Despite outcry both in support of and against school vouchers, a vote seems unlikely in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
House Bill 1339 spells out an expansion of the state’s current voucher programs for special education and dyslexia, but Rep, Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, who serves as vice-chair of the House Education Committee, said it was unlikely the committee would take up a voucher bill. He said the Education Committee would meet Thursday to look at some small, technical bills for the Mississippi Department of Education.
“Out of those bills, none of them have anything to do with vouchers, charters or ESAs (education scholarship accounts),” Roberson said. “There’s nothing on the House side that has anything to do with those bills.”
H.B. 1339 would revise sections of the current voucher law to open vouchers up to more students than in the past, including students enrolled in Mississippi public schools for the year prior, students eligible to enter kindergarten or first grade at a Mississippi public school, students who have had an active individual education program (IEP) within the last five years and children of active duty military and parents killed in action. The bill would also open the program to children in the state foster care system who are in permanent placement or have been adopted and the siblings of those already receiving vouchers under the current system.
Funding for the new applicants would be 95 percent of the base student cost, the amount determined necessary to provide an adequate education for one base student.
A similar measure titled Senate Bill 2623 has also been introduced in the state senate.
Starkville resident and public education advocate Leslie Fye expressed her concerns with a voucher program.
“In other states where they have created an open voucher system, vouchers have been used as a means for middle-income kids already attending private school to
have their tuition paid for,” Fye said. ”This takes more dollars away from already underfunded public schools.”
Fye also said vouchers would create more division in public schools.
“They have been found to further segregate the haves from the have-nots,” Fye said. “Vouchers take much needed resources from public schools in an age where we are already chronically underfunded.”
Early in the week, Rep. Gary Chism, R-Columbus, a member of the House Education Committee, told the SDN he would vote in favor of a voucher program if one came to the floor during the session.
Roberson said he and the Education Committee’s main focus would be working on the new education funding bill, which passed the House last week.
“We’re focusing most of our attention on making certain that the EdBuild formula is correct and working with the senate to make sure that issues that people may have had with it are dealt with,” Roberson said.