2013 LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW
with sewage backing up in the bathrooms.” One of the factors in figuring the formula is that actual costs from the prior year are used to determine costs for next year. That means low funding in the past translates into low funding for the future, when costs for the 2010-2011 school year determine funding for the 2012-2013 year. The talk this year is that the Legislature may scrap the formula altogether, but as yet, no proposals have been publicly revealed. State Auditor Stacey Pickering wants to revised the formula to ensure that each school district reports to the state using the same criteria, for example. “[T]he definitions are not uniform across the state from school district to school district,” he told Mississippi Public Broadcasting. “They cannot be audited by federal law, so they shouldn’t be in the formula to start with. And we shouldn’t be using that to base this much of our state budged on.” House Education Committee Chairman Moore concurred with Pickering. He argued that a lot of the data coming in from the districts was inconsistent. That includes the way districts count daily attendance, report test scores and how
2013 Key Legislative Dates Jan. 8 — The Mississippi Legislature convenes at noon Jan. 16 — The last day for drafting general bills and constitutional amendments Jan. 21 — Deadline for introduction of general bills and constitutional amendments Feb. 5 — Deadline for committees to report general bills and constitutional amendments originating own house Feb. 14 — Deadline for original floor action on general bills and amendments by own house Feb. 27 — Deadline for revenue and appropriations bills originating in own house March 5 — Deadline for committees to
report general bills and constitutional amendments originating in other house March 13 — Deadline for original floor action on general bills and constitutional amendments created in other house March 19 — Deadline for original floor action on spending bills originating in the other house March 29 — Deadline for introducing non-revenue local and private bills March 30 — Deadline to file conference reports on spending bills April 1 — Deadline for filing conference reports on general bills and deadline for final conference reports on spending bills April 7 — Sine Die
many students are eligible for free lunches. operated by a group of teachers, parents or “If it skews the data even a little bit, dis- other qualified individuals. These individutricts that need more money are being penal- als enter into a contractual arrangement with ized, and then there are some districts that the state or school system and, as long as they are getting more money than they deserve,” he said, and mentioned Claiborne County as an example. Moore added that the formula should ensure money goes into classrooms and not administrative costs. “Who’s been driving this freight train?” Moore asked rhetorically, saying that he wants to get to the bottom of why the district reporting has been so inconsistent. In the years MAEP has been in place, Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, was chairman of the House he added, “no one has Education Committee for seven years. He believes the ever thought to look at most important thing to ensure good education for Mississippi’s children is community involvement in schools. this situation; there’s never been any audit. There’s never been anyone who questioned this formula.” prove that they are meeting their contractual If the data going in is garbage, the con- agreements with the sate or local district, they clusions drawn from it can’t be any better, operate largely free from state and district suhe said. “We want Mississippi to quit being pervision.” number 50,” he said, adding that he would While still a small part of the huge love to see people coming from all over to find public-education pie, the numbers of charout how the state went to No. 1 in education. ter schools in the United States are steadily growing. From 1999 to 2009, the number of Charters This Year? students enrolled in charter schools jumped Privatizing and monetizing public func- from 340,000 to 1.4 million, more than tritions have been at the core of conservative pling in a decade. In the 10-year period, charpolicy for decades, and education is no excep- ter schools went from making up 2 percent tion. In his 1996 book “Agenda for America: of all public schools to 5 percent with about A Republican Direction for the Future” (Re- 4,700 schools in the 2008-2009 school year. gency Publishing Inc.), former Mississippi Mississippi has had a charter-school law Gov. Haley Barbour hailed charter schools on the books since 1997, but as yet, no charas an important part of public-school choice ter schools. The dilemma hinges on details: for parents. He also urged the abolition of the How much supervision should the state give U.S. Department of Education and the end to charter schools, for example. of teacher unions and state certification. Part of last year’s legislative debate swirled “[C]harter schools encourage innova- around teacher certifications: The proposed tion and decentralization,” he wrote. “By bill stated that state Department of Educadefinition, charter schools are ‘public’ or gov- tion certification would only be required for ernment-funded schools that are created and
TRIP BURNS
the program its full due twice, after Hurricane Katrina for the 2006 and 2007 school years, when an influx of federal funds made up the difference. The Mississippi Department of Education has requested $2.4 billion to fully fund MAEP for the coming school year. If history repeats, the reality is that the Legislature will allocate a figure short of that by some $250 million. The lack of adequate money has left many of Mississippi’s school districts with crumbling buildings, not enough teachers or textbooks, and looking to their district’s taxpayers to make up the difference with increases in property and local sales taxes. “I’ve got schools up in the Delta where when it rains, you put out buckets, and the kids don’t have all their textbooks.” Whittington said. “… What are we thinking?” “Money is a necessity,” Brown said. “You can’t have schools that don’t have money to pay the utility bills. You can’t have schools that can’t pay teachers.” He added that hundreds of teachers across the state have been laid off because schools don’t have the funds to pay them. “They have bigger classrooms and fewer teachers. We have school building
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January 2 - 8, 2013
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