Jackson Jambalaya

If JPS can go from an F to a D, they can go from a D to a C next time. No excuses. The mayor and city council should make a city-wide emergency declaration especially at the elementary level to energize the parents and
the community to achieve that goal for the next evaluation. Nothing less is acceptable!

JPS and Canton get D's. Put Democrats in charge of anything and it's FUBAR.

Sooo....top three in the state are Petal, Ocean Springs and Clinton?

Pearl is not a separate district is it?

Looks like Midtown Charter moved up to a D from an F.

It will be interesting to see if the hopefully soon to be gone Dr. Wright changed the measurement criteria/scale to make the results look better for her and her minions.

What is 'Hinds'? Is that Utica or what?

@2:40
Pearl has their own school district. It is very diverse and very successful. The City of Pearl is a good example of what Jackson could've been if white people accepted black neighbors and hadn't fled the city.

So how can some of the worst school districts with an F rating have graduation rates in the 80's? I may not be smart but something does not add up. Talk about no child left behind.

Just a few short decades ago Yazoo City was cranking out doctors, lawyers,engineers, Governors, Ivy Leaguers and very successful graduates in general. Now at the bottom of the barrel. Well it was fun while it lasted.

Hinds County School District is a joke... ONLY 1 school out of 8 within the HCSD earned an "A" rating this year. Dr. Martin has not done anything to improve the HCSD. Another year and they are again a "C" rating. Time for her and her cronies to GO!!!! Too much money into salaries at Central Office rather than down to the teachers where the true educators are. OH SHHHH don't talk about the the mishandling funds and the money lost there... that has been quietly swept under the rug.

Oh and the Bond Issue.... what Bond Issue??? Nothing has been done with the Bond Issue... NOTHING!! Only 1 project has been completed. More were slated to start but has ground been turned??

WASTE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY is the Hinds County School District.

2:33 Democrat and Republican got nothing to do with it. In parts of California, Minnesota and New York the districts are 90% Democrat and some of the top school districts in those states, which are far ahead of Mississippi. You might look at household median income before talking that party crap.

"The City of Pearl is a good example of what Jackson could've been if white people accepted black neighbors and hadn't fled the city."

What a crock of shit to suggest that several hundred thousand people separated by nothing but a creek are racist on one side and not the other.

You leave a situation because it's intolerable and not in the best interest of your family to remain there - not because people are black or white. But, I do realize the most common response to your neighborhood's problems is to blame somebody else for them.

So 3:09, how insulting of you to assume that predominantly black schools NEED white students to succeed?
That sounds pretty racist.

In parts of California, Minnesota and New York the districts are 90% Democrat and some of the top school districts in those states ...

Provide proof or BS.

Parents.

4:30, I was not the original poster, but he’s right. This isn’t about the last two decades, this about the white flight from Jackson and the schools WAY before that. South Jackson is the best example.

3:00, Hinds has a county school district. It covers the whole county except for the separate school districts of Jackson and Clinton. So yes, Utica. And Raymond. And Byram.

South Jackson is the best example.

The best example of what? Be specific.

3:09, I'll bet you that many of the blacks in Madison and Rankin Counties are refugees from Jackson also.

They teach the test in Madison, I don't know about anywhere else.

So, all the good schools in Madison county are part of the county system, while the failing school is a separate school district. In Rankin and Hinds, there are separate school districts (Pearl and Clinton) out perform the county district.

Question....why doesn't Madison, Rankin and Hinds all have a simple county school district instead of a county district plus some separate systems? Seems very inefficient.

People need to stop blaming "white flight" for the decline of schools in Jackson. I left Jackson 24 years ago for multiple reasons, the biggest being that JPS had failed my children. I had children in grades 6, 8 and 2 in the 11th grade. None of them were being taught. Classes were a joke. Discipline was an absolute joke. When my daughter (8th grade) was touched and groped on 2 different occasions and JPS and the Police refused to take action that was the final straw. I could have put them in a private school but why hang around any longer as my property value was taking a nose dive and property taxes were steadily rising. The municipality in which I now live has not had a tax increase in over 20 years and the quality of life has continued to improve. Streets are great, shopping and dining choices are plentiful and crime is very low. I walk at night and never worry about anything bad happening. Please stop blaming one race or the other for the problems at JPS. It has imploded due to poor leadership, top heavy administrative structure and greed. Also, the lack of concern by parents is magnifying the problem. Teachers are unable to discipline students without be berated and even physically attacked by the parents that think their kids should rule the schools.

@3:09
Problem is those that fled the city of Jackson do so bc private school tuition is costly. The whites remaining stayed bc they can afford private schools and a country club luxury lifestyle with an Oxford find a as well as a beach house.

Actually there is no defendable reason for Canton to be separated from Madison county schools. There is no reason for Pearl to be separated from Rankin County schools. And Clinton and Jackson should be rolled up into Hinds County schools.

Ready, go!

This seems to be an incomplete document/report by the top-notch MDE. Not all Rankin high schools are listed. Richalnd, Pisgah

@7:48
What is a School District?

JPS are their own School District separate from Hinds County School District
Rankin County School District doesn't include Pearl Public Schools

There is history behind these reasons. Pearl fought to be incorporated as a city independent from Brandon's control as the County Seat.

All this of this is great news !

Hopefully . . . in the long run . . . it will stop the rash of armed robberies in Belhaven over the last two weeks,

Umm... MDE did fine. This is a listing of districts, not schools.

@7:48 then there should be only 82 school districts. Time of establishment was different for each with differing reasons. Not sure an urban district like Jackson should be combined with one covering rural areas like Utica and Bolton though I generally support consolidation efforts. Too many different circumstances for one school board.

No one, and I mean no one, wants Canton corruption imported into their school districts. Merging with Canton means bringing in the administration and teachers. No one wants that incestuous crap around. Then there are the teachers trained at JSU and score lower on the praxis. Good luck with that. Keep in mind the powers that be in Canton want their own school district as well so they can pad the payrolls, hire the family, and allow CPS, CMU, and the city to pay off each other through sweetheart deals and patronage.

JPS is several times larger than Clinton. The management of JPS would ruin Clinton public schools. Period.

Thank you for that post, Kingfish. If someone else had posted that reality, you'd have the usual crowd coming out of the woodwork hollering RACIST! RACIST! You are exactly right about the separate system in Canton. And the low information crowd seems to think the Madison District must have excluded Canton by choice. It was the other way around. Canton fought years ago to have its own district and it's been that way for decades.

The Canton District is poor performing and has been for decades. Corruption, greed, nepotism, incompetent staff in the District office as well as the classrooms. Meanwhile the revolving superintendent's door is fully accepting poor performance. The State DOE just sort of leaves Canton to its own (failing) devices.

Attempting to roll all that madness and corruption into the Madison District would create havoc, not only in the courtroom, but in dragging the entire county down.

We would have twenty federal lawsuits over which teachers are kept where, which superintendent survives, whose employment agency is stripped away, race-baiting school board members and one mayor and multiple lawyers all mixed into the soup.

Instead of merging the Canton schools and the Madison County schools, just shrink the size of the Canton district down to the city limits of Canton only. The Canton district currently encompasses a full 1/3 of all the land in Madison County; it occupies the center of the county from the Pearl to the Big Black. Let Canton keep its school district in Canton only and put all that prime real estate outside the city limits into the Madison County district. That includes the Sanctuary at Cameron Plantation and the land along the north shores of Lake Caroline (Martinique). That's a lot of prime land that could see a boom in residential development if it were taken out of the Canton district and put into Madison County district.

Two mayors would jump into the soup. Only one joining in a lawsuit filed by the Blackmon duo.

