Bill Minor: Be wary of group tasked with MAEP revamp

We've heard a lot lately about reforming the Mississippi Adequate Education Program with little said about how the state's many poverty stricken school districts can support decent education for their children without substantial state help.

Now an outfit called EDBuild, based in richer New Jersey, has been hired by Mississippi Republican leaders to revamp this state's 1997 plan to supplement poor school districts.

The original act put Mississippi ahead of the curve in establishing an equity education funding plan. A number of states had failed to do that in the 1980s and '90s and were hauled into court. They were ordered to increase funding and raise taxes to equalize funding between poor and richer districts.

Thankfully, some visionary Mississippi lawmakers including then-Sen. Ronnie Musgrove, the late Sen. Grey Ferris, and Sen. Hob Bryan — despite opposition from Gov. Kirk Fordice — enacted what is known now as MAEP after two years of study with technical assistance from a nationally recognized education consulting firm, Auben, Glick and Paleck of Colorado.

Now Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn contend that the Mississippi school formula is antiquated and have brought in EDBuild, the New Jersey firm, whose head has said the Mississippi plan has lasted too long without scrutiny. Both are wrong.

In 2005, a rare joint bipartisan commission was created by statute to study and update the 1997 act. The commission's report was acted on by lawmakers in the 2006 session.

Unlike the Reeves-Gunn predominantly GOP cabal created out of thin air to do major surgery on MAEP, the 2005 commission had Democratic and Republican co-chairmen as well as members from both parties. Democratic then-Rep. Cecil Brown and Republican then-Sen. Mike Cheney, each the education committee chairman in his chamber, headed the 17-member commission.

EDBuild is a recent startup group with little experience, touting its Southern client, Georgia, which so far has not adopted its proposals.

Though it denies it, EDBuild leans toward school vouchers and charter schools. Both are controversial in Mississippi, a state that for decades has struggled (and failed) to become competitive in public school teacher pay with other states in the Southeast. Public school advocates contend that school vouchers and charter schools drain sorely needed public school resources.

Chaney, now the state's insurance commissioner, said he could not remember all the details of the 2005-06 commission report, "but I do recall we came out with the largest teacher pay raise in history." Chaney initially recommended funding MAEP for two or three years in advance to prevent wide swings in funding requests, but the idea was not adopted.

Brown, considered one of the most knowledgeable school advocates, is now public service commissioner for the Central District. He recalls proudly how "we did everything openly and got wide input from various sectors." Brown says the consulting group recommended only modest increases in total funding for MAEP, but one aspect still being implemented is supplemental food funding for at-risk children.

Chaney, who is quite involved right now in trying to get more health insurance companies to write policies in Mississippi, cautioned that if the Legislature "is not careful in restructuring MAEP, the state will wind up in the courts."

The Clarion-Ledger has editorially endorsed giving EDBuild a chance to see whether it can improve the MAEP mechanism and defends the New Jersey firm's claims of objectivity. The paper cites that the Mississippi Association of School Superintendents has endorsed the stated objectives of the MAEP review. It must be remembered that one of things done by the 2016 Legislature to scour special funds of various agencies was to wipe out the expense funds of superintendents to attend conferences.

Bill Minor is a contributing columnist. Contact him at P.O. Box 1243, Jackson MS 39215.