Jackson Jambalaya

In 1961 the football team came up short in the Big Eight play off against Provine (HI SHOOL) they lost 35 to 0.

I cannot imagine that the test is very hard. How did these kids do on the ACT or SAT? That should be mentioned...

43% of the employees in the district are teachers???? Holy crap!!! With a 50%+ layer of administrators, you'd think they could at least get a D on their report card.

Make no mistake, it is those cush admin jobs (like the $95k/annual superintendent gig) that the teachers' unions are out to protect. They don't give a rat's fanny about the teachers in the classrooms actually impacting the kids.

And, by the way, there are 163 school districts in MS. That's right - 163. So, you've got these layers of administrative overhead and cost replicated 163 times. And there are plenty of other districts sucking wind as badly as Yazoo City. In fact, what a great example: why in the hell is there a separate school district for Yazoo City and Yazoo County? There are fewer than 5,000 students in the two districts combined. We really need 2 superintendents and 2 of every other administrative wonk to oversee 5,000 kids in the same county? Really? Really?

These people, students and staff alike, exist in a vacuum of failure. They don't see or experience minimal mediocrity, much less success. What are they to emulate?

If you work in a factory that has never met production and has less than lazy supervisors, upon what do you set your sights? You concentrate on making babies and (perhaps) getting on at the new McDonald's when you either graduate or don't.

Obviously the answer is to bus at least a fourth of these students to successful schools so they may integrate themselves into a better population, experience the exhillaration of success and share the model once returned to the failing system. You take children from poor systems and bus them to decent systems. Then you average the outcome and marvel at the mediocrity. Isn't this pretty much what we tried 47 years ago with forced integration and bussing? Who cares if a kid leaves for school at 5:20 a.m. and gets home after 6:00?

9:27, what makes you think these kids even took the ACT? Let alone the SAT.

Maybe the 11 kids who did take the ACT did all right. That's no yardstick.

On top of all the failure, every year the schools ask for more money. A millage increase every year. No kidding!

Do we know how many of those students are educable?

Do we know if there is a consistent section of subject matter they are failing that points to a particular teacher( s)?

It could be that tying their shoes, catching a bus,and being able to write their names are great accomplishments.

Is there a drug problem in this school system?

Do they do a could job of identifying the students with hearing and vision problems?

The ratios are terrible but that doesn't totally explain the results.

Bright children will learn enough to pass those tests just by showing up.

You can lead a horse to water...

"Where a group of democrats gather in mass, one sees misery, hopelessness and failure." "Why are democrats for higher taxes? Because most of them dont pay any!" "No one is at the ATM at midnight, looking over their shoulder, praying a group of republicans dont show up." "You will never hear of an envious republican when it concerns democrats." "Democrats need republicans for jobs, taxes,support of the military...republicans dont need democrats for anything!" "You will never hear someone say, 'we are in trouble, where is a democrat when you need one', not even from another democrat." " The greatest political trick ever was when a group of former slave owners convinced a group of former slaves to join their political party." "After the civil war a confederate general told the republican Lincoln that NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED...Lincoln was killed and the offspring of former slaves left the republican party and joined the democrats."

Yazoo City is a perfect example of how appointing superintendents is not going to fix anything with dysfunctional elected leadership. Yazoo City's appointed superintendent is frequently assuring everyone that "progress is being made" while the district sinks further. Yazoo County's superintendent is elected, and she is much more competent.

Thanks for adding in the unwed birthrate. That's the hidden statistic that no one wants to talk about when it comes to Mississippi's school districts that are failing.

By the way, the average ACT in Yazoo City is 15.4

Yazoo County is doing much better. They are a "D" district instead of an "F" district. with an average ACT of 17.1.

8:39 am That you believe what you wrote is more frightening than your appalling grammar.

Who are you quoting?

Apparently, you do not know that Blacks represent a far greater percent in our military than their numbers in our population as do other minority groups.

You've not heard of the late Daniel Inouye either, I suppose.

