Our children need your vote on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3.
Before you head to the polls, be sure to check out the candidates’ answers to the tough education questions asked by our members – and take a look at incumbent legislators’ education votes! You can find all of that on our Election 2015 Candidate Q & A site. If you haven’t already, contact the candidates personally, and ask them about their commitment to our children and their schools. Then spread the word about which candidates really support public schools and which do not. Above all, vote on Tuesday!
Mississippi parents have had it with politicians who refuse to provide the school resources our children need to be successful. Here’s the truth…
Despite what politicians have claimed, the share of the state budget devoted to public education shrank again this year to a historic low of 21 percent. See the numbers here.
Virtually every other category in Mississippi’s state budget recovered from the recession and began hitting annual “historic highs” four years ago. Virtually every category EXCEPT K-12 EDUCATION, that is. The well-deserved teacher pay raise finally pushed public school funding a fraction past 2008 levels for the first time this year. But the “historic high” for public schools is shameful when compared to the “historic high” enjoyed by the rest of the state budget: since 2008, funding for K-12 has increased by 2.47 percent while the rest of the state budget has increased by 47.64 percent. Cumulative inflation over that same period has been 15 percent.
Every other budget category except one had at least five times the percentage growth over last year as did K-12 – several had more than 25 times the percentage increase (see graph). The Legislature even increased its own budget by a greater percent than K-12’s. When it comes to adequate funding, our public schools – and our children – are getting hammered. You can help us move in the right direction by voting FOR Initiative 42 on Election Day AND for candidates who believe in public schools and public school children.
Five minutes of your time between now and Election Day could make a huge difference for Mississippi children for the next four years.
- Contact your friends and tell them which candidates in your area support public schools
- Copy this information and paste it into an email, then send it to all of your contacts
- Share our Facebook posts and retweet our tweets (@ParentsCampaign)
Our children can’t vote, and they can’t afford elected officials who give lip service to support for public schools while throwing them under the proverbial bus. Let’s get this done for our kids!
