Jackson Jambalaya

Head Start is early intervention, but studies have proven that it is not effective past the 3rd grade. It’s up to parents. Read to the children, interact with them and teach them. Stay home with them, and don’t spend so much time partying or with boyfriends.

This was never a big secret and we shouldn't have needed any research to tell us this.
Common sense should have and did tell us this years ago.
With all of the single mothers raising children by themselves and failing miserably it was easily seen.
Years ago the government encouraged women to have children without getting married. They made it possible for the men who fathered the children to travel on to the next woman and let the government raise their kids.
Turns out the government is not a good parent. Who would have thunk it?
We are already feeding, clothing, and providing a place to live for many children that parents have left on our doorstep. Now we learn it doesn't work.
Now we are supposed to take the child when it is a few weeks old and raise it.
Wouldn't it be much easier, simple, and cheaper to demand the parents raise their children in a manner that would result with the same needs? It has worked every since man climbed down out of the trees.

Sounds good for Minnesota or Oregon. This is Mississippi. We doin just fine.

Incredibly hard for many to read to their children when they can barely read themselves.

The money would be better spent on vasectomies.

Yeah. Mississippi is doing just great. After all, we’re last in almost everything. The ignorance of these comments is mind-boggling.

Small business owner here. Cannot find qualified help to save my life. Most don't have fathers so you can't relate to them about responsibility. When you do find a young person to work they want to be smarter than you... we need more vocational and technical training, dissolve the Jackson public School District and somehow get the message out that this is not working and we need to change it. It's only getting worse. I get totally disgusted when I ask a young person to read a tape measure and lay out dimensions....holy crap! You ought to hear the junk that spews out! And these dang "easy read tapes". Give me a damn break! Please! Ask them to buy work clothes. They wear something on the job they wore on Saturday night! Good grief! No pride whatsoever

1:37 Perhaps some day you, too, will recognize the voice of experience. Meanwhile, enjoy your delusions.

Just what we need... more government to solve our problems.

We need to teach vocations rather than trying to push everyone into college. College isn't for everyone. It should be more in line for those wishing to teach, medical, lawyers, engineering agriculture. Other than that learn from real world experiences rather than from a liberal minded teacher that has never worked outside of the classroom.

If we want to do something "for the children" and the state here's an idea:

Arrest all of the deadbeat dads and make them pick up garbage on the highways for minimum wage.

Presto! Clean roads and the kids have mo money!

And no, that's not cruel and unusual punishment.

The ignorance of these comments is mind-boggling.

Thanks for reading and helping to pay the JJ light bill.

I bet 11:06 has a single eye in the center of his forehead and a Neanderthalic jaw.

Here's the plan:
Step 1: Cut budgets to government agencies.
Step 2: Mandate programs that require the agencies to contract out work with certain corporations, at the expense of other programs.
Step 3: Cut staff, pay and benefits so that government agencies lose personnel and expertise.
Step 4: Loudly criticize the government workforce for being inefficient.
Step 5: Outsource government functions to corporate donors, at taxpayer expense.
Step 6: Cut "entitlements" even more. I inherited, got govt subsidies, or just plain bribed my way to get mine. You get yours, loser.
Step 7: Cut rich people's taxes even more, to cut revenue. Complain about government inability to complete work after cuts. Cut budget more to eliminate government oversight, taxes, regulation, courts.
Step 8: Rinse, repeat

Looks like the sarcasm from 11:06 went right over the head of 4:37.

Vasectomies for politicians might be a better idea.

You have to start some day some where! Kudos Bill you will be long gone when they figure it out....

I believe this is true. I also believe well run orphanages would be better than our current system of foster homes. In some foster homes the children are loved but in many they are not. Of course this is also true in homes with their natural families.

We could do better than head start. It is glorified day care not really early childhood development. Regimentation and development are two different things.

Almost 20 years ago when I worked at the Mississippi Department of Education, African-American Superintendent of Education Dr. Henry Johnson disseminated a Monday Morning Memo each week. Each week he declared that all Mississippi students should go to college. As one result of this misguided advice, vocational-technical programs in our high schools were abandoned and the vo-tech equipment disappeared. During this time I participated in some statewide workshops and received an earful from district superintendents, facilities managers, and teachers about losing these job training programs. These folks knew that not all students are college material and that vo-tech programs can prepare youth for productive and lucrative blue collar careers.

