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House passes bill that would change how public schools are funded

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House passes bill that would change how public schools are funded

For the first time since 1953, Mississippi would not rely on an objective formula to determine the amount of money local schools needed under legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House by an 95-13 margin on Wednesday.

Under the “Investing in the Needs of to Prioritize, Impact and Reform Education” (INSPIRE) Act, a group of eight local superintendents and employees of the state Department of Education would make a recommendation to the every four years on how much state money should go to local school districts.

The INSPIRE Act, if it is agreed to by the Senate, would replace the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. MAEP was passed in 1997 to replace the Minimum Education Program that was passed in the early 1950s as the primary source of state funding for local school districts.

The Minimum Program provided funds to local school districts based primarily on the number of teacher units they needed. Under MAEP, that was changed to funds per student, referred to as the base student cost. MAEP defines the base student cost as the amount of money spent in an efficiently โ€œadequateโ€ school district to educate a child. Districts their base student cost times their average attendance. And an important caveat in MAEP is that poor districts receive more per student than do more affluent districts.

READ MORE: House leaders tweak school funding plan after feedback from education groups

House Education Committee Vice Chair Kent McCarty, R-Hattiesburg, who spent about an hour and a half answering questions on the bill Wednesday, told House members that INSPIRE was much more equitable than the MAEP.

โ€œWe have a bill that puts more of an emphasis on equity than anything you have ever seen,โ€ said House Education Chair Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, who is the primary author of the legislation.

Under the bill, there would be a base student cost โ€” $6,650 โ€” which is about $800 less than MAEP if fully funded. But the schools would receive significantly more money than the $6,650 per student for children who are deemed as needing additional funds to be educated, such as poor students, special needs students and others. In the end, the total funding for the new House plan would be slightly less than the total funding for MAEP if fully funded.

But MAEP has been fully funded only twice since 2003, and McCarty said there is no appetite by House to fully fund MAEP this year. Many legislative leaders have complained in recent years that the state could not afford full funding while saying at other times the formula was outdated and too complex to fund.

READ MORE:ย The fate of the House school funding plan could come down to one question: Who wrote it?

McCarty pledged that the INSPIRE Act would be fully funded this year โ€” an additional $240 million for education โ€” or he would vote against it later in the . Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, said he feared that in the future, lawmakers would not fund INSPIRE just as they have not fully funded MAEP.

In the end, Clark voted present along with 13 others. The school district in his home county of Holmes, one of the poorest counties in the state, would receive about 25% in funding more than it received for the current year. Clark said he was torn on the bill.

โ€œWhen you look at the bill, it has a lot of good things that would benefit my area โ€“ providing more for low income students,โ€ he said. But he added he is concerned that the bill leaves it up to people instead of an objective formula to determine the amount of money school districts receive, and that in future years the current funding levels would not continue.

Some wealthy districts, such as Rankin and Madison counties, will receive less funding under INSPIRE.

Rep. Jill Ford, R-Madison, said she voted for the legislation because she thought it was a better funding formula and that the reduction for her county would be phased in over three years. Plus, she said, Madison is getting the new Amazon Web Services data center that will add to its tax base.

โ€œI think we will be all right.โ€ she said.

Rep. Fred Shanks, a Republican who represents Rankin County, said he thought by the time that the three-year phase-in of the cut to his school district is complete, growth in funding in the formula would offset the reduction.

The House bill now moves over to the Senate, where it faces a Republican leadership that appears to this point more intent on tweaking and fully funding MAEP than scrapping the current formula and passing a new one.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi Todayโ€™s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – Mary Margaret White – 2024-11-01 12:34:00

High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader ; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.

In a time when trusted journalists and sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy , civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.

Why NewsMatch and Why Now?

This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.

Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday โ€”whether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.

Special Event: โ€œFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impactโ€

As part of the campaign, we’re to host a special virtual , โ€œFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.โ€ Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s โ€œ25- law,โ€ which affects journalists’ ability to report vital .

We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!

How You Can Help

Make Your Gift Today

Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.

Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we loveโ€”not only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to come.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Hinds County loses fight over control of jail

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mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-01 12:57:00

The sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.   

Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, a failure to protect detainees from harm. 

However, the appeals court called the new injunction โ€œoverly broadโ€ in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.

The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be

The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as โ€œfederal intrusion into RDC’s budgetโ€ โ€“ especially if the receivership has no end date. 

Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.ย 

In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which people facing trial. 

โ€œBut the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,โ€ the appeals court wrote.  

This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022. 

The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in

The county had a to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old and use of force. 

Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.

But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff. 

The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference. 

Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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2 out of 5 child care teachers make so little they need public assistance tosupport their families

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mississippitoday.org – Jackie Mader, The Hechinger – 2024-11-01 08:49:00

This story about child care wages was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit,
independent organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger’s early childhood newsletter.

Caring for during their first few years is a complex and critical job: A child’s
brain develops more in the first five years than at any other point in . Yet in America,
individuals engaged in this crucial role are paid less than animal caretakers and
dressing room attendants.

That’s a major finding of one of two new reports on the dismal treatment of child care
workers. Together, the reports offer a distressing picture of how child care staff are
faring economically, including the troubling changes low wages have caused to the
workforce.

Early childhood workers nationally earn a median wage of $13.07 per hour, resulting in
poverty-level earnings for 13 percent of such educators, according to the first report, the
Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024. Released earlier this month by the Center for
the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, the annual
report also found:

? 43 percent of families of early educators rely on public assistance like
food stamps and .

? Pay inequity exists within these low wages: Black early childhood
educators earn about $8,000 less per year than their white peers. The
same pay gap exists between early educators who work with infants and
toddlers and those who work with preschoolers, who have more
opportunities to work in school districts that pay higher wages.

? Wages for early educators are rising more slowly than wages in other
industries, including fast food and retail.

In part due to these conditions, the industry is losing some of its highest-educated
workers, according to a second new report, by Chris M. Herbst, a professor at Arizona
State University’s School of Public Affairs. That study compares the pay of child care
workers with that of workers in other lower-income professions, including cooks and
retail workers; it finds child care workers are the tenth lowest-paid occupation out of
around 750 in the . The report also looks at the โ€˜relative quality’ of child care
staff, as defined by math and literacy scores and education level. Higher-educated
workers, Herbst suggests, are being siphoned off by higher-paying .

That’s led to a โ€œbit of a spiralโ€ in terms of how child care work is perceived, and
contributes to the persistent low wages, he said in an interview. Some additional
findings from Herbst’s study:

? Higher-educated women increasingly find employment in the child care
industry to be less attractive. The share of workers in the child care
industry with a bachelor’s degree barely budged over the past few
decades, increasing by only 0.3 percent. In contrast, the share of those in
the industry who have 12 years of schooling but no high school degree,
quadrupled.

? Median numeracy and literacy scores for female child care workers
(who are the majority of the industry staff) fall at the 35 th and 36 th
percentiles respectively, to all female workers. Improving these
scores is important, Herbst says, considering the importance of education
in the early years, when children experience rapid brain .

This doesn’t mean child care staff with lower education levels can’t be good early
educators. Patience, communication skills and a commitment to working with young
children also matter greatly, Herbst writes. However, higher education levels may mean
staff have a stronger background not only in English and math but also in topics like
behavior modification and special education, which are sometimes left out of
certification programs for child care teachers.

You can read Herbst’s full report here, and the 2024 workforce index here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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