Missouri State Board of Education Fails to Listen to Educators and Parents: Approves Top-Down Mandates for Local Schools.

Teachers From Communities Across Missouri Oppose Governor Kehoe's A-F Grading Framework.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Jones, Missouri NEA
PH: 573-508-8528 E: [email protected]

JEFFERSON CITY, MO - Missouri NEA President Rebeka McIntosh released the following statement after the Missouri State Board of Education voted 7-1 to adopt Governor Kehoe's A-F School Grading Framework:

"A kindergartner who could not let go of her mother in August walks into class on her own by spring. A sixth grader reading at a third-grade level finishes the year two grades ahead. A Perryville high school loses its building to a tornado and posts its best attendance ever the next year. None of that shows up in a letter grade. All of it showed up in the letters Missourians sent to the Missouri State Board of Education.

Hundreds of Missourians from communities across the state wrote to the Board in their own words. Veteran teachers. Proud parents. Retired educators who watched this idea fail in New Mexico, Michigan, Utah, and Ohio. They asked for three things: standards set by people who actually teach, a 60-day comment period, and public hearings. Governor Kehoe and the State Board ignored them all.

A single letter grade tracks a ZIP code and a family's income, not what teachers did with the students in front of them. New Mexico, Michigan, Utah, and Ohio already tried this and walked away.

Our union members support accountability that helps students. DESE's own data tool provides multiple metrics, offering parents far more detailed insight than a single letter grade can convey. What we will not accept is public school students reduced to a single letter grade while private schools taking public voucher money answer to no one.

This vote does not end the fight. Missouri educators will work every day against this top-down, cookie-cutter approach that takes away local control and assessment. This is nothing more than the state telling parents it knows best. Educators will be at every hearing, in every legislative office, and at every school board table when these grades come out. Our students are more than a letter. So are the people who teach them."

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Missouri NEA is a union representing 45,000 educators across Missouri.
We are the state affiliate of the 3-million-member National Education Association. Visit www.mnea.orgto learn more.