Funding

Voucher Bill Pushed by Florida For-Profit/Virtual Charter School LobbyistThere have been plenty of clues that the voucher bill being pushed in the Mississippi Legislature is not really about helping children with special needs (as it has been framed). Yesterday, voucher supporters tipped their hand further when a tweet from the Florida lobbyists who were in our state last year pushing virtual and […]

The original version of HB 1476 underfunds the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) for the coming school year by $265-million dollars. If the Legislature passes pay-raise legislation that mandates $65-million more in teacher salaries for the coming year, that will bring the total amount of increased funding needed to meet the salary increase and fully fund the MAEP

Privatizing and “profitizing” public education? That is exactly what the voucher bills debated in the 2014 Legislative Session were intended to do – and they had “disingenuous” and “unintended consequences” written all over them. House Bill 765, defeated by the House of Representatives on the last day of the session, was very broad, allowing private

At the Mississippi Economic Council’s 2014 Capital Day event, Speaker Philip Gunn was unequivocal about his support for an across-the-board teacher pay raise and said it will be on the agenda in the House of Representatives this session. While he supports merit pay, Speaker Gunn was clear that he also supports an increase in the

Lately, the airwaves have been abuzz with talk of funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), the state law that promises our children resources sufficient for an adequate education.Here’s the bottom line: the recession is over. State revenue is back to 2008 levels, which was the last year that the MAEP was fully funded. It’s time for the Legislature

State leaders, frustrated by Mississippi’s perennial placement near the bottom of education rankings, have taken to saying that they want to “fund what works” in education. The implication is that they want to move away from the per-student funding provided through the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) and instead simply fund their pet education programs.

Prior to the “Great Recession,” support among legislators for adequate school funding was strong. The formula, passed into law in 1997 and phased in over a number of years, was fully funded for the first time in 2003. Four years later, bolstered by strong constituent support, Governor Haley Barbour, in his 2007 State of the State address, declared

Passed by the Mississippi Legislature in 1997 (see history below), the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) is a law that provides a formula that is designed to ensure an adequate education for every Mississippi child – whether that child lives in a “wealthy” community or a “poor” one. It is designed to provide schools the