HATTIESBURG - In a state where public instruction is critical to our children, Mississippi lawmakers simply do not understand the importance of a literate population.
At least they act like they don't.
If this were not true, why would we be engaged in this painful political guessing game of how many teachers will be offered contracts for the 2004-05 school year? Because right now, no one knows. And if lawmakers have the financial answers, they have not shared the knowledge. The deadline is Thursday for districts to tender contracts.
You just have to scratch your head and question why? Funding education should be paramount on everyone's legislative plate. But apparently not in Mississippi, a state that had to be yanked kicking and screaming into the 20th century in terms of enacting a compulsory attendance law in 1982, under the guiding hand of then-Gov. William Winter.
Now, 22 years later, we still see that public education does not appear to be a priority. Our lawmakers and Gov. Haley Barbour say they want Mississippi on the cutting edge, but are unwilling to come up with the cash to pay teachers to instruct our children.
In another day, education superintendents around the state are going to be faced with a reality check: How many teachers are not going to be rehired? It's a decision no education administrator should ever be forced to make. But that's exactly what time it is, and we can thank our left-brained lawmakers for that.
The apparent inaction of the Legislature has literally placed education superintendents between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
"We have to give notice by (Thursday) if we are not going to offer them contracts," Glenn Swan, superintendent of the Lamar County School District, said earlier this month. "The clock is ticking. If we do not know how much money we are going to get, we are looking at telling 40-50 people that they will not be rehired."
And if this becomes a reality, who suffers? The children, that's who. That is a situation of which we should all be ashamed.
Education has meant so much in America, especially since this is the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. (Topeka, Kan.) Board of Education, which struck down the long-standing separate but equal doctrine. And now everyone is able to experience the learning bounty.
But that educational nourishment takes money.
I am perplexed that Mississippi continues to languish, unable to get out of its own collective way at times when it comes to the urgent need to fund public instruction.
Everyone has a stake in our youth, and we should all be outraged at the slipshod politics going on in Jackson - politics that are placing the future of the state's youth and our educational infrastructure at risk.
