CARNAHAN TOUTS EDUCATION PLAN

JACKSON, Mo. -- U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan plugged an educational funding bill she introduced in Congress during a visit Tuesday to South Elementary School in Jackson.

Carnahan, a Democrat, discussed her Quality Classrooms Act following a tour of the school. The plan, which would provide $50 billion in federal money over 10 years to help reduce class sizes and improve instruction, is nearly identical to the initiative proposed by her husband during his campaign for Senate last fall.

Her husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, died in an airplane crash just three weeks before the election. His wife was appointed to the Senate seat after her husband defeated then-Sen. John Ashcroft.

"Although he did not live to pursue his dream, I was proud to introduce this bill last week that had the imprint of his hopes and fulfills his pledge to the citizens of Missouri," she said.

Carnahan's visit was her first to Southeast Missouri since she became a senator. She fielded questions from reporters and educators, and her answers focused more on broad implications of the plan rather than on details regarding how to ensure adequate funding would reach smaller, rural districts like Jackson. Carnahan said the district's fast-paced growth would help assure some of the money.

Under the plan, about $100,000 annually in federal budget surplus would be allocated to school districts, with the bulk of funding going to districts with large enrollments and high poverty rates. Eighty percent of funding would be allocated to school districts with high participation in the free and reduced lunch program, a federal program that provides lunches at reduced prices for students in low-income families. It often is used as a measure of a school district's low-income and at-risk populations.

Funding uses

The money would be spent to reduce student-to-teacher ratios; to make building improvements; to hire additional reading, science and math teachers; to establish alternative programs for chronically violent and disruptive students; and to provide a year-round school schedule.

Districts also could compete for special grants to help address other issues affecting instruction.

Last year, just 19.47 percent of Jackson School District's nearly 4,500 students qualified for free or reduced lunches, well below the state's average participation rate of 36.3 percent.

"We would be looking at the individual grants and trying for those to help with our enrollment issues," said Jackson schools superintendent Ron Anderson. "I don't think it will distract from local support, particularly in our case, since the dollars we would get probably would not be enough to address the problems we face."

All would get something

Most of the remaining 20 percent of funding would go to schools with the highest enrollments, although Carnahan said "no schools would fail to get anything."

Desma Reno, a Jackson schools parent and president of the Missouri Nurses Association, was on hand to hear details of the plan. Reno said she hopes the proposal includes a provision that allows schools to address health-care concerns.

"There's a national problem where teachers are put in the position where, instead of teaching, their spending time in the classroom providing first aid and social work," said Reno. "I'm hoping the flexibility in spending extends to that."