Every Black member of the Mississippi Senate walked out today as their white colleagues voted to approve a bill that Republicans have described as legislation to prevent so-called “critical race theory” from being taught in schools.
Mississippi State Auditor Shad White is endorsing proposed legislation to ban educators from teaching “anti-racist” ideas in schools and accused libraries in the state of stocking “racist” books that criticize “whiteness.”
A tale of two school districts is playing out in and around the Mississippi capital city. As Jackson Public Schools become one of the first in the state to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or weekly testing for employees, students in the nearby suburban Rankin County School District will no longer be required to wear masks.
More K-12 students in Mississippi have now tested positive for COVID-19 since going back to school last month than did so during the entirety of the previous school year, an examination of Mississippi State Department of Health data reveals.
About 15% of all Mississippi K-12 students have now been quarantined since the start of the year either for testing positive for COVID-19 or due to known exposures. That figure, based on new data from the Mississippi State Department of Health, includes 65,525 students who have been ordered to isolate in the weeks since classes began.
Mississippi’s COVID-19 crisis is reaching levels beyond anything the state has previously seen, with an onslaught of new cases in virtually every setting. Schools find themselves closing as soon as they open as entire districts see their newly relaxed coronavirus strategies buckling under the weight of the delta variant. Hospitals are faring even worse; as of Monday morning, every single staffed intensive-care unit bed in the state is full.
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn promised attendees at the Neshoba County Fair yesterday that he will back legislation next year to ban “critical race theory” in Mississippi’s K-12 classrooms—despite the fact that it is not taught in K-12 classrooms.
The Mississippi Lottery Corporation raised $80 million for state highways and almost $59 million to support public education during its first full fiscal year. The education funds will go to the state’s Education Enhancement Fund, which supports the Early Childhood Learning Collaborative, which is a state-funded pre-K program, and the Classroom Supply Fund.
Mississippi will raise more than $50 million for K-12 schools, colleges and universities by the end of its first full fiscal year on June 30. The education funding comes on top of $80 million that the lottery already raised this year for roads and bridges.
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