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Senate rejects Robert Taylor’s nomination for state superintendent of education

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Senate rejects Robert Taylor’s nomination for state superintendent of education

The Senate rejected the nomination of Robert Taylor for state superintendent of education on Wednesday.

Taylor was most recently a deputy state superintendent for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction before starting his role here on Jan. 17. A native of Laurel, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and has worked in North Carolina schools since 1992. 

Robert Taylor, a native of Laurel.

The state superintendent oversees Mississippi’s 870 public schools and is appointed by the State Board of Education. Once the board makes a selection, that person must be confirmed by a nominations subcommittee and the Senate Education Committee before being approved by the full chamber with a vote. Taylor’s nomination passed through the first two steps before failing the Senate vote 21-31. 

Senators expressed concerns during the Senate Education Committee vote on Tuesday that Taylor had worked outside of Mississippi for most of his career, citing that this was the same reason they had just rejected Gov. Tate Reeves’ nomination for the State Board of Education. Taylor’s predecessor Carey Wright is not a Mississippi native and took the position after working in District of Columbia Public Schools.

“This is nothing personal with me, but it’s absolutely what this Capitol needs (sic) to stay consistent with your votes, and I will be staying consistent with mine,” said Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando. 

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory responded to these concerns both in committee and on the Senate floor, arguing the state doesn’t take this stance with many other positions as not to limit the options. 

“I don’t understand the notion that we only want people from Mississippi, I thought we wanted people from other states to come here,” Bryan said. 

Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, chaired the education nominations subcommittee and was one of five Senate Republicans who voted in favor of Taylor. 

“We talk about brain drain – well here was a chance to bring someone back,” Johnson said. “In conversations I had with him, I thought he answered things well. He praised what Mississippi has done with education in the last 10 years and said he wants to continue that trend. I thought he had a great knowledge of education and what’s going on here.”

Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, expressed frustration with lack of transparency in the hiring process, saying on Tuesday he was “disgusted” with the way it was handled. This concern was also discussed at the March 15 hearing to interview Taylor and State Board of Education Chair Rosemary Aultman, where Aultman answered questions about the hiring process from senators.

The Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) reviewed the hiring process at the request of legislators, finding the board lacked a standard scoring method for evaluating candidates and the selection process “lacked transparency,” as finalists for the position were not shared publicly despite the consulting firm proposing to do so. 

Aultman responded to these concerns, saying applicants for the position asked to remain anonymous, and the board chose to honor the request. Aultman also explained the board developed a list of attributes an ideal candidate would have and judged applications based on how well they matched the list. For finalists, while they were not scored by a rubric, Aultman said each board member did rank the four options. 

Aultman reiterated this support for Taylor and the hiring process after Taylor was rejected by the Senate in a statement from the Mississippi Department of Education. 

“The State Board of Education conducted a fair, competitive and rigorous application process to select the most qualified candidate to fulfill the duties of state superintendent of education,” she said. “The search firm we hired was helpful in giving the board direction, and we are confident we selected the best candidate.”

Sen. Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, also raised concerns on the Senate floor that the school district Taylor led in North Carolina did not significantly improve under his nearly 10-year tenure. Between 2015 and 2019, the years for which data is publicly available from the North Carolina School Report Cards website, the Bladen County School District did see more schools meeting their growth targets, as well as the number of C-rated schools rising from four to seven. D-rated schools had fallen from eight to three between 2015 and 2018, before jumping back up to six in 2019. This data does not represent all of the years that Taylor led the district. 

Taylor has previously said at State Board of Education meetings that assisting low-performing districts was one of his top priorities, and had visited all but one of them in his first two months on the job to learn about their needs. 

“It is our duty and responsibility to be able to get in and work with those districts before they end up on the list being over by the state,” Taylor said at the March 15 committee hearing. “We don’t have the capacity to take over ten or eleven districts, but we do have the ability to be able to get into those districts and help them build capacity.” 

Dennis DeBar, R-Leaksville, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said he voted against Taylor for multiple reasons, but most specifically because he “wanted to see someone with a better resume on low-performing schools.”

Taylor would have also been the second Black state superintendent after Henry L. Johnson, who also came to Mississippi from North Carolina in 2002. Some have raised concerns that race placed a role in this rejection. 

“Any time you put politics and partisanship and race ahead of serving the state of Mississippi, we do our citizens a great disservice,” said Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson. 

The State Board of Education said in a press release that they will schedule a special-called board meeting in the coming days to name an interim and begin a new search process. 

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

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-22 07:00:00

Dec. 22, 1997

Myrlie Evers and Reena Evers-Everette cheer the jury verdict of Feb. 5, 1994, when Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. Credit: AP/Rogelio Solis

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.

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Mississippi Today

Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-22 06:00:00

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.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1911

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-21 07:00:00

Dec. 21, 1911

A colorized photograph of Josh Gibson, who was playing with the Homestead Grays Credit: Wikipedia

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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