An in-depth exploration of education in the 21st century South.
In Mississippi, the average school district spends roughly $9,500 per student annually. That money, which comes from state, federal and local sources, is less than the national average.
More Mississippi students are graduating from high school than ever before. The national graduation rate last year was roughly 82 percent, and while Mississippi has yet to reach that national average, it is making steady ground.
For the second year in a row, nearly 40,000 Mississippi kindergartners took a state assessment known as the STAR Early Literacy Exam. It tests whether a student understands the building blocks of reading, do they know the alphabet, that you read left to right on the page, is this a story for fun or for learning and so on and so forth.
Over the next ten years, the number of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math fields are expected to outpace other industries by about five to ten percent. That’s according to the group Change the Equation, an organization that pushes for greater STEM education in schools. Yet, throughout the South, particularly in rural and high poverty communities, administrators have trouble attracting educators qualified to teach STEM.
Parents of public school students in Mississippi could soon be able to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. Lawmakers believe the “Equal Opportunity for All Students Act” would give many children across the state a shot at a quality education.
The Mississippi Department of Education will have to cut more than four million dollars from its budget after Governor Phil Bryant ordered state agencies to slash budgets by 1.5 percent to offset a shortfall in revenues.
In Mississippi, the Civil War still stirs emotions. It’s not so much that teachers disagree on how it should be taught, but that ongoing attempts by the University of Mississippi and several cities across the South to shed Confederate symbols have called up old ghosts.
Mississippi students are gaining on other states in Math and English, despite a drop in test scores from last year. That’s according to the results of a multi-state assessment called PARCC.
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