School report cards foreseen by speaker

Report cards for school buildings and the elimination of lottery funding for schools are some of the items school officials should keep an eye on this year, according to a speaker at Thursday night's Missouri School Boards' Association fall regional meeting.

MSBA staff attorney Scott Summers told about 35 attendees at the Jackson High School library there's a legislative initiative to assign letter grades to how well schools reach attainment goals.

"If the letter grade falls below a C, then that's going to give the students in that building the opportunity to transfer to another district, or a private or parochial school. It would be at the expense of the district of residence," Summers said.

In other states where it was tried, Summers said, it led to a voucher system.

Jackson superintendent Dr. Ron Anderson said the goal should be to help struggling schools improve and he doesn't think the letter grades would benefit anyone.

Summers also said incoming Speaker of the Missouri House John Diehl wants to eliminate lottery funding for schools. He said Diehl thinks lottery funds are a poor way to fund education and are a tax on low-income people.

MSBA information says the lottery generates about $250 million in education funding and that the organization is concerned how that would be replaced.

Cape Girardeau superintendent Dr. Jim Welker said districts already are behind in state funding even without the lottery funds being subtracted.

School board members, superintendents and administrators from Cape Girardeau, Saint Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Perry, Iron, Madison and Bollinger counties attended.

* MSBA staff attorney Scott Summers also spoke of holding legislators accountable through a survey of elected officials.

* MSBA plans to use the results to monitor legislators' performance in Jefferson City to determine whether their votes line up with their stated positions on education.

* Amendment 10, approved by voters Tuesday, will allow lawmakers to override the governor's decisions to freeze or slow spending on items in the state budget. Summers said he didn't know how it would turn out, except it will mean full employment for attorneys.

* On the search for a new education commissioner to replace Chris Nicastro when she retires Dec. 31, Summers said he's heard "from folks in the know" that the State Board of Education is going to steer the process, conducting all interviews. The State Board of Education will accept all nominations and applications in the open search. Nominations will be taken at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education through Nov. 21. The public is invited to provide recommendations on what they would like to see in potential commissioner candidates. Deadline for this also is Nov. 21.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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