The Missouri Senate passed an omnibus education bill Thursday that would extend state tuition scholarships to private schools.
Senate Democrats ended the filibuster on SB 727 on March 12, clearing the way for a vote last week. Sen. Ben Brown (R-Wash.) voted in favor of the bill. The various educational programs are expected to cost between $400 million and $450 million.
At a press conference Thursday, the bill's sponsor, Sen. Andrew Koenig (R-Manchester), said the bill is a “great package” that accomplishes goals for both private and public school advocates. said. But opponents have been vocal about the potential danger to low-income school districts.
Republicans scored a major victory on the MOScholars program. Provides tax credits to cover private school tuition. Under current law, these tax credits are only available to students in large cities, defined as populations of 30,000 or more, and to students in St. Louis, Jackson, St. Charles, Jefferson, and Clay counties. The bill passed Thursday would expand the program statewide.
The bill also increases the available tax credits by 50% from $50 million per year to up to $75 million, and increases the salary cap to qualify for the program by an additional 50%, making it easier for higher-income families to earn a master's degree than under current law. The program is made available to students. . Supporters of MOScholars' expansion include the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which oversees Catholic schools in Franklin County.
But critics say MOScholars creates an uneven playing field between private and public schools. The Missouri chapter of the National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union, said in a March 13 statement that MOScholars and similar programs “prioritize wealthy families attending unaccountable private institutions with little oversight.” “They are forcing students to take advantage of public schools in their neighborhoods, diverting critical resources from students in nearby public schools.” Accountability. ”
St. Clair R-XIII School District Superintendent Dr. Kyle Kruse had previously expressed concerns about a similar bill introduced in the state House of Representatives. Kruse said Tuesday that the $75 million tax credit will not be scrutinized annually by Congress like the school budget.
“They are not subject to any kind of appropriation or legislative activity. Public K-12 schools in Missouri, on the other hand, are,” he said. “If statewide revenues are not at a level that the Legislature is satisfied with, the Legislature can withhold various aspects of school funding.”
This discrepancy is more important for low-income districts, which rely more on state aid than districts with richer local tax bases.
The proposed changes to the state aid system in this bill are expected to bring more state aid to low-income areas. Missouri currently uses student attendance as part of its state aid formula, but experts say attendance tends to be lower in low-income districts. Under the bill, the state would use registration numbers instead of attendance counts.
Kruse said he supports several programs funded by the wide-ranging bill, including the creation of the Elementary Literacy Fund. The bill allocates up to $5 million annually “to provide grants to school districts and charter schools for home reading programs for children in kindergarten through fifth grade.”
The bill also doubles funding for the state's Small Schools Grant, which covers transportation and teacher hiring costs for school districts with fewer than 350 students.
Other provisions in the bill address goals that education advocacy groups have promoted, specifically raising minimum salaries for teachers, but do not establish a permanent funding mechanism to enact them. . Currently, state grant programs are the only mechanism that allows many teachers to keep their salaries above her $36,000 threshold. Missouri law has not increased the $25,000 legal minimum salary for teachers since 2005. The bill would amend state law to raise the minimum salary to $40,000, but it would not codify the subsidy program that school districts like St. Clair rely on to meet that minimum wage.
“Schools are pretty much bound by law to pay these amounts, but they may or may not have the funds available to actually make that happen,” Kruse said.
The bill also narrowly addresses the issue of charter schools by opening Boone County to independently operated educational institutions. “The vast majority of studies show that implementing (school) choice improves academic performance,” Koenig said at a press conference Thursday.
However, the Missouri NEA claims that Missouri's experience with charter schools has been “disorganized and littered with financial irregularities,” and that students enrolled at Hawthorne Leadership School for Girls in St. He cited the example of the school, which suddenly closed in August just one week before the opening of the school. It is scheduled to start this year.
Kruse agreed, saying, “I question the wisdom of expanding the program to the point where it can operate properly in areas where it already exists.”
The bill does not address the issue of open enrollment among school districts, which was addressed in the bill the House passed in late January. State representatives in the House of Representatives have also introduced a number of bills to reform MOScholars. Koenig's bill had passed its first and second readings as of Tuesday.