The National Council on Teacher Quality released their highly-anticipated Teacher Prep Review yesterday.  The review evaluated the quality of over 1100 college-based teacher prep programs, and found that many fall short when it comes to preparing their graduates for success in the classroom.

Mississippi First has just published a preliminary analysis of NCTQ’s findings of elementary education programs in Mississippi.  This analysis only reports NCTQ’s findings; we will publish a longer analysis of our thoughts on the study and its implications later.  We answer three questions in the preliminary analysis:

• Which university programs for elementary education rated best overall?
• Which programs rated best in preparing elementary teachers to teach reading?
• Which programs rated best in preparing elementary teachers in the mechanics of teaching (such as lesson planning and classroom management).

The preliminary analysis can be found under the new Teacher Quality section of our MSF Publications page.  Teacher quality will be a major focus of our upcoming policy work, so be on the lookout for more analyses of this important review in the coming days.

Mississippi First is very happy to welcome two summer interns to our team.  Camille Cioffi and Tim Abram will be working in our Jackson office, and will be taking part in our efforts to increase access to high-quality pre-Kindergarten.

Camille is an Oregon native and a 2012 Teach For America corps member.  She just completed her first year at Hazlehurst (MS) Elementary School, and is joining us through TFA’s Delta Summer Fellows program.  Camille will be working on implementation of our state’s new pre-K bill, along with exploring Mississippi’s opportunity to apply for Race to the Top’s Early Learning Challenge.

Tim is a Horn Lake native and a rising senior majoring in Public Policy Leadership (PPL) at Ole Miss.   He is also active in our MSF college chapter.  Selected by his professors to serve as our Lott Summer Intern, Tim will be working on a follow-up to our Title I Pre-K Preliminary Report.  He will analyze data from our Title I PreK survey completed by school districts in January of this year.

The Mississippi Department of Education’s (MDE) Office of Healthy Schools has released an updated list of approved sex education curricula. House Bill 999, which required public schools to adopt an abstinence-only or abstinence-plus policy and curriculum by June 30 of last year, also requires all curricula to be approved by MDE. The list now includes 9 ab-only options and 7 ab-plus options.

“It’s Both.”

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, vague language in HB999 created a lot of confusion about what was or wasn’t allowed to be taught in the two policy options. The language was especially confusing about instruction about condoms and what actually constitutes a “condom demonstration.” The Mississippi Department of Education has interpreted the confusing language in the legislation to allow abstinence curricula to be approved on both lists, even without any differences in the “only” or “plus” versions. MDE asked curriculum vendors to choose whether their curricula would be evaluated as “abstinence-only,” “abstinence-plus,” or both. At this time, 5 of the 7 “abstinence-plus” curricula have also been approved for “abstinence-only.”

HHS-approved Abstinence-only Options

Three of the nine ab-only options [Heritage Keepers, Making a Difference, and Promoting Health Among Teens (PHAT)], are on the list of “Evidence-Based Programs” recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Each program on the list had to produce peer reviewed evidence of effectiveness in reducing teen birth or pregnancy rates, reducing sexually-transmitted infection rates, or reducing sexual risk behaviors (sexual activity, # of partners, unprotected sex).

States that have received Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) grants can use the funds to purchase any program on the HHS list. However, because Mississippi’s PREP-funded initiative is tied to an abstinence-plus policy, the new HHS-approved ab-only options will not be included in CHART.

Still Only Two Options for CHART

Before MDE released their updated list of curricula, MSDH had already decided not to submit any new curriculum options at this time. This decisions was made for three reasons. First, focusing on one middle school and one high school option allows for a strong focus on implementation, along with a more rigorous evaluation in the coming years. Secondly, the HHS-approved options that have been added to MDE’s list do not satisfy our dual-focus of delaying the start of sex among non-sexually active teens, while also promoting risk-reducing behavior (fewer partners, correct and consistent condom use) for teens that are or may become sexually active. Finally, additional curricula that were recommended for CHART are unlikely to be approved by MDE without compromising their effectiveness.

