A ballot proposal calling for full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program would remove power of the state’s 174 legislators and put it in the hands of a single Hinds County judge, District 54 state Rep. Alex Monsour told Vicksburg Lions Club this week.

A group called Better Schools, Better Jobs mobilized thousands of volunteers last year to collect signatures on petitions to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the November 2015 ballot. Initiative 42 would require Mississippi to fund an “adequate and efficient system of free public schools.” If legislators fail to provide that, the proposal specifies that people could ask a chancery judge to order the state to provide the money.

“Not only is that judge going to be able to tell you what money goes to what county and how they are going to spend it, they can all tell you what they are going to teach, and how they are going to teach it, whether it be sex education or whatever. The judge is going to have final outcome on education. The word education is going to be taken out of the Legislature,” Monsour said.

Of the state’s $6.3 billion budget, $2.5 billion goes toward funding K-12 education. Another $1.04 billion goes toward higher education, Monsour said.

“You’re looking at 60 percent of our budget going to education,” he said.

The problem isn’t so much that Mississippi isn’t putting enough money toward education, rather than how the money is spent, Monsour said. The state has 162 school districts in 82 counties, he said.

“That means you have 162 superintendents getting paid over $100,000 a year and all of their people getting paid. That money wasn’t going to the classroom, and it still isn’t going to the classroom,” he said.

Mississippi ranks 15th in the nation money spent for student but still ranks toward the bottom in education, Monsour said.

“In the last four years we’ve made changes gradually, it’s like turning a big ship,” he said.

Some members of the club told Monsour they opposed changes to grading that allow students to pass with a D if their cumulative average for a class is between 60 and 69 points. Monsour said he was in support of that plan because it put Mississippi in line with national standards.

“Part of the reason why we are 50th is we were on a 7 point grading scale and all those other people were in a 10 going grading scale. We were being penalized,” Monsour said.