JEFFERSON CITY – Senator Bob Onder (R-Lake Saint Louis), assistant majority floor leader, and Representative Bryan Spencer (R-Wentzville) today announced the filing of the Missouri 21st Century Course Access Program.
“All across Missouri students lack access to courses that could make an enormous difference in their lives and in the economy of our state,” Senator Onder said. “Of Missouri’s 507 school districts, 40 percent had not a single student enrolled in physics, 50 percent have none enrolled in calculus and 56 percent have none enrolled in AP courses. This isn’t just a problem in failing urban schools, but in small schools across the state that simply aren’t large enough to afford a physics teacher. Our bill brings Missouri into the 21st Century and allows students to access courses using online learning.”
“When the Missouri 21st Century Course Access Act is implemented, students, with their parent’s guidance, can customize their education without being confined by financial or school district walls,” Representative Spencer said. “School districts can widen their course offerings to students, while at the same time saving money for the taxpayers.”
Eleven states across the country offer some kind of course access program. Missouri already has the infrastructure needed to create a course access program, in the form of an underused program known as the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP), which was signed into law in 2006.