School funding

Missouri legislators are attempting to find a better plan for how the state distributes funds to public schools.

Plans being considered in the General Assembly would revamp the state's education funding formula, making certain that all districts have the funding to adequately educate their students.

In Southeast Missouri, schools would all receive additional money under the current proposal in the Senate. The legislative plan adds funding to all but 41 of the state's 524 school districts.

However, area school superintendents say the numbers released by a Senate education committee are somewhat misleading because they include money the districts already receive in categorical funding for programs targeted to at-risk students, gifted education or remedial reading programs.

The proposed legislation would allocate more money to districts with high numbers of low-income, disabled and non-native English-speaking students. These groups are typically more expensive to educate.

Determining when much of the new funding would reach school districts also poses a challenge. Legislators are discussing plans that would combine the old and new formula for the first five to seven years of the funding changeover. Another idea is to phase the new formula in over a five-year period, but some argue that the numbers the formula is based on would be outdated by that time.

The Missouri Legislature has a difficult task in the days ahead as it grapples with the fine points of a school funding formula while trying to balance the overall budget. Most superintendents, teachers' associations and other education lobbying groups are in favor of many of the proposed changes.

The legislature seems to be on the right track.