The 2021 legislative session has now come to a close. There are still certain bills that are awaiting the Governor’s signature. We will continue to update this post accordingly.
Current Status
Explanation
SB 2001 and HB 852 would each adjust the minimum salary schedule for certified teachers to bring the starting salary to $37,000 (an increase of $1,110) for the 2021-2022 school year, while also increasing the salary of all other certified teachers by $1,000. SB 2001 would increase the minimum salary for assistant teachers by $1,000 while HB 852 would increase this salary by $1,100.
SB 2001 and HB 852 fall short of providing the $3,000 raise that we believe is necessary to meaningfully address Mississippi’s critical teacher shortage, but any size raise will be a welcome improvement for Mississippi public school teachers. Particularly if legislators can commit to an additional raise in 2022, either SB 2001 or HB 852 is a step in the right direction for compensating teachers with a livable wage while attracting additional teacher candidates into Mississippi’s educator pipeline.
On January 25, SB 2001 passed the Senate unanimously and has now been transmitted to the House, while on February 10, HB 852 passed the House 117-3 and has now been transmitted to the Senate. Lawmakers will ultimately have to reconcile the two bills to ensure passage, though the only difference between the two is a $100 difference in the allotted raise for assistant teachers. Remember also that the appropriations bill for the Department of Education must also reflect the increased funding required for the raise. That bill will not be finalized until the budget is finished later in the session.
Current Status
Explanation
As we described in an earlier blog post, SB 2305 would create the William F. Winter and Jack Reed, Sr., Teacher Loan Repayment Program, which would incentivize recent college graduates to teach in Mississippi, particularly in a critical shortage area, by offering up to three years of loan repayment assistance. In its current form, SB 2305 would authorize the Winter-Reed Program to offer up to $10,500 over three years for teachers in non-shortage areas and $16,500 for those in critical shortage areas. HB 1179 is almost identical, though this version would require recipients to have attended college in Mississippi and does not specify that teachers moving to a critical shortage area (whether they were in one before or not) would receive the increased award.
SB 2305 and HB 1179 each would help reduce student debt for beginner teachers, but because of how the proposed Winter-Reed Program is structured under both bills, we do not believe it provides a strong enough incentive to college students deciding whether to enter an educator preparation program (EPP) in the first place. This is because the proposed Winter-Reed Program only offers an incentive to teachers who have already graduated from an educator preparation program (EPP) and earned a license; students deciding to enter an EPP will still have to take on loans and hope the program will be available and that funding will be high enough when they graduate. Additionally, because eligible teachers would only receive loan repayment assistance at the end of each school year, participants’ monthly student loan payments would not be lowered by this program. This is why we proposed pairing loan repayment with upfront undergraduate grants in our recent report. Still, with student debt levels regularly climbing into the tens of thousands for individuals, the proposed Winter-Reed Program could lessen the time it takes for participants to pay off student loans, which would be a welcomed benefit for Mississippi teachers.
On February 4, SB 2305 passed the Senate 47-2 and has now been transmitted to the House. However, because the Senate passed SB 2305 with a reverse repealer, we believe the bill will likely go to conference, as the House will have to amend the bill to take out the reverse repealer before passage. In conference, members of both the Senate and the House will have to come together and hash out the final version, likely with an eye towards budget realities, which will be more definite at that point. We therefore anticipate there will be changes to SB 2305 from its current form if it makes it to the Governor’s desk.
On February 10, HB 1179 also passed the House 113-7 and has now been transmitted to the Senate, though we anticipate that SB 2305 has a higher likelihood of moving forward.
Current Status
Explanation
SB 2267 would allow any teacher with a valid standard teaching license from out-of-state to be granted a standard five-year license in Mississippi within fourteen days of completing an application for such a license. State law currently allows for reciprocity in licensure, but it requires out-of-state applicants to meet “minimum Mississippi license requirements or equivalent requirements as determined by the State Board of Education.”