@3:22 - yep, grade inflation to shove the problem students off on the next round of teachers. After all, if we can give them a diploma they didn't earn, they student can still say they graduated high school and go possible play football somewhere and earn a college degree without being able to construct a simple sentence.

My daughter is a teacher in one of the most successful districts in the state. The issue is PARENTS! If the child has not been raised in a nurturing environment and is not prepared for kindergarten, then they WILL struggle in school. The reality is that the large majority of the children that are struggling come from broken homes and/or from homes of under-educated parents. Typically, these parents hold the attitude that the school is responsible for their child's learning. No, BOTH the school and the PARENTS are responsible.

You would NOT believe what some of these children endure on a daily basis... because of their PARENTS! (You do not have to be wealthy to be a good parent.) Even in one of the top districts in the state, this problem exists. You can only imagine how amplified the problem becomes in Jackson, Canton, and Hinds County. Just imagine how terrible it is for a child to transfer from a low-performing school, where they were an A student, to a high-performing school, where they are suddenly failing. True story... and the parent's response was to seek to transfer the child back to the low-performing district versus putting in the work to obtain proper grade-level performance.

2:35 - The only fault I find with your post is your claim that these 'scholars' come from 'broken homes'. Please define a 'broken home'. One parent households are acceptable, preferred and (almost) government mandated. They're not 'broken', they're simply inadequate, acceptable and the norm. And it ain't about to change.

@4:15 pm... Historically, a broken home has been defined as a home where divorce has occurred or there is not a traditional family structure.

I didn't say EVERY "broken home" led to a deficit in education. I said that "the large majority of the children that are struggling come from broken homes and/or from homes of under-educated parents." If you don't believe me, go into any school and conduct your own survey. (I realize you can't technically do this, but I guarantee you the results are present!!)

When a child has parents who are more concerned about their current relationship status than whether or not their child reads nightly, there is a deficit. When a child has parents who refuse to acknowledge the child requires additional homework and reading to catch up, there is a deficit. (Note: It is not cruel to have a child do extra homework for 6 months to guarantee that child can perform at grade level for the next 9 years.) When a child has either a learning or behavior issue present and the parent refuses to address the issue, there is a deficit. When a child has parents who cannot understand the elementary lessons themselves, there is a deficit. EVERY SINGLE example in this paragraph is completely out of the child's control, yet it GREATLY affects the child's performance in school. I firmly believe these deficits are more prevalent in "broken homes." (Please note, I didn't say ALL deficits come from "broken homes"... just saving you a comment.)

4:42...Your basic premise is flawed for his reason: You attempt to define a broken home (in part) as one where there is not a 'traditional family structure'. That was true fifty years ago; however, for at least the past 40, the home you and I grew up in is NO LONGER traditional, it's an historical anomaly. In fact it's almost non-existent in many areas of the black community. What we used to call 'broken homes' is now the norm and fully accepted. It is not UNtraditional.

We probably agree on your other claims. I don't need to go into a school to conduct a study. My mother, my wife and many of my relatives are retired school teachers and my daughter currently teaches.

8:39 a.m... Your premise is flawed for the reason that you equate traditional with current norm. The basic definition of traditional is "long-established." Given the few decades of failed family structure compared to centuries of defined family structure, I'd say that my definition of traditional family is still relevant. Further, almost every single deterioration of society can be associated to what current society acknowledges as "fully accepted" (or maybe "expected" is a better term) behavior... most tying back to broken homes.

Again, I NEVER said EVERY broken home leads to a deficit in education. My parents and grandparents were both divorced. I'm in no way offended by the term "broken home" nor do I care to act like it doesn't define my upbringing... it did. I was lucky enough to rise above. Despite two generations of broken homes, my children were raised in a traditional home.

I will stand by my argument that the majority of those students currently struggling in the public school system come from broken homes and/or homes with under-educated parents. The statistics are too overwhelming to pretend this isn't the case.