The Updated List – April, 2013

Abstinence-Only
Abstinence & Marriage Programs (both lists)
Choosing the Best (both lists)
Great Body Shop (both lists)
HealthTeacher.com (both lists)
Heritage Keepers – on HHS list
Making a Difference – on HHS list
Promoting Health Among Teens (Ab-Only version) – on HHS List
WAIT Training (both lists)

Abstinence-Plus
Draw the Line/Respect the Line, CHART program
Reducing the Risk, CHART program
Abstinence & Marriage Programs (both lists)
Choosing the Best (both lists)
Great Body Shop (both lists)
HealthTeacher.com (both lists)
WAIT Training (both lists)

Senate Bill 2395, the “Early Learning Collaborative Fund”, now has a conference report outlining the final compromise for the bill. The legislation will now have to be approved by both chambers before it reaches the Governor’s desk.  In short, we’re only a few steps away from finally having a state-funded pre-K program.

Your help is needed to get this legislation across the finish line. There are 23 House members that we’re targeting in our pre-K advocacy effort.  These representatives have voted against a pre-K bill at some point during the session.  Many of these legislators represent counties that have limited access to pre-K.  SB 2395 would give these communities a chance to create partnerships that would expand pre-K access to many more 4-year-olds.

Help us get pre-K passed in Mississippi!

THE “ASK”: We’re asking legislators to take one action step.

• Vote for the Pre-K Bill. Vote “yes” on SB 2395, which would create a statewide program to fun collaborative pre-K programs.

The “WHY”: Legislators should pass and fund pre-K for the following reasons:

Pre-K prepares students for K-12 success.

A wealth of research has shown that the reading and math skills provided by high-quality pre-K ensures that students enter Kindergarten ready to learn.

Pre-K is a great investment.

Reducing the number of students unprepared for Kindergarten reduces the amount of funding needed to “catch kids up” in later grades.  Pre-K students are also more likely to graduate for high school and college, and earn higher incomes as adults.  Improving academic and employment outcomes will strengthen our economy and broaden our tax base.

SB 2395 improves early childhood education an a cost-effective manner.

By funding pre-K “collaboratives”, school districts, Head Start, and private childcare centers will build upon existing facilities and resources to expand pre-K access.

Collaborative Pre-K benefits everyone!

Students will enter Kindergarten ready to learn; School districts can do more enrichment and less “catch-up”; Head Start and private centers will have improved programs by including pre-K instruction from certified teachers; and parents will have options among several pre-K providers.

The “WHO”: We are reaching out to 23 legislators.

A spreadsheet has been added to our Pre-Kindergarten Resource Page, which can be downloaded to get contact information.  We are reaching out the following representatives (counties in parentheses):

Rep. Tracy Arnold (Alcorn, Prentiss)
Rep. Mark Baker (Madison, Rankin)
Rep. Jim Beckett (Calhoun, Clay, Oktibbeha, Webster)
Rep. Scott Bounds (Neshoba)
Rep. Gary Chism (Clay, Lowndes, Oktibbeha)
Rep. Becky Currie (Copiah, Franklin, Lincoln)
Rep. Mark Formby (Pearl River)
Rep. Andy Gipson (Rankin, Simpson, Smith)
Rep. Forrest Hamilton (DeSoto)
Rep. Joey Hood (Choctaw, Grenada, Oktibbeha, Webster)
Rep. Steve Horne (Clarke, Lauderdale)
Rep. Bobby Howell (Attala, Carroll, Grenada, Leflore, Montgomery)
Rep. Robert Huddleston (Bolivar, Leflore, Quitman, Sunflower, Tallahatchie)
Rep. Wanda Jennings (DeSoto)
Rep. Bill Kinkade (DeSoto, Marshall)
Rep. Hank Lott (Forrest, Lamar)
Rep. Sam Mims (Adams, Amite, Franklin, Lawrence, Pike, Walthall)
Rep. Ray Rogers (Rankin)
Rep. William Shirley (Clarke, Jasper, Lauderdale, Newton)
Rep. Jeff Smith (Lowndes)
Rep. Tommy Taylor (Bolivar, Sunflower, Washington)
Rep. Jerry Turner (Lee, Prentiss)
Rep. Tom Weathersby (Copiah, Rankin, Simpson)

The “How”: You can advocate for Pre-K in three ways:

• Send an E-mail to Your Representative. Be sure to include (1) where you’re from, (2) The “ask,” and (3) why they should pass pre-K.
• Call your Representative. Ask them to pass the pre-K bill.
• Write a Local Op-Ed. Along with the “Ask” and the “Why”, share your personal experiences as a parent, educator, or concerned citizen.

