Five local lawmakers offered a preview of next year’s debates on education Wednesday as they took questions from the Springfield Council of PTAs on the most controversial issues they’ll likely face.

Reps. John Black, Craig Fishel, Steve Helms, Crystal Quade and Curtis Trent made up the panel in the cafeteria of Wilson’s Creek Intermediate School, and took turns answering questions on public school funding, charter school expansion, tax credits that help send kids to private schools and keeping kids safe.

More: Hollister students take educational Branson Airport flight to Dallas

Each one praised local public schools when they got the chance, but they split on ideological lines when the conversation came around to spending money and making policy.

Here’s a roundup of their answers:

School funding

The forum kicked off with the basics: how will lawmakers ensure adequate funding for public schools?

In recent years, Republican legislators have taken pride in spending the full amount prescribed by the state’s basic aid formula, but Democrats say that applause line masks shortcomings.

Funding for school busing is still tens of millions of dollars less than it was prior to the Great Recession, for instance.

Quade, the House minority leader and lone Democrat on the panel, took it from there. She said a lack of transportation funding forces districts to spend money on busing they could otherwise spend in the classroom, which she blamed for a record number of districts moving to four-day school weeks this fall.

She then added that she thinks the state should be looking for new funding sources for education, like a sales tax on online purchases the state doesn’t currently enforce.

Fishel agreed on that point. Other Republicans have argued that the revenue from taxing online purchases, estimated at more than $100 million each fiscal year, should fund a small tax break, but Fishel wasn’t among them.

“If we get a 0.1 percent tax break, that’s not going to change our lifestyle,” Fishel said, “but it could make a huge difference in our education.”

The other Republicans took a different approach.

Trent and Black said lawmakers should be focused on driving up revenue by “improving the business climate” in the state.

Trent said a combination of lower taxes, less regulation and a legal system friendlier to business would attract more companies and better jobs to the state, he said, and that would ultimately mean more revenue and money for schools.

Helms, on the other hand, suggested schools may not need more money, but more freedom in spending what they already have.

More: Two Oklahoma lawmakers wanted to name part of Route 66 after Trump. But they dropped their plan.

He did not offer an example of how the state is currently restricting certain spending, but encouraged the audience to send the legislature ideas on ways that the state is currently impeding their local officials.

Tax credits to pay for private school tuition

Next, lawmakers were asked whether they would support allowing people to make tax-deductible donations to help pay for children to attend private schools.

Some Republicans have pitched the idea as a way to give children with special needs more choice in where they go to school, but Democrats generally see the idea as a backdoor voucher program sending money to private and religious institutions that would otherwise be paid in taxes that could help traditional public schools.

Trent and Helms made the former argument.

“Different students need different things, different things work in different areas, and so if there's a program that doesn't detract from the overall education mission and it's an additive to what we're already doing, then I don't think there's a problem with that,” Trent said.

Fishel did the same, but put an emphasis on the potential for technical or career training programs to get tax-credit help.

Black took a different tack, saying he didn’t support diverting public dollars to private schools or even public charter schools, but added that traditional public schools had to step things up.

"Our public schools, with our help in the legislature, need to do a better job addressing the concerns that parents have that would cause them to pull their kids out of the public schools,” he said.

One thing he said would help was getting more mental health workers in schools.

Quade answered the question with one word: “No.”

Expanding charter schools

Next, lawmakers were asked whether they support allowing charter schools, which take public money and are free to attend but are run by the private sector, to open in Springfield.

The idea has substantial support among some Republicans, including House Speaker Elijah Haahr of Springfield, who argue that charter schools can be laboratories for innovation and refuges for students who have special needs or find themselves attending failing schools.

Other Republicans, many Democrats and the PTA see the idea as an unnecessary diversion of money that could be used to sustain and improve local public schools.

Black and Fishel illustrated why Haahr couldn’t get an expansion bill passed last session despite leading a Republican supermajority, saying they agree with the PTA’s position that charter schools shouldn’t come here unless they’re subject to the same rules as traditional public schools, a stipulation advocates generally reject.

But Black said that didn’t change his view that the system needs to get better.

“We’ve got to quit living in a world that ignores the fact that some schools are not meeting the needs of their students,” he said. “And we need the educators, we need DESE, we need all the people in the system to tell us what we can do to help the system.”

Helms and Trent, on the other hand, said lawmakers should keep their options open in case the need arises.

“I don't think anybody is writing legislation or policy that would bring a charter school to Springfield. But to say that that is an option that in no circumstances should ever be used, that there's no child that that could ever benefit, I don't think that's a statement that we can say unequivocally,” Trent said.

Quade disagreed, saying that not only did she oppose allowing charter schools into Springfield without a public vote, which she said she thinks would shoot down the idea, she wants greater scrutiny for existing charter schools in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Making schools safer

The last question went after another highly-charged topic: ensuring schools provide a safe and positive environment.

Officials across the country have been grappling with the safety issue in the ongoing aftermath of school shootings. A special task force appointed by Gov. Mike Parson recommended having an armed law enforcement officer at every school to respond to active shooter threats, and Springfield Public Schools has adopted a long list of strategies to ensure security in recent years.

Helms, for his part, said he thought decisions on school safety should be made at the local level, something the PTA supports.

Fishel agreed with that. He said Springfield schools are doing a good job so far on security and told the audience that increasing mental health services for students would help address the problem further.

Quade agreed with all of that and said she wants more social workers in schools, but she noted that funding levels set by the legislature would determine whether that’s possible.

She also took aim at the state’s relatively lenient gun laws. She said the legislature needs to consider changes to protect student safety and denounced any suggestion that teachers should be armed.

Trent took a different approach, saying the safety issues facing schools are “societal and cultural issues” that can’t be solved by passing gun control laws.

He said mental health services and certain security measures could help solve the problem, but made his position on firearms clear.

“Compromising our core liberties, what it means to be Americans, can't be a part of this solution,” he said. “But there are cultural and I think physical security measures that can help address the problem and prevent things from happening.”

Black seconded Trent’s point about “societal and cultural” issues and said the state could also make a dent in the problem by addressing substance abuse issues.

Read or Share this story: