Category: Education
[M-P]Phil Bryant announces Accountability Agenda
Phil Bryant presented what he called an ”accountability agenda” on Wednesday that outlined his plans should he be elected Lt. Governor. The outline includes his approach to illegal immigration, crime and education.
Posted by kate at 11:56 AM on 06/29/07. Discuss (2)
[C-L]Barbour speaks at Mississsippi Early Childhood Education meeting
Last Thursday Gov. Haley Barbour, who cited that early education is the key to economic growth in Mississippi, was the keynote speaker at the Mississippi Early Childhood Education Meeting in downtown Jackson. Barbour additionally urged the state to continue to support “commonsensical programs” like the Quality Step System. Anthony Topazi, the president and CEO of Mississippi Power who also spoke at the meeting, pledged that his company will commit $450,000 to early education over the next three years.
Posted by kate at 11:19 AM on 06/29/07. Discuss (0)
[C-L]JPS will start out 2007-08 school year with $220 million balanced budget
The school board approved the budget on Monday night after giving a no-go to budget requests that included raises for non-teaching staff members. The primary reasons for the largest increases were benefits and mandated salary hikes, including a 3 percent salary increase for teachers.
Posted by kate at 10:20 AM on 06/19/07. Discuss (0)
[C-L]JPS must make a decision regarding how to pay for additional expenses for the 2006-07 year
Along with figuring out how to pay for additional expenses from the prior school year, JPS must also decide how to cut down the 2007-08 budget by around $2.2 million before the final budget is approved. JPS executive director of finance Sharolyn Miller says the rise in costs is coming from benefits and mandated salary increases.
Jackson Public Schools is expected to tap its $18 million of reserves in coming weeks to the tune of more than $3.7 million to pay for additional expenses during the 2006-07 school year.
Within the same time, the board also has to figure out how to trim 2007-08 budget requests by about $2.2 million before it finalizes the new budget.
The board has two options: Cut the money to meet the district’s $220 million revenue stream or plan on using some of the district’s reserves before the end of the next fiscal year.
Posted by kate at 11:44 AM on 06/05/07. Discuss (0)
Eaves calls on Barbour to stop the tax on our future
By Kate Royals
May 31, 2007
Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Arthur Eaves held a press conference Thursday to address his aversion to the recent college tuition increase and the current governors response to what Eaves referred to as a tax on our future.” Eaves, along with a team of college students affected by this tuition increase, called on Gov. Haley Barbour to hear the requests of Reps. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, and George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, to hold a special session and to finance the eight public universities in Mississippi who have increased their tuitions by six percent.
Posted by ladd at 02:37 PM on 05/31/07. Discuss (0)
[Release]Tougaloo Honors Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie T. Green
Tougaloo College has honored Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie T.
Green with the Meritorious Leadership Award.
LeRoy G. Walker, Jr., chairman of the Board of Trustees of
Tougaloo College, presented the citation during commencement ceremonies on
the campus May 13.
Posted by kate at 11:53 AM on 05/24/07. Discuss (1)
[D-J]Steve Holland Advises Dipping in to the Rainy Day Fund, Not Increasing College Tuition
According to The Daily Journal, State Rep. Steve Holland suggested holding a special legislative session to discuss an alternative option to increasing college tuition prices to pay for operating costs. Holland advises dipping into the state’s Rainy Day Fund, which will hold nearly $300 million by the end of the summer.
“This tuition increase is nothing but a hidden taxes on students and their families,” Holland said. “We’re not opposed to the colleges getting their money. We just think there is a better way to do it.”
Posted by kate at 10:37 AM on 05/23/07. Discuss (4)
[C-L] Public and private colleges in Mississippi increase tuition
The Clarion Ledger reports that colleges in the Jackson area such as Millsaps, Tougaloo and Belhaven are increasing their tuition anywhere from 1.7 percent to 6 percent. Mississippi’s eight public universities are raising tuition an average of 6 percent. College tuitions are being raised to keep up with the increasing cost of campus utilities.
Posted by kate at 10:45 AM on 05/22/07. Discuss (0)
[Release] Barbour Declares ‘Emergency’ for Jeff Davis County Schools
Via verbatim release:
Governor Haley Barbour today declared a state of emergency exists in the Jefferson Davis County School District,
authorizing the state Department of Education to take immediate corrective action.
“After reviewing documentation provided by the state Department of Education, I am convinced that existing conditions in the Jefferson Davis County School District jeopardize the educational interests of the children enrolled there. My declaration of an emergency will give the department the authority to take immediate steps, including appointing a conservator, so the district can begin to recover from serious leadership and management deficiencies, Governor Barbour said.
Posted by ladd at 12:16 PM on 05/21/07. Discuss (4)
[Release] Mississippi Senate May Reduce MAEP
Nancy Loome of the Parent Campaign sent this e-mail around this morning:
The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet acted on House Bill 238, the education funding bill. Some Senators have indicated that the Senate will introduce its own education funding bill rather than taking action on the House bill.
Any education funding bill will need to address several issues if our children are to be afforded an adequate education. Your legislators have heard your call to “fully fund the MAEP” and I believe most Senators will vote to fully fund that piece of the funding puzzle. Certainly the MAEP formula is the most significant - and the largest - piece of that puzzle. It is not, however, the only important piece, and this year is looks as though the other pieces are the ones we need to keep an eye on in the Senate.
