re: The Mississippi Education Turnaround Continues

I am in higher ed now, but I was in K-12 in the time period where these changes were being discussed.

Imagine being one of just a couple of true conservatives in the room with a ton of liberals and what I term educrats - conservative in all parts of life except for education.

They want more money.
We ask for what.
Doesn't matter. Money will solve our issues.
What are you going to do with it.
Hire more administration.
Thats stupid. We need more instruction.
Buy more technology (big problem at the time)
That's stupid. Tech can't do everything.

The concept of coming up with three big ideas was amazing. They didn't have ideas other than more money. higher teacher pay. The same crew (led by Nancy Loome) is back at it with teacher pay, but they have no ammo with these recent results.

We hired Carey Wright as state superintendent and paid her more than any superintendent in America. She is as liberal as Obama, but I will give her credit - she came in, determined what needed to be done, worked with the legislature to determine a plan and stuck through it.

I figure we are about to lose her after this year, but I applaud what she has done for our state.

quote:

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One of the main things we have done in this state is a enhanced focus on teaching reading in elementary schools. In 2013, when we originally looked at why our grad rates sucked and our test scores sucked, we kept hearing from high school teachers that kids couldn't read. So while we have done other things, focusing on "reading as a science" has proven to have the biggest return on investment.

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Well then who the hell was passing these kids if they couldn't read??