Weekly Update

February 16, 2024

Rural lawmakers want to repair the pipeline

In regards to the teacher shortage problem, Peter Greene, a senior contributor at Forbes wrote, "If I can’t buy a Porsche for $1.98, that doesn’t mean there’s an automobile shortage. If I can’t get a fine dining meal for a buck, that doesn’t mean there’s a food shortage. And if appropriately skilled humans don’t want to work for me under the conditions I’ve set, that doesn’t mean there’s a human shortage."

Greene states that in many states, the teacher pipeline is broken with thousands of qualified young folks taking a pass at a teaching career. And he further argues that the premise that "the mine has been stripped of every nugget" is false.

"There is no teacher shortage. There's a teacher recruitment and retention problem. There's a 'making the job attractive enough to draw in the people we want' problem," he adds. "There is a problem that requires a careful, thoughtful diagnosis. There are policy and political leaders who see the current situation as an opportunity to be exploited rather than a problem to be solved. Those are not the voices we should be listening to right now."

Two of those voices worthy of a listen in Missouri are State Representative Ed Lewis and State Senator Rusty Black.

Rep. Lewis worked as a high school educator for 32 years in Vandalia and Moberly, teaching chemistry and physics. He filed HB 1447 to address teacher recruitment and retention specifically. "The problem is obvious to all of us at this point: we don't have enough teachers for our public Missouri public schools and to some extent for the private and parochial schools as well," Lewis told the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education.

Lewis has included a bump in teacher pay in his bill which he hopes will help the state attract qualified teachers who are choosing other professions. There are more details on his bill below.

Another rural educator with more than three decades of experience has partnered with Lewis to help advance his cause is Senator Rusty Black.

Black filed SB 1163, which is the companion bill to HB 1447. While he says there's no silver bullet in solving the teacher workforce crisis, Black believes that with the teacher pay bump, the scholarship provisions, and the differentiated pay language, the state will have tools to focus on recruitment and retention. "It took us a while to get here, and it's gonna take a while to get back," said Black.

Listen to his interview with Missourinet here.

About Aligned

Aligned is the only state-wide non-profit, nonpartisan business group working in Kansas and Missouri on educational issues impacting the full development of our children, from supporting high-quality early learning to solid secondary programs that provide rigorous academic programs and real-world learning opportunities.

Our vision is that our public education systems in Kansas and Missouri have the resources and flexibility to prepare students to pursue the future of their choice.

We are currently focused on education policies that will strengthen early childhood education, teacher recruitment and retention, and school finance reform.

Learn more about our work.

Missouri News

A short and sorrowful week

The Missouri General Assembly cut its week short so members could attend the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory celebration. As we all are painfully aware, the joy quickly turned to sorrow through yet another act of senseless gun violence. We are all heartbroken.

Before gaveling out, the House perfected HB 1659 (Roberts), a public safety omnibus bill that contains an increase to the minimum age for juvenile certification for trial as an adult from 12 to 14, an elimination of parole eligibility for individuals below the age of 18 convicted of murder in the second degree; the creation of a "cyberstalking and electronic harassment task force"; and establishes "Blair's Law" for the offense of unlawful discharge with criminal intent for the firing of a firearm at or within a municipalities boundaries.

In the Senate, Democrats spent several hours on Monday and Tuesday filibustering a bill proposing to alter the state's Initiative Petition (IP) process, the citizen-led mechanism for circumventing the regular legislative process and allowing voters the opportunity to enshrine policy in statute or the state Constitution. With no clear resolution, Senate leadership has placed a hold on additional legislation moving out of committee for floor consideration until compromise occurs in an already tense environment.

