Legislature fully funds Mississippi Adequate Education Program

FIRST-PERSON COLUMN
By Hank Bounds
State Superintendent of Education
July 1, 2009

As the current fiscal year ticked down to a close, the House and Senate agreed on a budget for K-12 education, both passing House Bill 49. The Senate passed the bill with no dissenting votes and only four members of the House voted against the bill when it was sent back from the Senate with minor amendments. Governor Haley Barbour signed the bill into law last night.

The bill fully funds the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the primary funding formula for local schools. It also fully funds the salary supplement for teachers who have completed the rigorous national board certification process. Mississippi currently has 2897 national board certified teachers, which is the seventh highest total in the country. The single most important factor in improving student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom, so it is vitally important that we continue to support a program that helps teachers to excel in their profession.

Full funding was achieved with $160 million from the federal stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. These funds were derived from the Budget Stabilization Funds category of ARRA funds. Budget Stabilization Funds must be spent to restore cuts made to the funding formulas that ensure equity in education, from pre-kindergarten through university. ARRA funds are divided into three distinct categories. In addition to Budget Stabilization Funds, the other categories include special education funds that must be spent on children with special needs and Title funds that must be spent on children from families in poverty.

Given our economic climate, education is fortunate to be fully funded for Fiscal Year 2010. Obviously, full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program would not have been possible without the ARRA funds. Having adequate resources is just one item on the list of ingredients that combine to create great schools, but it is an essential one. Schools have faced difficult times before and certainly would have faced a terrible hardship without the influx of federal dollars for the coming year. I am deeply concerned about the hardships that school leaders will face in developing budgets for Fiscal Year 2011 and Fiscal Year 2012, when the ARRA funds have expired.

As always, school leaders must be prudent with the resources they have. They must think of their budget as their education plan in dollars and cents and direct the dollars to the programs and services where they will make the most difference. School board members, superintendents, principals and teachers must use data to drive decisions and use their dollars wisely to fund those decisions for the greatest improvement possible in student achievement.

For Mississippi's economy to grow, we must have a better educated citizenry. As educators, we hold the greatest ability to improve our economy by helping more students to graduate and ensuring they graduate better prepared to take on the challenges of employment and higher education. Even more than economic developers and the business community, we can make the greatest difference in helping Mississippi to grow, even during difficult economic times. I am certain that school leaders across the state will work diligently to use the resources provided through House Bill 49 to do just that.

(Contact: Pete Smith, Director of Communications, 601-359-1336.)