Public school officials oppose tuition tax credit at hearing

A bipartisan committee of state lawmakers expressed frustration Wednesday at the strong opposition of public education groups to a legislative proposal to allow some low-income students to escape failing public schools in Kansas City, St. Louis and the St. Louis suburb of Wellston.

At a daylong hearing at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, public school groups opposed a tuition tax credit plan. They said it amounts to spending public tax money on private schools and would violate the state constitution.

Lawmakers on the school-choice committee, including state Rep. Nathan Cooper of Cape Girardeau, disagreed. They said it would encourage more private investment in education and won't cut into state aid for other school districts.

"I don't get it," said Rep. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph. "Tell me where the math is wrong."

Schaaf said it appears public school officials simply don't want any competition from private schools.

Committee chairman Ted Hoskins, a Democrat from the St. Louis suburb of Berkeley, said educators need to get on board to solve the problem of failing schools.

Under the plan, the state would give tax credits to people and businesses that donate money to a fund that would provide scholarships to low-income students. The scholarships would help pay tuition to attend private or parochial schools or public schools in other districts.

"This is not a voucher," Hoskins said. "This money is coming from the business community."

Hoskins and others on the committee are charged with making a report to House Speaker Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill, in an effort to help craft legislation to boost student achievement in the troubled districts. Hoskins said support from rural lawmakers will be crucial to any effort to pass the proposed scholarship program in the Missouri House.

The failing schools serve mostly black students. Steve Hunter, R-Joplin, Mo., sees it as partly a racial issue.

"It is a racial problem because the white people out there want to ignore it," said Hunter, who is white.

Cape Girardeau school board member Steve Trautwein said the proposal would provide public funds to private schools that aren't accountable to taxpayers. Administrators and teachers in the troubled school districts need to be held accountable, he said, but not through a tuition tax credit plan.

The plan envisions spending $40 million in scholarships. At $5,000 per scholarship, the plan could serve 8,000 students annually. That amounts to only 11 percent of the students in the three school districts, Trautwein said.

Lawmakers said increased competition would force the failing school districts to do a better job of educating the remaining students in their districts.

"I believe competition breeds success," Hoskins said.

Trautwein suggested that sending low-income children to private schools isn't the answer, adding that a federal study indicates little difference in student achievement between public and private schools.

But committee members -- six of the eight attended the hearing -- were skeptical. "Anyone who can afford it doesn't send their students to the St. Louis public schools," Hoskins said.

Mary Armstrong, president of the teachers union in St. Louis, said the plan isn't the answer.

She said the St. Louis School District needs a "zero tolerance" policy regarding discipline violations because disruptive students have become "academic terrorists."

"We have children coming into kindergarten fighting teachers, cursing teachers, biting teachers," she said.

Operators of two local private schools in Cape Girardeau and the director of School Choice Missouri, a St. Louis-based organization that favors school-choice options for parents, voiced support for the plan.

"Parents have the right to be in the driver's seat," said Donayle Whitmore-Smith, director of School Choice Missouri.

Jackie Brandtner, who directs Deer Creek Christian Academy in Cape Girardeau, and Notre Dame Regional High School principal Brother David Migliorino said their schools are accountable to students and their parents.

The key to a good education, Migliorino said, is to have willing students and involved parents.

"Kids want direction. Kids want discipline," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123