How public education fared during the 2021 legislative session
by Kate Royals and Bobby Harrison – MS Today
Before Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann finished his post-legislative session press conference on April 1, education advocates and politicos rapidly fired off texts to one another and to reporters, opining about an assertion he made.
“This year, education had its best year since, probably since William Winter,” Hosemann said early in the press conference.
Hosemann was harkening back to the 1982 session when former Gov. William Winter ushered in one of the state’s most transformative legislative education packages. It increased teacher pay, established public kindergarten and compulsory school attendance, and created a statewide testing program for performance-based accreditation of public schools.
The change Winter led in 1982 demonstrated a shift in thinking about public education. It signaled to the nation that Mississippi cared to think critically and act boldly about its future. This year, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to magnify wide educational disparities and years of legislative under-funding of public education, lawmakers failed to match the transformative action of Winter.
Leave a Reply