House Committee Activity

Teacher Recruitment & Retention

By a unanimous vote, the House Elementary & Secondary Education Committee passed HB 1447 (Lewis). This bill modifies provisions relating to teacher recruitment and retention. Before the vote, the committee modified a few provisions and added language related to Pre-K. The committee substitute does the following:

Raises the minimum teacher salary to $38,000 and $44,000 for teachers with 10 years’ experience and a Master’s degree.
Creates a “Teacher Baseline Salary Grant Fund” to assist districts with paying for the minimum salaries.
Authorizes the State Board of Education to grant additional teaching certificates to already certificated teachers who complete content area examinations or a series of evaluations and recommendations.
Allows school boards to include differentiated placement of teachers on the salary schedule for hard-to-staff subject areas and hard-to-staff schools.
Modifies the “Missouri Professional Teacher and Administrator Act” by removing the entry-level test requirement for admission to a college teaching program.
Modifies the “career plan or program” requirement that career ladder duties must be completed after school hours.
Changes the “Urban Flight and Rural Needs Scholarship Program” by changing the name to the “Teacher Recruitment and Retention State Scholarship Program” and increases the maximum number of scholarships from 200 to 600 with a caps on total funds awarded.
Places a 3% CPI cap on the rate of annual increase for minimum teacher salaries and removes a 70/30 state appropriation match program for funding increased minimum teacher salaries and replaces it with a requirement for the estate to fund the increase fully.

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts

The House Special Committee on Education Reform heard three Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) bills: HB 1615 (Hudson), HB 1738 (Richey), and HB 2104 (Christofanelli). These bills propose removing the current $50 million cap on refundable tax credits for educational assistance organizations (EAOs) and instead setting a $75 million cap, with potential increases if the state funds the school transportation formula at 90% or above. Additionally, they aim to expand eligibility criteria, increase funding for specific student groups, and eliminate background check requirements for homeschool participants accepting funding. This bill is strongly opposed by Missouri homeschoolers.

Media Literacy, Critical Thinking & Appropriate Online Behavior

The House Elementary & Secondary Education Committee heard HB 1513 (Murphy) which requires DESE to develop a two-year media literacy and critical thinking pilot program for participation by five to seven diverse school districts across the state beginning in the 2025-26 school year with the purpose of promoting a student's ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and participate in all forms of media with an emphasis on appropriate online behavior.

Senate Committee News

Virtual School Programs

The Senate Select Committee on Empowering MO Parents and Children met Tuesday morning to discuss SB 1375, sponsored by Senator Karla Eslinger (R-Wasola). The bill modifies Missouri Course Access and Virtual School Program provisions. The bill adds clarification of the required enrollment process for virtual course programs for parents, specifies a payment schedule for resident districts calculating attendance of virtual students, specifies when the virtual education provider must submit progress reports, and requires districts to develop collaborative agreements for student services outside of virtual course instruction. During committee discussion, the bill sponsor stated that the language would help virtual students receive more educational resources from their resident districts without taking time from course instruction.

The Missouri NEA, Pearson Education / Connections Academy, and ACCEL testified in Support. There was no opposing testimony during the committee.

Reports

Read the full unabridged legislative report here.

See all tracked legislation here.

Budget News

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees continued to receive recommendations and new decision items from the various state departments regarding the FY2025 budget. We expected that the budget chair would file all appropriation bills this week; however, at the time of this report, he has only filed two.

Public testimony on the various budget bills will begin next week. There is still time for the House to pass its version of the FY25 budget before the Legislative Spring Break in mid-March. Additionally, both chambers still must pass the FRA bill to avoid massive shortfalls in the Medicaid program.

In other news

Aligned Priority Bills Report for Missouri

Bills moving...

Early Childhood Education and Childcare

Free and voluntary Pre-K for all students who qualify for free- and reduced lunch

HB 1486 (Shields) - Heard in House committee on Elementary and Secondary Education. Reported Do Pass in House - Rules Legislative Oversight on 2/5/24. NO CHANGE

Child care tax credit package

HB 1488 (Shields) - Third read and passed 113-39 on 2/8/24. Reported to Senate and read first time. NO CHANGE

Teacher Recruitment and Retention

Differentiated Pay

HB 1447 (Lewis) - Voted and reported Do Pass as substituted on 2/14/24.

School Finance Reform

Alternative Poverty Metric

SB 1080 (Arthur) - referred to Senate - Select Committee on Empowering Parents and Children on 1/25/24. NO CHANGE.

