Mississippi Today
Fight over how to fund public schools intensifies in Legislature

The divide between the Senate and the House over how to fund public education — specifically local school districts — intensified dramatically on Thursday, setting the stage for a potentially contentious remainder of the 2024 legislative session.
On Thursday, the Senate passed its public school funding plan with no senator voting no and two voting present. The Senate plan would update the long-standing Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) that features an objective formula to determine the amount of money schools needs for their basic operation.
The House leadership, conversely, passed its plan on Wednesday. While it is still supported by a strong majority of the House, it lost support after its initial approval on Wednesday, when just 13 members voted against it. But on Thursday, during a vote on a procedural motion to send the bill to the Senate, 36 members voted against it.
Before the vote on the procedural motion, Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the chamber’s minority leader, blasted the House Republican leadership in a fiery speech for providing members with what he said was incorrect information on the bill when it was debated Wednesday in the chamber. He said the Legislative Budget Office told him that the numbers used to determine the cost of the program and how much money each school district received were not developed by the staff of the Legislative Budget Committee as House leaders had told the chamber on Wednesday.
He said as far as he knew, the numbers in the House plan were “pie in the sky.”
“I don’t mind anybody having a good idea,” Johnson said. “I don’t mind anybody coming up with a new plan. But if I am going to rely on the information presented to me, ask me to vote on something and I ask a question, I don’t think it is right to misrepresent information to me.”
House Education Chair Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, the primary author of the House bill, called it a “miscommunication” and that the numbers that the Legislative Budget Office staff verified were from publicly available data from the Mississippi Department of Education.
Speaker Jason White, R-West, said during a news conference Thursday that he respected the Senate, but indicated that basing funding on an objective formula was a non-starter. He said the House plan placed an additional $240 million into public education and that it was more equitable for poor students than the plan passed by the Senate.
But Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, said on Thursday that the Senate plan, which will increase education funding by about $210 million, was based “on real numbers” compiled with the assistance of the Department of Education.
Plus, he said, “I think it is extremely important we have an objective formula that everyone (every school district) can run and know what they are going to receive,” adding that an objective formula “provides accountability for us.”
DeBar is hoping with the changes in the Senate plan that the Legislature would choose to fully fund the formula each year. The formula has been fully funded only twice since 2003. And past House leaders have tried to replace the MAEP because they said it cost too much money.
The House plan would create an advisory committee composed of education professionals to make a recommendation to the Legislature of how much money schools needed.
During debate in the Senate and the House on Thursday, there was specific mention of three advocacy groups working on the House rewrite plan: Mississippi First, Empower Mississippi and the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. Two of the groups, Empower and Mississippi Center for Public Policy, are vocal supporters of vouchers, while Mississippi First has been a charter school proponent. Some public education advocates oppose charter schools that are not held to the same laws and regulations as traditional public schools.
DeBar pointed out the three groups began working in January on a plan similar to the House proposal. House leaders said they have communicated with Mississippi First, but did not know the other groups were involved. Plus, Roberson added he was willing to work with everyone.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1951, Ruby Hurley opened NAACP office in South
April 28, 1951

Ruby Hurley opened the first permanent office of the NAACP in the South.
Her introduction to civil rights activism began when she helped organize Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Four years later, she became national youth secretary for the NAACP. In 1951, she opened the organization’s office in Birmingham to grow memberships in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.
When she arrived in Mississippi, there were only 800 NAACP members. After the governor made remarks she disagreed with, she wrote a letter to the editor that was published in a Mississippi newspaper. After that step in courage, membership grew to 4,000.
“They were surprised and glad to find someone to challenge the governor,” she told the Chicago Defender. “No Negro had ever challenged the governor before.”
She helped Medgar Evers investigate the 1955 murder of Emmett Till and other violence against Black Americans. Despite threats, she pushed on.
“When you’re in the middle of these situations, there’s no room for fear,” she said. “If you have fear in your heart or mind, you can’t do a good job.”
After an all-white jury acquitted Till’s killers, she appeared on the front cover of Jet magazine with the headline, “Most Militant Negro Woman in the South.”
Months later, she helped Autherine Lucy become the first Black student at the University of Alabama.
For her work, she received many threats, including a bombing attempt on her home. She opened an NAACP office in Atlanta, where she served as a mentor for civil rights leader Vernon Jordan, with whom she worked extensively and who went on to serve as an adviser to President Bill Clinton.
After learning of Evers’ assassination in 1963, she became overwhelmed with sorrow. “I cried for three hours,” she said. “I shall always remember that pool of blood in which he lay and that spattered blood over the car where he tried to drag himself into the house.”
