A committee agreed Tuesday to an amendment banning such virtual schools, which have been a subject of intense argument among education advocates.

The bill would also let charter schools sponsor prekindergarten programs, although no state money is provided for students four years and younger.

Provisions that would allow any student in the state to attend a charter school are still the same, as are provisions that would let charter schools be set up in any district rated successful or lower without the approval of the local board. Those who favor restricting charter schools could offer such amendments when the full Senate takes up the bill. That action is expected later this week.

via Mississippi charter schools bill amended to ban online schools, passes committee | The Republic.

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Another proposal would require inmates to serve one-third of their sentences before becoming eligible for parole instead of the current one-fourth.

Also, the bill says the corrections commissioner would have to recommend an inmate for parole to the Parole Board. Currently, the board gets status reports from inmates’ case managers, unit administrators and others in considering whether to grant parole.

Rep. Mark Formby, R-Picayune, is the principal author of both bills, which was referred to committees on Monday, the last day for filing general bills and constitutional amendments to be considered in the 2012 session.

Formby said the current five-member Parole Board has done an excellent job and members deserve the pay they receive.

But with House Bill 745 changing how much time prisoners must serve before becoming eligible for parole, the board won’t have as much work to do, according to Formby.

“This would be a total change in the way we approach parole,” Formby said of the legislation. “There would be fewer paroles.”

via Bills push key changes for state Parole Board | The Clarion-Ledger | clarionledger.com.

“It is focused on what’s best for the kids and not what’s best for the administration,” Reeves said. “Decent is just not good enough. We need to make that statement. We need to make that statement to our parents, and we need to make that statement to our kids.”

If a charter school is approved, then the school starts recruiting students and sends a bill to the state and local school districts for each student’s share of tax money, which would be on average, $8,500 for each child moved to a charter school.

Parents’ Campaign, an advocacy group, said the program will only drain taxpayers’ dollars.

“Mississippi could really use good charter school legislation to help children who are trapped in historically underperforming school districts,” said Nancy Loome of the Parents’ Campaign. “Unfortunately, that is not the focus of this bill.”

The Parents’ Campaign said it supports charter schools, but not the way the legislation was drawn up.

“The problem with this bill is it would create new schools all over the place,” Loome said.

via Lt. Gov. Backs Charter Schools Proposal – Politics News Story – WAPT Jackson.

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Monday is the final day for lawmakers to file general bills or constitutional amendments that will be considered during their four-month session.

The session started in early January and ends in early May.

Bills are already filed on several big issues, including charter schools and immigration.

Committees now have until March 6 to act on general bills or constitutional amendments filed in each chamber. The House committees will consider House bills, and the Senate committees will consider Senate bills. The surviving proposals will move on for debate in the full chamber.

There are later deadlines to file and pass money bills.

via Mississippi lawmakers on deadline to file general bills – WLBT 3 – Jackson, MS:.

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As has been demonstrated in Leflore County and elsewhere, consolidation talks on the local level usually get nowhere because the people involved are more concerned about preserving jobs or power than doing what’s best for the students and the taxpayers.

The Legislature, after rejecting in 2011 then-Gov. Haley Barbour’s proposal to reduce the number of school districts from 152 to 100, looks like it’s poised to at least experiment with the idea.

Recently, the Senate passed a bill that would merge the three Sunflower County school districts into one. The measure awaits action in the House.

Sunflower County is an easy target with which to start. All three of its school districts – Sunflower County, Indianola and Drew – are under state control because of chronically low academic performance and other problems.

That doesn’t leave them with much leverage to argue in favor of the status quo. And because none of them does well, none of them can object to assuming someone else’s headaches. All three are beset with them.

Under the bill, a new countywide school board would be elected to run the consolidated district. That school board – with oversight from state education officials – would hire the new superintendent. None of the three existing superintendents would be eligible for the job.

Proponents of the bill claim that consolidation would save $1.2 million a year in administrative costs. They don’t offer a calculation of how much better the education might be, but it couldn’t be a whole lot worse.

It’s definitely worth trying. If it works, then it could be the opening volley for doing the same in other parts of the state where the districts are too small or their performance too substandard or both.

Greenwood Commonwealth

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The law is designed to promote the proper registration of anyone who comes to live and work in Mississippi from a foreign country. House bill 488 would allow law enforcement officers to inquire about a person’s immigration status only after a person is stopped for some other traffic violation.

“No one dislikes Hispanics. No one is going to say, we want to target a certain population, that is ridiculous,” Gov. Bryant added.

