Tag: Mississippi

Categories
education and schooling

Mississippi Learning

Mississippi, education, phonics, reading

“Thank God for Mississippi” was something I heard a lot in my younger years, after moving to Arkansas. Friends from Alabama and Louisiana also know the saying well. 

Back then, Mississippi was ranked 50th in so many categories by which the states were measured against each other that the Magnolia State saved those inhabiting states near the bottom from occupying that un-coveted dead last place. 

This was still the case in 2005, when Mississippi ranked 50th in fourth-grade reading scores. In 2013, Mississippi students climbed one rung, to 49th. Then things started to change.

“The transformation began in 2013 with the passage of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, a controversial law that allows schools to hold back students who cannot read by third grade,” WAPT, Jackson’s ABC-TV affiliate, recently reported.

“The curriculum shifted from balanced literacy to a phonics-forward approach,” WAPT explained, “and the state invested millions into phonics-based instruction, strict accountability measures, and instructional coaches who work inside schools daily.”

Imagine going back to the way generations were taught to read and, lo and behold, it still works!!!

“Results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress showed Mississippi fourth graders ranked 9th in the nation for reading scores and 16th in the nation for math scores,” the TeachMS website informs. “Since 2013, that same category of students ranks No. 1 nationally for gains in reading and math.”

“Mississippi has skyrocketed on national tests, while blue states lag,” acknowledged a New York Times account earlier this year, adding that “adjusted for poverty and other student demographics, Mississippi is No. 1 for fourth grade reading and math, and at or near the top in eighth grade, according to the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank.”

Thank God for Mississippi. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Death Star Destroys Democracy

Mississippi, democracy, citizen initiative

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

That’s Obi-Wan Kenobi’s line in the original Star Wars movie, sensing that the Empire’s Death Star had obliterated all the inhabitants of the Planet Alderaan. 

It popped into my mind on Friday, after learning of the ruling handed down by the Mississippi Supreme Court that not only strikes down a medical marijuana ballot initiative passed by voters last November but “judicially kills Mississippi’s citizen initiative process,” as Justice James Maxwell wrote in his fiery dissent.

The Magnolia State’s entire initiative process has been destroyed. 

When the direct citizen initiative process was enacted, in 1992, Mississippi sported five congressional representatives. The constitutional provision setting out how to qualify an initiative was worded to allow only “one-fifth” of the required petition signatures to come from any of the state’s five congressional districts (CDs). After the 2000 census, however, the state lost a congressional seat. Now with only four, simple math does not allow a way to get the prescribed balance of signatures.

Talk about a catch-22!

State officials just kept using their old maps with five CDs for ballot initiatives in order to comply with the letter of the law. But the court says that does not suffice. 

Only a constitutional amendment can restore this citizen check on politicians, and after the court’s ruling, only the legislature can place that amendment on the ballot. 

“Legislative leaders have not said clearly why they have not updated the initiative process in the 20 years since Mississippi lost a congressional district,” the Jackson Clarion Ledger reported Friday.

That’s simple: They don’t want citizens to have a check on them. 

Can citizens strike back?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Mississippi voters first passed an initiative and referendum process in 1914 and the state supreme court upheld the validity of the process against a legal challenge in 1916. But after a 1922 initiative ruffled establishment feathers, the state supreme court reversed its earlier ruling and struck down the process in total. It was not until 70 years later, that the legislature would act to restore some measure of citizen initiative.

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Categories
Accountability crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard nannyism privacy too much government U.S. Constitution

Social Workers: Stop Kidnapping Kids

Michael Chambers, Belle, custody, child, protection, Mississippi, Social Worker,

Michael Chambers is living a nightmare.

His young daughter, Belle, has been taken away by social workers — without any reasonable cause or due process.

When Belle was two, her mother relinquished care to Belle’s grandmother. Then Michael accepted the responsibility. Periodically, his vindictive ex-wife would sic Child Protective Services on him. At first, the annoyance was as benign as such an intrusion could be. The social workers where he lived understood that there was a troublemaking ex-spouse in the picture.

But when Michael and Belle moved to a different Mississippi county, a new social worker, Kyra Reed, got involved. Reed seemed determined to intrude, make demands, and eventually remove Belle by force from Michael’s custody.

For example, Social Worker Reed early on demanded that Michael let her search his home. He was uncomfortable permitting it unless she obtained a warrant. Reed never did get one, or search the house — not even when accompanied by sheriffs. But somehow she didn’t need any legal authorization to steal Belle from Michael. Belle ended up in a foster home, where she was treated badly, before ultimately being forced to live with her mother, whom she hadn’t seen in four years.

The many ugly details of this case cannot be recounted briefly. Michael’s fight to get his daughter back is an expensive one. You can find out more about what happened and, if you like, contribute to Michael’s gofundme campaign to raise money for his legal expenses.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
too much government

Mississippi Burning . . . Fat?

Our discussions of government gone wild would be a lot more amusing if we didn’t have to actually live with the consequences. That we do tends to mitigate the uproarious hilarity of the politicians’ effervescent insanity.

Awhile back we might have offered a dismissive chuckle to the Big Brother-ish New York City policy of banning restaurants from using trans fat. Personally, I avoid trans fat, as more and more Americans are doing.

But what business is it of the government?

The state doesn’t pay my food bill or my medical bills. Though, some politicians sure would like to make taxpayers pick up the tab.

Now Mississippi Representatives W.T. Mayhall and John Read, Republicans, and Bobby Shows, a Democrat, have pushed nanny government to new heights. These nabobs have introduced legislation to tell restaurants who they may or may not serve. If passed, House Bill 282 would force restaurants to refuse to sell food to those deemed by the state health department to be obese.

I don’t have to explain that discrimination on the basis of race or gender or creed — or even percentage of body fat — is just plain wrong. Everybody knows this.

Everybody but politicians, it seems. So, here it is in terms even politicians might comprehend: Obesity is unhealthy. But in America we believe in individual freedom. In other words, it’s your life.

Moreover, forced discrimination is the opposite of freedom. And even more deadly than obesity.

And definitely not that funny.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.