February 2020

This morning, the Senate Education and Appropriations Committees passed SB 2594, a bill that puts in place new accountability measures for Mississippi’s ESA voucher program. And that giant online school loophole we asked you to call about? It was removed, so thank you for your work on that! SB 2594 requires that private schools receiving […]

Please keep calling about the voucher bill. Your calls are making a difference! SB 2594 narrows the ESA voucher program by requiring that private voucher schools provide the special education services called for in a voucher student’s IEP. That’s good. But there’s a giant loophole that lets voucher schools circumvent this key requirement: allowing online

We need your help on a voucher bill. You probably know that Mississippi’s ESA voucher program has been fraught with problems. At the root of it is the fact that, though the voucher is available only to children with special needs, the program doesn’t require private voucher schools to provide any special education services to

Mississippi’s ESA voucher program has been analyzed by our sister organization, The Parents’ Campaign Research & Education Fund and by PEER. Findings include: less than half of students assigned vouchers have actually used them, many private voucher schools do not provide special education services (even though the program is intended for children with special needs),

Yesterday, in a great show of support for public school teachers, SB 2001 – the teacher pay raise bill, unanimously passed the full Senate. Every member of the Senate signed on as a co-author of the bill, and the vote was followed by a standing ovation in the Senate chamber! See the WLBT video here.

Heads up, public education supporters: Legislators in the House of Representatives voted against you in overwhelming fashion today. Teachers, they don’t want you to serve in the Legislature and draw your hard-earned retirement. This afternoon, the House Appropriations Committee voted down two bills that would have clarified the right of retired educators and other PERS

House Speaker Philip Gunn continues to play hardball with the state retirees who were elected in November to represent voters in the Pinebelt, southeast Mississippi, and DeSoto County. The legislators being targeted qualify to serve in the Legislature while drawing their retirement, according to a new PERS regulation and an Attorney General opinion issued last