Bryce’s Law Revisited: Serving Missouri’s Neediest Students through Targeted Scholarships

Education | October 1, 2018

By Michael Q. McShane | Read Time 1 minute minutes

Bryce’s Law, which was intended to help give children with special needs access to schools that would allow them to thrive, has been hamstrung by a poor funding mechanism. This essay examines the history of the law, which was originally introduced as a bill in 2008 and finally passed in 2013. The essay also explains why the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Trinity Lutheran v. Comer case might finally enable the Missouri Legislature to fund the scholarships that Bryce’s Law was intended to facilitate.

To read the essay, click on the link below. For a brief video on the topic, click here.

About the Author

Michael Q. McShane

Michael Q. McShane is Senior Fellow of Education Policy at the Show-Me Institute. A former high school teacher, he earned a Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Arkansas, an M.Ed. from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. in English from St. Louis University. McShanes analyses and commentary have been published widely in the media, including in the Huffington Post, National Affairs, USA Today, and The Washington Post. He has also been featured in education-specific outlets such as Teachers College Commentary, Education Week, Phi Delta Kappan, and Education Next. In addition to authoring numerous white papers, McShane has had academic work published in Education Finance and Policy and the Journal of School Choice. He is the editor of New and Better Schools (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), the author of Education and Opportunity (AEI Press, 2014), and coeditor of Teacher Quality 2.0 (Harvard Education Press, 2014) and Common Core Meets Education Reform (Teachers College Press, 2013).

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