The Children’s Education Council of Missouri makes a statement on SJR 44 and SJR 45. These two legislative resolutions attempt to merge the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education with the Department of Higher Education. The rush to pass this in response to budget concerns has left questions about how this bill could affect Missouri’s elementary, secondary and college-bound students.  Click here to read more on their website.

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The Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri supports individualized learning opportunities for all children through issue resolution, community advocacy, and civic engagement. Members of CECM’s board are actively supporting efforts to provide the highest quality of education to each child in Missouri. We believe in strong public schools but that the education system currently in place is not meeting the needs of all Missouri children. We believe this is a complex problem with several viable solutions that deserve consideration.

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Missouri Begins Race to the Top

“Demonstrating Other Significant Reform Conditions”

Average of scores: 0.4 out of 5 possible points

Reviewers of Missouri’s $743.5 million Race to the Top application had numerous negative comments for the state’s application as it related to conditions in the state for significant education reforms.  Below are some of the comments taken directly from the review forms.

• “Missouri does not adequately answer this question.  It states in a 3 ½ line paragraph that Missouri LEAs operate special education cooperatives, alternative schools and technical programs.  However, Missouri does not explain in its application how these programs are reforms or innovations that have increased student achievement or graduation rates, narrowed achievement gaps, or have produced other favorable outcomes.  As a result, all points were withheld.” – Reviewer #2

• “The applicant makes almost no effort in this section of the application to describe the extent to which the State, in addition to information provided under other State Reform Conditions Criteria, has created through law, regulation, or policy, other conditions favorable to education reform or innovation that have increased student achievement or graduation rates, narrowed achievement gaps, or resulted in other important outcomes.” – Reviewer #5

• “The state’s application presents only general information on its intent to create new models of innovation.  It does not effectively address this criterion from the perspective of specific legislative or policy actions.” – Reviewer #1

In summation, the reviewers of Missouri’s Race to the Top application saw conditions for significant education reforms in the state as poor.  Four out of the five reviewers gave the application zero points in this section.  The lone reviewer who awarded two points in this section did so based on parts of the application outside of this section.

It is not too late during the 2010 legislative session to pass significant education reforms to aggressively compete for Missouri’s share of this $4.35 billion fund.  June 1^st is the deadline for Round 2 applications.  According to federal legislation authorizing the Race to the Top fund, all money must be distributed to the winning states by September 30, 2010.  Round two is the State’s last shot at competing for this unprecedented pool of much needed money.

Full scorecards and review sheets can be found online at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-applications/index.html

Ensuring Successful Conditions for High Performing Charter Schools

Average of scores: 17.8 out of 40 possible points

Reviewers of Missouri’s $743.5 million Race to the Top application had numerous negative comments for the state’s application as it related to charter schools and state law restricting them to only the districts of St. Louis and Kansas City.  Below are some of the comments taken directly from the review forms.

• “Low points were given to this subsection because the Missouri charter school law has geographic and sponsor limitations.”  – Reviewer #4

• “Low points are given to the Missouri proposal on this subsection concerned with charter law because the Missouri charter school law has limits on both geography and sponsors.” – Reviewer #4

• “The state has a charter school law that only allows charter schools to operate in Kansas City and St. Louis.  Although a considerable percentage of students in these locations are in charter schools, the effect of this law limits the educational choices available to students who do not live in these cities.”  – Reviewer #5

• “Missouri’s charter school law is restrictive in that it limits the establishment of charter schools to locales with populations greater than 350,000 residents.” – Reviewer #1

• “The geographic restriction for charter operations imposed by state law, has the effect of establishing a low cap on the opportunities for more charter school operations.” – Reviewer #1

• “There are concerns about why charter schools are limited to two urban school districts…” – Reviewer #3

It is clear that in order to compete for Missouri’s share of this $4.35 billion federal program that the legislature must lift the geographic restrictions on charter schools immediately.  SB 838 and HB 2200 both significantly increase the geography where charter schools could operate and increase accountability standards for authorizers beyond what the State Board of Education has requested.  These two bills should receive fair hearings in each chamber’s education committees at the next available committee meeting.  The Children’s Education Council of Missouri fully supports the passage of both of these bills.

