Advocates, Business Groups Encourage Support for Education
of Mississippi's Children
Two new Mississippi groups are holding meetings and
taking other action to encourage the public and businesses
to get involved in ensuring that all students in the
state have access to an adequate public education. Two
long-established Mississippi groups are also continuing
their efforts in support of better education locally
and regionally.
Blaming budget shortfalls, the state legislature last
session passed a state education budget $45 million
less than last year and $79.2 million short of funding
levels set out in the Mississippi Adequate Education
Program (MAEP). MAEP was adopted in 1997 with the goal
of giving school districts the funding they need to
meet the state standards. As a result of the funding
cut, teachers lost their jobs and local districts have
had to foot the bill for the already enacted five-year
teacher pay package.
Coalition for Children and Public Education
In an effort to improve school funding, the Coalition
for Children and Public Education was founded by the
Mississippi
Association of School Superintendents, the Mississippi
Association of Educators, the Mississippi
School Board Association , the Mississippi
Association of School Administrators and the Mississippi
PTA. The coalition hopes to collect 200,000 signatures
on petitions that urge full funding for MAEP, and present
them to lawmakers before January.
In addition, the coalition, co-chaired by former Governor
William Winter and Tupelo businessman Jack Reed Sr.,
is establishing 150 steering committees, made up of
the superintendent, a school board member, a teacher,
a parent, a business leader and a member of the clergy
in each community, to serve as speakers' bureaus. This
fall, these steering committees will be reaching out
to their constituents to encourage them to tell their
legislators to support full funding for Mississippi's
schools.
Progress+ Meetings
Another set of meetings are currently underway across
the state. Progress+ meetings aim to encourage business
communities to support their local schools. As part
of the Blueprint
for Mississippi, a strategic business plan that
hopes to provide opportunity for improvements in the
standard of living across all regions of Mississippi,
the Public
Education Forum, a subsidiary of the Mississippi
Economic Council (MEC), the state's chamber of commerce,
is sponsoring meetings in which business and community
leaders and educators have an opportunity to discuss
trends in achievement and ways to support improvement
of those trends.
Kati Haycock, executive director of The
Education Trust, is the keynote speaker at each
of the meetings which began in July and are continuing
through September.
Haycock is addressing state and national scores, as
well as how poor students can do well in school. Her
main message is that with qualified teachers and a challenging
curriculum, students will respond with higher achievement
regardless of their socio-economic background.
The MEC wants these meetings to be the beginning of
more partnerships between public and private sectors
to improve education in Mississippi and thereby improve
opportunity for all of its citizens.
Southern Echo and Area Education Foundation
Two other organizations that have been working for years
to improve educational opportunities in Mississippi
are Southern
Echo, developing grassroots leadership throughout
rural Mississippi, and the Hattiesburg
Area Education Foundation, part of the Public
Education Network (PEN).
Prepared by Melissa Mangino, September 14, 2004
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