JACKSON, Miss.—Each year, one Mississippi public school teacher spends about $500 to supply her students with basic classroom materials such as dry-erase markers, post-it notes and poster boards. That educator is far from alone and is among dozens of teachers who anonymously provided the Mississippi Association of Educators with statements on classroom needs last week.
The teacher’s union published the statements amid continuing negotiations between the Mississippi House and the Senate over how much the Legislature will spend to fund public schools this year. But House Speaker Philip Gunn said on Monday that he wants to jettison the Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding formula altogether.
The Legislature created MAEP in 1997 with the stated goal of ensuring all Mississippi children would receive an “adequate” education whether they attended school in a low-income or high-income community. Since that time, the State has only met the law’s requirements for fully funding education twice, most recently in 2008.
“I believe the formula is faulty. I think it’s outdated. I think it needs to be reworked,” Gunn told reporters at the Capitol on Monday. “In fact, we passed the bill five or six years ago to change the formula out of the House of Representatives. So we are not fine with the idea of putting more money in MAEP, but we’re certainly not opposed to spending more money on education.”
‘A Lot Of Things Are In The Air’
The Senate proposed an update to MAEP’s funding formula in its version of House Bill 1369. The Senate passed that bill and House Bill 1613, which would provide $181 million more for education this year in compliance with the new formula included in H.B. 1369. After both bills died in conference on Monday after missing legislative deadlines, legislative leadership opted to extend the deadline for those bills and others.
“So a lot of things are in the air right now, a lot of negotiations are still taking place, and so that’s where we are,” Speaker Gunn said Monday.
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn said the Mississippi Adequate Education Funding Formula is “outdated” and “faulty” on March