Because the specific coursework and standardized tests required for obtaining a teaching license vary by state, defining “equivalent requirements” can be subjective and may have led to qualified teachers being denied Mississippi licenses. SB 2267 seeks to ease the administrative burden of assessing the qualifications of an out-of-state applicant, while encouraging such applicants to relocate to Mississippi to teach.
On February 4, SB 2267 passed the Senate and has now been transmitted to the House.
Current Status
Explanation
The legislature is still considering two bills related to the state’s pre-K program, the Early Learning Collaborative Act. SB 2664 makes technical changes to the code that the Mississippi Department of Education requested after the first eight years of implementation. In addition to aligning program requirements to match the 2017 updates to the quality benchmarks from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), the bill clarifies that early learning collaboratives (ELCs) should implement an “evidence-based curriculum” if available and aligns the definition of the term to match that in the Every Student Succeeds Act (a “statistically significant effect on improving student outcomes”). SB 2664 would also require MDE to submit reports every three years that provide “rigorous evaluation of program effectiveness using longitudinal data.”
House Bill 1123 is a more comprehensive version of SB 2664. It includes all the changes in SB 2664 as well as a change to the per-pupil funding rate, which was placed in the budget bill last year. This change would raise the floor for the per-pupil funding rate to $5,000 per child (with a 1:1 local match) but allow the legislature flexibility to determine the actual rate above that on an annual basis through the budget.
On February 4, SB 2664 passed the Senate and has now been transmitted to the House. House Bill 1123 passed the House on February 16 and has now been transmitted to the Senate.
Current Status
Explanation
SB 2527 and HB 135 would each extend the repealer on the remaining provisions of the Mississippi Critical Teacher Shortage Act of 1998 from July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2024. Currently, the Mississippi Critical Teacher Shortage Act consists of a series of in-service incentives—meaning they are targeted towards teachers who are already licensed and teaching—meant to attract teachers to geographic shortage areas around the state. These incentives include reimbursements for interview and moving expenses, scholarships for teachers working towards Master of Education or Educational Specialist degrees, a forgivable home loan program, and a pilot program for providing rental housing for teachers in West Tallahatchie.
The main intention of SB 2527 and HB 135 is to give the legislature additional time to study participation in these programs as well as their efficacy. It appears that at least some of these initiatives have received little to no funding since their inception, and it is an open question how many teachers have benefited from these programs in recent years. The two bills are quite similar with the only differences being that SB 2527 repeals the West Tallahatchie pilot program and HB 125 requires reimbursements for interview expenses to be paid with funds other than MAEP.
Both bills have passed their respective houses and are now transmitted to the opposite house.
Current Status
DEAD
Explanation
SB 2547 would restrict eligibility for Mississippi’s three undergraduate grant programs by increasing the minimum ACT score requirements for each program:
- The Mississippi Tuition Assistance Grant (MTAG) Program—a $500-$1,000 scholarship intended to help middle-income students who do not qualify for Pell Grants—would see its minimum ACT requirement increase from 15 to 17.
- The Mississippi Eminent Scholars Grant (MESG) Program—a scholarship worth up to $2,500 intended to incentivize high-achieving students to attend college in-state—would see its minimum ACT requirement increase from 29 to 30.
- The Higher Education Legislative Plan (HELP) Grant Program—the state’s only need-based scholarship, intended to cover all tuition and fees for low-income students—would retain its minimum ACT requirement of 20, but would now require students to achieve this score from a single test administration, rather than banking subscores across multiple attempts.
Experts at IHL and other observers have raised questions in recent years about the efficacy of MTAG and MESG. The size of each grant has not been increased to reflect the skyrocketing cost of college since the programs began, meaning that they cover a smaller and smaller percentage of the cost of attendance each year and likely make little difference in a recipients’ ability to attend college. Recipients of these grants also skew whiter and wealthier than the general population of Mississippi. Yet in 2020, the state spent a combined $17.9 million on these grants.
