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Thank you for that link; now I know of a few Magnet schools in MS.
DoJ: Interesting points in your argument. It looks like we have a classic conservative/liberal conflict of interpretation of the same facts. My perspective is one of personal accountability, yours is one where people make the decisions that are forced upon them by society.
I come from a conservative (white) family in Mississippi. My parents were NOT very involved with my school. They came to my football games, but that's it. They did support me in other ways, however. My parents were far from rich (quite poor during the recession of the 80's), but they always supported me. I had to work part-time jobs in school, but I knew I had to get good grades to get scholarships to get a college education to get out. With part-time jobs (up to 3), scholarships, grants (THANK YOU MR. AND MRS. SUMNER!!), and student loans I managed to complete a 4-year degree in 5 years. One thing I did NOT have to do is send my parents money to help support them, my siblings, or any other relative.
In my opinion an education is the most valuable thing you can ever obtain. Period. EVERYONE in this country has been offered, for free, this valuable thing, and they can even get free food as part of it. The problem is that most kids, and even many parents, don't realize how valuable a thing this is so many of them squander it. Their parents don't emphasize the importance of school, don't make sure they do homework, don't participate in education in any way. The kids don't try because it's too hard. Many party instead of studying. They drink alcohol or do drugs, even AT school. They have pre-marital sex, get pregnant, and have to drop out to raise the baby. In short, they throw away a valuable asset.
So the perspective in my earlier post is that if you don't participate in your children's education you deserve your school rating of "1".
Your perspective is that people only drop out because they are poor; because they have to support their families.
Ack... I've got to go and can't finish this. I was actually going to add a few other things that supported YOUR side of the argument, but I don't have time. I also don't know how to save a "draft", so I'm posting as is and I'll return later, maybe tomorrow.
Anyway, my point was going to be that the real truth is somewhere in the middle. That many people in the "1" districts haven't done anything to deserve a better rating, and also many other people in those same districts have no other choice but the ones forced on them by society.
I didn't mean to insinuate that the only folks who drop out of school are impoverished, but I'd think that it would be huge motivating factor. I'd think another motivating factor for dropouts would be that the curricula is totally boring and has little applicability to the lives of the students. I'm sure there are other reasons and Mississippi has been plagued with a large dropout population for a long time.
I'll reiterate my central contention with the level system for Mississippi schools. It inflates districts located in more affluent parts in the state while stigmatizes those in less affluent parts of the state. What kind of faith will parents have in their school districts if the state levels them at 1 or 2? I think it tends to give those parents whose children attend a level 4 or 5 an air of superiority.
Moreover, ranking schools in this way means the state dept of ed spends a great deal of time and energy (in addition to administrators/teachers in the district) in determining which schools are at which levels rather than focusing on educating children. This is a wave of accountability in education that I just don't agree with. Educators should focus on educating rather than looking around to point fingers and assigning blame.
That being said, I've determined that there's little difference in the curricular quality in a level 5 school as opposed to a level 1 school. The curriculum is set by the state dept of ed, which I believe is subpar in the first place.
"It looks like we have a classic conservative/liberal conflict of interpretation of the same facts. My perspective is one of personal accountability, yours is one where people make the decisions that are forced upon them by society."
So are you trying to tell me in this statement that society in no way dictates some aspects of your behavior? I think society plays a big part in people's behavior, otherwise we'd run around like animals akin to a state of nature, defecating anywhere and in public, killing and maiming people at will. I mean, really, society determines the type of expectations we place upon ourselves. One of these expectations is that we send our kids to school. While the homeschool movement has taken off in the past 30 years or so, it still comes with a certain amount of stigma--because this is society telling people, albeit indirectly, that sending your kids to school is a "normal" behavior and is expected. Heck, most people attend college not having any idea whatsoever what they want to do with their lives other than society expects people to go to college after they complete high school (I believe most 18 to 20 years olds are too immature to do real college work and should probably work for a few years before attempting it). Society definitely influences how we think and motivates us in real ways to make the choices that we make.
Society's constraints are ever more influential for those live each day not knowing where their next meal or the rent money will come from. Poverty is cyclical and much of it has to do with the lack of opportunities facing those who endure poverty. If you take a look at the Mississippi Delta, the most impoverished area in the state, you'd find a lack of real opportunities for the majority of the poor living there. You can tell me that they need to lift themselves up by the bootstraps and then they'd be better off. But what is one to do if they live in an area where there are no jobs except those that pay poverty-level wages--i.e. the service industry? What are people to do if they have no bootstraps from which to lift themselves out of poverty? You can probably say "well move to where the opportunities are" and that's problematic because it costs money to move.
