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These kids don’t seem to be doing well. According to preliminary results of the last year’s state Board of Education, it shows a system that is in serious trouble. Of course, the results came with a press release from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) that cautioned all of us to “review the data through an informational lens.” And we were reminded that “nothing about this past school year was typical.” When three out of four low-income students in Missouri scored below grade level on the math and English/language arts (ELA) assessments and more than four out of five Black children did the same, it is not okay to review the data through an informational lens.
Missouri students get, hopefully, one shot at kindergarten. It sets them up for their future educational journey. The third grade gives them one chance. If they want to be competent readers, they will need to finish the third grade as proficient readers. They get one shot at getting ready for high school, where they’ll be expected to begin to learn independently.
The most important thing we require from DESE at the moment is honesty. The majority of eighth graders are beginning high school in the fall below their math and ELA proficiency levels. By most I mean almost 70% of eighth-graders did not reach proficiency in math last spring. Are we optimistic that high schools can help these students right their ship? Do they think that these students will be able to breeze into Algebra II ready to solve problems? x?
Missouri’s legislature passed an incredible $10.4 billion DESE budget. This will be used for the next school year. The federal government has provided more than $3 billion to COVID-19. We are actually awash in money this year—probably over $18,000 per student when the $5 billion in local property taxes is included.
The presentation by DESE to the Board of Education stated that DESE would use some of the money to train teachers in math and reading, as well as to address teacher retention and recruitment. While laudable and probably necessary, there doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency in those efforts. According to DESE, Missouri students may have to wait until teachers get on board.
What if every student in the state were given an account with their name on it into which the state deposited $10,000 to $15,000, depending on the student’s needs, to be spent at the traditional public school, charter school, private school, or homeschool of their choice, including a combination of any of them? With those resources, do we think that 3 out of 4 low-income families or 8 out of 10 Black families would just accept that their kids just couldn’t get to grade level? I don’t.
You don’t need a crystal ball to see where we’re headed. We’ve already been told that 99 percent of public school districts in the state will continue to be “fully accredited” for at least a couple of more years, which seems incredibly detached from the test results of the last few years. Talk of drastic cuts in public education funding is not uncommon when federal stimulus funds are exhausted. This would be absurd. And, sadly, DESE’s new accountability system (MSIP 6) is even more watered down than its predecessor (MSIP 5)—so I don’t expect anything but positive (or downright delusional) spin from DESE about school and district performance in the future.
Maybe the state Board of Education is afraid that calling a public school district “low performing,” or giving a district a “D” or an “F” grade, will make the adults in that system feel bad. Worse, maybe they’re afraid the legislature won’t be willing to increase DESE’s funding if they’re honest about how badly some of our schools and districts are doing. I don’t know. But I do know that the clock is ticking for Missouri children, and that those kids can’t spare too many more years of rhetoric and platitudes, and denials about what the data clearly say.
Susan Pendergrass, the Show-Me Institute’s director for research and education policy is Susan Pendergrass.