Last Thursday, the Senate Education Committee passed a number of bills, two of which we are following closely:
- SB 2487 – provides an expansion of Mississippi’s literacy initiative into the middle grades, an issue that has been on The Parents’ Campaign’s legislative priorities list for several years. The committee substitute for SB 2487, the amended version of the bill that passed committee, is not yet online as of this writing, so I haven’t been able to read it. As Chairman DeBar explained the committee substitute, it:
- Mandates that universal literacy screeners be administered three times per year to public school students in grades 4-8 statewide, with additional diagnostic assessments required for students who are noted as having a reading deficiency
- Requires that an individual reading plan be developed, in cooperation with parents, for each student with a reading deficiency and that tiered interventions be provided based upon severity and type of deficiency
- Requires that the Mississippi Department of Education provide to school districts instructional leaders, literacy coaches, therapists, interventionists, and tutors
- Bans the teaching of balanced literacy models, such as the three-cueing system
- Requires that students who fail to pass a grade-eight statewide reading assessment be retained, with exceptions provided
- SB 2242 – the Mississippi Math Act does not include a “gate” requiring retention, but provides that:
- The Mississippi Department of Education will invite districts to participate in the program, prioritizing districts based upon achievement gaps, vacancies, rural access, and other equity factors, while ensuring regional coverage
- Participating school districts shall administer universal math screeners to students in grades K-5
- An Individual Math Plan shall be developed for any student not meeting the established benchmarks and shared with the student’s parent or guardian
- Each school district shall place coaches in grades K-12, with priority in grades 2-6, which may include college- and career-readiness coaches to align mathematics with workforce pathways and statewide assessments
The Parents’ Campaign strongly supports efforts to ensure that Mississippi students meet their full potential and graduate college- and career-ready. We will examine closely SB 2487 as it passed committee as soon as it is online, report to you any additions to what we have reported thus far, and continue to monitor these bills as well as any proposed funding of the bills’ provisions as they work their way through the process.
In the meantime, please thank again the bipartisan group of legislators who stood with their constituents and voted NO on HB 2, the dangerous and highly unpopular school choice bill that narrowly passed the House earlier this month. Those legislators are being attacked by out-of-state voucher lobbyists, one from Wisconsin who set up a fake “Mississippi Conservative Fund” and is attacking pro-public school legislators via robo text, and another, a disgraced, self-described “school choice evangelist” from Oklahoma, who is vilifying Mississippi’s public school faithful on social media. Your public school-supporting legislators will appreciate your kind words in the face of such behavior from outsiders.
Mississippi’s public schools are on the right track, making unprecedented gains in student proficiency and sailing past the “school choice” states on national assessments. Urge your legislators to ignore the outside noise, stick close to the folks back home, and keep Mississippi on our upward path. Because together, we’ve got this!