You apparently don't know that 87 African Americans have won The Medal of Honor. Do you suppose they were all Republicans?

You are the poster child for the failure of our school system!

I had one of those "holy sh*t" moments when I was working late and a custodian came in to empty my trash. We struck up a conversation and it came out that he had graduated from Callaway. I then realized that this guy had a JPS diploma and was emptying trash.

Now, not every JPS graduate is a janitor, but I would imagine that a number of the area custodial workers are graduates of public schools, and it's probably worse in Yazoo City. What does that say about our education system? Why graduate if all you're going to do is mop out toilets? I'd like someone in that thick layer of administration to answer that.

10:32, D is not "much better" than F, and 17.1 is not "much better" than 15.4. Those are only slightly better and are still indicative of a major problem.

To Janitorial Public Schools
In my book, every job and working person has more dignity than dropouts collecting $$. I respect a janitor who wants to keep a area clean, pickup litter, gets to work on time and takes home a paycheck. Pride in ones work!

11:44, I was being sarcastic in response to the Yazoo County is way better than Yazoo City argument presented above.

Perhaps quotations would help next time. My apologies.

Some comments on the foregoing:

12.39 PM: Agreed. I respect anyone with only a high school diploma who takes and holds a paying job. In this economy, janitorial work may be the best a high school grad can expect. Sad, but true.

10.32 AM: The unwed birth rate is a proxy for a broader matter: parental involvement. I would dare say that 90% of the most successful schools in MS or anywhere else have high levels of parental involvement either directly in the school and/or with their kids' study habits and schoolwork. There are some cases of impassioned principles or teachers who make a big difference in rough communities; hats off to these exceptional people, but these are few and far between. The demographics of Yazoo City, as indicated by the unwed birth rate, do not indicate that there is much, if any, parental involvement with these schools and students. Without that, there is little hope for much improvement.

10.13 PM (3/3): Spot on. However, this battle must be fought on two fronts: First, there are the superintendents and administrators in the failing districts who want to hold on to their comfortable jobs. They are masterful at stirring up local sentiment against school consolidation by raising the specter of "losing control of our schools". This, in turn, puts pressure on the legislators from those districts to maintain the status quo with regard to this dysfunctional and wasteful labyrinth of small, inefficient and under-performing districts. On the other side of the coin, you have the higher-performing districts who don't want to be forced to absorb or be saddled with these schools and students. I would imagine this would be the opinion of the Yazoo County school district with regard to the Yazoo City schools. Another shining example would be Canton schools and the Madison County school district. It is ridiculous for Canton to maintain its own school district within Madison County, which has exceptional schools. However, I can assure you that the Madison County district officers, parents in that district, county supervisors and mayors/city councils of Ridgeland, Madison and Flora would stage a full-scale revolt if they were asked to merge with Canton -- even if the county and its leadership were the survivors.

This is one of those sad cases where politics gets in the way of progress. There is a lot of hand-waving over the DOR move and how politics is clouding good judgement in the selection of a site for a few hundred employees. That little issue pales in comparison to the travesty of the public school fiasco in MS with orders-of-magnitude more dollars are at stake, not to mention the education and ultimate livelihood of tens of thousands of kids.

11:44 I don't think that the point is that D is "good", but nearly 2 points better on average is significant. Since it is a pretty safe assumption that the "raw material" in Yazoo City and Yazoo County are equivalent, that is indicative of an extremely poor job being done in Yazoo City.

1:41 and 11:44 - the ACT average is only of interest if you know how many of the students took the ACT. Typically, only those students that "might" be attending Higher Ed take the test, so considering that this average is probably coming from the cream of the crop is still disappointing. But as a statistic, it is worthless.

The fact that these are "D" and "F" schools is what is important. Both are failing (ok, ok, a "D" is not "failing" but it is still not acceptable) and changes need to be made.

