Mississippi Today
Private schools forget their racist origins in trying to collect public funds
Thick with irony is the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools’ contention that the provision of the Mississippi Constitution plainly stating that public funds cannot go to private schools should be ruled invalid by the courts because of its racist origins.
Perhaps the schools that make up the association should look in the mirror. Many, but not all, of the 125 Mississippi private schools in the association trace their beginnings to the 1950s and 1960s and their founders‘ objections to the school desegregation mandated by federal courts. The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools previously was known as the Mississippi Private School Association, which was started in the 1960s by parents and others who did not want white Mississippians to go to integrated schools.
That nugget of truth was omitted by Buck Dougherty, an attorney with the Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center, in arguing last week before the state Supreme Court that Section 208 was enacted as part of the 1890 Constitution for racist reasons and thus should be ruled invalid. Dougherty was making his ironic argument on behalf of the aforementioned Midsouth Association of Independent Schools, which in 2022 received $10 million in public funds now in question before the state’s high court.
READ MORE: Supreme Court hears oral arguments in lawsuit challenging public money to private schools
Dougherty said in a news release that Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution โtargeted independent schools that dared to teach Catholic immigrants and newly freed slaves to read and write, and there’s no way to sidestep that ugly past. Ultimately, the tension between this discriminatory provision in Mississippi’s Constitution and the U.S. Constitution has been festering for a century, and the Court must resolve that tension.โ
It is true that Mississippi is one of more than 30 states with so-called Blaine Amendments that were passed in an effort to keep public funds from going to Catholic schools. But Mississippi is unique in that it is one of only two states with a constitutional provision that prevents not only public money from going to religious or sectarian schools, but also to any school โnot conducted as a free school.โ
Let’s give the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools the benefit of the doubt. It could be argued that most of the private schools today do not discriminate against Black Mississippians. It also is a fact that Section 208 of the constitution does not cause discrimination against minority students, considering that Black students and other minority groups make up a slim majority of the about 440,000 students in the public schools and white students compose the overwhelming majority of the about 45,000 students attending private schools in Mississippi.
In other words, it is difficult to claim, as the Liberty Justice Center is attempting to do, that the state constitution, which prevents public funds from going to private schools, discriminates against Black students since a narrow majority of public school enrollment is composed of Black and minority groups, while the vast majority of private school enrollment is white. The plain and simple fact is that public money going to private schools is going to majority white schools, while public money going to public schools is going to majority-minority schools.
Perhaps the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools and Section 208 of the state constitution have something in common โ maybe they both were created with racist intent, but neither is racially motivated now.
READ MORE: Lawmakers spent public money on private schools. Does it violate the Mississippi Constitution?
The current lawsuit is not the first involving public money going to private schools and Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution. In 1964, during the height of efforts to circumvent federal court orders to desegregate Mississippi public schools, the Legislature passed a law that offered tuition for students to attend private schools in clear violation of Section 208.
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that law unconstitutional in 1969. The federal court said that the โtuition grants have fostered the creation of private segregated schools. The statute, as amended, encourages, facilitates, and supports the establishment of a system of private schools operated on a racially segregated basis as an alternative available to white students seeking to avoid desegregated public schools.โ
The ruling pointed out that when the Mississippi law was enacted, there were three non-sectarian private schools in the state. But three years later, thanks in large part to the tuition grants and the efforts to avoid integrated schools, there were 45.
If someone doubts the findings of the 5th Circuit, look at the website of the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools. It points out that the formation of the Mississippi Private School Association, which later changed its name to the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools, was precipitated in large part because of that 5th Circuit court ruling.
โThat lawsuit, as well as other seismic political and social revolutions in states and communities orchestrated at the federal level, motivated a group of men to meet in Greenwood, MS, and there to draw up a draft of bylaws and a charter of incorporation for the Mississippi Private School Association,โ according to the organization’s own website.
Pot meet kettle.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction โoverly broadโ in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as โfederal intrusion into RDC’s budgetโ โ especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.ย
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
โBut the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,โ the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
2 out of 5 child care teachers make so little they need public assistance tosupport their families
This story about child care wages was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit,
independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger’s early childhood newsletter.
Caring for children during their first few years is a complex and critical job: A child’s
brain develops more in the first five years than at any other point in life. Yet in America,
individuals engaged in this crucial role are paid less than animal caretakers and
dressing room attendants.
That’s a major finding of one of two new reports on the dismal treatment of child care
workers. Together, the reports offer a distressing picture of how child care staff are
faring economically, including the troubling changes low wages have caused to the
workforce.
Early childhood workers nationally earn a median wage of $13.07 per hour, resulting in
poverty-level earnings for 13 percent of such educators, according to the first report, the
Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024. Released earlier this month by the Center for
the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, the annual
report also found:
? 43 percent of families of early educators rely on public assistance like
food stamps and Medicaid.
? Pay inequity exists within these low wages: Black early childhood
educators earn about $8,000 less per year than their white peers. The
same pay gap exists between early educators who work with infants and
toddlers and those who work with preschoolers, who have more
opportunities to work in school districts that pay higher wages.
? Wages for early educators are rising more slowly than wages in other
industries, including fast food and retail.
In part due to these conditions, the industry is losing some of its highest-educated
workers, according to a second new report, by Chris M. Herbst, a professor at Arizona
State University’s School of Public Affairs. That study compares the pay of child care
workers with that of workers in other lower-income professions, including cooks and
retail workers; it finds child care workers are the tenth lowest-paid occupation out of
around 750 in the economy. The report also looks at the โrelative quality’ of child care
staff, as defined by math and literacy scores and education level. Higher-educated
workers, Herbst suggests, are being siphoned off by higher-paying jobs.
That’s led to a โbit of a death spiralโ in terms of how child care work is perceived, and
contributes to the persistent low wages, he said in an interview. Some additional
findings from Herbst’s study:
? Higher-educated women increasingly find employment in the child care
industry to be less attractive. The share of workers in the child care
industry with a bachelor’s degree barely budged over the past few
decades, increasing by only 0.3 percent. In contrast, the share of those in
the industry who have 12 years of schooling but no high school degree,
quadrupled.
? Median numeracy and literacy scores for female child care workers
(who are the majority of the industry staff) fall at the 35 th and 36 th
percentiles respectively, compared to all female workers. Improving these
scores is important, Herbst says, considering the importance of education
in the early years, when children experience rapid brain development.
This doesn’t mean child care staff with lower education levels can’t be good early
educators. Patience, communication skills and a commitment to working with young
children also matter greatly, Herbst writes. However, higher education levels may mean
staff have a stronger background not only in English and math but also in topics like
behavior modification and special education, which are sometimes left out of
certification programs for child care teachers.
You can read Herbst’s full report here, and the 2024 workforce index here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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