Tagged: education

State education officials could step in quicker to assist failing Missouri school districts under legislation backed in the House.

Districts that lose state accreditation currently are given two years to improve before the state officials can intervene. The new legislation removes the waiting period.

When the state Board of Education revokes a district's accreditation, it then would decide whether to set conditions for the local school board to remain in place or determine when an alternative governing system for those schools would take effect.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) has released an additional $5 million withheld from this year’s K-12 and Higher Education budgets.

The Nixon Administration says $3 million of the withheld funding will help keep school buses on the road, while just over $2 million will go toward universities and community colleges.  Budget Director Linda Luebbering says the move was made because state lottery sales have been better than expected.

For nearly 20 years Missouri has had a law on the books that allows students in unaccredited school districts to transfer to nearby accredited ones.

It’s a policy that makes sense on the surface.

Yet as of this year both the St. Louis and Kansas City public schools are without state accreditation.

As St. Louis Public Radio’s Maria Altman reports, the law would allow thousands of students to transfer into suburban districts at a huge cost to the urban schools.

About 300 teachers are at the Missouri Capitol lobbying lawmakers over a measure that includes phasing out the state's teacher tenure system.

The teachers held a brief rally Tuesday the Capitol rotunda Tuesday. Among other things, the bill would not allow the state's tenure law to apply to teachers hired after June 2013.

Ralf Trusty, president of the Missouri State Teachers Association, says that teachers are an important part of a child's development. He says teachers need to know that their jobs are secure so that they can do those jobs well.