Full scorecards and review sheets can be found online at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-applications/index.html

It’s a hot topic today among school administrators, parents and parents-to be, and Missouri politicians. The issue of open enrollment is in the limelight for the second time in as many years, with a current proposal in the form of Senate Bill 603 on the table. The bill is sponsored by Dexter’s Sen. Rob Mayer.

While Mayer is on an active campaign to “clarify the misinformation circulating about the proposed changes to Missouri law” regarding the bill with his name attached, Dexter Supt. Dr. Ken Jackson openly discussed his opposition to the proposal during a recent meeting with the local Board of Education and during a private interview to discuss the proposal.

By definition, SB 603 “creates procedures for open enrollment of public school students across school district boundary lines starting July 1, 2011, if enacted.”

The proposed legislation, Mayer says, “requires the child’s parent or guardian to notify both the home district and the receiving district by Jan. 15 of the preceding school year about the change in enrollment.”

Mayer says of the bill, “I think this bill solves the issues I have seen all too often, such as parents driving out of their way because of erratic district lines or frustration with academic policies.”

According to Mayer, who currently chairs the Appropriations Committee, the bill would require each school district to adopt a policy that outlines what each district determines to be the appropriate class size and teacher-to-student ratios for every grade level, and no school district is required to admit any student if that ratio has been met or exceeded.

“Every denial and transfer allowed would be documented, and if a school is meeting its student-to-teacher ratio, they can opt out of the program,” Mayer says.

The senator from Dexter sees this aspect of the bill as having caused considerable misunderstanding, and in an effort to rectify that, he states, “This bill would not create overcrowded classrooms, or cause any extra burden to any teacher. Every teacher would know the maximum number of children they would have in their classroom, and it would be based on that school district’s policy.”

Many stories on this bill have included quotes from elected officials and educators who fear that overcrowding/loss of student population would be a result of SB603, which is simply not the case. A school will determine their own range of open enrollment transfers. Right now, there is no functioning mechanism for parents to transfer their child to another district, and so the parents and students bear the hardship of outdated boundary lines and a virtually impenetrable transfer policy.

Mayer goes on to illustrate:

“We have over five-hundred school districts in our state. Some are sitting at half-capacity. Some have lost their accreditation. We have children minutes from a neighboring district’s school riding on buses for hours due to archaic district boundary lines. I sponsored this bill because I believe that it will benefit Missouri youth, period.”

Mayer also addresses the sticky wicket of athletics, which some fear would cause open enrollment to be abused:

With open enrollment comes the issue of athletics as well, and Mayer defends the bill with regard to athletic transfers, stating, “The Missouri State High School Activities Association will continue to govern athletics, and students who transfer will have to sit out a year, as they currently do.”

To conclude the article, Mayer rounds up the last of the misinformation:

Regarding the funding issue, Mayer says, “If a student moves from a greater per-pupil funding school to a school that receives less per-pupil funding, some of that funding will travel with the student. If the roles are reversed, then the parents would be required to make up a portion of that difference.”

Mayer says that pupil movement in states currently operating with open enrollment average about 4.7 percent of students utilizing the opportunity to transfer school districts, and he considers that to be “certainly manageable”.

Referring to that percentage, [Dexter Supt. Dr. Ken] Jackson counters, “To pass legislation that is critical to only five percent of students across Missouri right now, well, I just don’t understand the thinking behind this kind of proposal in today’s crucial school economy.”

Jackson also has concerns regarding survival of the smaller, rural school districts and whether they can survive the potential problems that open enrollment may pose.

