Putting Performance on the Map: Locating Quality Schools in the Kansas City, Missouri School District

Abstract

Putting Performance on the Map: Locating Quality Schools in the Kansas City, Missouri School District reports the geographic distribution of school performance within the boundaries of the Kansas City, Missouri School District (KCMSD). At a time of momentous change for KCMSD, this report provides baseline data on school-age children, enrollment in District and charter schools, and school performance by zip code in the district. The premise of this report is that all children living within the KCMSD boundaries should be able to attend a school performing at or better than state standards in the neighborhood where they reside.This report provides a different analysis of school performance and enrollment data than that of the District, with a focus on the location of schools relative to where school-age children in the district live. It also reports data on charter schools, which are independently operated public schools open to any child residing in the district. Finally, this report identifies how the District’s plan to close, restructure, or move 23 elementary and secondary schools affects the number of seats in better performing schools across the district.The shrinking enrollment in KCMSD schools is the result of both declining population in the city as families move to other parts of the metropolitan area, the reduction in the school district boundary, and the migration of students to charter schools. Between 1999 and 2010, 27 charter campuses opened within the district, 24 of which were open during the 2008-2009 school year and are included in this analysis. Thirteen of these schools opened in 1999, the year after the enactment of Missouri's charter school law. Today, roughly one-third of public school students within the boundaries of KCMSD attend a charter school.Despite diversity among the types of schools in the district, 88 percent of KCMSD and charter students attend schools where performance lags behind the 2008 Missouri state standard, which requires that approximately half the students in a school reach proficient or above on standardized exams in Communication Arts and Mathematics. This analysis delineates where children in the district reside and whether or not they have access to a school that reached just 50 percent of the Missouri state standard, which is approximately one-quarter of students reaching proficient or above in both Communication Arts and Mathematics in 2008-2009.The following analysis is based on a methodology developed by IFF in 2003 and used to study schools in Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Denver. It is a point-in-time analysis that captures the geographic need for performing schools based on enrollment during the 2008-2009 academic year. This study also looks at the effect of KCMSD’s “right-sizing” plan on the configuration of schools in the district and the distribution of performing schools.Putting Performance on the Map complements KCMSD’s recent work by aggregating data at the zip code level and including comprehensive individual profiles of each zip code with detailed data on enrollment in KCMSD and charter schools. This report documents KCMSD and charter schools by geography, and in doing so, will provide essential information to allow the Kansas City, Missouri community to create quality schools for all children in the KCMSD boundaries.