Funding

The teacher pay raise passed by the Legislature in 2014 includes a $1,500 across-the-board raise beginning July 1, 2014, with an additional $1,000 across-the-board raise effective July 1, 2015. The cost of the first year of the pay raise was included in the MAEP allocation for 2014-2015.  There is a catch, however, that will result

Despite being underfunded by more than $1.6-billion in the last six years, schools have seen their standards rise significantly and their administrative duties spike upward due to mandates by the State Legislature and policy requirements at the state and federal levels. Incredibly, as the Legislature has continued to pile on the administrative functions required of districts, they have

Governor Bryant has signed into law HB 504, giving Mississippi teachers an across-the-board pay raise for the next two years. Teachers will see a well-deserved $1,500 bump in salary on July 1 of this year and another $1,000 increase on July 1, 2015.  Increasing teacher salaries will improve the likelihood that top-tier students will consider a career in education, and attracting

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