Don’t Screw with MAEP
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egislative leaders recently hired EdBuild, a New Jersey-based education-consulting firm, to review the state’s public-education funding formula, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. A review is appropriate and timely. Every public program should be reviewed periodically for efficiency, effectiveness and need. However, many public-education supporters’ fear that the leadership will use this as a chance to reduce education funding and increase the number of charter schools and school-voucher programs is not without merit. The Legislature adopted MAEP in 1997, in part as a reaction to litigation in other states over funding disparities among public-school districts. Wealthier districts, those with high property-tax values, had more resources than poorer districts with low property-tax values—the equity issue. To avoid litigation, the MAEP formula accounts for wealth disparities by providing the same “base student cost” level of funding per student for every district. The goal of MAEP is to ensure each district has enough money to provide every child with the opportunity for an “adequate” education. MAEP comes close to addressing both the adequacy and equity issues. Legislative leaders and media continue to imply that the Legislature has not reviewed MAEP since its 1997 adoption. That allegation is not true. In 2005, the Legislature established a 17-member commission to review the formula. It consisted of legislators, education professionals and financial experts, including then-State Auditor Phil Bryant. Then-Sen. (now Insurance Commissioner) Mike Chaney and I were co-chairmen. To assist in the review, the committee retained the same education-consulting firm the Legislature hired to help design the original 1997 MAEP legislation. Based on the work of the experts and input from stakeholders, including those who attended a public hearing, the commission issued its report prior to the 2006 legislative session. There were several recommendations for minor adjustments to the formula. Using the commission report and following the normal legislative committee process, the Legislature reauthorized the adjusted MAEP formula in its 2006 session. Gov. Barbour signed it. The point of all of this history is that MAEP is not just some formula that a bunch of liberal legislators pulled out of the air. It was carefully crafted, fully vetted, thoroughly debated by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and passed with bi-partisan support—twice. Since its original adoption in 1997, MAEP been funded only two times in accordance with the law. There are lots of reasons for the State’s failure to fund, and no reason to point fingers. The issue is not what happened in the past. The issue now is how the Legislature will approach funding our public schools in the future. Will the new funding plan gut MAEP and further cut funding for public education, or will it focus instead on making sure that every child in Mississippi has access to a quality education? Obviously, a quality system of public education is of vital importance to our future. In the 19 years since MAEP was first adopted, more than 500,000 kids have graduated from Mississippi public schools. Another 460,000 Mississippi kids are currently enrolled in those same schools. They are all part of the future of this state. If they are not successful citizens, Mississippi will pay the price. A quality education is the key to that success. If we are going to modify the education funding formula in any substantive way, the message to decision makers should be simple: Don’t screw it up. Central District Public Service Commissioner Cecil Brown is the former chairman of the House Education Committee. 14 October 19 - 25, 2016 • jfp.ms
The issue is not what has happened in the past.
Mississippi: Stop Disenfranchising Black Voters
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ississippi has the second highest rate of voter disenfranchisement in the country, largely due to post-sentence restrictions. The state is one of 12 where a person can serve his or her time, be released and not automatically be able to vote. Twenty-two convictions means no voting rights until the Legislature, governor or a judge says otherwise. The fight for voting rights in Mississippi harkens back to an era of segregation, Jim Crow restrictions and violence toward African Americans. A tradition of poll taxes, intimidation and having to answer questions like “How many bubbles in a bar of soap?” kept most black Mississippians from voting until the 1960s. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which both black and white Americans died to make bring about, officially ended those disenfranchisement practices. Still, a period of mass incarceration, including felony charges for drug crimes, lay just ahead— bringing another method to keep black people from voting, even after serving time for a crime. Now, 52 years after Freedom Summer volunteers forced voting rights for on into the state, most disenfranchised voters are still African American. The Sentencing Project’s most recent report on disenfranchised voters with felony convictions in 2016 estimates that of Mississippi’s approximately 218,181 disenfranchised voters, 127,130 are African Americans. That means around 58 percent of disenfranchised voters are African American.
Gov. Phil Bryant recently declared October “Racial Reconciliation Month,” causing an outcry from some community activists and leaders because it is clearly an empty public-relations slogan for a governor who refuses to lead on issues to end the disparate treatment of people of color. Mississippi has the highest percentage of African Americans in the country—more than 37 percent per the last Census—but State leaders like Bryant still support state-sanctioned discrimination against them. From the Mississippi flag to African Americans not allowed to vote until they petition the very lawmakers sanctioning the archaic laws, Mississippi has work to do—as those skeptical community leaders sought to bring to light last week at the capitol. The idea of “racial reconciliation” is admirable, but to just declare it without properly addressing the structural problems at the root of race disparities in this state is a slap in the face to all Mississippians. We have laws that still disproportionately target people of color, and the state cannot move on to its future until those laws are changed and the “heritage” of racism is truly dismantled. Lawmakers must prove that they are not trying to squelch voting by black people by acknowledging that antiquated laws and hurtful symbols are not just harmful to our state’s image at home and abroad—but it proves that they want to continue perpetuating inequality in the poorest state in the union. No more empty talk on race, governor. You and other state leaders must start walking the talk.
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