Missouri’s Stagnant Reading Scores
The COVID-19 pandemic began over five years ago. Students in 7th grade during the initial phase of remote learning are...
Senate Bill 68: Another Education Omnibus, Part 2
In Part 1 of the post, I detail the journey Senate Bill (SB) 68 took to become another education omnibus...
Don’t Throw It Out—Fix It
Missouri currently has a very weak system of accountability for public school districts. Every spring, students take assessments under the...
Comparing the Performance of Public Schools in the City of St. Louis
One common argument against charter schools is that some have low test scores. It’s true that some charter schools, particularly...
More Districts to Try New Standardized Testing System
This school year, six St. Louis-area school districts will begin using a new adaptive testing system to assess student performance...
Are Missouri Students in School Enough?
Recently, I came across a fascinating paper from Matthew Kraft of Brown University and Sarah Novicoff of Stanford University about...
What if We Decided to Lean in to Testing?
The College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) program teaches college-level coursework to high school students and then tests their knowledge with...
Missouri Students Are Sadly Still Struggling
Recently, DESE released the preliminary results of the 2023 Missouri Assessment Program (MAP), and the results were bad enough to...
20 Missouri Districts Get the Green Light to Try New Assessment System
New beginnings are in the air in Missouri. Some families are sending their children off to college for the first...
20 Missouri Districts Seek Exemption from the Missouri Assessment Program (Part 2)
Twenty districts in Missouri are seeking a federal waiver in order to be exempt from the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP)....
20 Missouri Districts Seek Exemption from the Missouri Assessment Program
At the most recent state board of education meeting, 20 school districts requested a federal waiver to be exempt from...
The More You Know
If your child is transitioning from middle to high school this fall, you might be wondering how many students at...
Missouri’s School District Accreditation Doesn’t Help Students
When the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) says 99 percent of districts are fully accredited and doing just...
Statewide MAP Results Are Out, and They Don’t Look Great
Do you remember the feeling you’d get as a student, when the teacher was handing back exams—especially when you weren’t...
How Well Are Rural Students Performing?
Without looking up the Show-Me Institute’s new paper on reforming rural schools, would you know off the top of your...
Melville School District Wants to Raise Property Tax Rates
Today voters in the Mehlville School District will decide if their current property tax rate will increase by 49 cents...
Do the Math?
How many times has someone said “just do the math?” Unfortunately, too many children in Missouri are likely to respond...
Springfield School Choice Kerfuffle
On Feb. 17, the Springfield News-Leader published an article I wrote about private school choice. In that piece, I tell...
Charter Performance I: Communication Arts
The performance of charter schools in Missouri often is the subject of much scrutiny. Ideally, we would evaluate schools not...
It Is Time To Increase Public School Transparency
In the past three years, the Missouri State Auditor has chastised public school districts for irresponsible spending, excessive pay for...
- 1
- 2
