Why I Fight for Mississippi Public Education

Why I fight for Mississippi public schools, students and educators:

· Over 490,000 Mississippi children attend public K-12 schools

· All of today’s children are our future workers, educators, providers, protectors, leaders, criminals, prisoners, unemployed, etc. – their K-12 education determines their path.

· No child gets to choose its parents, their parents’ education level, work history or the community into which they are born.

· It is far cheaper to educate a child for 13 years (K-12) than to incarcerate or provide government programs for 40 years.

· An educated child is our greatest asset – an uneducated child is our greatest liability.

· Educators do not choose their profession for fame or riches.

· We are losing quality educators because we do not pay them enough to stay above the poverty level.

· The only road out of Mississippi poverty goes directly through the schoolhouse door

· Poor school districts in poor communities do not have the ability to raise property taxes to cover underfunding by the legislature – they simply suffer and some don’t even have books.

· Politicians (of both stripes), not educators, are solely responsible for funding or underfunding our public schools

· Politicians (of both stripes), not educators, have directly caused the following in our public schools:
    · Higher local property taxes;
    · Over-crowded classrooms
    · Inadequate and inequitable funding
    · Unfunded mandates
    · Scarce resources
    · Unnecessary assessments

· Standardized testing contracts using of $100 Million of scarce school dollars.

· There is a direct, powerful, profit-driven group trying to get their hands on public school dollars in every state. This is about profit- not education of children

· Too many decisions about education are not made in public, with proper notice to the public, and contracts are hidden from the public.

· Apart from parents, good teachers have the most impact on the direction of a child’s direction

· Teachers are responsible for our most valuable assets: our children and our future.

Oxford lawyer Jay Hughes serves the 12th District in the Mississippi House of Representatives. He can be contacted at jayfordistrict12@gmail.com.

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