Editorial Roundup: Missouri
St. Louis Post-Dispatch. October 4, 2023.
Editorial: Hawley’s labor conversion should be judged not by what he says, but what he’s done
For years, Sen. Josh Hawley has marched in lockstep with the union-busting ethos of his party. The Missouri Republican has supported the misnamed “right to work” movement designed to weaken organized labor, opposed a state minimum-wage hike, and still opposes an effort to pass the most sweeping pro-labor federal legislation in generations.
Yet Hawley now presumes to march with striking United Auto Workers?
Those workers, and all the other Missourians who will decide Hawley’s political fate in next year’s elections, should ask themselves: Would you buy a car from this man?
Hawley last week greeted General Motors workers (and the cameras) on the picket line at Wentzville to express his support for their demands for raises.
It’s part of a multi-state UAW strike against GM, Ford and Stellantis. The union wants steep wage hikes, noting that the Big Three automakers’ top corporate compensation has roughly quadrupled in the past four years as workers’ wages have stagnated.
That’s a chapter in the broader story of today’s second Gilded Age, in which the rich keep getting astronomically richer while working Americans have seen their relative income stagnate at best. As we noted in this space recently, CEOs half a century ago took home about 20 times what their average employees did; now they out-earn them some 400 fold.
That isn’t the random effects of the free market, but the result of a deliberate project by the Republican Party, for decades now, to eviscerate the bargaining power of organized labor. For all the party’s current kowtowing to the rural populist right, its real constituency has long been — and still is — the corporations and super-rich whose bottom lines benefit when workers get stiffed.
Hawley has been especially aggressive in trying to woo the working class with his common-man-in-blue-jeans routine.
But whatever he says now, this is the same guy who, as a Senate candidate, publicly supported the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts, which were heavily top-loaded to massively enrich the corporate class, potentially adding as much as $2 trillion to the national debt. If Hawley has acknowledged this was a mistake, we missed it.
Hawley is, however, admitting to other changes of heart regarding working people: In 2018, he lined up against Missouri workers on not one but two crucial labor issues on which he’s now trying to backpedal.
That year, he supported a referendum to make Missouri a right-to-work state. That’s a misleading misnomer for letting non-union workers enjoy the fruits of labor contracts without paying dues or fees to the unions that won them.
The whole scheme is designed to undermine the resources of the very unions that negotiate those contracts. Missouri voters saw right through it, defeating the right-to-work measure almost 2 to 1.
The same year, Missourians voted to raise the state’s paltry minimum wage after the Republican-controlled Legislature refused to. Hawley again sided with big business against the wage earners. Voters again had other ideas, overwhelmingly approving the wage hike.
What a difference an approaching election year makes.
“These guys deserve a raise,” Hawley said last week of the GM workers. The same apparently wasn’t true for minimum-wage Missouri workers who, until the voters stepped in, could be paid less than $8 an hour under state law.
Hawley lately has tried to dismiss his previous opposition to pro-labor measures as water under the bridge. Defeating right-to-work was “the decision the people of Missouri made, and I wouldn’t countermand that at all,” he said recently.
That’s an easy stand to take on an issue that’s settled. If Hawley is serious about his pro-labor conversion, how about applying it to a pending issue like the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act? That’s federal legislation that would strengthen long-eroded tools for labor organizing, particularly in right-to-work states where organizing power has been undermined by GOP legislators.
Hawley’s recent claim that the legislation would “hurt workers more than it helps” is classic anti-labor doublespeak. But it is at least consistent with the positions he has historically taken on other labor-rights issues.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll change his mind on this one as well and help Democrats overcome the Republican opposition that has held it up.
Until then, the voters should tune out Hawley’s empty sales pitch and judge him based on what he’s done — and failed to do — for working Missourians.
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Kansas City Star. October 6, 2023.
Editorial: Missouri judge found evidence of collusion and fraud against student athlete
Participating in extracurricular activities is a privilege, attorneys for the Missouri State High School Activities Association argued during legal proceedings in Greene County last month. Student-athletes who break MSHSAA bylaws must pay the price.
We accept that. But what about school district leaders?
What should the punishment be for leaders who act with malice to commit fraud and collude with others to derail a young person’s future?
