JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri’s airwaves are about to get a little more crowded during a busy campaign season. The Early Childhood Education Initiative will spend more than $5 million to promote a November ballot initiative that would fund early childhood education by raising tobacco taxes, the committee announced.
The campaign’s announcement signals an intent to focus on the educational benefits of funding early childhood education.
“This initiative will provide long-overdue, guaranteed funding for early childhood education, and ensure that Jefferson City politicians won’t be able to get their hands on it. This is money that will go straight to our classrooms and our students,” said Jack Cardetti, a consultant for the committee.
The campaign is refocusing on Missouri’s lack of resources for early childhood education, especially compared to surrounding states. They say that just 3 percent of Missouri four-year-olds are enrolled early childhood education programs that receive state-funding. In Iowa, that number is 60 percent, while it climbs to 76 percent in Oklahoma.
“Missouri lags the nation in providing early childhood education for our children — education that is crucial to reducing crime and growing Missouri’s economy,” said Erin Brower, the chairwoman of the RYH4K board. “Now is the time to make this critical investment before another generation of students enter Missouri classrooms unprepared to learn.”
The announcement comes as the beleaguered campaign for the ballot measure reorganizes with a little more than four months before the November election.
Since the initiative turned in enough signatures to get onto the November ballot, it has been attacked from numerous angles by a well-organized opposition campaign.
The Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association (MPCA) went to court and had the measure’s fiscal note vacated. Numerous education groups, presumed natural allies of the campaign, have publicly opposed it because of concerns about the tax possibly funding private education.
The campaign is fighting back against the MPCA, which has a competing initiative awaiting approval that would also raise the tobacco tax. The campaign said in its press release that “the group told members that the initiative would, ‘… significantly decrease your tobacco sales and profit margins.’”
“$5 million is not going to change the fact that if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. This is about Big Tobacco shamefully using kids to hurt their competition and gain market share”, said Ronald J. Leone, executive director of the MPCA.
Earlier this week, Raise Your Hand for Kids (RYH4K), a committee campaigning for the measure, reorganized their campaign.
The ballot measure has also been criticized for being funded mostly by cigarette company RJ Reynolds and other critics say the measure stigmatizes stem cell research.
While the campaign hopes to keep the focus on the education benefits of the ballot initiative, they are hurt by public opposition from education groups like the Missouri Association of Rural Education, Missouri National Education Association and the Missouri Retired Teachers Association.
Despite those groups, the campaign still cites support from the Missouri School Boards’ Association, the Missouri State NAACP, the Missouri Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators, the Missouri PTA, the March of Dimes and SSM Health Care.
The Secretary of State’s office is still certifying the signatures for the ballot. The campaign says opponents are trying to throw out the signatures, but the campaign does not believe there is a chance of that happening.