Then Dr. Hank Bounds became Superintendent of Education and instituted GET ON THE BUS to help alleviate the increasing dropout rate.

Cycle after cycle of educational bureaucratic idiocy. People who are educated beyond their intelligence. Leaders whose only answers are to begin another new program and throw more money at the problems. And after all the new programs and increased funding, Johnny still can't read.

I refer you to an article on the Fox News website today by Lance Izumi regarding school choice. It will take unpopular, politically-incorrect words and actions to correct America's dire educational deficiencies. If anyone emerges with the intestinal fortitude to tell the truth and call for action instead of platitudes, we may not have enough safe spaces for the perpetually offended.

Those poor people just need to straighten their acts up.

"1)cognitive abilities get firmly set based on what happens to children in their first weeks and months after birth".

Most of you have missed the subject matter completely. I'll attempt to simplify that sentence for you.

The ability to think and reason and function is controlled by your brain. The brain is the electrical system in your house. Think of the neural pathways that connect the different parts of your brain to your body like electrical wires that connect different rooms in your house . Think of what happens to you in the first months of life as your home's electrical outlet box for your whole electrical system. If you don't connect some of the wires to your outlet box, some of lights and appliances in your house won't have electricity and will not ever turn on. And, your electricity has to be grounded. You might have a roof and doors and windows, but it's not a functioning house and if it's not grounded, it could still catch fire.

Those presenting this study know that your" houses" will still be different. Your genes are the building materials of your body. Some houses won't be as large, some will not have as the best building materials delivered and some parts may be defective. Some houses will not be well maintained. Think of those materials and maintenance as your DNA and the nutrition, stimulus , exercise from conception on and your environment as your grounding.

I've tried to simplify this so those commenting will see this research as one key part of the whole.

All these scientists are saying is that if a human does not get what they need in terms of nurturing in the first months of life to turn on the neural pathways, that human will never be able to learn and reason well.

The scientists know there are other factors. They simply are saying what happens in the first days, weeks and months after birth is a critical factor.

Research for decades has already pointed that out without the scientific confirmation.

There was research at Duke about the importance of an immediate connection between mothers and their infants. The mothers who did not hold and touch and talk to their infants immediately after birth, put those infants at risk for " failure to thrive". The Romanian babies in orphanages and their developmental problems after being left without more than food and diaper changes and being cleaned is well documented. It didn't matter how smart or beautiful or athletic their deceased parents had been or how good their adoptive parents were at providing and parenting. These children were developmentally damaged.

I hope this has helped those of you who never understood the key sentence because of the jargon or who scanned past it or who were unwilling to actually read the article because you don't like the messenger. For some of you, that light switch that would allow that sentence to be understood and evaluated on its merits just never got connected. You are the people who have to rely on others to tell you what to think .You are followers and go with the crowd and your views would be totally different if your " crowd" was different because your neural pathways never activated to allow you to think for yourself.

@ December 17, 2017 at 5:11 PM

You hit it dead on! Best post on this thread!

Mississippi doesn't believe in science. All you need to do is send your kids to church, that will solve all their issues.

How about we have all parents on the way home from the hospital with their new born infant stop by some government agency and drop off the kid? Then the kid will get the best of everything and the parents can go on their way with no worries.

At 2:15 I could have written your comment. It is awful. Not only do so many lack basic knowledge and skills, I have literally had young men, that were being trained by an older, more experienced employee come in the office and complain that they were not being "talked to with respect". Those young men no longer work for me.

10:44 am Do you imagine that only you and 2:15 have experienced incompetence or over sensitivity in the work place or elsewhere?

We have problem identification. Those in this article are trying to get to problem solving by understanding the causes of the problem.

You both contribute nothing to the discussion and seem to be suffering the same inability to think beyond your own experiences just like those you describe.

9:21, the problem solving is the easy part.
It is the fault of the parent. I would have said parents but there usually is only one. That is the problem.
Solving the problem is quit encouraging the mothers to have children and the fathers to abandon the kids.
Cut out all benefits to mothers that have over 1 child that does not have a father supporting it. Give them one for free. If they have more than that one stop all government benefits.
You will find that the umber of single parent families will drop immediately.