“I’m not so sure that unforced consolidation is in the back of some people’s minds in this proposal,” he says. “It’s a complicated topic with a lot more to address than where kids want to go to school.”

In somewhat of a surprise announcement late Friday, Mayer said that a provision to the open enrollment bill being considered that will grant each school an option to participate or not participate in open enrollment within their district.

The first reading of the bill was heard in the Senate by Mayer on Jan. 6, 2010. A second reading was heard on Jan. 13, and the bill was then referred to the Education Committee. It was heard in the Education Committee on Feb. 10. A passing vote would send the measure to the full Senate for debate.

The criticism that this bill will cause unmanageable overcrowding AND should not be passed because it applies to a mere 5% of the students population is just plain silly. Why should even a few students languish if we can pass a bill to allow transfer between public school districts? It is not a scary idea, as some have made it out to be. Many children are thriving because of the opportunity to go to a different school, whether because it was closer, had a special education program they would benefit from, or simply because it was an environment that helped them learn. We should not be so protective of the status quo that we sacrifice the legitimate needs of the students we are bound to serve.

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Senate Education Committee discusses Open Enrollment bill

St. Louis Post Dispatch

Columbia Missourian

St. Louis Globe Democrat

Education Equality Project

Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau, MO)

Springfield News Leader

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Missouri Begins Race to the Top

CECM State Director Earl Simms recently talked to KOMU 8 in Columbia, Missouri about the organization’s support for legislation (SB 603) that would allow open enrollment in Missouri’s public schools.  Below is the text of testimony given to the Senate Education Committee:

The Children’s Education Council of Missouri (CECM) is in favor of Senate Bill 603 which establishes procedures for open enrollment of public school students across school district boundary lines.  We believe that this bill could help education for special needs families in three key ways.

1.         Open enrollment would allow for families who are not satisfied with the quality of education their district zone school is providing to seek a public school option in another district. Our office receives calls from parents who are frustrated with the execution of their child’s IEP and feel helpless because they cannot afford to send their child to a private specialized school, trapping them in a failing situation.  I would invite the committee to talk to Representative Dwight Scharnhorst, who chaired the Interim Committee on Autism Spectrum Disorders.  At these hearings families testified about their desperation for help with their child’s educational situation and being trapped in a school that was not reaching their child.  At the same hearing, Special School District and Rockwood School District testified on some of the great progress they are making with autistic students.  It would have been great if these parents could have, through open enrollment, sought placement in these, or other, districts that are showing progress with this student population.

2.         Open enrollment would allow for families who have disagreements with their district zone school’s policies and procedures, such as seclusion, restraint and corporal punishment to seek a public school option in another district. I recently had a conversation with a parent of an autistic child who withdrew her child from their local district school and is now homeschooling.  She did this because of her disagreement with how the school was using seclusion and restraint with her child.  As with many parents of special needs children, she could not afford to send her child to a private service provider.  She stated that she would have been interested to have had open enrollment as an option so she could look at other districts in the area to see if they provided good services and she agreed with their policy on these key issues to her family.

3.         Open enrollment would allow neighboring districts to collaborate when planning services for their special needs children. For example, according to data from DESE, Meramec Valley School District in southwest St. Louis County has 21 students with an IEP due to a diagnosis of autism.  By contrast neighboring Rockwood School District has 263 students with an IEP due to a diagnosis of autism.  Transferring students, through open enrollment, from low instance districts to higher instance districts would save districts from hiring a specialized teacher and purchasing specialized teaching tools for only a small number of students.

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Open Enrollment Would Help Special Needs Students

The first study presented was a study of charter school achievement in the state, looking at value-added estimates of charter and non-charter public schools in Kansas City and St. Louis. The study measured growth of individual students’ standardized test scores from 2006 – 2009 and compared achievement growth of students in charter schools to students in traditional public schools in the Kansas City and St. Louis school districts. The study also compared these scores to all Missouri public school students. While the study, used a statistical model which controlled for grade and year indicators, prior test scores, and student characteristics, I do not think it eliminated the selective enrollment magnet schools. This is a key of any charter study since charters may not have selective enrollment. According to Missouri law, they must have lotteries to determine enrollment.

