“With the mainstream media, Washington insiders and the so-called ‘experts’ in elite universities all singing off the same leftwing song sheet, there is a desperate need for the facts and the arguments that support time-honored American values and principles that lead to safety, prosperity and freedom.” Newt Gingrich

The Senate has worked on debating a bill to create a formula for higher education funding; the legislation was recently given first-round approval in the Senate and was set aside this week for possible consideration in the future. Senate Bill 437 is not perfect; however, it represents more than a year of study conducted by the Joint Committee on Education and the panel’s chairman, Sen. David Pearce. The bill is the first attempt I know of to incorporate institutional performance as a factor for state funding. The legislation includes measures of success for each institution, and those measures can impact both future funding increases and up to 10 percent of that institution’s base funding.

For 30 years, Missouri’s higher education has been funded year-to-year on a base-plus distribution accompanied by an across-the-board increase or decrease, depending on state revenues. The resulting wide disparity in funding has been punctuated by occasional selective increases to specific institutions. Consequently, during each funding cycle, institutions frequently advocated for increased state funding with little or no rationale as to why or how to increase funding.

Many will agree that the quality of higher education is critical to the future of our state and our nation. The United States is still the purest example in the world of the principles and triumphs of individual liberty and economic freedom. If we fail to educate our citizens, there is no one to step up and lead our country into the future. Few, if any, disagree that good public education is good policy and that funding should be appropriate to the challenge. However, there are still questions on what is “appropriate” funding and how to direct education funds. The purest form of performance funding would follow the Bright Flight model, allowing public and private universities to compete for students. If state higher education funding was awarded to students as opposed to institutions, we would have pure, rather than simulated, performance funding.

With students and parents evaluating institutions on the basis of how well they prepared students for gainful employment, strong families, or entrepreneurial success, you might see institutions — like Maine’s Bowdoin College — change or fail. Columnist Walter Williams reports that this “higher education” institution in Maine lists 37 seminars designated for freshmen that include “Affirmative Action and U.S. Society,” “Fictions of Freedom,”  “Racism,” “Queer Gardens,” “Sexual Life of Colonialism”  and “Modern Western Prostitutes.” How’s that for preparing a college student for a successful marriage, career, or family? The Op-ed notes that the National Association of Scholars was commissioned to examine Bowdoin's intellectual diversity, rigorous academics, and civic identity. Its report states that the school has “no curricular requirements that center on the American founding or the history of the nation.” Yet, Williams notes that Bowdoin was ranked sixth among the nation's liberal arts colleges in U.S. News & World Report and was ranked 14th on Forbes magazine's list of America's top colleges. As the author states, “That ought to tell us how much faith should be put in college rankings.” This is an example of why bias and private agendas should be kept out of college rankings and funding mechanisms for institutions.

Williams’ Op-ed was prompted by a Wall Street Journal account of a golf course conversation about “diversity” in higher education. Diversity has become the new holy grail and has undermined the substance of learning. It has replaced the absolutes of character, morality, and purpose. In a world without absolutes there are only opinions, and in the name of adversity we are told that discerning between opinions is, at best, prejudice, and at worst, hate speech. The results of a world of opinions is that institutions, like Bowdoin College, and even some public institutions, abandon the ancient landmarks of history, heritage, and natural law. Let us not ignore that in a world of opinions, the tyrant wins.

Finally, I continue to discover more reasons to be concerned over the national fervor with the Common Core curriculum for K-12 students. Possibly my greatest concern is that so few parents and non “professional educators” even know what the Common Core initiative is or how it has advanced, especially in Missouri. Please do your own investigation and draw your own conclusion. My office can provide you with resources that can be of help in your research.

I appreciate you reading this Legislative Report, and please don’t hesitate to contact my office at (573) 751-2108 if you have any questions. Thank you and God bless.