Gov. Kehoe forms task force to overhaul the way Missouri funds public, charter schools
A Springfield business leader is among 16 task force appointees charged with overhauling the state funding structure for K-12 education.
Through executive order, Gov. Mike Kehoe created the Missouri School Funding Modernization Task Force.
'To secure a better future for Missouri students and schools, we must rethink how we fund Missouri's foundation formula,' Kehoe said as part of the May 12 announcement.
'We need a modernized funding model that rewards outcomes, encourages innovation, and ensures fairness for all Missouri students. These Task Force members bring the experience, perspective, and commitment needed to make responsible changes at business-speed. We look forward to reviewing their recommendations.'
A final report due Dec. 1, 2026 is expected to recommend a formula for how state dollars will flow to K-12 public and charter schools.
Changes are expected to ensure the following:
Equality of opportunity for all students, regardless of geographic location, socioeconomic status or other factors that cause disparate opportunities;
Sustainability based on realistic state and local revenue forecasts, including bounds for realistic changes in funding on an annual basis;
Incentives are based on performance of schools and educational outcomes;
Adequate funding to sustain school operations and address reasonable educational costs.
The proposed model will be based on amount allocated as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget.
The last major update of the school funding formula was approved in 2005. There was one created in the mid-1970s, which was updated in the early 1990s.
The current formula is based on what is necessary or adequate to provide a quality education. To figure that out, the state looked at the average amount that successful districts — those meeting state expectations — spent to educate their students.
In the formula, they are referred to as "performance" districts.
The calculation also uses students' average daily attendance, a state adequacy target, a dollar value modifier (a way of adjusting for cost of living in a particular community or part of the state), and local effort.
The "local effort" looks at how much funding each district can generate to provide an education. In general, the more money a district can generate in property taxes, the less it may receive from the state.
The composition of the task force that will recommend a new funding model was outlined in the executive order.
Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O'Laughlin and Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson have appointed four lawmakers to the task force:
State Sen. Rusty Black, a Republican who represents Andrew, Atchison, Caldwell, Carroll, Chariton, Clinton, Daviess, DeKalb, Gentry, Grundy, Harrison, Holt, Linn, Livingston, Mercer, Nodaway, Sullivan, Worth and part of Buchanan counties.
State Sen. Travis Fitzwater, a Republican who represents Callaway, Lincoln, Montgomery, Pike and part of St. Charles counties.
State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican from Moberly.
State Rep. Marlene Terry, a Democrat from St. Louis.
Black, a former educator, will chair the task force.
'As a former educator, I know firsthand the challenges our teachers face and the importance of ensuring that every dollar we invest in education has a meaningful impact,' he said as part of the announcement.
'I'm honored to help lead this important work as we build a funding model that supports student success in every corner of Missouri.'
The group will be supported by the governor's office and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
More: Missouri budget negotiators agree to $50 million for private school scholarship program
Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger may participate on the task force as a non-voting member.
Here are the other appointees:
James "Jim" Meats, of Springfield, is vice president of sales and marketing at Loren Cook Company and a licensed professional engineer. Meats will represent the business community.
Jeremy Tucker, superintendent of the Liberty district, previously served as an adjunct professor for Evangel University and Southwest Baptist University and was superintendent of the Logan-Rogersville district. Tucker will represent superintendents from large urban districts.
Matt Davis, of Eldon, spent 17 years as superintendent of Eldon district. He also led career and technical education programs and secured grants and funding to enhance program offerings and facilities at Eldon Career Center. Davis will represent small rural districts.
Noah Devine, of Kansas City, is executive director of the Missouri Charter Public School Association. He led the implementation of the sixth iteration of the Missouri School Improvement Plan (MSIP) standards for DESE. Devine will represent charter schools.
Emily LeRoy, of Hermann, is senior advisor at Missouri Farm Bureau, serving on a leadership team that advocates for the diverse interests of farmers. She was also legislative and budget director at Missouri Department of Agriculture.
Mike Podgursky, of Columbia, is the Chancelor's Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Columbia and an affiliated scholar at Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research. He is also the author of several peer-reviewed articles and the book, Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality.
Donald 'Don' Thalhuber, of Columbia, is policy director for the Senate Minority Caucus. He drafted Missouri's most recent public school funding formula in 2005.
Chris Vas, of Kansas City, senior director for the Herzog Foundation, was the previous executive director of Liberty Alliance USA. Vas will represent non-profit organizations that work on expanding school choice in Missouri.
Casey Wasser, of California, deputy executive director and chief operating officer for the Missouri Soybean Association, previously served as legislative director for the Missouri Department of Revenue. Wasser will represent the agriculture industry.
David Wood, of Versailles, a former state lawmaker most recently served as a policy analyst and liaison for the Missouri State Tax Commission, and taught math and computer science in Morgan County. He will represent teachers.
Kerry Casey, of Chesterfield, recently retired as vice president of Exegy and was a founding board member of the KIPP Charter School in St. Louis. She is a member of the Missouri Board of Education.
Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge, of Pasadena Hills, is a former vice president of the Normandy Schools Collaborative Joint Executive Governing Board and recently retired general partner from Edward Jones. She is a member of the Missouri Board of Education.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Kehoe appoints task force to change how Missouri funds public schools
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They point to cases like Concordia, where the decades-old order was used to stop a charter school from favoring white students in admissions. 'Concordia is one where it's old, but a lot is happening there,' said Deuel Ross, deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 'That's true for a lot of these cases. They're not just sitting silently.' Last year, before President Trump took office, Concordia Parish rejected a Justice Department plan that would have ended its case if the district combined several majority white and majority Black elementary and middle schools. At a town hall meeting, Vidalia residents vigorously opposed the plan, saying it would disrupt students' lives and expose their children to drugs and violence. An official from the Louisiana attorney general's office spoke against the proposal and said the Trump administration likely would change course on older orders. 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FERRIDAY, La. -- Even at a glance, the differences are obvious. The walls of Ferriday High School are old and worn, surrounded by barbed wire. Just a few miles away, Vidalia High School is clean and bright, with a new library and a crisp blue 'V' painted on orange brick. Ferriday High is 90% Black. Vidalia High is 62% white. For Black families, the contrast between the schools suggests 'we're not supposed to have the finer things,' said Brian Davis, a father in Ferriday. 'It's almost like our kids don't deserve it,' he said. The schools are part of Concordia Parish, which was ordered to desegregate 60 years ago and remains under a court-ordered plan to this day. Yet there's growing momentum to release the district — and dozens of others — from decades-old orders that some call obsolete. In a remarkable reversal, the Justice Department said it plans to start unwinding court-ordered desegregation plans dating to the Civil Rights Movement. Officials started in April, when they lifted a 1960s order in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish. Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the department's civil rights division, has said others will 'bite the dust.' It comes amid pressure from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and his attorney general, who have called for all the state's remaining orders to be lifted. They describe the orders as burdens on districts and relics of a time when Black students were still forbidden from some schools. The orders were always meant to be temporary — school systems can be released if they demonstrate they fully eradicated segregation. Decades later, that goal remains elusive, with stark racial imbalances persisting in many districts. Civil rights groups say the orders are important to keep as tools to address the legacy of forced segregation — including disparities in student discipline, academic programs and teacher hiring. They point to cases like Concordia, where the decades-old order was used to stop a charter school from favoring white students in admissions. 'Concordia is one where it's old, but a lot is happening there,' said Deuel Ross, deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 'That's true for a lot of these cases. They're not just sitting silently.' Last year, before President Donald Trump took office, Concordia Parish rejected a Justice Department plan that would have ended its case if the district combined several majority white and majority Blac k elementary and middle schools. At a town hall meeting, Vidalia residents vigorously opposed the plan, saying it would disrupt students' lives and expose their children to drugs and violence. An official from the Louisiana attorney general's office spoke against the proposal and said the Trump administration likely would change course on older orders. Accepting the plan would have been a 'death sentence' for the district, said Paul Nelson, a former Concordia superintendent. White families would have fled to private schools or other districts, said Nelson, who wants the court order removed. 'It's time to move on,' said Nelson, who left the district in 2016. 'Let's start looking to build for the future, not looking back to what our grandparents may have gone through.' At Ferriday High, athletic coach Derrick Davis supported combining schools in Ferriday and Vidalia. He said the district's disparities come into focus whenever his teams visit schools with newer sports facilities. 'It seems to me, if we'd all combine, we can all get what we need,' he said. Others oppose merging schools if it's done solely for the sake of achieving racial balance. 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Otherwise, the only recourse is a lawsuit, which many families can't afford, Simons said. In Concordia, the order played into a battle over a charter school that opened in 2013 on the former campus of an all-white private school. To protect the area's progress on racial integration, a judge ordered Delta Charter School to build a student body that reflected the district's racial demographics. But in its first year, the school was just 15% Black. After a court challenge, Delta was ordered to give priority to Black students. Today, about 40% of its students are Black. Desegregation orders have been invoked recently in other cases around the state. One led to an order to address disproportionately high rates of discipline for Black students, and in another a predominantly Black elementary school was relocated from a site close to a chemical plant. The Trump administration was able to close the Plaquemines case with little resistance because the original plaintiffs were no longer involved — the Justice Department was litigating the case alone. Concordia and an unknown number of other districts are in the same situation, making them vulnerable to quick dismissals. Concordia's case dates to 1965, when the area was strictly segregated and home to a violent offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. When Black families in Ferriday sued for access to all-white schools, the federal government intervened. As the district integrated its schools, white families fled Ferriday. The district's schools came to reflect the demographics of their surrounding areas. Ferriday is mostly Black and low-income, while Vidalia is mostly white and takes in tax revenue from a hydroelectric plant. A third town in the district, Monterey, has a high school that's 95% white. At the December town hall, Vidalia resident Ronnie Blackwell said the area 'feels like a Mayberry, which is great,' referring to the fictional Southern town from 'The Andy Griffith Show.' The federal government, he said, has 'probably destroyed more communities and school systems than it ever helped.' Under its court order, Concordia must allow students in majority Black schools to transfer to majority white schools. It also files reports on teacher demographics and student discipline. After failing to negotiate a resolution with the Justice Department, Concordia is scheduled to make its case that the judge should dismiss the order, according to court documents. Meanwhile, amid a wave of resignations in the federal government, all but two of the Justice Department lawyers assigned to the case have left. Without court supervision, Brian Davis sees little hope for improvement. 'A lot of parents over here in Ferriday, they're stuck here because here they don't have the resources to move their kids from A to B," he said. 'You'll find schools like Ferriday — the term is, to me, slipping into darkness."