I mean one large obstacle for employment opportunities for the poor are transportation and internet capability (need a car to get to work, need a computer to find work). Libraries offer free internet access, but even those resources are limited. At public libraries here that offer computer labs, there's usually a 2-3 hour wait for about an hour's time on the computer. I'd suspect that Delta area libraries in Mississippi have even smaller computer labs with longer waits. Then there's the WIN Job centers where you'd find, in an area like the Delta, scores of people competing to use the computers that they offer for those who need them. For those faced with these types of situations, I'd bet looking for opportunities to lift themselves up by their bootstraps is a pretty daunting task in and of itself.
I agree that many folks do indeed squander what opportunities that they have. And I agree that there are some parents out there who feel that education is of no consequence and why bother. These I'd call the lost cause types.
Yet in many other examples, I think the poor tend to focus on what's immediate and I've seen some accounts of this where a householder must make his eldest child drop out of school and take a service industry type job because if the eldest doesn't do it, then the whole family could be out on the street. That's a tough decision for one to make--and in some very real accounts I've seen, the eldest child made the decision on themselves because they felt an obligation to the family.
Sometimes people have a negative perception of Mississippi based on ignorance and misinformation. This is not a jab at anyone.
For example, a couple of posters did not realize there were magnet schools in Mississippi and assumed there were none because they didn't know of any, citing this as a negative for the state. In reality, there are 31 magnet schools in Mississippi.
Upon learning there are indeed magnet schools in Mississippi, one poster cited the low number of magnet schools in Mississippi compared to the number in Louisiana, citing this as a negative as well. Mississippi has a population of 2.8 million people compared to Louisiana's 4.4 million, therefore, Mississippi will not have the number of magnet schools Louisiana has.
How many people think negatively of Alabama? A better comparison would be the number of Mississippi vs Alabama magnet schools. They both have 31, but Alabama has a population of 4.4 million. Yes, there are more students in each magnet school to reflect the higher population.
Yes, the educational system in Mississippi is lacking, especially in certain areas of the state, but excellent opportunities for education do exist here.
I haven't had time to read all the post due to just stumbling on this site. I would like to say i have traveled all over the united states. You have stupid ppl in every state and every nation. Trying to class an entire state according to how some act or the education level of a few is discriminating and profiling within itself. The worst place I've traveled would have to be New York. Rude ppl, just bad attitude all way around. Being educated doesn't make you a pleasant person to be around. And saying poverty makes you unhappy is ridiculous. Some of the happiest ppl I've ever been around didn't have anything. Education helps get jobs here yes, but if a corporation sees that you have ppl who dont wont to work or have the attitude of im to good to sweep a floor they may travel elsewhere to build their facility. Look up north, Chicago, Detroit, northern Ohio, I've traveled to all these places which used to be the heart of industry. Now poverty is through the roof, i saw food lines that stretched for more than 2 blocks. Factories setting vacant and run down. Some of the most educated ppl in the united states but the attitude for higher pay less physical labor and just all around laziness has pushed what jobs didnt go overseas to the south. I love Mississippi, i am a highschool dropout, i worked for a family owned business in TN for several years before opening my own. I now make over 100k per year at 39 yrs old. Im not to good to go out to my barn and use a pitchfork and clean cow manure from my stables. I enjoy traveling to Louisiana to visit friends in the bayou and just setting under the live oak while the black pot boils sum dem dare mud dogs, lol. If you want a state to be attractive to ppl teach your locals how to be happy and content with what they have but never stop striving to do better.
I lived in Jackson, MS for a year when I was 10/11. It was horrendous! I hated it (along with my family) and we moved back up to WA a year later. Everything seemed so backwards, it was OVERLEY religious and the infrastructure was crumbling to pieces. The rethugs run that poor mess of a state into the ground to the point where it will never get up. The weather was hot and humid which made the summers hell on earth. The bugs were huge like they were on steroids *puke* and the school and education systems were a mess.
I didn't get the "southern hospitality" either. Then again we are a black family so maybe that had something to do with it. Everyone was more hostile to one another and wanted to fight at the most trivial things. Even the children were encouraged to fight other children and were cheered on by their family that would just sit and watch a fight. The only good thing I could say was the southern food, and junk food were plentiful and cheap, which is why MS is the fattest, most unhealthy state in the country.
Oh, I forgot to add that it's really poor down there too. The poorest of all of the states and the south is the poorest region of the country (some correlation to conservatism).
I lived in Jackson, MS for a year when I was 10/11. It was horrendous! I hated it (along with my family) and we moved back up to WA a year later. Everything seemed so backwards, it was OVERLEY religious and the infrastructure was crumbling to pieces. The rethugs run that poor mess of a state into the ground to the point where it will never get up. The weather was hot and humid which made the summers hell on earth. The bugs were huge like they were on steroids *puke* and the school and education systems were a mess.