Thank you for your help in getting this important legislation passed.  For more information, please visit the Pre-K Kindergarten Resource Page.

For those of you that are interested in the actions of the Mississippi State Legislature, but haven’t been able to (1) spend hours at the State Capitol or (2) keep the House and Senate Web Casts open on your computer at all times, I present to you the Legislative History Project.  This amazing resource was created by the Mississippi College School of Law.

Description from the Legislative History Project website:

“The Legislative History Project provided by the Mississippi College School of Law Library is an online video archive of legislative debate in the state of Mississippi. The project provides video clips of individual bills and select resolutions as they are debated on the floor of the Mississippi House of Representatives and Mississippi Senate. Video clips may be found using various search methods including bill number, bill author, and bill description. Provided with each video clip is a summary of legislative action taken that day. The project also links to the Mississippi Legislature Web page where more information may be obtained regarding the individual bills and their principal author. Videos are added throughout the legislative session.”

Yes my friends, it actually exists!  Did you miss the heated debate on “that controversial bill?”  Do you want to find out if a legislator “actually said that on the House/Senate floor?”  Now you can look it up and see for yourself.

Videos have already been added for many of the bills that we’ve been tracking during this legislative session.  Links to those videos have been added to the “Legislation” section of our Charter Schools and Pre-Kindergarten Resource Pages.

Enjoy!

Senate Bill 2395, the collaborative pre-K bill, received an important endorsement from Mississippi law enforcement leaders.  In yesterday’s press release, members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids cited “the proven impact of quality early learning on later academic success, lower crime rates, and lower long-term public expenditures.”

Here’s a portion of that press release:

“Take a look at the research on kids who have had these early learning opportunities, and you’ll see a huge increase on educational success and a big decrease on crime and other costs to society,” said Biloxi Assistant Police Chief Rodney McGilvary. “Investing in early learning is the smartest thing we can do, right now, to protect the long-term interests of Mississippi taxpayers and the safety of our communities.”

“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to take care of Mississippi adults who are locked up in state or federal prisons, money also needs to be spent on pre-school programs that can keep our kids from ending up there,” said Pearl River County Sheriff David Allison, who issued a statement in support of the effort. “This proposal makes common sense and fiscal sense for our kids and communities alike.”

Along with their endorsement of SB 2395, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids also released Pay Now or Pay Much More Later, a report on early learning in Mississippi.  Citing several trusted early learning studies, the report promotes the impact high-quality pre-K programs can have on academic achievement, crime reduction, and taxpayer savings.

This organization has been added to the “Pre-K Advocates” section of our Pre-Kindergarten Resource Page.

After yesterday’s deadline for the House and Senate to take up bills from the other chamber, only two bills remain that would allow charter schools in Mississippi.  The Senate version of the “Mississippi Public Charter School Act of 2013″ (SB 2189) was left on the House calendar without a vote.  The House charter bill (HB 369) and the omnibus “Education Works” bill (HB 890) were debated, amended, and passed by the Senate before the deadline.

Through Senate strike-all amendments, House Bills 369 and 890 have identical charter school language.  Included in this language are a few provisions designed to attract greater legislative support.  Below is a summary of those provisions:

Phased-In “C” Districts – Seeking to bridge the most contentious House and Senate difference, these bills require charter applications in “”A”, “B”, and “C” districts to be endorsed by the local school board before they’re  reviewed by the state authorizer.  But after July 1, 2016, this requirement would no longer apply to “C” districts.  Charter applications for “D” and “F” districts can be reviewed by the state authorizer without a local board endorsement.

Annual Cap on Charter Schools – The state authorizer is allowed to approve a maximum of 15 charter applications during a fiscal year.

Expedited Review of HBCU Charter Applications – Charter applications submitted by the 3 historically black public universities (Alcorn State, Jackson State, and Mississippi Valley State) would receive priority during the state authorizer’s application review process.

Clarification of Certified Teacher Exemption- Charter schools are allowed to have up to 25% of their teaching faculty be exempt from holding state teacher certification during each school year.  Each exempted teacher would have three years to obtain standard or alternative certification.

The House is expected to send charter legislation to a conference committee, though it’s unclear if the legislation will get there in the stand-alone bill (HB369) or the omnibus education bill (HB 890).  Stay informed by visiting the Charter Schools Resource Page on our website.

