Jay Nixon on Education Missouri Democratic Governor

Affordable tuition is highest priority

Fund public schools, don't develop voucher schemes

Increase education funding by $150 million

• That's $17 million more for early childhood education.
• That's $34 million more for higher education;
• And that's $100 million more for our K-12 classrooms

A+ scholarships: community college for every high schooler

To qualify for an A+ scholarship, high school students must keep their grades up, have excellent attendance, and stay out of trouble.Since I've been Governor, we've expanded the A+ program to 150 more schools. But there are still schools that aren't part of the A+ program, so their students can't even apply for A+ scholarships.

That's unfair to these kids, and we're going to fix it. This is the year we will expand our A+ scholarship program to every public high school in the state, so that every qualified student in this state has the opportunity to go to community college--tuition free.

Allow expanding charter schools to poor-performing districts

Charter schools may be operated:
• in a metropolitan/urban school district (over 350,000 inhabitants);
• or in a school district that has been declared unaccredited or provisionally accredited by [poor] annual performance reports;
• or in a school district that has been fully-accredited if sponsored by the local school board.
• For fully-accredited schools, enrollment must exceed 1,550 students of which more than 35% of its student enrollment is able to enroll in charter schools sponsored by the local board.
• District school boards which are currently sponsoring a charter school retain their authority regardless of the rules above.

We need federal dollars for our schools

Re-invest in our public school system

Jay is a living testament to the potential of our public school system, attending the Jefferson County schools as a kid and going on receive his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Missouri. As Attorney General, Jay has seen first-hand the problems facing Missouri public schools. He knows that many of our school buildings are in poor shape, we need more technology in the classroom, our teachers are vastly underpaid, and too many of our children are dropping out of high school. Simply put, there are children in Missouri who do not have adequate and equal access to a quality education. That must change. As Governor, Jay will make it a priority to re-invest in our public school system