the behind-the-scenes decision-making of Mizzou journalism professors. But that has zero bearing on the facts of this case, namely that (1) the people of Missouri fund their public universities through their tax dollars; (2) the people have the right to be informed about the activities of their public employees insofar as they relate to their public functions; and (3)  the Attorney General has the same right to use the Sunshine Law as anyone else, and a greater responsibility to do so where he deems the public interest requires it.

Academic freedom is an important principle, but all it means is that professors at public universities should have the discretion to research and discuss their ideas within the limits of the policies set by those constituted in authority over them. It doesn’t mean that they are exempt from the rules of transparency that apply to all those who work for the taxpayer. If their work would be “deterred” (to use FIRE’s word) unless they can conduct it in secret, maybe it’s work that shouldn’t be done, at least on the public’s dime.

FIRE should be considering the full public policy picture here rather than acting as an apologist for secrecy against the clear interests of transparency under an otherwise unambiguous law.

The post Sunshine Law Applies to Government Journalists, Too appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Aaron Hedlund is chief economist at Show-Me Institute and an associate professor with tenure in the economics department at the University of Missouri-Columbia as well as a research fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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• Popularity of School Choice
• Overregulation of Food Trucks
• Transparency at Mizzou
• Funding for MoDOT
• Failure of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit

Click on the link below to read more.

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Missouri should be as cognizant of the benefits student-athletes provide public universities as any other state. The University of Missouri athletic department brought in $107.3 million worth of revenue in 2018, and its men’s basketball ticket revenue rose nearly 70 percent after signing highly-touted recruit Michael Porter Jr. in 2017. Although student-athletes do receive a sort of payment in free tuition and room and board, this compensation often pales in comparison to the massive sums of money the players generate. Shouldn’t Missouri allow student-athletes greater opportunities to profit from their position in the market?

Other states are already addressing the question of student-athlete compensation. Both Colorado and California have proposed bills in the past few months granting student-athletes the ability to sign endorsement deals, superseding the authority of the NCAA. Federal legislators have even gotten in on the action, as several members of the House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would alter the tax code definition of an amateur to allow college athletes to profit from public appearances.

Legislation like this provides benefits for all involved parties. It allows student-athletes whose performance merits it to earn money without imposing costs on universities. Since schools no longer use third-party endorsement deals or individualized merchandise, students profiting from such deals wouldn’t interfere with university revenue. Moreover, providing these opportunities to student-athletes may give Missouri schools an edge in recruiting battles. In short, these policies introduce the free market to college athletics, and if Missouri acts it could be a win for the state.

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So, who is Ludwig von Mises and why would a donor believe it so important that students learn about him?

To answer this question, I reached out to Dr. G.P. Manish, a Mises Institute fellow and my Austrian economics professor at Troy University. He is well-versed in all things Mises and he laid out some of the main points.

Ludwig von Mises was an economist who supported free markets and economic liberty. He is most famous for fighting against socialism. He also used economic concepts to explain decision-making in non-market areas like households and government. For example, we think about opportunity cost when we decide to spend money on a sandwich instead of a salad, but we can also use this thinking when deciding whether to spend time cleaning or watching TV.

In general, Austrian economics takes a realistic view of the market. It allows for uncertainty, mistakes, and innovation while other economic theories assume these factors away.

After this mini-lesson, I asked Dr. Manish if he thinks that students should learn about Mises. Here is his response:  

I believe it is vital that students learn about the ideas of Mises. Doing so will give them a window into a different way of thinking about economic phenomena and will make them question the mainstream, Neoclassical tradition.

. . .

The free market, as Mises emphasizes time and again, benefits not only a narrow elite, but all groups in society, including the least well-off. This can be eye-opening in a world where capitalism and free markets are often charged with benefiting the rich while leaving the less fortunate masses behind.

. . .

A market economy is not devoid of error: entrepreneurs earn both profits and losses. But it is the only economic system where the production decisions of entrepreneurs and the resulting allocation of resources can be coordinated with the preferences of consumers. This vital lesson can be learnt only by studying the works of Mises.

As I’ve said before, markets work and Mises clearly understood that. The issue at Mizzou will be decided in the courts, but regardless of the outcome, many students would benefit from learning about this important thinker.

Dr. G.P. Manish is the BB&T Professor of Economic Freedom and a member of the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University. 

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The combined course list shows courses available on a wide range of topics including foreign language, different types of science and even audio and visual production classes. Some of the classes are even available at the AP (Advanced Placement) level. The education providers include Mizzou, K-12, Edison Learning, and others.

Show-Me Institute analysts have written extensively about the need for course access in Missouri, and seeing it signed into law was exciting. Although DESE did not produce the list of approved providers and courses as promised at the end of 2018, we’re glad to see that it is finally available on the Missouri Course Access and Virtual School Program (MOCAP) website.  

The law also requires districts to inform parents and students about MOCAP, but not all districts are compliant yet. For example, the North Kansas City School District has a MOCAP page on its website, but the Adair County R-I School District does not. As DESE is implementing course access, districts should be informing their students about the opportunity.

Not every student has access to opportunities like AP or foreign language classes in their home district. Now, students should be able to take the classes they need to build their future without being constrained by the offerings of their local school district. As the 2019-2020 school year approaches, we look forward to seeing students enroll in MOCAP classes as they customize their education and prepare for the future.

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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.

Award-winning legal scholar, teacher, and University of Missouri Law Professor Thomas Lambert recently brought this message to our state in a Show-Me Institute Policy Series.  His new book, How to Regulate: A Guide for Policy Makers, outlines the narrow circumstances in which markets fail and how regulators should approach the situation—like a doctor carefully considering the risks to the patient before prescribing surgery where a band-aid would suffice.

The post Recognizing and Reacting to Market Failure appeared first on Show-Me Institute.