MS lawmakers still can't agree how to fund K-12 education. House reintroduces its own plan
The Mississippi House of Representatives has revived its vehicle for a new K-12 education funding model and sent it back to the Senate for further consideration.
On Wednesday in the Mississippi State Capitol, House Education Chairman Rep. Rob Roberson asked lawmakers to pass an amendment to Senate Bill 2693, which originally sought to provide a process for failing school districts to move into a district of transformation. The bill passed 103-16.
That amendment was to strip all of the bill's language and replace it with his INSPIRE Act, a new funding model that would replace the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which uses an objective math formula that dictates lawmakers to fund it, with a new enrollment and committee-based funding model. The INSPIRE Act has already died twice in the Senate.
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"This will give us one more opportunity to give the Senate a chance to look at this and do what is best and right for our school children," Roberson, R-Starkville, said.
The House initially passed the INSPIRE Act under HB 1453 March 7, but Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, did not pass it through his committee by an April 2 deadline to move it onto the Senate's general calendar.
In March, the House also amended DeBar's MAEP revision, SB 2332, striking all of the language and inserting the INSPIRE Act. That move kept the bill alive until Tuesday, when the Senate voted not to concur and to let the bill die instead of taking it to conference, which would feature lawmakers from both chambers to possibly iron out a compromise.
On Wednesday, the Senate also passed a $2.94 billion appropriation to almost fully fund MAEP for the third time since its inception in the 1990s, along with language in the bill for the Mississippi Department of Education to study whether MAEP or the INSPIRE Act is a better funding model. MDE would report back to lawmakers with the results of that study in October.
Under the House plan, lawmakers would need to appropriate $3.01 billion to fully fund it.
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Democratic leaders asking for an open education discussion
Republicans aren't the only ones talking about the heated debate between the Senate and the House over how to fund education, though.
Democratic leaders Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez and Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, said in a press release issued earlier this week that they feel throwing out MAEP so quickly is a step in the wrong direction.
"No one in this building is under the illusion that MAEP is a perfect formula," Simmons and Johnson said. "However, scrapping it completely and in this fashion — quickly and without thorough vetting — isn’t the solution. It’s certainly not the solution when some of the new formula’s architects and most vocal supporters are people who’ve historically sought to dismantle public education at every turn."
DeBar, who tried to kill the INSPIRE Act on Wednesday, had similar concerns and said he was willing to meet with House members in the summer or next year to come to a more thorough decision.
However, House leaders, including Roberson and Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, told the Clarion Ledger that if the INSPIRE Act isn't the state's funding model by the end of the legislative session, they would rather come back for a special session than to fund MAEP. House Speaker Jason White had similar words in a press release issued Tuesday.
"I have clearly communicated with Senate leadership the House position that we have funded MAEP for the last time," White said.
Johnson and Simmons also had concerns over the origins of data used in the INSPIRE Act and why the bill has been supported by third party groups advocating for school choice and public funds going toward private education.
"It doesn’t make things any easier when we can’t get a straightforward answer on where theformula’s numbers came from or why the groups at the table from the formula’s inceptionweren’t public education advocates or longtime legislative allies, but instead were groups whosupport school choice and other policies that undermine Mississippi’s public education system," Simmons and Johnson said.
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With SB 2693 now in the Senate, DeBar has until April 25 to take any action on the bill. Similarly, the House will have until April 25 to pass the Senate's education funding bill. School districts are currently funded through MAEP until July 1.
Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at [email protected] or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi House revives K-12 education funding model