Funding

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

Mississippi schools have been underfunded by more than $1.2-billion in the last 6 years. The failure of our Legislature to provide our children adequate school funding has denied them access to the high quality education afforded children who reside in states that invest well in their schools. Here’s what our children could get with adequate school funding…  More Advanced Placement offerings          $44,200,000 

Prior to the 2011 election, The Parents’ Campaign asked candidates for the Legislature and statewide offices about their willingness to commit to full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program as required in state law. Here’s what the members of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) had to say… Tate Reeves, Lieutenant Governor, Chair of

Governor Bryant has announced his budget recommendation for Fiscal Year 2015, the budget that will be decided in the coming legislative session. Governor Bryant’s budget underfunds the Mississippi Adequate Education Program by $284.5-million, despite significant increases in state revenue and a $295-million surplus at the end of the 2013 budget year. This budget demonstrates that our children’s

School District Budget Cuts Go Into Effect NBCT School District Losses Consequences for Children Most Mississippi school districts operate on very thin margins, and the vast majority of any district’s budget is made up of salaries.  Teachers operate under contract, and districts are bound by law to honor those contracts, so those salaries must be

Children go through school only once.Mississippi teachers have one year to lay the critical foundation necessary for a child to move successfully through school and into a bright future. Research has shown conclusively that, when a child is provided an ineffective education for two consecutive years, that child never fully regains his or her lost

The governor is asking that public schools prepare to cut their budgets by 2% this year and 4% next school year. See what these cuts would mean for your school district… The Mississippi Department of Education has prepared a spreadsheet that shows the amount of MAEP funding each school district would be forced to return