By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A St. Joseph state representative says Missouri needs to pay teachers more.
But Representative Brenda Shields doesn’t believe pay is the only solution to the state’s difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers. Shields says the problems the state has goes beyond low teacher pay.
“Pay is a small part of the equation around happiness of your employment and I think that we need to make sure that we provide everything that whole package of what makes teaching enjoyable,” Shields tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Shields supports greatly increasing the state minimum teacher pay. Shields adds, though, that the state needs to provide the type of environment that attracts young people to the teaching profession.
Shields says teacher pay will receive additional attention during the legislative session underway at the state Capitol in Jefferson City.
Other issues seek to gain the attention of lawmakers as well.
Shields says the legislature needs to address initiative petition reform.
Shields, a Republican, says it has become too easy for groups to mount a campaign to not only change state law, but the constitution. Shields supports making it more difficult for groups to bring a change to the state constitution before voters.
“Once you change it, it’s really hard to change it back. It all has to be done with a vote of the people,” according to Shields. “So, we need to tighten up some of that on that IT (initiative petition) reform.”
Shields also says the legislature needs to address election integrity, an issue that has taken on national importance. Shields says that are too many computer hackers to believe someone couldn’t hack an election system in Missouri and change the results.
The state representative says it’s time Missouri got into sports betting. Shields Missouri has lagged behind the national move to pave the way to legally wager on sports.
“I think we’re one of the last two states that hasn’t adopted sports betting in our state,” Shields says. “We’re not preventing it from happening in our state. So, we probably just need to get onboard and allow sports betting. It is a very big industry.”
Shields says sports betting has proven popular throughout the country and could bring in additional dollars to state coffers.