Charter schools possible in Mississippi

The Mississippi House of Representatives passed House Bill 369, also known as the Mississippi Charter Schools Act of 2013, on Jan. 24. This bill both defines and makes space available within the pre-existing public school system for charter schools.
The House Education Committee passed the bill with a vote of 16 to 14. The House also passed the bill with a vote of 64 to 55. The bill now sits before the Senate, which already passed a similar bill. Among those who voted in favor of the bill include Oxford’s Brad Mayo and Sardis’ Nolan Mettetal.
The bill was passed soon after Gov. Phil Bryant spoke about Mississippi’s educational needs for a considerable portion of his State of the State 2013 address.
“The path to Mississippi’s economic success must pass through the schoolhouse door,” Bryant said.
Bryant called for further funding of pre-existing educational programs and asked the state congress to pass more education bills. He pointed out that more than 40 states already have charter schools in their public school systems, emphasizing that these schools will give parents in failing school districts more options.
The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University released a report in 2009 of “a longitudinal student-level analysis of charter school impacts” across 15 states and the District of Columbia. The report states that only 17 percent of charter schools nationwide showed academic growth that was higher than the students in traditional public schools, while 37 percent showed slower growth and 46 percent showed similar growth.
The Parents’ Campaign, a non-profit grassroots network, said they believe that charter schools in Mississippi could avoid problems of slower growth as long as these charter schools are not competing with already high-performing schools, are not cyber-based and do not focus on profits.
Charter schools would open where there are opportunities to work with high-poverty students, low-performing students in failing districts and English Language Learners, according to the Parents’ Campaign.
The House bill prohibits profit management of the schools and limits charters from operating in high-performing districts without the majority vote of the school board. The bill also explicitly states its purpose is to help “especially those (students) with a likelihood of academic failure.”
However, differences between the two versions of the bill will have to be settled before the bill can be signed into law.
“When a good charter bill reaches my desk, I intend to sign it,” Bryant said.