She died two years after retiring from the NAACP in 1978, and the U.S. Post Office recognized her work in the Civil Rights Pioneers stamp series. In 2022, she was portrayed in the ABC miniseries, “Women of the Movement.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This content is primarily focused on the historical and personal achievements of Ruby Hurley, a civil rights activist. It emphasizes her dedication and bravery in challenging oppressive systems and advocating for racial justice. The narrative does not appear to endorse or criticize any contemporary political positions but highlights Hurley’s work with the NAACP and her role in significant civil rights events. While it mentions her opposition to certain government figures and the threat she faced, the tone is largely factual and centered on her contributions to history, which supports a centrist position without leaning toward a particular ideological side.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Mississippi citizens often left in the dark on special-interest lobbying of politicians
The post Podcast: Mississippi citizens often left in the dark on special-interest lobbying of politicians appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content reflects a Center-Left bias primarily due to its focus on transparency issues regarding special-interest spending and lobbying in Mississippi. The mention of negative implications associated with lobbying efforts suggests an advocacy for accountability and reform, which aligns with a progressive stance often seen in Center-Left discourse. Additionally, the subject matter, involving regulation of online sports betting, typically garners support from more liberal perspectives concerned about consumer protection and ethical governance.
Mississippi Today
Derrick Simmons: Monday’s Confederate Memorial Day recognition is awful for Mississippians
Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.
Each year, in a handful of states, public offices close, flags are lowered and official ceremonies commemorate “Confederate Memorial Day.”
Mississippi is among those handful of states that on Monday will celebrate the holiday intended to honor the soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
But let me be clear: celebrating Confederate Memorial Day is not only racist but is bad policy, bad governance and a deep stain on the values we claim to uphold today.
First, there is no separating the Confederacy from the defense of slavery and white supremacy. The Confederacy was not about “states’ rights” in the abstract; it was about the right to own human beings. Confederate leaders themselves made that clear.
Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens declared in his infamous “Cornerstone Speech” that the Confederacy was founded upon “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.” No amount of revisionist history can erase the fact that the Confederacy’s cause was fundamentally rooted in preserving racial subjugation.
To honor that cause with a state holiday is to glorify a rebellion against the United States fought to defend the indefensible. It is an insult to every citizen who believes in equality and freedom, and it is a cruel slap in the face to Black Americans, whose ancestors endured the horrors of slavery and generations of systemic discrimination that followed.
Beyond its moral bankruptcy, Confederate Memorial Day is simply bad public policy. Holidays are public statements of our values. They are moments when a state, through official sanction, tells its citizens: “This is what we believe is worthy of honor.” Keeping Confederate Memorial Day on the calendar sends a message that a government once committed to denying basic human rights should be celebrated.
That message is not just outdated — it is dangerous. It nurtures the roots of racism, fuels division and legitimizes extremist ideologies that threaten our democracy today.
Moreover, there are real economic and administrative costs to shutting down government offices for this purpose. In a time when states face budget constraints, workforce shortages and urgent civic challenges, it is absurd to prioritize paid time off to commemorate a failed and racist insurrection. Our taxpayer dollars should be used to advance justice, education, infrastructure and economic development — not to prop up a lost cause of hate.
If we truly believe in moving forward together as one people, we must stop clinging to symbols that represent treason, brutality and white supremacy. There is a legislative record that supports this move in a veto-proof majority changing the state Confederate flag in 2020. Taking Confederate Memorial Day off our official state holiday calendar is another necessary step toward a more inclusive and just society.
Mississippi had the largest population of enslaved individuals in 1865 and today has the highest percentage of Black residents in the United States. We should not honor the Confederacy or Confederate Memorial Day. We should replace it.
Replacing a racist holiday with one that celebrates emancipation underscores the state’s rich African American history and promotes a more inclusive understanding of its past. It would also align the state’s observances with national efforts to commemorate the end of slavery and the ongoing pursuit of equality.
I will continue my legislative efforts to replace Confederate Memorial Day as a state holiday with Juneteenth, which commemorates the freedom for America’s enslaved people.
It’s time to end Confederate Memorial Day once and for all.
Derrick T. Simmons, D-Greensville, serves as the minority leader in the state Senate. He represents Bolivar, Coahoma and Washington counties in the Mississippi Senate.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Derrick Simmons: Monday's Confederate Memorial Day recognition is awful for Mississippians appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Left-Leaning
This article argues against the celebration of Confederate Memorial Day, stating it glorifies a racist and failed rebellion that is harmful to societal values. It critiques the holiday as a symbol of white supremacy and advocates for replacing it with Juneteenth to honor emancipation. The language used, such as referring to the Confederate cause as “moral bankruptcy,” and the call to replace the holiday reflects a progressive stance on social justice and racial equality, common in left-leaning perspectives. Additionally, the writer urges action for inclusivity and justice, positioning the argument within modern liberal values.
-
SuperTalk FM6 days ago
New Amazon dock operations facility to bring 1,000 jobs to Marshall County
-
News from the South - Missouri News Feed2 days ago
Missouri lawmakers on the cusp of legalizing housing discrimination
-
News from the South - Alabama News Feed7 days ago
Prayer Vigil Held for Ronald Dumas Jr., Family Continues to Pray for His Return | April 21, 2025 | N
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
Trump touts manufacturing while undercutting state efforts to help factories
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
Federal report due on Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina’s path to recognition as a tribal nation
-
Mississippi Today4 days ago
Struggling water, sewer systems impose ‘astronomic’ rate hikes
-
News from the South - Oklahoma News Feed6 days ago
Oklahoma Treasurer’s Office Faces Scrutiny Over Use of Signal in Anti-ESG Coordination
-
Mississippi Today1 day ago
Derrick Simmons: Monday’s Confederate Memorial Day recognition is awful for Mississippians