Missouri families need access to multiple options for their children’s education, and this need has only become more pressing since the COVID-19 pandemic. Two options—charter schools and virtual learning through the Missouri Course Access Program (MOCAP)—are already available to some Missouri families. However, it has become evident that the laws governing these options need to be amended to ensure that families can access them as intended. House Bill (HB) 1552 is nearly through the Missouri House and Senate, and is intended to fix some of these problems. Let’s look at what’s in this bill.
Charter school funding – Current Missouri law requires districts to share their state aid with the public charter schools within their borders, based on the number of public school students who choose to attend charter schools. However, lawmakers didn’t anticipate what would happen if the number of public school students in charter schools was so high that a district’s state aid wasn’t enough to cover the charter school students, as is currently the case in Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS). Over half of the public school students in Kansas City have chosen charter schools, and the funding for those students equals the entirety of KCPS’ state aid and more. If more public school students choose charter schools, the pie will not get bigger. Rather, each public charter school student will receive a smaller slice of state aid from the district.
Secondly, under current law, public charter school students do not have access to the same sources of local funding as their counterparts attending a district public school. Local aid for non-charter public school students includes property taxes, merchants’ and manufacturers’ taxes, financial institution tax revenues, all city sales tax revenue, payments in lieu of taxes, and revenues from state-assessed railroad and utility taxes. HB 1552 would correct these imbalances by requiring that the state provide the difference between the amount available through a district’s funding and the amount charter school students are guaranteed to receive The state would make up the difference in funding.
MOCAP access – The Missouri Course Access Program, or MOCAP, became accessible to all Missouri public school students at no charge beginning in fall 2018. However, the legislation that made MOCAP available to Missouri families has several shortcomings. The first is that students must receive permission to attend MOCAP from their local superintendent. In far too many cases districts have refused, and students have had to sue to enroll in MOCAP. Second, funding for MOCAP students flows from the state, through the student’s local district (or charter school), and out to MOCAP. This establishes a slight financial disincentive to allow students to enroll, because it creates the perception that the district has to “pay” for the student’s virtual education. Finally, the state assessment scores of MOCAP students are incorporated into their local district’s (or charter school’s) test scores, which are used for accountability purposes and, in the case of charter schools, count toward charter renewal.
HB1552 addresses these shortcomings, but only for students who choose to be full-time virtual students, not students who just take a virtual class or two. Under HB1552, parents and students would be able to apply directly to full-time virtual providers, the test scores for full-time virtual providers would be considered as a separate school, and funding for full-time virtual providers would come directly from the state.
Students choosing to attend charter schools or enroll in MOCAP are public school students and should not be treated differently than their peers who attend their assigned public school. HB1552 would correct several shortcomings in the laws governing how these important educational options.
