Missouri lawmakers send school choice bill funded by tax credits to Gov. Parson’s desk

Missouri lawmakers on Thursday sent a bill creating a voucher-like program for private school scholarships to Gov. Mike Parson’s desk, a victory for advocates who banked on parental frustrations with public schools during the pandemic to pass school choice measures this year.

School choice was a top priority for Republican leaders in both chambers this year.

The bill, which passed the House after lengthy debate by the minimum votes needed in February, cleared the Senate by a vote of 20 to 13 with little discussion, months after a more sweeping school choice bill quickly ran into opposition in the chamber.

The measure would create “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts” in which current public school students could receive scholarships from private organizations for private school tuition or related expenses. Unlike vouchers, the ESAs program would operate through tax credits for donors who provide the scholarships.

Up to $50 million in tax credits could be claimed each year for the program, allowing more than 7,000 public school students to leave the system, according to estimates by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The tax credits could rise to a maximum of $75 million a year.

“The reality is every child is different,” Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Manchester Republican, said before the vote. “And we don’t know what that child needs or their parents need.”

Three Republicans joined all 10 Democrats in voting no.

To get more votes, House lawmakers in February limited the bill to students in the state’s biggest counties and cities over 30,000 people, effectively concentrating the program in the state’s urban and suburban areas. The program would only be triggered when the state hits a certain transportation funding threshold, money for which is included in this year’s budget bills.

Opponents, including the state’s teachers’ union and school boards association, have denounced the measure. They say it siphons money from the public school system and diverts it to unproven alternatives for a small number of students. They have pushed to improve traditional public schools instead.

“We are disappointed that the General Assembly abandoned Missouri public schools when they needed them the most,” said Missouri State Teachers Association director Bruce Moe, in a statement. “Facing disruption and learning loss due to a historic pandemic, the legislature decided to pick winners and losers with a new $50 million voucher program that will take public money to pay for private education without any oversight or accountability to Missouri students, taxpayers, or communities.”

School choice advocates argue that low-and-middle-income families who cannot afford private schools should get another option if their public schools aren’t working for them. With many public schools operating on a remote basis during the pandemic, proponents seized on parents’ frustrations to push for alternatives this legislative session.

Students with disabilities and low-income students would get first priority for a scholarship under the bill.

“This is a historic day for Missouri children,” said Peter Franzen, associate director of the Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri, which helped parents testify to lawmakers this year. “COVID has really shined a light on this. I think there’s a lot of pent-up demand and interest.”

Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, said opponents’ fears were overblown.

“Giving kids and parents another option in certain cases is just not a bad thing and it’s not the end of public education,” he said after the vote. “I just think it’s a great day.”

Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, accused Republicans of forcing the bill through without an attempt to compromise with advocates of traditional public schools. Senators had been working to compromise on a much broader school choice package since it stalled earlier this year, she said.

Arthur called the restriction of the bill to Jackson County and the St. Louis area “cynical political gamesmanship.”

“If they insist this is good education policy it should be good education policy for everyone everywhere in the state,” she said. “I do think that this is going to threaten eventually our ability to fully and adequately fund public schools.”

The bill had momentum early this legislative session after years of debate.

But it still was not universally popular among Republicans, facing an uphill climb getting passed in the House and stalling for months in the Senate. It led advocates to fear they would lose their pandemic-driven opportunity.

“Certainly if it’s [Speaker of the House Rob Vescovo’s] priority and we can’t get it done, I think we just assumed there were probably ramifications from that” on Senate bills in the House, Rowden said. “It was just a matter of taking the time and getting the votes needed.”

Republicans voted it out of a government accountability committee this week over the objections of committee chair Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican, who voted no.

“I think part of what ended up allowing us to get some of these last few votes frankly was just the rigidity of the public school establishment to say, ‘It’s our way or the highway,’” Rowden said.