Mississippi State Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, presents a bill before legislators on the floor of the Senate chamber, Wednesday, April 3, 2024, at the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson, Miss. A Mississippi State Capitol facilities worker reaches out to remove a burned out light bulb in the main dome that graces the rotunda of the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Monday, April 8, 2024. Mississippi State Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen.
The current funding formula, called the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, is designed to give districts enough money to meet midlevel academic standards. It has been fully funded only two years since becoming law in 1997, and that has created political problems as education advocates say legislators are shortchanging public schools.
House leaders this year are pushing to replace MAEP with a new formula called INSPIRE — Investing in the Needs of Students to Prioritize, Impact and Reform Education. It would be based on a per-student cost determined by 13 educators, including the state superintendent of education and local school district administrators, most of whom would be appointed by the state superintendent.
The Senate voted 49-0 last month to revise MAEP by requiring local communities to pay a slightly larger percentage of overall school funding. The plan also specified that if a student transfers from a charter school to another public school, the charter school would not keep all of the public money that it received for that student.