On February 10, SB 2547 passed the Senate with a reverse repealer amendment, meaning the legislature will continue to examine this bill closely and likely make additional changes as it moves forward. (A reverse repealer repeals the bill before it can take effect, making it a dead letter bill. This is a legislative strategy to ensure a bill goes to conference for further work after passage in the opposite house.)
Current Status
4/8/21 Update:
On March 29, 2021, HB 1301 died in conference.
3/18/21 Update:
On March 16, 2021, the House voted to invite conference on the amended HB 1301. Conferrees from the Senate and the House will meet in the coming weeks to come to a bicameral understanding on HB 1301.
3/10/21 Update:
On March 10, 2021, the Senate passed an amended HB 1301 with a reverse repealer, meaning it will likely go to conference for further work. For now, the bill now heads to the House.
3/3/21 Update:
On March 2, 2021, the Senate Education and Economic and Workforce Development Committees passed an amended HB 1301 which strips all provisions of the original bill except one that requires the state to make a “career readiness assessment” available to any students electing to take it. Notably, the amended HB 1301 does not require that this assessment specifically be the ACT WorkKeys. HB 1301 is now awaiting action on the Senate floor.
HB 536, HB 849, and HB 1253 all passed their respective committees, but were stripped of any provisions relating to education. As such, we will not be tracking these bills any further.
Explanation
HB 536, HB 849, HB 1253, and HB 1301 would all make substantial changes to Mississippi’s K-12 accountability rating system by including the ACT WorkKeys Assessment—a series of standardized tests that “measure a range of hard and soft skills relevant to any occupation”—and weighting it in the same percentage as the standard ACT. HB 849 would require all students to take the ACT WorkKeys, while HB 536, HB 1253, and HB 1301 would only make the WorkKeys available to students who elect to take it.
All four bills address aspects of Mississippi’s career and technical education (CTE) pathway, including provisions that require school districts to notify students of CTE pathway options and specify that CTE instructors with an “expert citizen” license need only an “industry-recognized credential” (rather than necessarily requiring them to have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree). HB 849, in particular, would allow teachers with provisional licenses who have taught for at least five years to receive standard five-year renewable licenses, even if they have not passed the requisite standardized tests. Yet the most consequential aspects of these bills are the provisions pertaining to the ACT WorkKeys Assessment and Mississippi’s K-12 accountability rating system.
All four bills have passed the House and will now be transmitted to the Senate, where we anticipate there will be significant attention paid to the WorkKeys provisions. Because of the substantial overlap between the four bills, the Senate will likely choose to focus on only one of the four, if any pass out of committee before the March 2 deadline.
Considering the number of House bills that this language has been inserted into, we also expect to see the House take a somewhat unrelated Senate bill, if the opportunity presents itself, and insert this language there as well. We will be watching closely to see if this happens.
Current Status
DEAD
Explanation
HB 302 would authorize the implementation of “community schools” under the administration of districts of innovation. Under HB 302, a community school is defined as a traditional public school that “partners with community-based organizations to coordinate academic, social, physical health and mental health services, to reduce barriers to learning and improve education outcomes.” To achieve this vision, community schools must offer student supports such as medical and mental health services, expanded academic and extracurricular opportunities outside of traditional school hours, and a STEM program as a “meaningful part of its curriculum.” There must also be educational opportunities for students’ families and a community-wide leadership team that includes a full-time “community school director.”
Other components of HB 302 include a provision that allows schools and districts to avoid state takeover if they become eligible under any of the takeover laws, as the bill provides schools and districts moving to the community schools model a three-year transition period before the state can take them over. Another provision that allows community schools to accept grants, donations, and gifts. More generally for districts of innovation, HB 302 would require district applicants to increase student attendance, decrease student suspensions and expulsions, increase STEM offerings, and publicly report on goals and performance targets.
On February 10, HB 302 passed the House and has now been transmitted to the Senate.
[…] the pandemic interrupted the session, the legislature made this change directly in the budget bill. This year, we need to finish the job to make the rate increase permanent and prevent a cut to pre-K in the […]