 |
YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri |
June 14, 2002
Report No. 2002-46
The
following problems were discovered as a result of an audit conducted by our
office of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Teacher
Scholarship, Loan, and Tuition Reimbursement Programs.
The
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) administers the
Missouri Teacher Education Scholarship (MTES) and the Missouri Minority Teacher
Education Scholarship (MMTES) programs.��
These scholarship programs are intended to attract qualified applicants
into the teaching profession.� Under
both scholarship programs, the recipient is required to receive a degree in
education from an approved teacher education program in a four-year college or
university, and teach in an elementary or secondary public school in Missouri
for five years after receiving their degree.�
If the recipient fails to fulfill these requirements, the scholarship
amount is treated as a loan and must be repaid to the state.� The scholarship amounts provided by the DESE
are also matched, wholly or partially, by funds from the applicable college or
university.
Our
audit noted the DESE has spent approximately $3.8 million since the MTES and
the MMTES scholarship programs were established.� However, the department has never determined or evaluated whether
these programs have effectively increased the number of teachers in the state's
public schools.� In fact, the DESE's
database for tracking individual accounts was in such disarray, much of the
data had to be recreated and summarized before we could perform any analysis of
this data.� Our analysis indicated
nearly 40 percent of MTES and almost half of the MMTES scholarship applicants
for fiscal year 1996 did not complete the requirements of the programs.
Certain
statutory provisions and departmental policies are having a negative impact on
the success of the DESE's scholarship programs.� Laws and policies for the program are currently focused on
recruiting applicants early in their college years.� In addition, teacher shortage areas designated as critical need
are not considered when selecting recipients for the scholarship programs.� If the state's laws and DESE's policies were
amended to attract students who were serious about teacher education and who
desired to teach in a critical need area, public schools would benefit by
having a larger supply of teachers to fill their subject area shortage needs.� It also appears state law does not
adequately empower the DESE to pursue recovery from recipients of the MMTES
program who default.� Furthermore, the
DESE does not collect the full defaulted amount from the recipients who fail to
comply with the statutory requirements of the scholarships because the
university's match is not collected.
The
department does not follow some of its policies for the scholarship programs,
and lacks formal written policies on monitoring the status of scholarship accounts
and maintaining scholarship databases.�
This has resulted in inconsistencies in the handling of recipient
accounts.� Due to the inadequate
monitoring, lack of segregated duties, and limited supervision regarding the
scholarship programs, non-compliance with the scholarship requirements has gone
undetected, and recipients who have defaulted are not being held fully
accountable.
The
department is forced to decline scholarships to approximately half of the
qualified applicants due to a lack of available funding.� Even though there are many more qualified
applicants than there is available funding, the department has not utilized
some existing funding due to complications arising from scholarship renewals.� There have been virtually no increases in
funding for scholarship programs since their implementation, and two loan
programs approved by the General Assembly have never been funded.� In addition, individual scholarship amounts
have never been increased rendering the scholarship programs less attractive to
prospective teachers.� Monies received
from recipients who have not fulfilled program requirements are not placed back
into the scholarship programs to be used for future awards.� If these funding issues were resolved, the
scholarship programs would be available to a greater number of prospective
teachers in the state and thereby lessen the impact of the teacher shortages.
Unlike some of the scholarship and loan programs mentioned above, the DESE has not established formal requirements for its tuition reimbursement programs that require participants to complete their education program and to remain employed in Missouri's public schools for a period of time after completion.� Although the teachers who participate in the tuition reimbursement programs are expected to complete their teacher education program and to obtain certification in the subject area studied, participants are not required to reimburse the funding if they fail to do so.� By failing to establish appropriate requirements for the tuition reimbursement programs, there is no assurance those programs are effectively addressing the statewide areas of critical need.
