State Auditor Shad White promoted school choice in a Wall Street Journal column earlier this week:
The nation is paying attention: Mississippi is outperforming most other states in education, at least by one measure. Mississippi is among the 10 best states in the country for fourth-grade reading scores on national exams. Newspapers and politicians call it the “Mississippi Miracle.” Candidates for governor in other states are campaigning on the need to catch up.
It’s a remarkable achievement, but a problem lurks in the data. The test gains aren’t sticking once children reach middle school. Mississippi eighth-graders score belowthe national average in reading. Mississippi ACT scores in high school also fall belowthe national average. Mississippi’s children are getting off the launchpad, but they’re failing to achieve orbital velocity.
The reasons for this are complicated, but one is that it’s simpler to teach reading in the early years than to teach reasoning, reading for meaning and information processing. Mississippi taught its fourth-graders to read by focusing on phonics (the basics), putting phonics coaches in schools, and then holding children back if they couldn’t read by the end of the third grade.
These were common-sense moves, but now comes the hard part: How do you teach a child to do more than say the words he sees on a page? A cookie-cutter approach—pounding phonics for every child—might work initially, but that stalls when you need to teach someone to understand a passage. Each child is different. More-flexible models are required for unlocking students’ minds as they try to understand the point of a prompt. When trying to understand a passage and make inferences, some young learners might find it easier to do so if they applied what they learned in a small team-based challenge following the reading as opposed to reading in silence in a classroom.
This means Mississippi’s recent decision to kill school choice is a devastating policy development. The state had a chance to take advantage of early learning gains, give parents options for where to send their children to school next, and supercharge their education, but politics got in the way. Leftist activists misled teachers and convinced the Legislature that the Mississippi Miracle was good enough—just keep doing what we’re doing. Rest of column.
Will the legislature approve school choice? Stay tuned.
32 comments:
What isn't Shad an expert on?
Ego bigger than his ears
and this has what to do with the duties of State Auditor?
Wrong play in bid for governor. Next!
This is the biggest load of bullshit. Shad is an idiot and if he thinks that we believe this is why he's pushing it all of a sudden, then he's an even bigger idiot than I'm giving credit for now. What a fucking weazel.
The "measures" are fraud. Ask any teacher willing to speak the truth. They are forced to put grades in that are completely bogus because after Covid....nothing matters. Just keep up the optics of APPEARING like MS is improving, because it's 50th in every performance indicator....except this one....can anyone explain that? Nope. Shad has finally folded....and joined the club of the MS insiders who promote complete and utter bullshit. If you can't beat'em, join'em. Shad White is a massive disaapointment from the time when he came on the scene guns blazing a few years back.
Shad, few read the WSJ in the 'sip so few votes will be generated there.
He's not after the votes with this, he's after the donors.
There has to be a lot of out of state money pushing for this, has anyone, "followed the money?" It's sickening our politicians are going against the will of the people for the pursuit of money.
His analysis and conclusion are both bull shit. If he thinks you can take a potato and put it under a Pyrex cake dish and play Jimi Hendrix music for a year and the potato will multiply and enrich the earth, you're, in a word, deranged.
Nor can we take a Studebaker Lark out of the barn, hose it down, put it in a car show and expect it to crank.
There is zero evidence that school choice works or has ever worked. Anywhere. Read that again.
PS: You can also take a barefoot boy off a hay wagon in West, Mississippi, buy him a pair of Levi-britches and some Asics tennis shoes and he'll still bust his butt when he gets to town.
Shad? Is this the same fellow who used to talk about 'brain drain' constantly while surely knowing that there is no agency, think tank, non-profit, educational establishment or soothsayer in Mississippi that tracks graduates and where they wind up or whether they leave the state after achieving a degree?
I'm fine with school choice, as long as the receiving school has the capacity available AND taxpayers don't have to pay for the politically connected, powerful and rich to send their kids to exclusive schools. I paid to educate my children; if parents don't want public school, paying for other arrangements is the parents right and responsibility.
Did anyone ever find out which politicians have extended family members taking advantage the state's "Special Needs" program in the "reserved" slots?
It makes me wonder what interest a handful of ultra-wealthy political donors has in gutting the public school system.
The "measures" are fraud
Either the certified fraud examiner doesn't recognize this, or he's scared to call out those who both implemented this and then celebrated the 'success' of their scam measurement. My bet is on the latter.
Either way, he should stick to credits, debits and looking for more real whistleblowers until he has some additional useful real world experience on how things work.
3:39: Ask Douglas Carswell who funded his Mississippi Center for Public Policy, since "school choice" is their main issue.
FYI, after 10 years in the British Parliament, Carswell co-founded Vote Leave, which pushed the referendum for the UK to leave the European Union ("Brexit").
Once that was accomplished, in 2021, Carswell moved to Mississippi to push for "school choice." I doubt it was just because he likes fried catfish.
Shad should just rest on his laurels as auditor. He has done a great job. But when he steps out of his lane it’s obvious he is not ready for higher office and neither are his handlers.
He should know with "all" of his experience busting small time embezzlers.
Shadness!
Carswell has more common sense than the usual ignorant voters in this state.
2:45 - you know damn well that anyone in the 'sip that reads the Journal is not a supporter of Shad.
Welp someone has gotten to Shad on "school choice". We already have school choice. A person can send their kid to public, private, or homeschool them.
But if you're misinformed, you speak with a forked tongue.
You never have and never will hear him pony-up honestly and give any evidence of where it works or why he supports it. Just another dream to keep him employed.
Absolutely! All taxpayers shoukd have a choice! Public schools are failing miserably
Mmmm, give me some of the CPAC school choice money. Must have more to run for gubnur. I will hold the record for gubnur with biggest ears.
If school choice is good enough for the man from Oxford then it's good enough for me!
schools are already rapidly overwhelmed and segregated while others are left to blight and rot - JPS almost total collapse - Superintendent of Education paid $300K a year and admits to media that some of the failing school districts are allowed to operate a failing business no audits, no accounting, no budget, nothings some of these schools for 5+ years
Were the politicians with kids at private school able to prove they actually pay tuition or is it another freebie for their loyalty to grift & graft at MAIS?
School Choice - Busing v2.0
Brilliantly true.
I agree, politics is about enriching yourself and lying to the people on why you were against something. Look at the Democrat party, they are all against voter ID for voting. Why? A majority of Americans want this. How would they benefit from not requiring citizens to show id to vote? You would think people who were elected to help American citizens would be for protecting American citizen voting. It’s all about power to them, nothing more.
Most parents with school aged children were on Spring Break last week, like me, and are just now tuning back in. This leads me to believe that posts against Parent Directed School Choice are actually from paid posters or older road apples who are vested in schools as a job program. There is actual full K4-12 data from Florida that proves choice works, just as it does in every other environment; groceries stores, hospitals, transportation operators, who all utilize a portion of public funds or publicly funded infrastructure to provide a service to consumers who get to choose. I wish Shad would audit JPS!
Post a Comment