Jackson Jambalaya

A governor trying to appease the black community will open Pandora's Box.

Feel sorry for our Guvenor.

Tough to sit in such a wobbly fence.

Master bulls---er.

Is it true that the takeover statute allows any child in a district in "takeover" status to go to school for free in an adjacent school district? If so, its much easier to understand the Governor's desire for a 3rd way.

Every school district in the state is taking notice and will fight even harder to avoid takeover going forward. Bryant will be effectively gutting the entire process regardless of district size.

What you'll "go on with the rest of [your] life" knowing Governor is that you blinked.

MT is as conflicted as the JFP.

Looks like the Gov may fold like a lawnchair to the "local control crowd". Is it too early to declare this a victory for BabyChok?

I think the governor is right.

He can always sign the declaration at any point. There’s no time limit.

He has zero faith in MDE being able to pull this off... and he’s right.

Why not ask for help from folks who actually know how to get it done?

7:25–It is a TOTAL victory for the Mayor who has incessantly lobbied the Governor to let him handle things. Feel has never said no to the last person sitting in front of him.

I saw the piece on the improvement in test scores at Spann. Something as simple as allowing children who don't have electronic access to become familiar with electronic testing resulted in a huge jump.
What might also be valuable for JPS is looking at what Terry did to help the children improve. That included adding bus schedules for after school tutoring.
It is a matter of focus and understanding your students needs. JPS seems to disconnected at the top and I don't object to a takeover if it results in less administrative costs and a shift to meeting students needs.
This is NOT an uncommon problem in government . Appointees and elective officials have become increasingly ignorant about how the system they are to manage actually works or should work. They focus on what they do know which is usually money and obstacles, not how people can best accomplish tasks and overcome obstacles.

Phil Bryant is the greatest governor on the planet. Whatever he decides, I will support emphatically. I can't wait for Sen. Bryant.

Jackson: whether you keep control of your school or not is a lose for you. The State of MS has nothing to gain from taking over your schools, just like when the federal government took over MS after the Civil War.

Battle 7:25 that BabyChok will regret winning because JPS success, over which he has extremely little operational control beyond nominating unaccountable board members, rightfully becomes a measure of his effectiveness as Mayor. No amount of Kushnik feel-good rhetoric turns around JPS but BabyChok now owns the ongoing failure.

We the people of Jackson DO NOT want this and Gov Bryant is listening. Pray that Governor makes the right call and lets Jackson take care of its own business. Its just amazing how the white folks that abandoned the city long ago now want to control what goes on there.

The Hinds County Delegation of the Mississippi Legislature does not want a takeover. Let them work with the district, it might work!

A better way is to designate 3 schools in each ward, Elementary, Middle and High School. Put your best teachers in each school, have a meeting with the parents and students, lay the rules existing rules out and let's go learn. Do not continue to allow the rules to be broken and ensure the parents are accountable, if not send them to the other schools in the ward and let them create another hell.

Kids want to learn in a safe environment!!! And yes get the dumb ass so called teachers out of the classrooms.

The long game forces Philbert to consider appearances. The airport, the Capitol Complex, and now the schools. At some point, the kushalots screaming about whitey takeovers start looking and sounding coherent.

Madison, Rankin and Clinton are the ones the Governor is listening too. They don't want the influx of the kids from Jackson. The mayor and the locals have no influence. When is the last time Phil listened to democrats

6:46 If you are stupid enough to believe this governor is doing this to appease the black community, you probably believe the civil war was about a tariff. The governor is under pressure from people who he does respect...suburban school district leaders. He also realizes that MDE will be his embarrassment when the district actually gets worse. It's time to punt and the guv knows it!

Help me understand this, 6:46. Or KF. Or anybody.

What exactly is the suburban schools' angle? Is there some legal provision that lets JPS kids attend suburban schools if there is a takeover? Or are they just worried that a takeover will be the straw that broke the camel's back and lead JPS parents to move? Or is it something else?

We the people of Jackson ...

I'm white and live in Jackson. You don't speak for me. But, of course, I know what you meant. You were confirming that it is "we the black people of Jackson".

How does the District get worse from a F. F minus?

I don't care why Phil Bryant is hesitating, as long as he makes the decision to stay out of our business. I'm tired of all the Rankin Rednecks and Madison Snobrockets criticizing us for a situation THEY helped create. JPS needs to improve and we can make changes without the corrupt MDE sticking their nose where it don't belong.

A victory created by the now national President of NAACP. Bryant fell prey to Derrick Johnson, Bennie Thompson's waterboy and husband of BabyChocks appointee to JPS. Derrick Johnson is Kellogg Foundation connection in MS.

The people of Jackson, parents of kids in JPS want this takeover. But Governor is falling for the pressure by the black so called leaders who are worried about losing their political clout with the jobs and contracts associated with JPS. Those "leaders" aren't worried about the education of the kids, and Bryant has fallen for their crap.

9:14am gets it. I don't know about the rest of you...

Philbilly does not want this JPS situation to become HIS problem, or even a republican party problem.

I am disappointed, because I was waiting for the suburban districts to start crowing about "we're full, we don't have room for even a single JPS student."

Students are only eligible to transfer out of the district if JPS loses its accreditation. A MDE takeover alone is insufficient. Neighboring school districts may choose but do not have to accept JPS students. It is voluntary, not mandatory.

JPS parents with the means to move out of Jackson have likely already done so.

MHB's wisdom to avoid apartments looks sweeter every day.

