Ignoring Sound Advice

One of the many reasons that I'm so glad to be leaving this state:

"Barbour: No to funding for 'at-risk' kids
Gov. Haley Barbour does not support a request from state representatives to pour more than $13 million into programs for students at risk of dropping out of school."


Mississippi has the lowest graduation rate in the United States. Every day, as I scan multiple papers throughout the state, I see articles on the need to improve education. It seems that people are finally realizing that the only way to improve Mississippi's long-term prospects is to place the focus squarely where it belongs: on education. Kids need a quality education and they need to make it through and graduate.

"There are more than 290,000 at-risk students, which are children who qualify for free and reduced lunches from the federal government. Of those, about 100,000 are in kindergarten through third grade.

The state has an estimated 30 percent dropout rate."

THIRTY PERCENT.

Nearly one in three children do not graduate high school, and the incompetent, arrogant jerk that Mississippi chose as its governor does not support measures that would allow kids a better chance at completing school.

I guess it doesn't matter to him: White children in Mississippi go to private schools, most established in the sixties under the threat of desegregation. Private schools don't need state funding; private schools don't need assistance helping their students graduate.

So why help the public schools?