I didn't get the "southern hospitality" either. Then again we are a black family so maybe that had something to do with it. Everyone was more hostile to one another and wanted to fight at the most trivial things. Even the children were encouraged to fight other children and were cheered on by their family that would just sit and watch a fight. The only good thing I could say was the southern food, and junk food were plentiful and cheap, which is why MS is the fattest, most unhealthy state in the country.
Boo Hoo! Glad to see you're back in Washington. I've never been, but I hear they don't have bugs, heat, fast food, obese people, conservatives, racists, Christians, bad schools, hostile people, or poor people. Lord, why do I even live in the South?! I guess I'll start packing tonight and head west in the morning.
If these people hate Mississippi so much, then why are they on the Mississippi forum?
Makes 'em feel superior, I guess.
Maybe they're just bored. Zara Ray hasn't been here since she was 10 years old and evidently never got over it......In any event she is not very well informed. From 1875 until January, 2012, the Democrats controlled Mississippi, not the "rethugs" as she called them.
Maybe they're just bored. Zara Ray hasn't been here since she was 10 years old and evidently never got over it......In any event she is not very well informed. From 1875 until January, 2012, the Democrats controlled Mississippi, not the "rethugs" as she called them.
Listener, you are not very well informed either. While the Democratic Party controlled Mississippi from the 1870s to relatively recently, the Democratic Party assumed under its ideology pretty much the entire GOP platform of today--that is a society with low taxation, rigid states' rights, small government, focus on individual gain, staunchly pro-business to the detriment of the "little guy," anti-regulation, pro big military, and for the most part, decidedly neo-Confederate. In other words, the Republican Party has not always held a "monopoly" on conservatism. For a greater part of post-bellum Southern history, the Democratic Party controlled and defined conservatism (which, ostensibly, Barry Goldwater co-opted during the 1960s, but this is quite debatable if Southern conservatives inspired national conservatives like Goldwater, Reagan, et al).
The Republicans grew in power in this state as a result of party realignment that occurred over a long period of time between the late 1950s and early 1980s. A good example of a die-hard former Democrat turned Republican is former Senator Trent Lott, who worked for a Democratic congressmen William Colmer. He changed his party affiliation (but not his political beliefs) at the same time that Nixon won a landslide reelection in 1972.
It's awfully simplistic to believe that party ideology doesn't ever change, but in this country it alters around every 30 to 40 years to some degree. The civil rights movement of the late 1940s to the mid-1960s in a large part determined party realignment in the South. As the Democratic Party nationally became more "liberal," southerners attempted to control its organization as with the Dixiecrat Revolt. As this revolt or ultimatum failed to sway the trend affecting the national Democrats, southern Democrats largely bolted from the party en masse and took up the GOP designation. Little of their political beliefs altered in that time span--they remained staunchly pro-business, anti-regulation, favored an interventionist military state and strong foreign policy, anti-immigration, very pro-Christian religion, and to varying degrees, decidedly racist.
Several political leaders from Mississippi who did not jump parties confound present day understanding, notably Jamie Whitten and John Stennis, who defeated Haley Barbour in the 1980s for re-election. How Stennis could gain re-election despite the enfranchisement of Mississippi's black population and his staunch conservatism is something that should be explored. And basically he and Barbour agreed on just about every issue.
Another instance of party beliefs altering over time has to do with U.S. entry into World War II. For the most part the Republican Party nationally was very anti-war or anti-interventionist and oftentimes decried as "isolationist." Many Republicans formed the America First Committee that encouraged the nation's political leaders to keep the U.S. out of war with Japan and Germany after Europe and Asia had already become embroiled in conflagration. The AFC collapsed after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but revived during the initial stages of the Cold War following WWII. At this time, ironically, it was the national Democratic Party that spent tons on defense spending and used American power overseas to gain a stranglehold in Europe and Asia Minor to compete with the Soviets. It was Eisenhower in the 50s who gradually led the reversal of the Republicans' ideas about an anti-interventionist military.
Party realignment is fascinating and Americans general misunderstanding of it is rife. So often I see on the cable news channels things like "Nixon would be a liberal today!" and "Reagan was pro-immigration." And that makes me think of the GOP's hard driving "buy American!" campaign of the 1980s and today many in the GOP advocate free trade and the ability of overseas manufacturers to build their wares in China and Indonesia rather than the states.
Last edited by DiogenesofJackson; 06-26-2012 at 04:20 PM..
Reason: I had to correct my spelling to appease Listener, the resident spelling cop
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I hated it (along with my family) and we moved back up to WA a year later. Everything seemed so backwards, it was OVERLEY religious and the infrastructure was crumbling to pieces. The rethugs run that poor mess of a state into the ground to the point where it will never get up. The weather was hot and humid which made the summers hell on earth. The bugs were huge like they were on steroids *puke* and the school and education systems were a mess. 