To 9:26 If JPS is taken over and loses it's accreditation, JPS students can go to any public school in the area that will take them. THAT has to be serious concern for surrounding or "suburban" districts. They would obviously have to show that they can't accommodate any more students and they had better not cherry-pick for the better students and athletes because that will invite a federal lawsuit. That kind of stuff would mean more to Phil than the ire of the "Black community" over a state takeover. Also Phil knows that the MDE is ill equipped to pull this kind of load, maybe even incompetent themselves, and he would rather not hitch his wagon to a lame horse if he can help it.

The Governor is finally listening to reason instead of the niknar and far right crowd. I am still hoping that the old White Citizens c ouncil crowd and Council School crowd had died out. But I see from the comments here that many just moved to Rankin county.

Maybe this will be JPS's Katrina event. Maybe Phil has a vision very different from anything MDE can imagine.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/what-new-orleans-can-teach-betsy-devos-about-charter-schools-214610

As a proud JPS product from long before the days of its demise with a mother who worked for them till her retirement (and after the demise had just about gone full throttle), I was all in favor of MDE taking over, not that I thought they could accomplish much more than thinning out the bureaucracy and restaffing a more efficient organization, but maybe that could make a different if it could hold together long enough. Now I really like what I'm hearing about a partnership of private/public organizations coming in who would almost certainly be more efficient and effective than MDE.

10:14 Agreed. But the Guv realizes he controls the takeover, not accreditation. JPS has crashed and is burning and without control over accreditation, which Phil does not have, the other shoe may fall and the transfer scenario is on the table. Moving is one thing, commuting to school is another. Ask Clinton, Madison, Pearl,
etc. administrators about the efforts they have to make each year to weed out the Jackson residents who try to illegally slip into their districts each year. What if it becomes legal.

Hey Gov. Bryant, Have we got a can of worms for you!

Yes, they can transfer to the surrounding districts IF the accreditation is revoked BUT the law says "may" transfer. That is "may", not "shall". The districts don't have to accept the transfers. Keep in mind only the state $ follows the student, not the property tax $. That is an incentive not to accept them.

By the way, a parent who goes to the trouble of enrolling her kid in Pearl or NW Rankin High School and takes the trouble to commute every day to bring the child to school and pick him up, is probably the parent who will be interested in that child's education and not be the boogieman so many of you fear. The ones who don't give a rat's ass about their kid's educations are the ones who won't go to such trouble.

Should JPS lose accreditation the students are free to move but there is no mandate that adjoining school districts MUST take the JPS refugees. There is no other shoe.

Their are 100s who are using grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends addresses to get in these districts already.

As previously pointed out, the neighboring school districts DO NOT have to accept JPS students. This 3rd option is total bull-crap. When Oktibbeha County Schools were taken over and forced to merge with Starkville, there wasn't any "3rd option". What makes JPS so special? Phil has 2 options under the law... It would be nice to have a Governor who would follow the laws, instead of making them up as he goes along.

ROFLMAO

If JPS loses its accreditation then that will be the last straw but as long as JPS is allowed to merely remain a failing district failing black students every day of every school year then everything is okay.

Damn Phil, this looks like a set up. When you don't take over the district the BPS is going to turn on you and call you a racist for looking the other way while black students fail.

KF Just wondering. Must neighboring districts refuse to take all JPS transfers or can they cherry-pick? How does "refusal" work? Just wondering.

Some perspective from a Starkville parent here.

As someone mentioned above, we were forced to merge with the Oktibbeha County School District a few years back after they were taken over by MDE.

It has been an unmitigated disaster.

What was previously a solid, very diverse district is rapidly descending toward JPS status. Fights are a constant problem, as is theft. Teacher turnover has risen dramatically. Good teachers and administrators who can jump ship --to a better district or MSU-- do it immediately and without hesitation. You're left with the dregs, who spend their time fighting to keep some semblance of order.

Our two elementary schools, which were B's a few years back, are both rated F this year. The high school remains a low C for now. The middle school is a D. The district hired a full time social media manager to put a happy face on the whole debacle, but everyone knows where this is heading.

There is even quiet talk at MSU about looking at options for a lab school for employees' kids. Otherwise, it will be impossible to recruit faculty.

Long story short, I don't know what the right move is for Jackson. But MDE did nothing to make Oktibbeha County kids better off. All they did was spread the misery to Starkville.

Let the people of Jackson take care of their own screw ups. After all the only people who it affects is the kids going to school in Jackson. If the people of Jackson are satisfied with kids graduating that cannot read or even sign their own name who are we to complain? It is their own kids future they are selling down the river.

@11:25 AM, MCSD is very, very good at catching and weeding.

You own it now, Philbilly.

@11:25AM, so is Clinton.

J for T, why is EVERYTHING about race to you ? Believe it or not, this has nothing to do with race or whitey trying to put the black man down. This is about a school district failing and not providing a proper education to the kids in that district period. I don't care whether the district is white, black, Asian, Madison, Rankin, Jackson, Tupelo, Pontotoc, Gulfport, etc. If the school district is failing and not providing a good education to the children in that district, then it needs help. The law requiring the state to takeover a failing district doesn't apply only to majority black districts or majority white districts. It applies to any failing district. You're making this into a black vs white issue, and lost in your whole argument are...the kids who are not getting a proper education and who will be hurt by that for the rest of their lives.


You acknowledge that JPS has problems but say that the people of Jackson can fix them yourselves. But yet JPS has been in horrible shape for over a decade now, almost two decades, and the City has done nothing, nothing to improve the school system. This isn't something that just happened over night or in the last month. The City has had a very long time to make the schools better and has failed to improve them. In fact, they've even gotten worse. As one poster noted above, if the State tries to intervene and help, the State is racist. But then if the State doesn't do anything to help and let's the system continue to fail, then it's racist too. But ok, you're right, let's just keep the status quo, keep doing the same thing, and naively expect different results. Respectfully, you're part of the problem, not the solution.