Dead? Or Merely Sleeping?

An update:

Missouri’s Special Needs Scholarship tax credit legislation was recently folded into an Omnibus Education Bill on teacher pay, HB 2040/2430. Legislators debated the language about Special Needs students in an especially heated session this Wednesday. Speaker Rod Jetton’s comments allude to the incident of an altercation between Speaker Pro-Tem Steve Tilley and Representatives Trent Skaggs and Brian Nieves. I imagine it happened in a “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” kind of way, after reading some eye-witness reports.

Ultimately, the scholarship language was stripped from the bill via an amendment from Rep. Maynard Wallace, a former public school Superintendent.

Speaker Pro-Tem Tilley was quoted as saying that the teacher pay bill wouldn’t “see the light of day” after the loss of the scholarship tax credit language, but the cry this morning is that the bill may be resurrected. It’s a significant loss for both sides of the aisle if assistance for both teachers and special needs children cannot come to terms with one another.

We’ll see what the day brings. You've gotta admire Tilley for putting his foot down on this one.