Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Legislation to expand charter schools in Mississippi is once again moving forward, with the state Senate Education Committee approving Senate Bill 2189 on a split vote Tuesday.

Senators said they expect the bill to come to the Senate floor Wednesday.

Some charter school opponents attacked the committee's action because it came after Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves met privately with committee members for about an hour Monday evening. Opponents also said it was unfair that the bill wasn't released until Tuesday morning.

"I just don't understand why there has to be a secret meeting to talk about a secret bill," said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. He says the action broke Senate rules that call for all committee meetings to be announced on the floor.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, said the bill was similar to one passed by the committee last year and discussed extensively in a December meeting. He said Monday's meeting was to provide committee members with a copy of the bill and answer any questions.

"That is precisely the purpose of having committee meetings," Bryan said. "It's called governing in public."

Laura Hipp, a spokeswoman for Reeves, said the lieutenant governor had done nothing wrong.

"Lt. Gov. Reeves meets with senators in his office all the time to discuss legislation, and he will continue to do so," Hipp wrote in an email.

The bill would give districts rated "A'' or "B'' a veto over whether charters can locate there, while "C'' and lower-rated districts wouldn't get a veto. Many House members favor allowing C-rated districts to have vetoes as well, and House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, has said the House bill will be limited to 15 charters a year. Students would be allowed to cross district lines to enroll in charter schools.

Charter schools are public schools that agree to meet certain standards in exchange for freedom from regulations. Proponents say they can improve achievement in Mississippi.

"I don't know of anybody who has ever thought charter schools would be a panacea, but they do provide parents with options," said Forrest Thigpen, president of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, a conservative-leaning group that has pushed for charter schools.

Opponents fear they will skim motivated students and money from traditional schools.

"The public school system does well," said Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, a retired teacher and opponent of charter schools. "The only thing wrong is you don't have the resources you need."

A separate seven-member board would approve charter schools and oversee them, with three members appointed by the governor, three members appointed by the lieutenant governor and one member appointed by the state superintendent.

Tollison said the bill required charters to serve a proportion of underserved students at least 80 percent as large as the share of underserved students in the charter's home district. The bill defines underserved students as those from low-income families, those with low academic performance, those who use special education services or those who don't speak English fluently.

"This is what we want to focus on, this group of students, to get them up to grade level," Tollison said.

The measure included a provision that would have allowed as many as three online charter schools to operate statewide, but that measure was stricken on an amendment offered by Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson. He said that without a daily supervision of students, "those virtual charter schools are not going to deliver the results."

The Senate passed similar bills last year by votes of 34-17 and 31-19. Charter measures failed in the House.