Grab your cape! It’s time for our children’s heroes to take action.
A number of privatization bills have been filed in each chamber, and among the worst is voucher expansion legislation, Senate Bill 2675, introduced by Senate Education Chair Gray Tollison.
Here’s what SB 2675 would do:
• open vouchers to ALL students, adding an estimated 4,700 new vouchers each year
• fund each voucher at a higher rate than MAEP per-student funding
• reduce funding for public schools, changing how average daily attendance is counted for funding purposes by deleting the law allowing excused absences for academic field trips or school-related events off campus, etc.
• more than quadruple voucher funding, adding an estimated minimum $25-million every year
• invite fraud and abuse, allowing parents to use a mobile app to send state tax dollars to any fly-by-night “school” that buys an accreditation online
• open vouchers to home schoolers by exempting voucher students from compulsory school attendance laws
• keep taxpayers in the dark about how voucher schools use tax dollars, says voucher schools “shall not be required to report data…” Find more details here.
Please give your legislators a call, thank them for their service, and ask them to:
Vote NO on any expansion of vouchers!
Find contact information for all of the legislators who represent your school district.
Share the same message with:
Lt. Governor Reeves Capitol: 601.359.3200
Speaker Gunn Capitol: 601.359.3300
Many harmful privatization bills have been introduced. Please be sure your legislators understand that any bill that makes it easier to send public dollars to private schools is a no-go!
Remind our legislators that we stand by them when they stand up for public schools. Spread the word by forwarding this email, sharing our Facebook posts and retweeting us on Twitter. And be sure to make those calls. Together, we’ve got this!
