Mississippi Today
Dept. of Ed reports nearly 2,600 teacher vacancies, a slight decrease from last year
Dept. of Ed reports nearly 2,600 teacher vacancies, a slight decrease from last year
Certified teacher vacancies in Mississippi have decreased since last year, with 2,593 reported for the 2022-23 school year according to the Mississippi Department of Education.
The state did not start tracking its critical teacher shortage until 2021, when the department found just over 3,000 public school teaching positions were either completely vacant or held by teachers who were not properly certified.
Courtney Van Cleve, MDE director of educator talent acquisition and effectiveness, said the survey data provided “one of the clearest pictures of Mississippi’s educator workforce that we have had to date.”
Elementary school teachers make up a third of all vacancies, at 32%, but high school teachers were close behind with 31%. In high school, the greatest vacancies are in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classes.
“It’s encouraging that we have fewer vacancies, but we still have too many vacancies in districts throughout our state,” said Kelly Riley, director of Mississippi Professional Educators.
Riley specifically called the 335 special education teacher vacancies “alarming” because it is a subject area she said has been on the critical shortage list for too long, since at least the 2019-20 school year.
Administrator vacancies have also decreased from last year, but vacancies for support staff, such as custodians or administrative assistants, have not. Particularly, there have been increases in vacancies for teacher assistants and bus drivers.
Van Cleve said districts linked this increase to an uptick in responsibilities to address pandemic-related learning loss without an increase in wages.
“Things like one-on-one tutorials with a teacher assistant or extended day bus routes or Saturday bus routes are leaving them in a place feeling … fairly overwhelmed,” Van Cleve said.
Van Cleve said that while there are still vacancies to be addressed, the department has seen success by creating some flexibility in teacher licensure. This has allowed a greater number of teachers to enter the field with similar outcomes to other teachers.
Toren Ballard, K-12 policy director for Mississippi First, lauded the department for tracking this information but said he would have liked to see it presented at the district level.
“Overall it’s about 500 less vacancies than last year, which looks like a good statistic, but I think it doesn’t cover the whole story,” said Ballard.
In the 2021-22 school year, Mississippi had 32,199 teachers working in classrooms and the average salary was $47.902, according to MDE.
Even after the pay raise offered by the Legislature last year, Mississippi First found in a new report the number of teachers who left their district at the end of the 2021-22 school year still increased, with 23.7% of all teachers not returning. Teachers in poorly rated districts were also more likely to leave, with 32% of teachers in F-rated districts leaving at the end of last year compared to 16% in A-rated districts.
READ MORE: ‘It was an easy choice for me’: 17% of teachers left their district in the 2020-21 school year
The report also found that half of Mississippi teachers cannot afford at least one of the following: adequate food, transportation, housing, or medical care. Financial insecurity, and student debt specifically, was most closely linked with a risk of leaving the classroom. Teachers who work in low-rated school districts and teachers of color both reported significantly higher student debt burdens.
To address these impacts, Mississippi First recommends an annual stipend for teaching in critical shortage areas and an expansion of eligibility for the existing Winter-Reed Teacher Loan Repayment Program. Currently, the program is only available to traditional route teachers in their first year of teaching and has a cap on the number of applicants that can be assisted each year, which does not allow the financial aid office to use the total appropriation for the program each year. The organization recommends expanding eligibility regardless of years of experience or path to the classroom, as well as removing the cap.
“Our work in improving the educator pipeline is not finished,” Ballard said. “Some of the disparities and financial issues that are underpinning the teacher shortage in Mississippi have been around for so long that it’s going to take more than one year of a pay raise to really start making some progress in addressing this issue.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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