The law would also require proof of proper documentation before a student may enroll in school. Meanwhile, lawyers with the southern poverty center, a non-profit civil rights organization, say if the bill passes, they will sue the state.

via Gov. Bryant wants to crack down on undocumented aliens – WLBT 3 – Jackson, MS:.

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To kill competitive Charter Schools, Desoto County Superintendent Milton Kuykendall is again joining forces with the Parents Campaign.

BY: B. Keith Plunkett

You may remember the late push by the Parent’s Campaign during the state elections last year to defeat Republicans with a slanted “grading system” of state elected officials. The message to teachers and school administrators, provided with the help of state superintendents, was a last minute attempt to keep education reformers from making it to the state capitol.

The Parent’s Campaign provided a power point presentation to government school administrators from across the state who then held meetings to present the information to teachers using school property, an illegal use of school resources.

The move followed a tough primary election for many Republicans over the subject of education with Superintendents using school resources in a questionable way to support their preferred candidates.

In August of 2011, Superintendent of Desoto County Schools Milton Kuykendall openly supported Tate Reeves over Senator Billy Hewes for Lt. Governor, even going so far as to use school buses to bring the school band to a Reeves campaign event. He also used resources to attack then Senator Doug Davis, then chairman of appropriations, who had voted along with Senator Hewes and others to not fully fund the controversial Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP).

Reeves went on to win, largely due to vote tally’s in Desoto County and the support of Kuykendall. There was also the use of some last minute misleading mailers on education strategically sent to residents of some of Mississippi’s larger school districts.

Davis was defeated by Kuykendall recruit Chris Massey. Senator Massey now serves on the Senate Education Committee, appointed to that position by Lt. Governor Tate Reeves.

Education funding and education policy were key issues in the 2011 elections, as they are in most state elections.

Once elected, Reeves passed over some long-time education reformers when appointing members to the Education Committee. He appointed Senator Gray Tollison to chair the group. Tollison, you may remember, switched to the Republican Party just two days after being elected as a Democrat. The press conference held at the State Republican Headquarters in Jackson featured the new Republican Senator backed by none other than Lt. Governor Elect Tate Reeves.

The Senate Education Committee is now on the verge of a very important education decision, the vote on a bill to allow charter schools, and Kuykendall and The Parents Campaign are once again partnering to rally government school employees using taxpayer funded resources.

They are calling in their favors.

An email went out last Thursday from The Parents Campaign Director Nancy Loome to Kuykendall asking for help in getting calls to the capitol switchboard:

 Dear Milton,

The Senate Education Committee will vote on the charter school bill on Tuesday morning.

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO GET THE BILL AMENDED to achieve our goal of improving student achievement and providing good options for kids who are trapped in chronically underperforming schools.

PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATOR AND LT. GOVERNOR TATE REEVES BEFORE TUESDAY AND ASK THEM TO SUPPORT AMENDMENTS THAT:

* RESTRICT CHARTERS TO CHRONICALLY UNDERPERFORMING SCHOOL ZONES -

We cannot afford to create /more/ schools – more administrators, more buildings, more overhead – in places where we already have excellent public schools.

* PROHIBIT VIRTUAL CHARTER SCHOOLS – It is astounding that anyone would want to allow virtual charters into Mississippi. In other states, virtual charter schools have moved student achievement backward while their executives have pocketed a fortune – /in state tax dollars/!  Read about it here[3].

* REQUIRE A PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS FROM CHARTER SCHOOL

MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS – We can’t afford to waste scarce taxpayer dollars on inexperienced “mom and pop” charter organizers who don’t know what they are doing.

* ENSURE THAT FOR-PROFIT COMPANIES CANNOT RUN CHARTER SCHOOLS -

For-profits cut corners on education to rake in greater profits. The bill has a loophole that will allow this.

PLEASE CALL BEFORE TUESDAY – AND ASK YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO CALL, TOO.

LT. GOVERNOR TATE REEVES     601.359.3200

YOUR SENATOR: SEN. CHRIS MASSEY

CAPITOL: 601.359.3252     PERSONAL: 901.550.0334

CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: 601.359.3770

Your legislators really need to hear from you on this issue. Most of them don’t know a lot about charter schools, and they need to know where their constituents stand. This is a very important vote for public education.

You can get more information about The Parents’ Campaign’s position on charter schools here[6] – HOW CHARTER SCHOOLS COULD HELP THE CHILDREN OF MISSISSIPPI WHOSE NEED IS GREATEST and HOW CHARTER SCHOOLS COULD TAKE US BACKWARD IF NOT GOVERNED UNDER VERY STRONG CHARTER SCHOOL LEGISLATION. Please make those calls. Our kids are counting on us!