The study found, as do most studies of this type, that some charter public schools perform better than the district zone schools and some perform worse. The important part is that the poor performing charter schools close. Furthermore, families should have access to high quality charter schools and practices from these schools should be immolated by others.

Also studied by the Joint Education Committee was the issue of urban school governance, especially in Kansas City. The study looked at history and research on school board governance, a school governance workshop summary, the specifics of urban school governance in the Kansas City School District (KCMSD), and took testimony at public forum in Kansas City. The committee focused mostly on the comments at the public forum, saying that some wanted a state appointed board to take over the district, but most wanted the reforms to come from within the city. Everyone appeared to be complimentary of the new Superintendent that had been hired in July of 2009. Another pressing issue of the report was the fact that six members of the school board are elected by district and only three are elected at- large.

The final study reviewed was the most watched one in the interim, the open enrollment study. The study highlighted Missouri’s optional or conditional open enrollment laws and other states’ laws on open enrollment and their K-12 funding proportions. As part of the study, public hearings were also held in Jefferson City, Branson, and St. Louis.

Some of the highlights of the study included:

• 14 states have mandatory open enrollment laws.
• Most laws address special education, transportation, capacity, desegregation, funding, disciplinary issues, and competitive athletics.
• Missouri is one of 23 states with conditional or optional open enrollment.
• Missouri has a higher percentage of K-12 funding from local revenue than 13 of 14 open enrollment states.
• Participation in open enrollment in states with mandatory open enrollment ranges from 0.5% to 18.8%. (median 4.7%).

Full copies of the studies can be found on the Joint Education Committee’s Website

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Joint Education Committee Reviews Interim Studies

The first study presented was a study of charter school achievement in the state, looking at value-added estimates of charter and non-charter public schools in Kansas City and St. Louis.  The study measured growth of individual students’ standardized test scores from 2006 – 2009 and compared achievement growth of students in charter schools to students in traditional public schools in the Kansas City and St. Louis school districts. The study also compared these scores to all Missouri public school students.  While the study, used a statistical model which controlled for grade and year indicators, prior test scores, and student characteristics, I do not think it eliminated the selective enrollment magnet schools.  This is a key of any charter study since charters may not have selective enrollment.  According to Missouri law, they must have lotteries to determine enrollment.

The study found, as do most studies of this type, that some charter public schools perform better than the district zone schools and some perform worse.  The important part is that the poor performing charter schools close.  Furthermore, families should have access to high quality charter schools and practices from these schools should be immolated by others.

Also studied by the Joint Education Committee was the issue of urban school governance, especially in Kansas City.  The study looked at history and research on school board governance, a school governance workshop summary, the specifics of urban school governance in the Kansas City School District (KCMSD), and took testimony at public forum in Kansas City.  The committee focused mostly on the comments at the public forum, saying that some wanted a state appointed board to take over the district, but most wanted the reforms to come from within the city.  Everyone appeared to be complimentary of the new Superintendent that had been hired in July of 2009.  Another pressing issue of the report was the fact that six members of the school board are elected by district and only three are elected at- large.

The final study reviewed was the most watched one in the interim, the open enrollment study.  The study highlighted Missouri’s optional or conditional open enrollment laws and other states’ laws on open enrollment and their K-12 funding proportions.  As part of the study, public hearings were also held in Jefferson City, Branson, and St. Louis.  CECM testified in support of open enrollment at the St. Louis hearing by discussing how it would help special needs families and could possibly increase the diversity in districts.

