CEO Roundtable: Education

What’s the state of the Ozarks’ educational system, and where is it headed? To find out, Springfield Business Journal Editorial Director Eric Olson sat down with Springfield Public Schools Superintendent John Jungmann, Nixa Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Kleinsmith, Missouri State University President Clif Smart and Ozarks Technical Community College Chancellor Hal Higdon.

Eric Olson: How would you characterize the education industry in one word?
Hal Higdon: Evolving.
Clif Smart: Challenging.
Stephen Kleinsmith: Improving.
John Jungmann: Shifting.

Olson:  One of the challenges in that shift could be the funding. You’ve seen good signs for higher ed in state recently, with the governor keeping a hold on tuition, but that’s not the complete answer, is it?
Smart: No, I would say higher ed receives less money as a whole today in 2015 than we did in 2009. We are encouraged that the governor’s budget will have meaningful new money for higher education. They will at least put us back over the 2009 level. That’s meaningful in that we just need that core operating money to just pay our bills. Utility bills now are higher than they were in 2009. Insurance is more now than in 2009. When you factor in inflation, it’s actually less expensive to go to college now than it was in 2009. We hear a lot nationally about the cost of higher ed and that’s because nationally cost (went) up about 25 to 30 percent over the past six to seven years. We’ve increased about 10 percent at the same time in Missouri.
Higdon: I do think the other thing that is important to remember is that Missouri is in the bottom half for funding K-12 and it’s in the bottom 10 for funding higher ed. We are not one of the 10 lowest tax states, but we do spend like we are when it comes to higher ed.

Olson: If state funding went up, would tuition go down?
Higdon: I can only speak for my institution, but of an $80 million institution, I only get $12 million from the state. It’s really not even a factor anymore. When 15 percent of your budget comes from the state, the state’s really not the issue. We’re driven by tuition and a small amount of local revenue.

Olson: What do you see, Clif, in terms of state funding and tuition rates?
Smart: It is more meaningful for us since about 38 percent of our money comes from the state. I think our goal is to maintain affordability where we are. It costs $7,100 to go 30 hours at Missouri State University for a year. That’s a good investment because we know that if you get a two-year degree and then get a four-year degree, over the course of your work life you’ll make about $1 million more than a high school education. We are now getting lots of students from Illinois because it’s less expensive to pay out-of-state tuition and go to Missouri State than pay in-state tuition and go to Illinois in any of their universities. That tells you how good of a job we do.

Olson: What about K-12 education? How’s funding there?
Kleinsmith: We’re a lot like higher ed, trying to do more with less. The public’s demands are constantly going up and expectations are going up, and funding doesn’t seem to parallel very well to that expectation. Having said that, and just speaking from Nixa’s standpoint, we have a funding formula in Missouri that has yet to be fully funded. We came pretty close with 97 percent, improving from 93 percent last year. Ninety-three and 97 percent, just for two years has cost us $2.5 million. That equates to a lot of good programs and services that we’re cutting short. At Nixa, we spend about $2,000 less per student than the average state(wide) per student expense. The state average per person expenditure is $9,900.

Olson: What programs would you put on the table if you had additional funding?
Kleinsmith: I’ll put it like this, we’re planning on implementing a program called Connected next year, a one-to-one, digital program where every student will have access to a digital device. In order to do so, we would have needed a fully funded formula. When I tell you what we’re cutting, you’ll say, “Wait, no, those are good programs.” And we said from the onset we don’t have any bad programs because the low hanging fruit is long gone. We had to cut Title I remedial math and computer lab teachers. If we had that $2.5 million that was part of the formula, we would not have even had to consider cutting good programs to make room for better programs. There lies the challenge of strategic abandonment.

Olson: So, the percentage funded has been creeping up to 97 percent?
Kleinsmith: Well, it’s been years since we’ve had our formula fully funded. It’s been so many years I can’t remember the year it would’ve been.
Jungmann: Across the state, you saw taxes go up locally on a regular basis at a rampant rate so more dollars are being shifted to the local communities to try to cover the cost of the education where the state isn’t filling the gap. And that gap, right now, was $500 million in underfunding the formula. Well, while that is a big number, the good news is we have had $200 million in investment in the last two years. We’re not blind enough to think we’re going to get that full number every year, so we have to have a serious conversation about revenue stream in the state of Missouri. If not, it’s going to depend on our local patrons to fill the gap and the difference for us in Springfield is about $15 million of the formula underfunded.
Kleinsmith: For one year?
Jungmann: Every year it’s $15 million.

Olson: Is this a Missouri specific problem?
Higdon: It’s the worst I’ve seen. You were talking about the funding formula being underfunded by $5 million, when we only spend $900 million on higher ed period. I came from Mississippi with 2.5 million residents, not even half as large as Missouri, and we spent $1 billion a year on higher ed. The school I left gets $4,000 (per full-time equivalent). I get a $1,000 per FTE. The poorest state in the country outspends Missouri 4-1 on higher ed.
Smart: So, why do we care? We care because education, and producing educated citizens, is the best economic development there is. It is more important than tax incentives to lure Boeing to come to Missouri and create 2,000 jobs. If K-12 produces students that are ready to go to community college, technical schools, four-year college and we graduate them, they will earn more money and they will pay more taxes. Those people are more engaged in their community, they vote at higher rates and are able to take care of their families. You deal with the poverty issues by creating people who can handle meaningful work. You have to ask, “What are the two things you need for economic growth in a state?” An educated citizenry and transportation, and we’re struggling to fund both of those in Missouri. Hence, it is not a surprise we’re struggling with economic development.

