Missouri public education advocates rally for funding at Capitol
Haley Swaino
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
More than 100 parents, teachers and students from across Missouri gathered at the state Capitol on Tuesday afternoon for Public Education Lobby Day, urging lawmakers to prioritize funding for public schools.
Advocates came together in the Capitol Rotunda after having more than 100 different meetings with legislators regarding public education funding.
“I feel pretty positive leaving today,” Sara Dillard of Francis Howell Forward, a non-partisan, grassroots organization formed by parents, said. “I know that we’ve had some good conversations and that we have some legislators in our corner. So I think that we’ve got a good fight ahead of us.”
Rally attendees spanned from Kansas City Public Schools to St. Charles, Mid-Missouri and more.
Their message centers on the need to fully fund Missouri’s public schools and protect them from what organizers describe as growing financial threats at both the state and federal levels.
“Whether it is through eliminating income tax, which will deplete the budget for any kind of public services in the state of Missouri and will absolutely be getting rid of schools. Or it is expanding voucher programs that allow people who already pay for private schools and who can already afford private schools to write off some of it. Or through charter school expansion, which is literally just letting private businesses have a stake in your child’s education. It’s putting a price tag on kids,” legislative chair of American Federation of Teachers Local 691 Carter Taylor said.
Students are also joining in the fight.
“It’s unfair that we are fighting for basic rights and like basic necessities that we need in the classroom,“ Lincoln College Preparatory Academy High School student Cairos Im said.
She took the day off school to come lobby at the Capitol alongside many others from her community.
“I think that the number here today and the work that we’ve done shows the strength of public schools and the community and how powerful we can be,” Im said.
Public elementary and secondary education accounts for more than a fifth of all Missouri’s state expenditures, according to research.
The Kehoe administration is also rewriting the state’s 20-year-old K-12 foundation formula, which has drawn criticism from lawmakers, educators and charter advocates alike for being outdated and inequitable.
The current formula is designed to reflect what is considered necessary or adequate to provide a quality education. The goal is to move from a system based on tax rates to a performance-based model that addresses student needs.
“On every level, education is under attack in terms of their funding,” Taylor said. “It’s much easier to simply put bills in hidden language and make it harder for people to understand what it’s doing than it is to actually come out into the light and tell people directly, ‘Hey, we are trying to get rid of public education.’ Because that’s what’s at stake right now.”
A 16-member Missouri School Funding Modernization Task Force was appointed by Kehoe to establish and submit formula recommendations by Dec. 1, 2026.
The message to lawmakers at the rally was clear: keep students’ needs at the forefront as they consider tax and spending proposals in the current legislative session.
“Don’t deprioritize public education funding,” Taylor said. “They can say whatever they want about having to balance a budget and they can try to hide behind other intentions. But the truth is, we are 49th out of 50 for spending per student. We are 50 out of 50 for a starting teacher’s salary.”
Taylor said Missouri is losing educators because of the state’s lack of support.
“If we do not support educators, they can’t support students,” Taylor said. “Take care of the teachers in the school building. Take care of the support staff in the school building. And make sure that everyone has the chance to come to work to be able to teach without having to worry about whether or not there will be snacks for their students or books for the kids to read.”
The event was held at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the Capitol Rotunda in Jefferson City.