During Tuesday’s legislative action, the Senate passed HB 890, the “Mississippi Education Works Program”.  This bill was crafted by the Governor’s office, and was introduced by House Ed Chair John Moore.

The omnibus education bill includes (1) entry requirements for teacher prep programs, (2) a new teacher scholarship program, (3) compulsory school attendance for Kindergarten, (4) process for creating conversion and new-start charter schools, and (5) new requirements for high schools with graduation rates below 80%.

The bill was passed with the following amendments:

• “New Start Schools” section eliminated – Deleted section would’ve allowed MDE to take over and/or re-start “F” schools if they failed to earn “C” status in two years.
• Phased-In Requirements for Teacher Prep Programs – The bill still requires aspiring teachers to have a 21 on the ACT and a 3.0 GPA in pre-major course work being admitted to a teacher prep program.  But under the new phased-in process, 60% of student must meet this requirement during the 2015-16 academic year, 70% in 2016-17, and 80% in 2017-18.

HB890 is currently being held on a motion to reconsider, which would require a re-vote on the legislation if approved.   It appears very likely that senators will send this amended bill back to the House, where representatives will vote to either…

• Concur with the Senate’s changes and send the bill to the Governor, or…
• Invite a conference committee to be appointed to work out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.

It is unclear if this bill, or the stand-alone House and Senate charter bills, will become the vehicle for charter school legislation.  We will continue to track all three bills on our Charter Schools Resource Page.

HB 781, the House version of the “Early Learning Collaborative Act of 2013,” was just passed by the House of Representatives.  The original bill was slightly different from the Senate version, most notably the smaller amount of funding.

Although the debate on the bill was relatively short, the bill was passed with some significant amendments.  These amendments…

• Remove the tax credit for individuals and corporations that make contributions to a state fund that can defray the costs of the “local match.” In both the House and Senate bills, the collaborative pre-K allocation is $2150 a child from the state with a 1:1 local match (meaning an additional $2150 per child would come from a local match for a total of $4300 per child for a full-day program). The local match can be made through donations, local tax revenue, federal dollars, parent tuition, or an in-kind donation (most likely facilities),
• Remove the requirement for private child care centers to earn a “3-star rating” on the state quality rating system. Instead, the collaborative would rely exclusively on a “nationally-recognized assessment tool” to evaluate child care centers
• Make any state-adopted kindergarten-entry screening assessment voluntary for children whose parents have voluntarily chosen to send their child to preK. It also directs MDE to “recognize each child’s unique pattern of development when adopting a minimum rate of readiness that prekindergarten providers must meet in order to remain eligible for prekindergarten program funds”,
• Require that the annual report MDE sends to “the Legislature and Governor regarding the effectiveness of the program” shall also be sent to Legislature’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) Committee. PEER would then submit “an independent evaluation of the program operation and effectiveness”,
• Require MDE to comply with the Mississippi Administrative Procedures Law (specifically, provisions on filing notice of the proposed rules, public hearings, and economic impact statements) before the collaborative pre-K program rules and procedures are approved by the State Board of Education,
• Change the composition of the State Early Childhood Advisory Council (SECAC) by increasing the number of representatives of “local providers of early childhood education and care services” from 1 to 4 (one from each congressional district) and by adding a representative from the Mississippi Head Start Association, and…
• Prohibit from SECAC membership organizations and individuals that have ever received a financial benefit (grant, donation, or other pecuniary benefit) from any state agency (State Departments of Education, Health, Human Services, Mental Health, or Higher Learning) or other organization/entity represented on the council.

Because of the differences between the House and Senate pre-K bills, a compromise bill will have to be negotiated in a Conference Committee. The final bill created by that committee will then need to be approved by both chambers before (hopefully) the Governor signs it into law.

For all things pre-K, please visit our Pre-Kindergarten Resource Page.

This past Friday (2/8), The Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics hosted a “Charter School Fight”.  MSF Executive Director Rachel Canter represented the pro-charter side, while Senator Hob Bryan spoke for those opposed to charter schools.  The debate lasted for about an hour, and covered several aspects of this highly-contentious policy issue.

Rather than give you a play-by-play of the debate, I’m simply going to share the links.  Please share your thoughts on our website Facebook page.

Charter School Fight, Part 1

Charter School Fight, Part 2

Charter School Fight, Part 3

Charter School Fight, Part 4