Spokesman says gov. hasn’t decided whether to sign bill
Molly Parker • mparker2@jackson.gannett.com • March 28, 2010

Lawmakers sent a watered-down charter school bill to the governor among a host of legislation and headed home for a short hiatus with plans to return April 20 for budget talks.

The charter school bill would allow those with children in chronically underperforming schools to petition the Department of Education for a restructuring.

Under Senate Bill 2293, a five-member board composed of parents would be able to hire teachers and the principal.

Gov. Haley Barbour’s spokesman said the governor supports charter schools in principle but will have to look at the language of the bill before determining whether to sign it.

Almost all states have some form of charter schools.

But the bill has been a tough sell in the Mississippi General Assembly because some members worry that the creation of charter schools amounts to giving up on public education.

“Through the years, you and me and hundreds of other Mississippians got out successfully,” said Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood.

Jordan argued that schools may not struggle so much if the Legislature gave them the funds they need.

At one point, the bill replaced the word “charter” with “innovative” schools in an attempt to gain political favor. But that was taken out over concerns that Mississippi would not be as competitive in President Barack Obama’s federal Race to the Top competition that gives funds to states making progress in education.

After the vote, Rep. Willie Perkins, D-Greenwood, originally held up the bill on a motion to reconsider but changed his mind under pressure from House leadership.

With that, Perkins freed lawmakers to go home today. A Sunday session to consider only a bill or two would have cost about $12,000 in lawmakers’ pay.

But some on polar ends of the charter school issue went home unsatisfied.

Senate Republicans wanted more comprehensive charter school language to provide for open-enrollment and allow more groups to petition for their creation.

“What passed today was ‘charter light’ or pseudo-charter. It was not a charter school bill,” said Sen. Lee Yancey, R-Brandon.

The bill would allow up to three conversion schools in each of the state’s four congressional districts during a six year period.

Only parents whose children are in schools ranked as underperforming for three years by the Department of Education could ask for the takeover option. The earliest that could happen is late 2012. The current school-grading system began last fall.

Charter schools are generally defined as those supported by taxpayer dollars but freed from some of the restrictions governing traditional public schools.

As examples, a charter school board under this bill could adopt alternative textbooks, extend the school day and implement Saturday classes, said House Education Committee Chairman Cecil Brown, D-Jackson.

Brown said his hope is that the administration and school boards in districts with schools deemed failing, at risk of failing or low-performing view the passage of this bill as a wake-up call.

Last fall, the Department of Education released a report card that gave 212 of Mississippi’s 951 elementary and secondary schools schools one of those labels.

“The whole idea is we never have one of these (charter schools),” Brown said.

The legislation also provides a “new start” option under which the Department of Education would come to a school, terminate the principal and teachers and supervise operations.

Teachers would have to reapply for their jobs.

That option is already on the books for failing school districts, but this bill extends the takeover policy to schools that are underperforming even in districts that are making the grade overall.

The bill passed the Senate 27-11 and the House 84-29.

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