Should they remain in positions of influence? Absolutely not.
In a recent ruling in Greene County Circuit Court, Judge Derek Ankrom found credible evidence that two athletic administrators in Springfield Public Schools intentionally misled MSHSAA officials about the transfer of Glendale quarterback Kylan Mabins.
As of this week, the two men in question — Josh Scott, athletic director for Springfield Public Schools and Scot Phillips, athletics and activities director at Springfield’s Kickapoo High School — remained in their respective positions.
Mabins ‘robbed of senior year’
Mabins’ saga should resonate with the families of any aspiring student-athlete around the state who is trying to transfer for legitimate reasons and not because he is recruited. MSHSAA has a 365-day transfer policy, which would keep Mabins from playing varsity football at Glendale for a year.
This summer, Mabins’ family sought a preliminary injunction that would allow him to play this season. After a two-day hearing in late August, Ankrom ruled evidence shows Scott colluded with Phillips to challenge Mabins’ transfer last spring from Kickapoo.
Even worse, Scott is also on the board of directors for MSHSAA, the state’s governing body for high school activities. In light of these serious preliminary findings by a judge, we must question Scott’s ability to fairly serve the best interest of Missouri school children. He should consider temporarily stepping aside from his MSHSAA duties until litigation in this case concludes and he is absolved of wrongdoing.
As of this week, Scott was still a board member, according to a MSHSAA spokesman. We reached out to Scott, Phillips and officials with Springfield Public Schools for comment.
In a statement sent to us late Wednesday, a district spokesman wrote: “We dispute the claims and remain confident that our staff have, at all times, acted appropriately, lawfully and consistent with the athletic processes required by Board of Education policies and the Missouri State High School Activities Association.”
At the hearing, Ankrom heard arguments as to why he should allow Mabins to play this season. The evidence Ankrom considered in granting the injunction found no one recruited Mabins to Glendale as alleged, court records indicate.
Ankrom admonished Scott and Phillips, though. The pair worked as “thought partners” to bolster the argument challenging Mabins’ transfer, Ankrom wrote. Both knew MSHSAA investigators were given misleading video evidence of the teen purportedly working out with a Glendale coach two years before the transfer, according to Ankrom’s order. Scott and Phillips knew the adult in the video with Mabins wasn’t a Glendale coach.
By misrepresenting the evidence submitted during Mabins’ appeal, the athletic administrators committed fraud and threatened irreparable harm to Mabins’ future, Ankrom ruled.
“The Court believes that Mr. Phillips and Mr. Scott knew that (Kickapoo High School’s) factual bases for objecting to Mabins’s eligibility was insufficient,” Ankrom wrote in the ruling.
Future hearings will determine whether the injunction will stay in place permanently. At this point, Mabins’ claims have merit, Ankrom wrote. His initial findings were not considered conclusive.
But the order granting Mabins request for relief was telling.
“The Court is deeply troubled by the conduct of SPS and MSHSAA – in particular that of KHS’s athletic director (Phillips) and SPS’s district athletic director (Scott).” Ankrom wrote.
One would think state officials would take steps to address these serious transgressions committed against Mabins. But, nope. Nothing to see here, MSHSAA officials told us. Ankrom got it wrong, according to an email statement sent to us on behalf of executive director Jennifer Rukstad.
“The Missouri State High School Activities Association is not in agreement with the outcome of the preliminary injunction hearing and will be accessing the next steps of due process,” the statement read.
Mabins has potential to play college football, according to one of the family’s attorneys, Jay Kirksey.
But Mabins’ future is “up in the air because of the false statements, malice, fraud and collusion by Springfield Public Schools and MSHSAA,” Kirksey said.
In its challenge, Kickapoo officials claimed Mabins changed schools for athletic reasons and undue influence from an outside party, according to legal documents. Per MSHSAA’s 365-day transfer policy, Mabins was not eligible to play varsity football at Glendale for a year.
After multiple appeals to MSHSAA, Mabins’ request for a hardship waiver was denied. His family sought a preliminary injunction against MSHSAA, its board of directors, Scott, and Springfield Public Schools. And won.
Mabins has played minimal snaps so far this season, according to Kirksey.
“They robbed him of his senior year,” he said.
