House Rejects Scholarships for Poor Children

March 9, 2007, JEFFERSON CITY, MO – On March 7, 2007 the Missouri House of Representatives defeated a proposal to offer scholarships to lower income or poorly performing school students residing in the City of St. Louis or Kansas City public school district in order to attend a public school in another district or a private school.

Under HB 808, sponsored by State Representative Carl Bearden (R-St. Charles), Catholic schools could have accepted scholarship students.

Rep. Bearden hailed the bill as an opportunity to give children an opportunity for a quality education. Neither district is fully accredited by the state of Missouri and the State School Board is in the process of establishing a committee to oversee the work of the St. Louis School Board, which has been beset by controversy and financial troubles in recent years.

Governor Matt Blunt and Lt. Governor Peter Kinder were on the House floor while the bill was considered, talking with a number of legislators who were undecided right up to moment of the vote. However, public school groups had convinced many lawmakers to vote against the bill on the basis that it represented a first step towards a statewide voucher system that would threaten the continued vitality of the state’s public schools.

Mike Hoey, the assistant director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, said the bill would have affected only the two urban districts or any neighboring district that chose to accept a scholarship student. “Legislators knew that the bill was not a voucher bill, but they did not want to go back home and spend days explaining what the bill truly entailed to constituents who had been mislead.”

Hoey said that “defeat of HB 808 represents a refusal to offer educational opportunities to Missouri’s poorest school children. We cannot give up on these children and we need to continue our efforts.”

Opponents argued the bill would “cherry pick” the best students for the scholarships but Rep. Bearden explained that HB 808 targeted its scholarship assistance to the poorest and lowest performing students in the public schools. He said research showed that public schools faced with school choice competition began to perform better and public school students had improved academic performance.

Sixty-two legislators voted for HB 808 while 96 voted against it. Five representatives were absent. Fifty-four Republicans and 8 Democrats voted for the bill and 35 Republicans and 61 Democrats voted against the measure.

To view individual votes click here.