Some of the highlights of the study included:

• 14 states have mandatory open enrollment laws.
• Most laws address special education, transportation, capacity, desegregation, funding, disciplinary issues, and competitive athletics.
• Missouri is one of 23 states with conditional or optional open enrollment.
• Missouri has a higher percentage of K-12 funding from local revenue than 13 of 14 open enrollment states.
• Participation in open enrollment in states with mandatory open enrollment ranges from 0.5% to 18.8%. (median 4.7%).

Full copies of the studies can be found on the Joint Education Committee’s Website

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Joint Education Committee Reviews Interim Studies

The item earning the most attention at the beginning of the session is the issue of open enrollment.  Open enrollment is a policy that allows students to transfer to a school in a district outside of where the student lives, so long as the receiving district has the capacity for the student.  This policy could be beneficial to parents seeking to move their child from a failing school district to a higher performing one.  Many parents are also frustrated by being assigned to a school based on zone boundaries, often decades old, when they have a school in another district much closer to their home.

The Joint Committee on Education conducted a study on the issue in the interim session, hearing from parents and advocacy groups who were in favor of open enrollment and school administrators and teacher union representatives who were opposed.  The main opposition was over one of the four areas of special education, transportation, funding and planning for capacity.  But, the study released by the committee shows that almost all 14 states studied have policies that deal with these topics.  These topics are also covered in the first bill filed in the 2010 session on open enrollment, Senate Bill 603, by Senator Rob Meyer.  The bill was referred to the Senate Education Committee but has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.

The Children’s Education Council has previously discussed how open enrollment can benefit special needs students.  In addition to being able to move their child to a district with better services, the parent would also be able to find a district that practices policies that a parent believes is best for their child.  For example, I had a conversation recently with the organizer of an anti- seclusion website in Missouri, and she was very interested in open enrollment.  She explained that she pulled her autistic child out of her zone district and is now homeschooling due to the district’s policies on seclusion and restraint.  She also cited Missouri as being one of the few states that still allows districts to use corporal punishment on students.  She would like to take part in this policy so she could look for a public school district close to her who has better policies on these issues.

The Missouri Education Reform Council (MERC) has taken the lead on this issue and has received a great deal of media attention around the state. MERC is a group of former school superintendents and administrators who support education reform.  The Children’s Education Council will continue to support MERC and the passage of open enrollment during the 2010 session.

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Open Enrollment Top Reform Issue as Legislature Returns

Secretary Duncan has specifically said that caps on charter schools, whether numerical or artificial, will significantly harm a state’s chance at receiving these grants.  Possibly due to this program, some unlikely supporters of charter expansion are seeking to file bills during the 2010 legislative session.  With Missouri’s budget constraints it is no mystery why legislators should aggressively help Education Commissioner Dr. Chris Nicastro compete for part of this pool of money.

Adding additional pressure to give parents more options is the merging of the unaccredited Wellston and provisionally accredited Normandy school districts in St. Louis County.  Riverview Gardens is also unaccredited and located in St. Louis County, and there are seven other provisionally accredited districts in the state.  To say families in these districts need options besides their failing district schools is an understatement.  There are also interesting concepts for charter schools coming from private schools that would like to charter so that parents of all income levels could have a chance to attend.  One private French language immersion school in Columbia testified last legislative session for expansion so that they could change to a charter school.

One less discussed reason for allowing charter schools statewide is to reduce the number of consolidations in rural areas of the state.  If a rural district is losing enrollment and considering consolidation, they would have the option to charter instead of families in the area losing a school close to home.  That would also stem job losses of teachers in the proposed consolidated districts.

Regardless of the motivation, charter school expansion should be a top education priority for legislators during the 2010 legislative session.  It will give parents and students more options in more areas of the state for their child to receive a quality education.  The presence of charter public schools can also lead to better results from zone district schools as a result of competition or collaboration.  The Children’s Education Council will continue to monitor charter school legislation during the 2010 session and support bills that allow for expansion of quality charter public schools giving more options to families across Missouri.