Judge: SPS officials retaliated against Mabins
What were the facts behind the dispute? Before this season, Mabins was a two-year varsity starter at crosstown rival Kickapoo. In March, Mabins’ family requested a transfer to Glendale. Weeks before, Mabins filed a report with school officials about racial misconduct within the Kickapoo football program, according to court documents.
Citing a toxic environment filled with “racial micro-aggressions,” homophobia and mental health challenges, Mabins’ request was granted three days later by Springfield Public Schools, according to court records. Until it wasn’t.
In granting Mabins’ request, Ankrom wrote: “There is a likelihood that (Kickapoo High School), acting in concert and collusion with SPS and MSHSAA through Mr. Scott, prompted the undertakings of MSHSAA and the ineligibility of Mabins with malice toward Mabins in retaliation for his and his family’s complaints about the (Kickapoo) environment and the conduct of its coaching staff.”
A system set up to provide an even playing field for MSHSAA member schools and their students failed the very athletes it’s designed to protect. As did the actions of Scott and Phillips.
In this case, the lack of accountability from the adults in charge should concern us all.
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Jefferson City News Tribune. October 8, 2023.
Editorial: A degree of budget uncertainty for higher ed
Annually, higher education funding has been at the whim of state lawmakers and the political climate in that year.
While a recently released report lays out a vision of a new state funding model, there’s no guarantee it will adequately address that budget uncertainty.
“Funding to the state’s public institutions has been the result of incremental decisions that have done little to account for how the institutions have changed relative to one another in ways that affect costs,” states the 92-page report prepared by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems and released in July.
A new funding model that accounts for the fixed costs of operating a college or university, as well as performance incentives tied to workforce development goals, are proposed by the report, which state lawmakers requested in 2022 as part of a bill that funded the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development and state institutions of higher education.
The report lays out a possible framework for a new funding model, but it leaves large questions to be answered.
Chief among the questions is how much of the funding of colleges and universities should be funded by tax dollars, rather than tuition and student charges.
And the answer to that question is anything but simple. Not all higher education institutions are the same or have the same mission. Some have land-grant missions; some are open-enrollment institutions; some are more regionally focused.
All play a vital role in Missouri’s higher education environment.
Finding a new funding model that accommodates their missions may be complex and even untenable.
The idea of shifting more of the funding burden on students through tuition and student charges could exclude many lower-income students from pursuing their potential or force them to take out more student loans.
That approach could potentially harm the students as well as the state.
Granted, a comprehensive funding model could help the state’s higher education system become more dynamic and responsive to changes in workforce or degree demands, as Bennett Boggs, Missouri’s higher education commissioner, said. The result would be less reliance on the whims of legislators during annual requests for funding and instead of basing appropriations on data and metrics of the institutions, he said.
Leroy Wade, the state’s deputy commissioner of higher education, said the model could be largely built around the costs it takes to run each institution. Asset management would be part of the model’s fixed costs while factors like student characteristics and the types of programs offered would be considered variable costs.
Performance funding, Wade said, could be used to incentivize colleges and universities to pursue the state’s workforce goals.
Performance funding could be based on six factors, according to the report, including student academic progress, degree completions, workforce responsiveness, postgraduate outcomes, funding efficiency and collaboration between institutions.
But should the state’s higher education system be solely focused on the goal of improving workforce goals? And shouldn’t there be some recognition that not all students entering higher education start with the same level of learning?
And that’s just one or two areas where lawmakers will need to proceed cautiously.
For instance, the report suggests the state could weigh, say, first-generation students higher than traditional students in some performance funding metrics, meaning a school like Lincoln University could receive more funding per student than a school that attracts more traditional students.
And Lincoln University, as an open-enrollment university, would arguably need that extra funding for first-generation students, as well as students who may be entering without being college-ready.
But it would be up to lawmakers to decide those factors and others.
Paul Wagner, executive director of the Council on Public Higher Education, said he hasn’t heard much about the report from lawmakers since it was released, but it could surface during the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January.
Any effort to tackle a funding model for higher education by state lawmakers must be thoughtful and forward-thinking, which historically has not been a strong suit of the General Assembly in recent years.
Please proceed cautiously, legislators.
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