In addition to the nearly $3 billion in federal relief funding that Missouri received to try to right the public education ship that was knocked of balance by COVID, Governor Parson received $50 million as part of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief fund. Governors were given wide discretion over how to spend the money, but they had to spend it within one year of receiving it. Governor Parson followed the lead of several other states and created a scholarship program, called Close the Gap, in which low-income families could receive up to $1,500 to purchase tutoring or other education materials that would help combat learning loss.
Although over 21,000 families signed up, the program had problems from the beginning. First, it took the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) a full year to figure out how to implement the program. How that impacts the federal regulations is unclear, but families had only a short window after that to spend the money. Families had problems finding what they needed and, ultimately, the program was not as impactful as it might have been.
According to the DESE budget requests, in fiscal year (FY) 2024, $25 million was appropriated to the program, but none was spent. In FY 2025, the other $25 million was appropriated, but just $13,875,123 was spent. It’s too late to spend the money, so what happens to the $36,124,877 that went unspent? Technically, it needs to be returned to the federal government.
What a shame. At the same time, the legislature has created another scholarship program, MO Scholars, aimed at low-income students and students with disabilities, but hasn’t appropriated any money to fund it. The MO Scholars program has structure, scholarship-granting organizations, and thousands of scholarship recipients. Thousands more students across the state would probably love to participate in this program if it were funded.
The logic of helping disadvantaged students find their best educational option is there. The structure of the program is there. Why not the funding?
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