Education Votes 2008
Learn why your vote is best spent on public education Nov. 4.

Missouri NEA members must step up and lead in the 2008 election. MNEA supports legislators and candidates who will support students, adequately fund public schools and respect education-employee rights. MNEA will support pro-education candidates and help elect a legislature that will lead Missouri forward to workable solutions for prosperity, access and possibility.

Check your legislator's grade

The 2008 Missouri NEA Legislative Report Card focuses on priorities from the association’s legislative platform. Each legislator receives a percentage score for key floor votes decided by a roll-call vote. The report card also includes additional adjustments for sponsorship of bills and amendments, behind-the-scenes advocacy, committee work and committee votes. The roll-call floor votes were selected based upon the four main themes of MNEA’s legislative platform: safe and up-to-date schools, universal free public education, highly qualified teachers and respect for the rights of school employees. Extra weight is given to certain priority votes due to the attention and effort given to the issues by the Association and the bills’ implications for the future of public education in Missouri. Find the 2008 MNEA Legislative Report Card at www.mnea.org/gr/pdfs/legreport08.pdf. Find more information about MNEA’s candidate recommendation process at www.mnea.org/gr/recommendations.htm.

Missouri NEA's postion on ballot issues

MNEA supports Missouri Clean Energy Initiative The expansion of renewable energy production in Missouri will benefit public schools and students. The Missouri Clean Energy Initiative requires Missouri investor-owned electric utilities (Ameren, Empire, Aquila and Kansas City Power & Light) to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021. The Clean Energy Initiative defines “renewables” as clean sources of energy like wind, solar, landfill gas, biomass and small hydroelectric projects. This standard is expected to create thousands of new jobs in Missouri. The new investment will increase local school revenues from property taxes on wind farms and other new energy facilities. The new standard will also create opportunities for schools to create smaller renewable energy facilities that not only lower district energy costs but allow the school to sell back excess generation to utilities under the new “net-metering” law passed in Missouri in 2007. With most schools out for summer, districts could sell energy back to utilities during the costly summer electric-peak loads. MNEA opposes ballot measure calling for English as official language The Missouri NEA Board of Directors voted at its September meeting to oppose the Nov. 4 ballot measure on Constitutional Amendment 1, which establishes English as an official language in America. The MNEA board maintains that English language literacy should be a goal for every person who lives in America but opposes the establishment of an official language. “The restriction in this constitutional amendment could cause problems for state and local officials who serve people without English language literacy,” says MNEA President Chris Guinther. “Communicating in times of emergency, assessing public benefits and participating in government activities could all be limited or prevented by this unnecessary restriction, and it will most adversely affect our most vulnerable citizens.” The amendment calls for English to be the official language of all governmental meetings at which any public business is discussed or decided or public policy is formulated, whether conducted in person or through communications technology.

The 2008 session lived up to expectations with anti-public education attacks pushed with renewed intensity. In a session where success was primarily measured in the defeat of undesirable bills, MNEA was successful in stopping nearly all of those harmful proposals. The 2008 election offers an opportunity to create a “home field advantage” in 2009 for ideas to advance public education by electing more supportive public officials.

Collective bargaining

MNEA’s key focus last session was to protect the recently won collective bargaining rights for all education employees. The election of Attorney General Jay Nixon as a pro-public education governor and the election of more pro-public education legislators in 2008 offer the possibility that 2009 will bring greater support for education-employee rights and fewer opportunities for attacks on those rights in the legislature.

An effective bargaining process must have a unified employee voice. MNEA supports legislation that would treat all employees affected by the court decision fairly, and support is built on broad consensus among public employee groups, including teachers and other school employees.

In 2008, the legislature debated MSTA-backed legislation that would have denied all Missouri teachers the opportunity to select a bargaining representative of their choosing through a free and un-coerced election. MNEA leaders, staff and members stepped up and lobbied strenuously to defeat those impractical and unworkable bills. However, if MNEA members don’t elect supportive candidates, the 2009 legislative agenda will be occupied with more of these same attacks on school-employee bargaining rights.

No Child Left Behind

The 2008 Presidential election will have a profound effect upon the reauthorization of the ESEA, also known as NCLB. This act provides funding for various education programs and, since NCLB was enacted in 2001, imposes a high-stakes, single testing accountability program that will inevitably label all public schools failing by 2014.

NEA-recommended presidential candidate Barack Obama has given clear indication of his positive agenda for reforming NCLB, including moving away from a single, high-stakes standardized test and increasing funding to support programs and ultimately move far beyond NCLB to a strong and lasting commitment of support for public schools across the country.

The contrast with the education plan of his main opponent, John McCain, is sharp. McCain believes NCLB needs a “tweak” rather than an overhaul. McCain supports private school vouchers and pay for test scores while opposing repeal of the Social Security GPO and WEP provisions that unfairly punish many teachers in Missouri and across the country. MNEA members deserve a president who will seek to be a partner with NEA’s efforts to guarantee a great public school as a basic right for every child.

Tax credit vouchers

MNEA opposes tax-credit vouchers. Rex Sinquefield, billionaire founder of an extremist think tank, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars this election cycle in support of candidates to further an agenda that includes tax-credit vouchers and other radical proposals. Tax-credit vouchers divert public funds to private and religious schools without public accountability for those funds and with no obligation to serve all students. Even worse, tax credit vouchers divert funding Missouri needs to support proven, positive programs to help struggling students and close achievement gaps.

School funding

MNEA believes public schools are a great investment that promotes economic prosperity for all Missourians. Unfortunately, current state school funding is neither adequate nor equitable. The formula base-level funding and student-need weighting factors should be raised to research-based adequacy figures. Local property assessments should be accurate and uniform across the state, and local property taxes should be deducted at a level all districts can reach. MNEA also supports adequate and equitable funding for public higher education institutions and increased funding for student financial aid.

Doing your part

Public education issues will play a major role in the November General Election. The future of key policy issues such as bargaining rights, NCLB, vouchers and school funding will be largely determined, for better or for worse, by the outcomes in the November election. You can start helping create a better future by voting on Nov. 4 for candidates who measure up to MNEA’s standards.

MNEA also asks you to start or continue a dialogue with your family and friends to engage them in a discussion about public education and the issues to consider in measuring up candidates as prospective advocates for public schools and the education employees who deliver the programs that shape America’s future. Together, we can make a positive difference for our students and our public schools.

by Otto Fajen
MNEA legislative director

sb, fall '08