Posted by ladd at 10:27 AM on 02/08/07. Discuss (1)
[Analysis] Barbour a ‘Man Among Boys’ at the Capitol
The Clarion-Ledger’s main two columnists had an interesting pair of analysis pieces in Sunday’s paper about Barbour handling in the Legislature. For his part, David Hampton took a page out of the Sid Salter book when he wrote:
Gov. Haley Barbour has proven once again that he can’t be outsmarted when it comes to politics. He is a man among boys at the Capitol. It has gotten to the point that he seems to just toy with opponents for the fun of it. Not that he had any serious political problems going into the 2007 elections, but his latest move to blunt his critics on education funding gets rid of his biggest negative.
Wait: “a man among boys”? Meowwww. That sounds like a “whose bigger"-level quip if the Desk has ever heard one. And we wonder if Hampton knows that there are?wait for it?GIRLS in the Legislature, too?!?
Otherwise, his analysis is just a bit of Salter-esque lapdoggery. The truth is that Barbour was opposing MAEP funding until he realized he wasn’t going to get away with it in an election year?and the people have a right to know that. Whether the Dems’ TV ad campaign will reach the right people with that messages remains to be seen.
And it seems clear who the all-male editorial board at The Clarion-Ledger is likely to endorse as governor this year, eh? That didn’t take long atall. 
Oh, and here’s Salter’s education-politics analysis in the same edition. He might even sound a bit Hampton-esque. Naaaa.
Posted by ladd at 11:05 PM on 01/23/07. Discuss (0)
[Analysis] Kosciusko Editor Ticked at Education ‘Advocates’
Mark Thornton, the editor/publisher of the Star-Herald in Kosciusko, is fed up with all these supposed “education” advocates who want your hard-earned money “either because they?re trying to protect their own jobs or because of their own deficiencies as parents.” They even dare to put innocent children up to wheedling it out of you! He whines in a column today:
Anytime you hear a so-called education proponent or school official say these four words ? ?It?s for the children? ? grab your wallet and run. Fast. Hind-end first, so they can?t pick your pocket on the way out. That tired old line gets pulled out any time they?re lobbying for more funding, and it?s almost always bellowed or shrieked in front of TV cameras from the steps of the Capitol as a crowd, whipped into a wide-eyed frenzy, declares impending failure for all school children if they don?t get $30 million more. My toes curl every time this oh-so-predictable scenario gets repeated. It?s just like when someone in sports, entertainment or business says, ?It?s not about the money.? Another tired old line comes to mind: Don?t tinkle on my loafers and tell me it?s raining.
Posted by ladd at 12:10 PM on 01/17/07. Discuss (0)
[Release] Justice Diaz, Experts to Testify for Juvy-Justice Report Act
Verbatim statement:
What: Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, Psychologist Dr. Criss Lott, and attorneys Jim Waide and Robert B. McDuff will testify before the House Juvenile Justice Committee in support of House Bill 727, the Juvenile Transfer Reform Act.
When: Thursday, January 18 2007 at 8:00 am.
Where: Mississippi State Capitol, Room 204
Why: Prominent legal and adolescent behavioral experts will explain both the social science research supporting House Bill 727, the Juvenile Transfer Reform Act and the legal implications of the bill, authored by Chairman George Flaggs, Jr. House Bill 727 ensures that the adult criminal justice system accommodates the special needs of children and allows some children who have been successfully rehabilitated a second chance at life.
For more information: Please contact Chairman George Flaggs: 601-942-0492
Posted by ladd at 11:53 AM on 01/17/07. Discuss (2)
[Desk] Mississippi GOP ‘Liberal’-Baits Sen. Gloria Williamson
It seemed to really tick off the state GOP when a Democratic senator made the political statement that voters need to elect a “genuine Democrat” to take back the seat of state Sen. James Shannon Walley who just defected from the Dems to the GOP for the upcoming election. She stated in a Democratic press release:
?This district is made up of hard-working people who support Democratic issues such as strong public schools, a higher minimum wage, strong health care, lower grocery taxes and Medicaid,? Williamson said. ?A Democrat will win this seat on these issues.?
In a snarky press release posted on their Web site, the GOP ripped at the senator from Neshoba County for daring to say the g-word:
Senator Gloria Williamson, the chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Party Caucus, recently boasted that Democrats will re-take the seat of Sen. James Shannon Walley, qualified for re-election as a Republican. “A Democrat will win this seat...,” said Williamson. In that statement Keelan Sanders, Executive Director of the Mississippi Democratic Party, echoed Williamson: “The voters will elect a genuine Democrat.”
What does the Mississippi Democratic Party consider a “genuine Democrat?” Further more, does Mississippi really need more of them? Let’s look at Gloria Williamson:
Posted by ladd at 11:38 AM on 01/17/07. Discuss (0)
[Desk] Youth Justice Rally Draws Hundreds
by Matt Salda?a and Brian Johnson
Mississippi State Desk
Jan. 15, 2007
On a drizzling Martin Luther King Day morning, students, parents and advocates marched onto the Capitol?s south steps to call for educational reform and protest the incarceration of more than 1,000 Mississippi children. The rally, organized by the Mississippi Coalition for the Prevention of Schoolhouse to Jailhouse, featured speeches from both students and state legislators, a collective reading of Dr. King?s ?I Have a Dream? speech, and a rally cry that modified Lil? John and the East Side Boyz? ?Get Low? to say, ?We?re all free-free-free-free-free.?
Among a sea of self-made posters, several reading ?Books, Not Bars,? a young girl in pink held up a laminated portrait of Dr. King, the kind one might find on a classroom wall. In black ink that streaked like tears down an orange poster board, another girl?s sign read, ?The cry of our children must be heard.?
?You are not forgotten,? said Sen. John Horhn, D-Hinds, speaking through a megaphone about the plight of troubled children who had been taken from school and placed into jails.
Posted by ladd at 05:47 PM on 01/15/07. Discuss (2)
