Troublesome Bills

Posted 1/29/2015; updated 2/4/2015, 2/12/2015

Numerous education bills have been filed in the 2015 Legislative Session. Most of the troublesome bills below died in committee on the February 3 deadline or on the calendar on the February 12 deadline, thanks to your efforts to let legislators know how harmful these bills would be to children. As the session progresses, your help will be needed to get the remaining bills amended or defeated to ensure that our children's education is protected. 

Privatization

These measures allow state funds to pay or offset the cost of tuition at a private, for-profit, or virtual school:

HB 394 DEAD and SB 2695 ALIVE Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Act -House and Senate versions of voucher bills to divert public dollars to pay tuition for children with special needs (IEP) to attend private school; school receiving voucher is not required to provide special education services and has no state oversight or accountability

HB 488  Dyslexia Education Forgivable Loan Program  ALIVE - expands the program to provide loan forgiveness to dyslexia therapy loan recipients who teach in a non-public special purpose school; removes existing provision that state-funded loans be forgiven for recipients who teach in a public school district

HB 479  Revise Definition of "At-risk" Pupils for MAEP Calculation  DEAD - changes the definition of at-risk students from poverty-related to those who score Basic or Minimal on state assessments

HB 816  Low-income Student Scholarship Tax Credit Act  DEAD - allows individual and corporate tax credits for donations to a scholarship organization; provides for vouchers from the scholarship organization to low-income students to pay private school tuition

SB 2191  Districts of Innovation  ALIVE - allows public school districts or individual schools within a district the flexibility to implement innovations for the purpose of improving instruction; allows districts to establish a virtual school (not just virtual classes)  Note: a House version of the Districts of Innovation bill, HB 861, eliminates the "virtual school" language of the Senate bill

SB 2263  Income Tax Deduction for Private School Tuition or Home School Expenses  DEAD - creates a $1,000 income tax deduction for private school tuition and expenses or home school expenses

SB 2628  Income Tax Deduction for Private School Tuition or Home School Expenses  DEAD - creates a $5,000 income tax deduction for private school tuition or home school expenses

SB 2755  Mississippi Opportunity Scholarship Act  DEAD - diverts state funding to pay private school tuition; school receiving voucher must be non-profit

SB 2771  Mississippi Education Savings Scholarship Accounts Program  DEAD - diverts state and local school district funding to pay private or virtual school tuition or home school expenses

SB 2772  Mississippi Educational Improvement Tax Credit Act  DEAD - provides up to $92-million in individual and corporate tax credits for contributions to a scholarship-granting organization that will provide vouchers to students to pay private school tuition

SB 2789  Tax Credit Scholarship Act  DEAD - allows individual and corporate tax credits for donations to a scholarship organization; provides for vouchers from the scholarship organization to students to pay private school tuition

Educators

HB 449  Prohibit School Personnel from Political Activity  DEAD - prohibits school personnel from participating in any type of political activity, including contacting legislators, during school hours or on school property; further prohibits school superintendents and school board members from political activity whether on personal or school time or property

School Districts

SB 2329  Home School Students' Participation in Extracurricular Activities  DEAD (defeated in Senate) - requires local school districts to administer assessments to home-schooled students who want to participate in the district's extracurricular activities in order to show that the student meets grade-level academic requirements; school district will not receive funding for the student or compensation for administering assessments

School Boards

In other states, for-profit interests from out of state have funneled large sums of money to hand-picked candidates in school board races who will vote to grant large contracts to donors’ companies and allow charter and for-profit virtual schools in their school districts. Mississippi is particularly susceptible to this kind of foul play because of the provision in our charter bill that allows boards in districts rated A, B, or C to veto or allow charter schools to locate there. These bills change the way school board members are selected in municipal school districts, requiring that they all be elected rather than being appointed by the mayor and city council:

HB 458  Elect All School Boards at Time of Presidential Election  DEAD

HB 812  Requires Boards of Education to be Elected in Districts Having a Mayor-Council Form of Government  DEAD

HB 938  Municipal Separate School Districts to Elect All Trustees at General Municipal Election  DEAD

SB 2774  School Board Members Elected in All Districts; Superintendents Appointed After January 1, 2016  DEAD