Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, a Mississippi native, antedup $50 million last week in hopes the Legislature would snap intoaction and find a way to adequately fund Mississippi’s publicschools for the upcoming year.

The business mogul, whose $100 million gift in 2000 establishedthe Barksdale Reading Institute to ensure improved literacy for thechildren of our state, now proposes to give up to $10,000 apiece tosome Mississippi students for their educational success.

Under the plan, students who have participated in the readinginstitute would receive $5,000 upon graduating high school andanother $5,000 at college graduation.

In return, Barksdale has asked lawmakers for three things: fullfunding of education, fulfillment of a promised 8 percent teacherpay raise and an agreement to submit to a yearly audit of howfederal child care money is spent.

Barksdale is to be commended for his generosity and for hiscommitment to education. The successful businessman recognizes theimportance of quality education to the future of our children andour state.

Whether payment on his offer will come to fruition, however,remains to be seen, as the House and Senate continue to spar overat what level to fund education and whether to consider a taxincrease to pay for it.

Unfortunately, it seems, Barksdale’s $50 million offer has notproved to be incentive enough to move the legislative chamberscloser to compromise. The House already has passed full funding forMAEP, a education funding formula designed to ensure all schooldistricts get enough money to meet midlevel accreditation, as wellas approving an 8 percent teacher pay raise. The Senate hasapproved neither.

The House would pay for its proposal with a dollar-per-packincrease in cigarette taxes. Senators, falling in line with Gov.Haley Barbour and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck oft-repeated “no new taxes”mantra have rejected that option.

A survey of senators last week, however, showed a vote in thechamber would be close. It appears even some right-leaning senatorswho are loathe to stomach any tax increase are beginning to see acigarette tax as the most palatable means of putting the necessaryresources into our schools.

We have said before and still believe that taxes should beraised only as a last resort and only if accompanied by spendingcuts. Surely there is fat to be trimmed and resources redirectedwithin the educational system.

To be sure, new taxes are a bitter pill to swallow for fiscallyconservative Mississippians, but so are the alternatives – closedschools, fewer qualified teachers and students slipping furtherbehind.

The Senate leadership should, at the very least, allow a vote onraising the cigarette tax, and senators must carefully weigh thepain of higher taxes against cheating our children out of a qualityeducation.

We believe the choice is clear and are confident the Legislaturewill as well.