Funding

Will Initiative 42 hand new authority to a judge?  No, of course not! If you remember your high school civics class, you already know the answer. Judges have had the authority to rule on the constitutionality of any legislative action, including school funding, as long as Mississippi has been a state. Our system of checks and balances, […]

Can you believe the lengths to which some politicians will go to deny our children adequate education funding? Apparently, state leaders weren’t satisfied with tampering with the ballot title and the “official” state fiscal analysis – or with manipulating the official ballot to gain an advantage in the election – or with railroading through the

Last week, Judge Singletary ruled against former Governor Musgrove and the 21 school districts that sued the state for the amount their schools have been underfunded since 2008. In his decision, Judge Singletary agreed that schools should be fully funded but also said that current state law allows the Legislature to skirt that responsibility. So does

You have probably heard by now that House Appropriations Chairman Herb Frierson summoned state agency heads to the Capitol yesterday in what was clearly a scare tactic designed to gin up opposition to Initiative 42, the citizen-proposed constitutional amendment that would make an adequately funded public education a fundamental right of Mississippi children (see details

The Mississippi Department of Education has released the state funding allocations for each school district. The amount appropriated by the Legislature is far less than what is required by state law in the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP). Click here to see how much your schools are shortchanged this year and how much they have been under-funded since fiscal year

Mountains of research show that poverty is the best predictor of academic failure. Studies also show that children living in poverty require significantly more resources to level the playing field and give them the same shot at success as their more affluent peers. Because Mississippi has the highest rate of poverty in the nation, Mississippi

How much will your district be shortchanged if the MAEP isn’t fully funded? A lot. Click here to see an estimate of what your district stands to gain if the MAEP is fully funded – and what it stands to lose if it isn’t. The current appropriations bill under-funds the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) by $201-million. HB 1536 provides an increase

Beginning in 2001, Florida took steps to improve reading proficiency among its youngest schoolchildren. In 2012, To learn more about the initiative, The Parents’ Campaign participated in two conference calls with the staff of Florida’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, a lobbying group pushing other states to adopt Florida’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act, among other school reform

Governor Bryant’s budget recommendation for the coming legislative session provides Mississipians the perfect reason to vote for the Better Schools, Better Jobs ballot initiative next November. Announced Monday, Bryant’s budget proposal underfunds the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) by roughly $260-million, despite state revenue being at its highest level in history. When state coffers are overflowing and state leaders refuse to put