KINDER'S COMMENTARY: EFFORTS SEEK TO UNDO SENATE BILL 380

Missourians for Academic Excellence is the grass-roots organization grown up to resist Senate Bill 380 and its plans for the radical transformation of Missouri's public schools. MAE has a handful of proposals they are commending to the General Assembly for passage in this year's session, which continues through adjournment on May 12. The MAE proposals center on the preservation of local control of schools and are aimed at preserving traditional approaches to education. Common to each is an effort to overturn much of the mischief of SB 380 and its elite-driven approach to so-called educational reform. It is precisely these traditional approaches that the educational establishment is working overtime to junk.

Let us describe the MAE proposals:

* A constitutional amendment requiring election of state school board members by the public, with staggered terms, so that some members would have to face the voters every two years. This is embodied in Senate Joint Resolution 18, of which I am a co-sponsor with Sen. Steve Ehlmann, R-St. Charles. Currently, school board members are appointed by the governor to eight-year terms, the maximum that can be served by any term-limited member of the General Assembly. Insulation from direct public accountability is thus guaranteed by the current system. Voter approval would open the whole process to a high-profile public debate about just what is happening to our public schools. Accordingly, those who currently have the whip hand are strongly opposed.

* Voter approval of state taxes financing the state education program. Senate Bill 380 (1995 version -- what a difference two years makes!), of which I am an original co-sponsor with Sen. Franc Flotron, R-Creve Coeur.

* Elimination of teacher union officials from the reform process. This is contained in Senate Bill 381, in which Sen. Flotron and I collaborated.

* Rejection of the non-academic performance standards proposed by DESE and previously described here, and the curricula and assessments based on them. This is contained in Senate Bill 257, introduced by Sen. Ehlmann.

My colleague, Sen. David Klarich, R-Ballwin, has another excellent proposal to which I have pledged my strong support. Senate Joint Resolution 14 would add to the Missouri Constitution the following two simple sentences, subject to approval by the voters at a general election:

"The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children shall not be infringed. The general assembly shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this section."

To answer objections that this language would interfere with lawful efforts to intervene to prevent child abuse, I will be offering the following language in the form of an amendment to SJR 14: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect any laws regarding abuse or neglect."

I don't know about you, but for me, that's about as simple as it gets. I only wish I had offered SJR 14 myself. Voters in Illinois have already adopted this language. I will be most interested in hearing the arguments from my colleagues as to why we Missourians should not add this wording to our constitution.

Those arguments, and related ones from similar sources, become more interesting all the time. In a Senate Education Committee hearing this week, one of the two principal authors of Senate Bill 380 made a most revealing statement. After claiming proud parentage of SB 380, Sen. Joe Maxwell, D-Mexico, ventured the opinion that 380's $350 million in higher taxes on Missourians isn't nearly enough. In a loud and eloquent statement, Sen. Maxwell came out for another $770 million in school funding, declaring his support for the still higher taxes to fund it.

The contest for the future of Missouri's schools is thus joined clearly, for all to see. On one side are those who, like Sen. Maxwell, urge taxpayers to pour more money into the current system and trust the educational elites to reform themselves. Involvement in this process by taxpayers, voters, business owners or parents is minimal to non-existent. It is this side that got its way in 1993's rush to judgment on SB 380, and through the insulated process currently under way.

On the other side are the grass-roots folks of Missourians for Academic Excellence, and the vast majority of Missourians who find themselves competing with their own government and its tax-paid spokespersons, working overtime to spout the company line. As I have written before, on the outcome of this struggle will hinge much of the future of this state.

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.