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Missouri education department prepares for ‘mother of all supplemental budgets’
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education anticipates asking lawmakers for more money later this year in order to meet the demands of a massive new education law and make up for reduced federal funding. “My gut is… because you have a lot of federal authority deleted… you’ll see the mother of all supplemental […]
Missouri governor signs $468M education bill that boosts teacher pay, expands charters
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation Tuesday that boosts the minimum salary for teachers, changes the formula for funding public schools and expands a tax-credit scholarship for private schools. It also allows charter schools in Boone County and requires a public vote for districts seeking to go to a four-day school week. When fully implemented, […]
Group turns in signatures to put minimum wage hike, paid sick leave on Missouri ballot
An initiative petition campaign that seeks to raise Missouri’s minimum wage delivered over 210,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office Wednesday afternoon — nearly double the amount needed to make the statewide ballot. It is the first of five initiative petitions the Secretary of State’s office expects to deliver signatures this week. Petitioners need […]
Appeals court sides with KC charter school in its fight with state to remain open
A Kansas City charter school for at-risk students will be allowed to stay open after an appeal of the state’s decision to revoke its charter. In a ruling issued last week, the presiding judge of Missouri’s western district court of appeals ruled a charter school has the right to judicial review if the state attempts […]
Missouri Senate committee approves bill to expand college core curriculum
Legislation that could expand the number of college credits universally transferable between Missouri’s public two-year and four-year institutions took another step towards becoming law on Tuesday as time runs short before lawmakers adjourn for the year. A Senate committee, in its last scheduled meeting of the legislative session, debated and passed a bill Tuesday morning […]
Missouri House narrowly sends private-school tax credit, charter expansion to governor’s desk
A massive education bill that expands a private school scholarship program and opens up Boone County to charter schools squeaked out of the Missouri House and to the governor’s desk on Thursday, winning the bare minimum number of votes needed for passage. The 153-page bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Andrew Koenig of Manchester, is […]
Missouri Senate amends House bill to ease passage of K-12 tax credit expansion
The Missouri Senate voted Wednesday night to ensure homeschool families are allowed to own firearms. On a 27-4 vote, lawmakers approved legislation that originally was focused on cleaning up issues with Missouri’s virtual school program. But over the course of a five-hour recess in the Senate Wednesday, Republicans turned that legislation into a catch-all measure […]
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse ask Missouri Attorney General, lawmakers for change
A group including survivors of childhood sexual abuse is hoping Missouri lawmakers will change state law to give victims more time to sue their assailants and that the attorney general will provide more oversight of boarding schools and camps. Douglas Lay, assistant director of Missouri Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told reporters Monday […]
U.S. Senate committee critical of MOHELA after widespread complaints
A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday dug into complaints against a Missouri-based student-loan servicer, though the organization’s executive director refused to attend. Wednesday’s meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs focused on the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, and other loan servicers that have received widespread criticism in […]
Missouri treasurer pushes back on legislative criticism of MoScholars data transparency
Lawmakers are raising concerns about what they believe is a lack of transparency in Missouri’s nearly two-year old private school tax credit program. The administrator of the MOScholars program, State Treasurer Vivek Malek, says the criticism is misplaced, arguing lawmakers are making overly broad requests for data in a manner that is taxing the small […]
Missouri Attorney General leads coalition challenging Biden student debt relief
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is seeking to squash a nearly eight-month-old program that has waived $1.2 billion in student loans for 153,000 borrowers and limited the payment amounts for 8 million others. He is joined by the attorneys general from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in […]
Caleb Rowden pushes for charter schools in his county over objections from local districts
Caleb Rowden only has a few more months left as a Missouri lawmaker, and he wants to leave a legacy in his hometown of Columbia. The Senate president pro tem will leave office this year because of term limits, and before he’s done he wants to change state law to allow charter schools in the […]