“If the School Improvement Program’s purpose was to improve schools, it hasn’t done that. Missouri has declined in academics year after year.”

Roosevelt Lyons

Today’s guest is Roosevelt Lyons, VP of Advocacy for the Quality Schools Coalition, a nonprofit on a mission to improve public education in Missouri. Roosevelt sits down with Staci to discuss the downfalls of the Missouri School Improvement Program, the importance of focusing on growth over status, and how the Quality Education Act aims to change the status quo. 

• Roosevelt’s K-12 story
  • Grew up in Phoenix, AZ
  • Went  to school through middle school there
  • Grew up pretty poor
  • Mom wasn’t in the picture
  • Dad had substance abuse issues
  • Went to an urban school district in Phoenix
  • Through elementary school he was a great student, loved reading
  • Around middle school, things got more dicey.
  • Got involved in “bad” group and got disengaged
  • Moved to Independent, KS, where he went to high school and graduated
  • Graduated 152/157 – wasn’t very involved
  • Worked a full-time job, didn’t go to school a lot
  • It wasn’t until he got older and in his undergraduate that he got more engaged in his education
    
• How did that spark your current work and what do you do?
  • VP of Advocacy for Quality Schools Coalition 
  • Does a lot of what he calls relationship building with community groups and parents to get them engaged in our legislative priorities
  • His job consists of 3 key things:
    • Informing parents
    • Get feedback from parents, get engagement from parents
    • Turn people into advocates, empower people to act
  • What he found is that education is for expanding your mind 
  • Undergraduate years are for you, not to get a job
    
• What is the Quality Schools Coalition
  • 501c4
  • They do lobbying for specific legislation, write legislation, and try to get legislation approved
  • All of their legislation is all geared towards improving public education and the public education system
  • Not pro-charter, not pro-traditional district, it’s public education they’re focusing on
    
• Where do you operate?
  • 4 person team
  • Kansas City, Jefferson City, and St. Louis mostly right now
    
• Why is the work the coalition is doing controversial? 
  • In polling, 84% of Missourians approve of the work they’re doing
  • When you say controversial, any time you try to disrupt the status quo, do something different, you might get labeled as controversial. Because change is hard, right?
  • Jefferson believes people get anxious about change because of the fear that they might lose something
    
• What is the Quality Education Act?
  • Replaces the current accountability system – the Missouri School Improvement Program, aka the program the state uses to accredit schools and score them.
  • They just released APR scores recently, and a lot of schools saw a big decline.
  • This piece of legislation aims to replace that system, because “If the School Improvement Program’s purpose was to improve schools, it hasn’t done that. Missouri has declined on academics year after year.” 
  • Missouri went from being 24th among the 51 states including D.C., to being 42nd.
  • 3/10 students are reading at grade level by 4th grade.
  • 1/10 black students are reading at grade level by 4th grade.
  • The legislation changes the system, makes it so academics are a part of their overall score, creates a clear and understandable grading system, and creates interventions for consistently underperforming schools
  • What is “growth” – This refers to the MAP test where they test where a student is, their status, and then they see how much that student has learned in a year, their growth.
  • Our bill makes growth a bigger part of that
  • Coming out of Covid, students are behind. 
  • If you look at their APR school, it wouldn’t look good, but if you look at the growth score, they’re making big leaps.
  • What we hope that does is encourage schools to go back to the students that are behind and help them catch up
    
• How is this beneficial for schools, particularly community-based schools? Or could it make flight worse?
  • The school districts that get labeled “failing” are where the students have the most growth. The students might not be on grade level, but their teachers are bringing them up to speed at a faster rate than urban schools.
  • For some schools, it’s going to show the work that they’re actually doing. 
  • Parents base their school decision on a number of things, not just academics
  • We believe parents should have that information so they have as much information as they possibly can
    
• What are some of the larger issues that the act can expose and bring more resources to?
  • This is important because of transparency, but also to actually understand where we are and what schools are doing to improve their students.
  • “In order to even have a conversation about bigger picture things, you have to start with clear, transparent, easily understood data, right? And that’s where we’re starting right here.”
    
• How can parents get involved?
  • Qualityschoolscoalition.org – home base
  • Qualityeducationactmo.org – Learn more about their legislation
  • Starting parent advisory counsel – getting their feedback to help inform the team on their strategy 
  • Hearing for their bill HB558 on Wednesday in Jefferson City, so if they want to come provide testimony or just learn more, check out the website.
  • roosevelt@qualityschoolscoalition.org
    
• Is this legislation going to even out some of the misconceptions around what it means to have a quality school?
  • Absolutely
  • When we focus on status, it can mask what’s actually happening.
  • What parents will do is look at that score and say “that’s where we’ll go, they have good test scores,” but what they don’t know is that those are the schools that don’t pay attention to growth. 
  • “So parents move their kids into these districts thinking ‘it’s a great school, it’s going to be great for my kid, because they’ve got great test scores’ but what they don’t know is that if their student is already behind, they’re just going to get further and further behind.”
    
• What is the thing that gives you hope for Missouri Education?
  • First, at the legislative level, there is some bipartisanship recently, which is a good sign for education issues.
  • He hopes that there is a more cooperative mindset, less of an ego-driven territorial mindset
  • The only way you can fix adaptive challenges is by getting everyone to the table and making sure everyone is heard