Olson: How do you demonstrate the good of education?
Jungmann: One of the things that we’ve done is the (Greater Ozarks Center for Advanced Professional Studies) program. You continue to hear that students, when they leave our walls, they maybe aren’t prepared for that next step. Well, we need to let them touch that next step, so we partnered with Clif and Hal and Steve and all the superintendents in this region with our business partners to get our kids out, off of a typical K-12 campus, into a business on a regular basis. They’re getting an experience that they could not replicate in any other place.
Higdon: We have about 20,000 factory jobs in southwest Missouri and what we hear from students when they come out of high school is they don’t even think about manufacturing, it’s not even in their wheelhouse. What the truth is, and we find this with several of our technical programs, they’re coming out with an associate degree or a certificate and making more money than a first-year English teacher at Nixa.
Kleinsmith: Without a doubt.
Smart: Without the debt either. So, the manufacturers woke up and said, “We need to make ourselves part of the solution and get them on the floor at SRC or John Deere.” They’ll go in and work with a diesel mechanic for a day and then they’re making $25 an hour. Had they stayed in a traditional college track, which they had no interest in, they would’ve just dropped out at 16 and made minimum wage for the rest of their lives. Manufacturing has realized they have a reputation, undeserved, that it’s dirty.
Higdon: We never hear any criticism on high school students who don’t have technical skills. What they worry about is employability skills: showing up on time, asking questions, looking you in the eye. We used to call them soft skills.
Jungmann: We are hearing that content matters, but at a minimal level because it is the real life, real world skills – critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity – that are the 21st century skill set our students need to leave here with.

Kleinsmith: That’s different than where the state emphasizes our efforts on standardized tests – a single measurement.
Jungmann: Eight-five percent of our scorecards at elementary schools are dependent on standardized tests. The other 15 percent is attendance. When you create simple measures, you create systems that react. They say, “What’s the simplest way to get a score?” Its “add another course” or “do more of what we have done in the past faster.” While we have seen that standardized test culture grow, we have seen engagement in K-12 classrooms fall. Kids enter our schools in elementary about 80 percent engaged. By the time they leave us, they say that rate is somewhere in the 30-35 percent range.
Kleinsmith: Standardized tests is why that’s happening.
Jungmann: The culture of our schools can change. It’s all about experiences that are engaging, relevant and personal for kids. Performance will take care of itself.

Olson: With workforce programs, like GO CAPS, is there any threat to college interests?
Jungmann and Higdon (in unison): No.
Smart: For the kids who want to go to work immediately, there is a track for that. If you want a technical degree or want to become an engineer, there are tracks for that. As Steve has indicated, our biggest issue with K-12 is they aren’t college ready. Even kids that score well on an English ACT, still a big chunk of them have math issues. I’m not sure the question is making them take another math course. They have to be engaged and want to learn it.
Jungmann: It’s not just GO CAPS and getting them out. What about the kids that are sitting in our classrooms on a daily basis trying to figure out why math matters? When they see relevance in the assignment, then they are engaged.
Higdon: Not to pile on the standardized testing, but on the four-year level, up until this year, every new student took a standardized test. Which they didn’t see as relevant so didn’t try very hard, and it wasn’t a good test. Well, we have done away with it. In January, there is no standardized test for placement coming in to OTC. We are the only community college in the state to let them self place.
Kleinsmith: Good for you.
Higdon: In the first week of school, you will be given an assignment to test you. We are going to let you transfer the first week. If I sign up for Steve’s class and do my one essay and it has no punctuation, then I’m going to be sent to developmental. We are doing a huge bold experiment. We know the ACT, the SAT, none of them are indicative of how well you will do in college. It may be chaos at OTC for the first week of January.

Olson: Has the point of college changed?
Smart: There is still a growing up experience and maturing into a positive human being. There is still substantive learning. I do think there is a little difference in there is now more of an entrepreneurship component. You may have to create your own way. The things that really develop those are internships, undergraduate research projects, study-away activities and service learning. Things where you are doing meaningful group work that involves thought. We want to turn out people who can think and they will be fine. I didn’t go to college to be a university president. I’m a lawyer. If you learn the skills of thinking and communication, then I can learn the subject of higher ed when I’m in it.
Jungmann: The key is learners.
Smart: Life-long learners.
Jungmann: We want them to be able to learn what we put in front of them, be able to unlearn and relearn. That’s a big skill set for the future. Putting away what I thought I knew to learn what I need to know now. If you are stuck in what you thought, you are going to struggle in the new economy.

Interview excerpts by Features Editor Emily Letterman, eletterman@sbj.net, and editorial assistant Barrett Young, sbj@sbj.net.