Funding

Once again, the Senate has saved the teacher pay raise for Mississippi teachers!  We’re so very grateful to Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, and the Senate Education and Appropriations Committees for rejecting petty politics and taking up the House pay raise bill by today’s deadline. In […]

We believe that the teacher pay raise could be in jeopardy. Our teachers need your help to salvage it. Media reports indicate that disagreements over the income tax are escalating and that the longer the teacher pay raise bills linger, the more vulnerable they are to legislative shenanigans. Indeed, the House of Representatives has begun bogging

Senate Bill 3164, the Senate tax cut bill, passed that chamber today. See the Senate vote. Thank you to the many, many public education supporters who have called your legislators about these dangerous tax cut bills. You are making a difference! Though today’s vote didn’t go the way we wanted, the Senate debate reflected many of

Senate Bill 3164 would strip $317-million annually from the state budget, threatening teacher pay and school budgets. It just passed the Senate Finance Committee and could come up for a vote of the full Senate any time. Senators need to hear from you right away! SB 3164 would eliminate the 4% state income tax bracket over

Our children and teachers need your help today! Legislators have said for years that Mississippi does not have enough money to adequately fund public schools or pay teachers at the Southeastern average. Now those same legislators are considering reducing state revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars – while STILL underfunding our children’s schools and

If you value teachers, public schools, and other vital state services, ask your senator to VOTE NO on House Bill 531. HB 531 would eliminate an estimated $1.5-billion in state funding, a quarter of the General Fund (even after increasing sales taxes), a blow to the state budget that would almost certainly necessitate deep cuts

SB 2444, the Senate’s teacher pay raise bill, has passed the full Senate on a unanimous vote. Each chamber has now passed its own version of the pay raise, and each is substantive. Kudos to the Mississippi House and Senate for moving forward with two impressive teacher pay proposals! We look forward to working with them

Today, SB 2444, the Senate’s teacher pay raise bill, passed both the Senate Education and Appropriations committees, another step toward more competitive pay for Mississippi teachers. The bill differs slightly from the proposal as first announced, increasing the 25-year bump for all teachers to $2,500. The Senate plan, which would be phased in over two years,

Today, the Mississippi House passed HB 530, the House version of the teacher pay plan, another step toward a historic salary increase for teachers. House Education Chairman Richard Bennett gave a passionate speech in support of the pay raise, extolling the excellent work of Mississippi teachers and urging his colleagues to recognize their efforts with a

Today, House Education Chairman Richard Bennett introduced HB 530, the House version of the teacher pay plan, or START Act. The bill, which increases substantially starting teacher pay and teacher pay overall, was taken up and passed in the Appropriations Committee.  Chairman Bennett lauded the progress that Mississippi teachers have made in improving student achievement