Potosi Republican: No news on charter school bill is good news

(From Rep. Paul Fitzwater, R-Potosi)

No news on HB 634 is good news. If you remember, HB 634 is the Charter School Expansion bill that I have been writing about that would allow charter school expansion state-wide and drain tax dollars away from our public schools here in our state.

Word around the Capitol is that those trying to implement this legislation are struggling to gain enough votes to even get it out of the House. 

I can assure you, if they had the votes, it would have come up this week and passed, but since it didn't surface on the House floor, this means they are still working the traps to gain support. 

Let us hope they continue to search for those votes. Why throw more of our tax dollars into something that has continued failed to produce in the past. I'll keep you posted on this one weekly.

Speaking of schools, I was part of a group of legislatures that had a discussion recently about what we thought was important in our schools today. One thing that troubles me in our schools today is that a lot of schools across our state has stopped offering Shop (Industrial Arts) classes for our kids. I don't know about you, but shop class was one of my favorites. We must remember that there are those kids in our schools that love working with their hands. I will have to admit, I could have done better in school if I would have applied myself more, but I was really into sports and loved to work and make a little spending money when I could. I believe shop should be offered in every school, especially our rural schools.