SB727, among other provisions, increases the minimum salary for public school teachers from $25,000 to $40,000, and expands the maximum amount of annual refundable tax credits allocated to the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program from $50 million to $75 million.
The House passed SB727 on April 18, 2024, by a vote of 82 to 69. We have assigned pluses to the noes because education is not the role of government. A child’s education is the responsibility of his or her family. Moreover, not only does this bill provide a massive and unwarranted ‘pay raise’ for certain public-school teachers and allow homeschool families to be further entangled with government regulations, but Missouri’s ESA program involves the parents of “qualified students,” such as those with “limited English proficiency” or who are eligible for “free or reduced-price lunch,” being given “priority” distribution of government funds to pay for their child’s education. Educational and economic freedom cannot be achieved by forcing other citizens to furnish their hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund all that now entails a compulsory, failing, and government-run K-12 school system.