Leave our state’s gifted schools alone

Published 6:00 am Monday, January 10, 2005

Editor’s note: The following editorial comments werepublished last week by The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus. TheMississippi School for Mathematics and Science, housed on thecampus of Mississippi University for Women, in Columbus, is feelingthe state budget crunch along with the Mississippi School of theArts in Brookhaven. The newspaper’s comments are fitting for ourcommunity’s situation, and we wish to share them here.

The legislators are back in Jackson, money is in short supplyagain, and, once more, there’s talk of robbing Peter to pay Paul inMississippi.

In an effort to come up with funds to adequately provide for thestate’s public school districts, colleges and universities,lawmakers looking around for sacrificial lambs think they havefound them in our two gifted high schools.

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We’ve seen this kind of cannibalization of our resources bandiedaround before. Back in the 1980s, it was Mississippi University forWomen and Mississippi Valley State University being offered ontothe chopping block.

Thankfully, it didn’t happen.

Now there’s a move afoot to eliminate or cut funding to theMississippi School for Mathematics and Science and the MississippiSchool of the Arts.

House Appropriations Chairman Johnny Stringer, D-Montrose, hasbeen saying for the past year that shutting down the twostate-operated gifted schools is a good way to save money.

As the 2005 legislative session started Tuesday, our locallegislators seem confident that the Columbus-based MSMS, now in its18th year of operation, will survive, but they’re not so sure aboutthe fledgling MSA, which only opened two years ago inBrookhaven.

Even if both schools survive this legislative session, there’s astrong possibility the lawmakers may tack on some kind of tuitionrequirement. Students currently do not pay tuition to attend eitherschool.

Both MSMS and MSA deserve our support. The $7.6 millionrequested by the two schools to operate next year is a mere drop inthe bucket compared to the $381 million budget request forelementary-through-secondary education in Mississippi.

Some lawmakers are trying to portray the two gifted high schoolsas elitist prep schools. Nothing could be further from the truth.Students are selected to attend MSMS and MSA based on academictalent not affluence, and charging tuition would only stifleenrollment from children in lower-income families.

At the state and federal level, so much is made of providingfunding for subsidized pre-school programs and making sure no childis left behind – and justifiably so – but Mississippi also needs totake care of our secondary-level students and those who are mostlikely to lead our state in the future.

There are other places to look if the legislators are seriousabout saving money. One option has been suggested by Gov. HaleyBarbour – suspension of the state Personnel Board policies foremployees for one year. This would allow agency heads to eliminateunneeded positions without going through a hearing officer.

Since the Department of Corrections was removed from thePersonnel Board policies in July, 185 departmental positions havebeen eliminated in that agency alone. That, along with someinternal restructuring, has saved $14 million, according to DOCCommissioner Chris Epps.

No doubt there are still other ways to eliminate some of the fatin the state budget without destroying valuable programs. Weencourage the legislators to look around and see what can bedone.

But leave MSMS and MSA alone.