Other education legislation

Open Enrollment

HB 1989 (Pollitt) - Third Read and Passed (Y-86 N-73) on 1/31/24. Reported to the Senate and not read. 1/31/24. NO CHANGE

Accountability Measures

HB 2184 (Haffner) - Public hearing completed. 1/31/24. NO CHANGE
SB 1366 (Trent) - Public hearing completed. 2/6/24.

See status of all Aligned priority bills here.

Kansas News

Committee considers expanding Kansas Promise Scholarship Act

During a hearing on Tuesday, the House Education Committee deliberated on potential expansions to the Kansas Promise Scholarship Act. House Bill 2539 aims to modify the Act by eliminating residency requirements and redefining the "part-time" student classification.

Currently, the Act mandates that eligible individuals must have been residents of Kansas for three or more years before applying for the scholarship. House Bill 2539 seeks to eliminate this criterion, opening up the opportunity for residents of other states to apply and qualify for scholarships. However, the bill maintains the requirement for scholarship recipients to secure employment in Kansas for a two-year period after graduation or repay the financial assistance they received along with accrued interest. Additionally, the bill proposes a new definition for a "part-time" student as one enrolled in a certification program with a minimum of five credit hours.

Testifying in support of the bill, Jason Watkins from the Wichita Chamber said, "One of the top issues brought forth by our members is the need for a skilled workforce to meet the job growth demands in the region and across the state. We know we don't have enough skilled employees and have long invested in solutions to address the problem. The Kansas Promise Scholarship Act has been a key tool in building out our talent pipeline, but it does have limitations."

The House Education committee is scheduled to work on the bill Monday.

Mandating virtual education for expelled students draws concerns

This week, the House Education Committee heard HB 2658, which would authorize school districts to require a student to attend virtual school when the student returns to school after being expelled for 186 days or more. If an affected student is required to participate in virtual school by any school district that does not operate a virtual school, then the school district would be required to assist the student in enrolling in a virtual school operated by another school district. This decision by the school district for this virtual school requirement would be subject to “due process.”

Rep. Timothy Johnson says this would give an alternative way for districts to deal with troubled students. However, Leah Fliter from the Kansas Association of School Boards cautioned that this could lead to a system where virtual education could serve as a form of further punishment for students.

Budget Update

Budget committees remained busy this week. The House Appropriations Committee focused on the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's (KBI) budget, approving additional funding requests to tackle human trafficking and the fentanyl epidemic. The committee also greenlit funds to bolster the KBI's presence in southeast Kansas, a critical area for combating human trafficking. Additionally, discussions began on state hospital budgets, particularly regarding nursing and technical staff salaries. With healthcare workforce shortages, state hospitals have resorted to hiring from private staffing agencies, incurring significant costs. The Senate Ways and Means Committee initiated work on larger agency budgets and allocated funding for the World Cup 2026. They also addressed budget requests for technical colleges, recognizing their importance in the workforce pipeline. Given their non-exempt status, budget committees will remain busy throughout the legislative session.

Read our full legislative report.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

Next week non-exempt Committees must complete their work by Tuesday and both House and Senate will spend the remainder of the week doing floor work as the work towards Fridays half-way Turnaround point.

Key 2024 Legislative Deadlines

February 20 - Last day for committees to meet before Turnaround Day
February 23 - Last day for non-exempt bills in original Chamber (Turnaround Day)
March 22 - Last day for non-exempt committees to meet
March 28 - Last day for non-exempt bills in either Chamber
April 5 - First Adjournment (Drop Dead Day)
April 29 - Veto Session begins

In other news

Educators offer ways to address trauma

Following this week's shooting at the Chiefs rally, The Missouri Independent published an article that provides resources for talking to kids about violence and tragedy after the Super Bowl parade shooting.

They reported that area schools made counselors and social workers available and advised parents on how to help children feel safe.

When disaster strikes, “It comes from a place that we didn’t expect, and we don’t know how to deal with that,” said David Smith, a spokesperson for the Shawnee Mission School District. “Being able to connect people, kids, to the familiar, to the routine, can be helpful and give them a comfort that the world is returning to the world that they know and (where) they feel safe.”

Read the full article here.

Please take care everyone.