Mississippi Today
The fate of the House school funding plan could come down to one question: Who wrote it?

House leaders say they’ve been working independently of any other group for more than a year to develop their sweeping new public education funding plan, which they say would send additional money to poorer school districts than the current funding formula does.
But three advocacy groups that have often butted heads with powerful pro-public education groups also have been working on a new funding formula. It consists of many of the same characteristics found in the House leadership’s plan.
The origins of the House school funding bill have become central to the combustible debate at the Capitol about whether the plan should be passed into law — and it could ultimately impact the bill’s fate as it faces key deadlines in coming days and weeks.
Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville, said he and his colleague, House Education Vice Chair Kent McCarty, a Republican from Hattiesburg, worked independently of advocacy groups in their effort to rewrite the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which currently provides the state’s share of the basics to operate local school districts.
All three of the advocacy groups that worked to develop the 2024 school funding rewrite have been at odds with pro-public education groups in the past. Two of the groups involved in this year’s rewrite effort — Empower Mississippi and the Mississippi Center for Public Policy — have long advocated for allowing public funds to be spent in private schools.
A third group involved in this year’s rewrite effort — Mississippi First — was an outspoken advocate in developing the state’s charter school program. In the 2010s, when the Legislature was enacting a charter school law, many public school advocates vehemently opposed it, arguing charter schools were funded with public dollars but did not have to adhere to the same rules and regulations that normal public schools must follow.
The three groups’ involvement in the 2024 public education funding formula rewrite has created pause for some education groups fearful of what a rewrite might entail. For decades, lawmakers have underfunded MAEP, with many legislative leaders calling for its rewrite at least partially because they argued the state could not afford full funding. For some public education advocates, any effort to rewrite MAEP is viewed as an effort to further cut education funding. MAEP has been fully funded only twice since its full enactment and has been underfunded more than $3 billion since 2008.
But Owen said that he hopes the rewrite he and his House colleagues have put forward will result in more funding for education. He said he is not sure the three advocacy groups involved in the rewrite are even supportive of the House effort because of the extra money it will mean for K-12 schools.
“Rep. McCarty and myself have been working on a plan for a new formula to address some of the inequities in MAEP and bring funding to the classrooms for well over a year now — long before any other groups or organizations became involved,” Owen said. “After Speaker White took office, and Rep. (Rob) Roberson became chairman, it became apparent that House leadership and our (Republican) caucus were on board with changes that provide equitable funding to classrooms.”
It is likely that the MAEP rewrite will be passed out of the House Education Committee on Tuesday, the deadline for the measure to advance out of committee. There have been no public hearings on the 413-page bill designed to rewrite the current school funding formula.
READ MORE: Speaker Jason White says House will work to scrap, rewrite public education funding formula
The Senate Education Committee already has passed a more modest rewrite of MAEP. Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville, has said the Senate bill addresses some of the issues that that those promoting a complete rewrite say make the existing school funding formula unfair.
Rachel Canter, the executive director and founder of Mississippi First, told Mississippi Today in an interview in late February that she and her organization began working with Empower and Mississippi Center for Public Policy after she was contacted by the two groups. She said there are many areas where she does not agree with the two groups, but she saw the combined effort as a chance to write a new funding formula that she believed would be more equitable for poor and at-risk students.
Grant Callen, founder and chief executive officer of Empower Mississippi, offered a “no comment” when asked if his group believed the formula needed to be rewritten and whether Empower’s involvement might taint the proposed formula with some education groups.
Douglas Carswell, CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, wrote in a February op-ed that the existing funding formula needed to be scrapped because it was outdated and complicated. Plus, he said, the new proposal took into account individual children’s circumstances.
“An individualized funding system means weighting the amount that every student gets above a base amount, depending on every child’s circumstances,” Carswell wrote. “For example, the amount ought to be adjusted to reflect the fact that a child might have special needs, or be especially gifted.”
The House bill and the plan developed by the work of the three advocacy groups include a base student cost (amount of money per pupil) being established and providing additional funds to the base student cost based on the unique circumstances of the student, such as more money for a special needs student.
Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory and key architect of the current MAEP funding formula, told Mississippi Today in an interview he feared the House bill’s base student cost would be used a vehicle to develop vouchers to go to private schools equal to the base student costs for each of the students they educate. House Education Chair Roberson has filed a far-reaching school choice or voucher bill.
Several pro-public education organizations — the Mississippi Association of Educators, Mississippi Association of School Superintendents, Mississippi Professional Educators, Mississippi Association of School Administrators and the Parents Campaign – wrote a letter to legislators in February voicing support for some type of weighted system, but said it was essential that any rewrite of MAEP include an objective formula and a growth factor.
The House plan, as currently written, does not include an objective funding formula or a growth factor as the MAEP does. The Adequate Education Program, passed in 1997, has an objective formula, based on specific criteria, to determine how much per pupil is needed to provide an adequate education.
The House plan would leave it to legislators to determine how much to provide per pupil to the local school districts for their basic operation. But the House bill does require the Mississippi Department of Education to make recommendations to legislators every four years on what the base student cost should be. Owen predicted the House bill would be “tweaked” to include local superintendents in the process of recommending the base student cost to legislators. He also said he would not necessarily oppose an objective formula akin to what is in the Adequate Education Program.
Canter at Mississippi First said the House plan may not necessarily have buy-in from all three of the advocacy groups that worked to develop their own school funding rewrite. She said the groups paid Bellwether, a national education consulting group, to work with them on the plan. Bellwether developed a website that is password protected and not open to the public, where different data can be entered to see how much the new plan would generate in funding. House members working on the rewrite have used that website to ascertain how changes to the plan would impact school districts.
While the three advocacy groups did not recommend an objective formula to ascertain the base student cost in their rewrite, Canter said she would not be opposed to one. But she said the lack of the objective formula is not a reason to discard the rewrite effort.
Canter pointed out that there are elements of the MAEP funding formula that penalize low-income students and property-poor school districts. She said, though, there are merits to having a formula that includes a growth factor and an objective funding formula, but she said the House bill without the formula still merited consideration.
DeBar has said he believes any inequities that have developed in the MAEP since it was first passed in 1997 can be fixed without completely rewriting the formula.
READ MORE: Could this be the year political games end and MAEP is funded and fixed?
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1865


