Mississippi Republicans love to talk about how they’ve cut taxes since obtaining veto-proof control of state government in 2011. It’s good politics. Who isn’t in favor of lower taxes?
Look closer, though, and you’ll realize that some of these cuts aren’t cuts at all. In some cases, they are little more than shell games.
Nowhere is this sleight-of-hand more evident than in education.
For years, the Legislature has short-changed K-12 education, putting more and more of the burden on county and city taxes. In counties where there is a strong local tax base, the cuts in state funding can be greatly mitigated. In areas of the state where the local tax base is low, the loss of state funding is crippling, leading to crowded classrooms, insufficient staff and crumbling infrastructure. This is particularly true in the Delta, where the loss of those funds is most pronounced. As a result, student performance predictably decreased. It’s no coincidence that virtually every school district with an F rating is located in economically depressed areas.
What has received even less attention is the starvation tactics the Legislature have applied to higher education. Each year, the percentage of tuition costs covered by state funding decreases. In this case, it’s not a matter of shifting the cost from the state to the local tax base: Those additional costs are passed directly to students and their parents.
Since 2009, college tuition for our eight public universities has gone up by a whopping 71 percent. As a result, the average Mississippi college graduate leaves school with $30,000 in student-loan debt. That’s an ominous burden for our young people as they enter the job market. It’s like having to make a car payment on a car you don’t have. Much of that debt can be laid directly at the feet of our Legislature.
In most states, higher education has a governing board that advocates on behalf of the universities and students.
Those governing boards are usually made up of people with strong backgrounds in education, people who understand the challenges higher education faces and will fight for the institutions and students.
But in Mississippi, that governing board — called the Institutions for Higher Learning — is made up of political appointees made by the governor. All 12 of the current IHL board members were appointed by Phil Bryant.
What happens when the governing board is governed by politics and ideology rather than sound education policy? Ask the folks at Ole Miss, where the search for a new chancellor descended into chaos with the “consultant” hired to lead the search essentially named himself as chancellor with the meek approval of Bryant’s lap-dog IHL board members.
In this year’s session, an effort to legitimize the board emerged through a House bill authored by Jackson Democrat Chris Bell. Under the bill, the board would consist entirely of appointments made by each of the state’s eight public universities. Under the legislation each university would have a voice in what happens while no one university would be in a position to dominate the board’s decisions. Better yet, there would be no political appointments.
Is there anyone who doesn’t believe that kind of board would be a better advocate for our universities and their students (and parents)?
There’s at least one man who doesn’t believe that. Unfortunately, it’s the one man who has immense power — House Speaker Philip Gunn. Gunn has taken the almost-unheard-of measure of triple-referring Bell’s bill.
Something you should know about the law-making process in our state. After House members file any bill, the House speaker has the sole discretion to assign that bill to a specific committee for consideration. Controversial bills or pieces of legislation that the speaker opposes are often double-referred, meaning they must pass out of two committees before they can move to the floor. Double-referred bills almost always die in committee. Triple-referring a bill is like shooting a dog, then setting it on fire. Gunn isn’t merely opposed to this idea, he hates it with every fiber of his being.
Because of one man, this bill will never get to the floor of the house where it can be debated and discussed on its merits, something every college student and college parent deserves.
The IHL will continue to be a willing tool of the political ruling class. The entire IHL board, as presently constituted, isn’t worth of a bucket of spittle.
As a result, the cost of sending your kids to college will continue to rise because the Legislature has abdicated its role in making college affordable.
If you don’t think our state leadership is an enemy of public education, you’re simply not paying attention.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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