Gratefully,

Nancy

Kuykendall then forwarded the email to hundreds of contacts in the Desoto County School District on their official Desoto County School emails with this message:

Make sure you tell your staff and PTA people that I have talked to Senator Chris Massey who is on the education committee. Senator Massey is 100% on board to support the amendment that charter schools can only be placed in unsuccessful school districts. The Senate bill allows charter schools in successful school districts. Spend your time calling the people listed that is not on our side about this issue.

Thanks,

MK

Supporters of Charter Schools know it will be a godsend for those in underserved areas, but to only allow competition in specifically designated areas of the state in order to protect the politically connected is a slap in the face of ALL kids and parents. It shows that there are those in the education establishment of the state that still believe they know better than parents what is in the best interest of children.

But there is something even more sinister at work here. This is a political move again using state education resources to protect the fiefdoms of people like Kuykendall. It’s also a calculated attempt to give the appearance of support for charter schools, to protect the golden goose that continues to lay big golden eggs for people like Nancy Loome, and to minimize the competitive market forces that would take away their political power.

With a Republican controlled House, Senate and Executive, there was no doubt some charter schools would pass. The Parents Campaign and their allies had no choice but to  embrace the idea in an attempt to co-opt the issue.

This is nothing more than an attempt to hold on to power in the face of a school choice movement and to undermine charter school effectiveness so that when the opportunity comes in the future, legislation can be undone.

Mississippi parents and children deserve real choice, and freedom from government school restriction across the state. Children are individuals, they learn differently. An assembly-line one-size-fits-all approach is what got us into this mess.

If parents believe that charter schools will work in their community and for their children, then they should have that choice no matter where they live, even in Desoto County.

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The House is taking up legislation that borrows from the Alabama law in cracking down on enrolling students that can’t provide birth certificates or prove citizenship.

“I don’t think the taxpayers should have to pay for people not here legally,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven. “The taxpayers are paying enough. We’re having trouble balancing the budget.”

The latest estimate puts the number of illegal immigrants in the state at about 90,000. The auditor’s office estimated state taxpayers spent $120 million a year on illegal immigrants, she said.

Critics respond that the loss of immigrant workers actually will cost taxpayers. An analysis by a University of Alabama professor concluded Alabama’s law had led to 80,000 undocumented workers leaving, costing the state at least $2.3 billion in tax revenues.

Between September and November, Alabama’s unemployment rate fell from 9.8 percent to 8.1 percent, falling faster than surrounding states. Currie credited the tough anti-immigration law in Alabama for the drop, saying what is happening is “voluntary deportation.”

Critics say the decline can also be attributed to seasonal workers in December.

Currie’s bill, House Bill 488 – like Alabama’s law – requires law enforcement to take to the police station those that can’t produce a driver’s license or identification card.

via Like Alabama? State eyes immigration | The Clarion-Ledger | clarionledger.com.

The governor says there’s still a lot of work to be done, even though most of his priorities are gaining traction and are already in bill form.

“All of this won’t become law this year, but we begin the process,” he said.

With the legislative session extended this year and controlled by Republicans, Bryant has an edge in making sure that process, in areas like education, stays in the spotlight.

Bryant said it starts with getting the youngest students on the same page.

“My hope is that we get a unified learning program across every center where we have children,” said the governor.

A dual enrollment bill in the House and Senate, as well as a charter school bill in the Senate, both fall in line with what Bryant says are much needed pieces of legislation to ensure higher academic standards and a post graduation workforce.

“I asked in my State of the State for a workable charter school program and I just fully believe we are going to get that,” Bryant said.

via Bryant Sees Progress on His Agenda.

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Comical or not, the House on Wednesday voted 59-55 to allow state agencies to hire their own attorneys.

The politics of the move is obvious. A Republican-majority House has voted to sanction the lone Democratic statewide elected official. Everyone understands the politics. But what is hard to understand is the willingness of lawmakers to play politics with something that could have so much negative impact on the legal operations of state government.

This bill would remove the legal decisions from the state’s chief legal officer to agency heads. Proponents say agency heads need to be able to hire outside lawyers without Hood’s approval. Why would agency heads want to go around the AG? Could the reason be, again, politics?

via AG bill: Waste of taxpayers’ money | The Clarion-Ledger | clarionledger.com.