Yes, appointing superintendents is not always a solution - it depends on who is doing the appointing - but it certainly gives an opportunity to get someone qualified for the job which is not always the case with elected supers that have to be a resident of the county and the only qualification is that they have more friends or family than their opponents.

The citizens of Yazoo County and of Mississippi are spending an inordinate amount of money and getting a pitiful return. Why more people are not up in arms about this is the major problem in this state.

Why would you say a janitor is a bad job for a high school graduate? These people are working, not freeloading, and there are some janitors making $10/hour and more.

There is no shame in any job done well.

1:40; What's with your need to analyze other posts. BTW, 'spot on' is tired, overused and hokey.

@ Janitorial Public Schools,

..and you are getting paid the big bucks to ef around on the computer while at work.

Do schools have to be consolidated for there to be a reduction in administrative staff? Do we need a bus supervisor with a DEd? If the administrative staff is in a separate building or office from the educational units it would appear that even one admistrave office per county may be too many sinc many of these simply fill out forms.

A few years back there was a woman running for superintendent on the qualifications that she was a mother

No, 8:33, schools no more need a 'bus supervisor' than they need a 'director of cafeterias and meal planning'. All of that ought to be outsourced/contracted as schools aren't about managing busses and preparing meals. JPS has an unbelievably high-paid gentleman overseeing meal planning while driving a long black Mercedes. Total waste! More empire building.

Holy smoke, I don't believe these comments! If you people cannot see the sad state of an education system that cannot prepare many of its students to do more than unskilled janitorial work, then it's not worth arguing.

I find it pathetic that there are people actually suggesting that mopping out toilets and emptying trash is a fine job for a person with a (supposed) education. I have no beef against those who work in such areas, but an education should open doors to better opportunities. You all sound like Judge Smails from Caddyshack...the world needs ditchdiggers, too!

11:31; You might fall off your preachy high-seat if you were to find out the gentleman had been laid off and took a janitorial job in order to have an income. Job opportunities being what they are in many parts of this state, there are high school graduates and community school grads working in fast food, general construction and stocking shelves from Southaven to Biloxi. Goals aside, reality is what it is.

So, 11:31, whom do you propose we employ to mop toilets and empty trash? High school dropouts? If so, then should we assume and be comfortable with the fact that there will be people who never finish high school?

What is wrong with admitting that some people are simply as dumb as a sack of hammers, however many "programs" are implemented to frog-march them, squirming and resisting, through the "education system"? Only to have them show, in the end, that they have the IQ of a turnip, and would have been far happier, and more good to society, had they been taught a valuable skill. Two words: TRADE SCHOOL.

Of course everyone can see what bad shape our educational system is in.
Some of us, however, do not buy into simplistic solutions or think that culling top heavy administrations will do anything other than reduce salary costs.
Some of us would like for there to be a reality check and acceptance that not every child born has the ability to graduate from high school.
IF a school system is failing, the first step in assessment should be to know the percentage of students who fall below " educable".
The second step is to access the number of students who have serious emotional or physical problems.
THEN , we get a realistic picture of teacher performance.

Degree or no degree--the future begins with an individuals drive and motivation.

My wife started at McCoy Elem in Yazoo City when she got her education degree in Aug 2011. Within two weeks she regretting her decision. Fights everyday, weapons at school, everything destroyed. She was shocked when her second day there the principal came down the hall and asked her students why they were back considering they were there only for the free breakfast and lunch. There were no book because they were either all stolen or ripped apart. The principal and asst principal were both white but all 800 students were black. About a month into the job the principal handed her a book Titled " Black students - Middle class teachers. In January two students started fighting and throwing desks, in an effort to move out of the way, she strained her back. While she was out, the substitute teacher had the maintenance man cut the lock on her locker and two other black teachers came in and looted every supply she had. She she came back a few days later the principal told her that those teachers were local and she was not and that she needed to learn the Yazoo culture. She probably spent 30 minutes out of every day actually teaching. The rest of the day spent on keeping students from killing each other. I'm sorry, did I mention that these were 5th graders. She now teaches in Rankin County