When will adequately funding Missouri public schools become a legislative priority?

Even when Missouri lawmakers fund public schools in accordance with the state’s foundation formula, the level is still inadequate to meet the needs of schools across the state.

The practice of selling our public schools short has become the pattern — year after year, irrespective of the need.

This year the practice seems to be getting worse.

The state, in its current budget, did not provide funding at the level required by the state’s foundation formula, which is set in law. Even worse, the Missouri State Board of Education, which is supposed to be the primary voice for advocating and securing all needed funding, did not even bother to request the required amount according to the state formula.

This decision, which occurred during their Sept. 15 meeting, is unprecedented. It further weakens what seems to be an interminable fight to give our public schools the funding they need to adequately educate our children.

Where does that leave the educational welfare of our children when those with higher authority who should be fighting for needed funding fail to?

The effects are compounding, both in the short and long term, more so for some school districts than others, such as underfunded schools in urban areas like Kansas City.

In the current approved state budget, per the state formula, schools are underfunded by $190 million. By not requesting any additional funding for the next fiscal year that shortage grows to more than $270 million.

Anyone can reason that the shortfall in needed funding will be even greater year after year — impacting multiple areas — even if the costs of everything remain stagnant, which we all know costs are not.

But the big conundrum: The state budget does not fully fund public schools, but it funds vouchers for private schools, $60 million, $10 million more than last year.

The state legislature also can support investing tens of millions in roads, buildings, monuments, sporting venues, interstate expansion, transportation, economic development, but is comfortable underfunding the educational needs of our children — one of the most critical assets for our future.

Even when the school formula is fully funded, many critical needs go unmet.

Perennially, it is okay to pay sub-standard wages to the people who are more important and influential in our children’s lives second only to their parents — our teachers.

Lawmakers seem perfectly comfortable providing funding for almost everything more than providing needed resources to the most underserved schools across the state to attract and maintain qualified teachers, books, computers and other learning tools to bring our children’s classrooms up to the highest standards for optimum learning.

What can possibly be the end game of falling further and further behind in adequately funding public schools in Missouri?

Why is it so difficult to invest in providing the best education for the majority of our children?

One is forced to consider the political climate we are in.

At the national level, the U.S. Department of Education has significantly reduced its support of public schoolsby either reducing, delaying or totally eliminating sources of public funding.

Are the actions of the Missouri Republican leadership in lock-step and following suit?

The Missouri State Board of Education advanced a budget request in support of a plan to grade public schools and districts on an A-to-F scale — but not any funding resources to prepare them.

This new A-to-F grading plan, comes with warnings, but it also raises a lot of disturbing and over-arching questions.

Among them:

What is the ultimate purpose and outcome of implementing a new evaluation system?

What will happen to the current system in terms of accreditation assessments?

What will the grades mean in comparison to schools meeting or not meeting other performance standards compared to other states and nationally?

How will such grades impact the perception of the academic achievement of the students and future opportunities for their educational advancement and quality of life?

The overarching elephant questions in the room:

Before schools and districts are expected to be evaluated by a new grading system, do they have the funding and resources necessary to meet the educational needs of the children who come repeatedly to their classrooms, and the measurements by which they will be graded?

How can any evaluation or grade be rendered or have any meaning when equitable and clarified performance standards have neither been consistently nor uniformly put in place, adequately funded and supported?

What will the grades be measuring against, a state standard (what state), a national standard, a world standard?

Our children are relying on the adults in the room — lawmakers, educators, parents, concerned citizens, and other caring adults — to advocate for and support the best educational options.

It is no secret that the current educational system in our state and nation is not what it needs to be to prepare our children to compete in many areas today.

On the national level the educational performance of our children lag behind many nations who are less wealthy than the United States.

Rather than work to continue to improve educational outcomes, there are efforts to undermine and undo the current system with indiscriminate cuts in funding, underfunding, new excuses, schemes or contrived performance plans — anything other than putting in place and supporting the best educational components as possible.

How long can we continue to afford to allow our children to be casualties of political agendas and misplaced funding priorities that do not support or advance a system of education that prepares them to best meet the future.

When will Missouri lawmakers put a quality education for Missouri’s children higher on the funding priority list?

Irrespective of available revenues.

It is a choice.