MSF’s Position on HB 504
Mississippi First releases Position Paper on HB 504 JACKSON, MS—On March 24, 2014, Mississippi First released an official position paper on House Bill 504. The paper provides background on teacher pay in Mississippi, details both the House and Senate plans for teacher pay raises, and…
PEER Releases Report on CCSS
Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) releases report on Common Core On January 15, the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) released a 94-page report titled “The Common Core State Standards: Mississippi’s Adoption and Implementation.” The report…
Teacher Prep: Preliminary Analysis of NCTQ Review
MSF’s preliminary analysis of the NCTQ Teacher Prep Review focuses on Mississippi’s elementary education programs.
Report: Mississippi (still) Leads Nation in Infant Mortality
A new report posted on CNN.com focuses on infant mortality, and the fact that Mississippi has the nation’s highest infant mortality rate. The report includes data from the Mississippi State Department of Health, which states that for every 1,000 Mississippi babies born in 2011, 9.4…
Mississippi First’s New Pre-K Research
Since our inception in 2008, Mississippi First has been a strong supporter of pre-K. Our ultimate goal is to get the state of Mississippi to commit state funding for high-quality pre-K programs. To that end, we’ve spent much of the last four years learning about…
New Report Addresses Teacher Absences
A recent post on Education Week’s Teaching Now blog addresses the impact that teacher absences have on student achievement. The post follows the release of the Center for American Progress report entitled Teacher Absence as a Leading Indicator of Student Achievement. An excerpt from the…
Education Moneyball
As intrepid Deputy Director Sanford Johnson can attest, my knowledge of the sports world is not the best. In fact, the only reason my basketball references don’t feature the stars of SpaceJam is because of Sanford and his prolific use of sports analogies. Suffice it…
For Ed Wonks: New Study on the Characteristics of High Performing Schools
One of the most essential questions education research needs to answer is what makes some schools more effective than others, when controlling for student characteristics. Research tells us that inputs like money, class size (for most students), and even teacher credentials (like certification, years of…
Getting to Know Senator Gray Tollison
Introduction to the new Senate Education Committee Chair Senator Gray Tollison was selected by Lt. Governor Reeves to serve as the chair of the Senate Education Committee. This appointment will give the senator tremendous influence on the education-related bills considered by the legislature. Below is…
For Ed Wonks: Study on Great Teachers Advances Ed Research
Many of you have probably already seen the New York Times article about a new study on effective teachers from three prominent education researchers, but I wanted to send it your way as well as a link to the actual study, including executive summary and…