Federal Legislation.
April 2016: No Child Left Behind is leaving us this summer. It is replaced with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA is first and foremost a civil rights law. Highly qualified language to describe special education teachers in No Child Left Behind has been replaced with “effective” teachers. Effective teachers in ESSA are defined as passing the special education teacher licensing exam or meeting full state certification requirements (as determined individually by each state). A measure used to indicate school quality in ESSA is the percentage of fully certified, fully licensed teachers having three years of experience in the state. For a crosswalk comparing No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act, see this chart published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a professional learning community “dedicated to learning, teaching, and leading”for K-12 School principals, teachers, advocates, and superintendents.Cross walk NCLB ESSA by ASCD
Missouri Legislative and Advocacy News.
September 2016: Time to spread the word and rally support for the November election for Raise Your Hand for Kids! Through 10,000+ signatures, early childhood advocates successfully petitioned to include a Tobacco Tax designated to improve early childhood initiatives on the Missouri ballot. A forecast of $300 million/year would go to fund improvements to raise Missouri from its 38th /52 state ranking in early childhood, increase affordability of preschool programs for all parents, and teachers’ pay and ability to go to college to improve their knowledge and skills. In Missouri, only 3% of 4 year olds are enrolled in preschool. This legislation offers opportunities never seen before! Spread the Word, share this link today!!
http://www.raiseyourhandforkids.org/spread_the_word
Here is the website reporting on Missouri Childcare Workforce Development:
Here is the website reporting on national workforce development to compare all states, showing that the average hourly wages nationally for childcare workers are $9.77 for childcare workers, $10.54 for preschool and $24.53 for Kindergarten teachers. :
http://cscce.berkeley.edu/early-childhood-workforce-index/
From Judy Dungan, director of Policy and Advocacy for the MO Children’s Leadership Council on 4/22/2016:
I’m happy to report that the news for programs serving kids in the SFY17budget is good! Thank you for taking the time to weigh in with conferees. Now we need to thank them. Please take a moment now to express your appreciation for increased funds for Parents as Teachers, child care subsidies to improve the quality of programs serving low-income children, trauma treatment for kids who are victims of abuse and new funds for state diaper banks.
Conferees were:
Senator Kurt Schaefer, Senator Ryan Silvey, Senator Dan Brown, Senator Curls, Senator Nasheed, Senator Walsh, Rep. Fitzpatrick, Rep. Kendrick, Rep. Montecillo, Rep. Haefner, Rep. Kirkton, Rep. LaFaver, Rep. Mims
The General Assembly has three weeks left and is busy loading up omnibus bills to improve the chances of their legislative priorities making it to the finish line. The attached weekly legislative update has been revised and each of these omnibus bills is at the top, showing what bills and are included as well as status.
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Early Interventions 