Jan. 12, 1865

As the Civil War neared an end, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton met with local Black leaders in Savannah, Georgia.
The Rev. Garrison Frazier, a 67-year-old imposing man, spoke for the group. Asked what slavery meant, he replied, “Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.”
He told the Army leaders that they wanted to be free from the dominion of white men, wanted to be educated and wanted to own land they could work and earn a living.
Asked if they would rather live scattered among the whites or in colonies by yourselves, Frazier replied, “I would prefer to live by ourselves, for there is a prejudice against us in the South that will take years to get over.”
In response, Sherman issued Special Field Order 15, giving each freed family 40 acres of land along the Atlantic Coast. “The effect throughout the South was electric,” wrote historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., with freedmen settling on 400,000 acres of “Sherman Land.”
Some also received mules left over from the battles, leading to the phrase “40 acres and a mule.”
After President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, President Andrew Johnson took over, reversing Field Order 15 and smashing the dreams of Black Americans who had finally been freed.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Gov. Tate Reeves zones in again on taxes but remains silent on critical retirement system problems

Hours before the 2025 session of the Mississippi Legislature kicked off last week, Gov. Tate Reeves went to social media to proclaim the No. 1 goal “for this Republican” is to eliminate the state income tax.
The governor does not have a vote in the Legislature and cannot even introduce legislation. He must seek out a legislative ally to file bills he supports.
But the governor has perhaps the biggest political bully pulpit in the state, giving an effective governor the immense opportunity to sway public opinion. And the governor has the power of the veto, which it takes an imposing two-thirds majority in both legislative chambers to override.
Obviously, one of the governor’s most important duties is working with the Legislature to develop policies for the betterment of the state.
In the opinion of Jonathan Tate Reeves, now in his 21st year as a statewide elected official and in his fifth year as governor, the most important issue facing 3 million Mississippians is eliminating the income tax.
Reeves has proposed phasing out the income tax every year he has been governor. His latest proposal is to phase out the tax, which accounts for about 30% of the state general fund, by 2029.
Other Republicans in the state, including House Speaker Jason White, also say the elimination of the income tax is their top priority or near the top of their “to do list.” But White speaks of eliminating the tax in eight to 10 years. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to cut the tax, but says if legislation is enacted to fully eliminate the tax, it will be after his tenure as lieutenant governor ends in January 2028.
Many politicians cite other pressing needs facing the state, not the least of which is ensuring the long-term viability of the state’s massive retirement program for public employees. Some say if the Public Employees Retirement System is not fiscally sound in the long term, the financial impact on the state could be devastating.
Yet the governor has rarely commented about the issues facing PERS, which provides or will provide retirement benefits for more than 350,000 people who worked or have worked in the public sector — including for state agencies, local governmental entities and public schools, kindergarten through the university level. In other words, more than 10% of the state’s population is in the PERS system.
Experts say the system has a deficit of $25 billion. It should be stressed that the deficit could be considered a bit misleading because PERS has assets to meet its obligations for years — for long after Reeves leaves office.
But many believe that if steps are not taken now to shore up the system, the state will eventually face financial obligations like it has never experienced. It is very unlikely Reeves will have to deal with that likelihood since he will long be gone from state government service.
The PERS governing board and legislators began work to shore up the system before the 2024 session began. That work is continuing this year. While Reeves talks about eliminating the income tax all the time, he seldom if ever weighs in on what he believes should be done to deal with PERS.
After the 2024 session, Reeves allowed a bill that made significant changes to PERS to become law without his signature. It was not clear whether he supported or opposed the legislation that was viewed by many as an opening salvo in dealing with issues surrounding PERS.
The governor’s silence is particularly interesting considering he was a member of the governing board of PERS when he served as state treasurer. Reeves’ experience as treasure and his short career in the private sector in finance should give him a unique perspective on the financial issues the retirement system faces.
Every politician has different priorities. Reeves has not been shy about letting Mississippians know his top priority. It is easy to find his thoughts on the income tax in his social media posts.
But on PERS, it is crickets when it comes to what the governor thinks.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1870


Jan. 11, 1870

The first legislature in Radical Reconstruction met in Mississippi. During this time, at least 226 Black Mississippians held public office. Lawmakers adopted a new state constitution that ushered in free public schools and had no property requirements to vote.
These acts infuriated the Southerners who embraced white supremacy, and they responded violently. They assassinated many of those who worked on the constitution.
In Monroe County, Klansmen killed Jack Dupree, a Black Mississippian who led a Republican Party group. In Vicksburg, white supremacists formed the White Man’s party, patrolled the streets with guns, and told Black voters to stay home on election day.
White supremacists continued to use violence and voter fraud to win. When the federal government refused to step in,
Congressman John R. Lynch warned, “The war was fought in vain.”
It would take almost a century for Black Mississippians to begin to regain the rights they had lost.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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