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The local sponsor of a long-discussed Pearl River flood control project announced last week that the project would finally be able to move forward with a plan to widen and develop along the river’s banks in Mississippi’s capital city.

While federal officials may still go forward with the project, they clarified shortly after that no final decision has been made. A final environmental impact study is still required before they reach that stage.

The Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District held a press conference Feb. 26 to announce that the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, Adam Telle, had selected a plan based on the locally supported project, “Alternative D1.”

In its last draft study in 2025, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers narrowed the project selection to alternatives “D1” and “E1.” D1 is a scaled-back version of the controversial “One Lake” plan the flood control district has backed for over a decade, and which both environmentalists and downstream communities have passionately fought. E1 has the same design as D1 except for a dam.

In a Jan. 31 memo, Telle wrote that he had selected a combination of D1 and E1. Officials with the flood control district said that’s what their Feb. 26 announcement.

“I find that both Alternative D1 and E1 are environmentally acceptable, subject to further investigations required for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as well as the development of mitigation plans to compensate for losses of habitat,” wrote Telle, a Mississippi State University graduate who was nominated for the post last year by President Donald Trump.

That act was signed into law in 1970 to require federal agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of projects on the front end.

Telle attended a Corps press event Feb. 27 in Vicksburg to boost the agency’s new “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative, focused on speeding up projects and reducing “bureaucratic regulations.”

When asked about the status of the Pearl River efforts, he told Mississippi Today the point of the memo was to “untie” the Corps’ hands to begin the final environmental study. The National Environmental Policy process requires the agency to complete the final study before making any final determination.

“ It still requires more design, more decisions, more public engagement and more environmental work,” Telle said. “And once we get there, then we’ll see construction begin.”

At the local flood control district’s event, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said he hoped to have a final decision about the project by the summer. The next day at the Vicksburg event, Col. Jeremiah Gipson, commander of the Corps’ Vicksburg District, called that timeline “aggressive” but possible.

“The first step is to complete a design agreement with the (local flood control district), and when we do that we will very quickly see this process move forward towards that decision,” Gipson said.

When asked why the local sponsor made its announcement when it did, Telle said of his Jan. 31 memo, “We do work every day, we don’t necessarily announce it.” Mississippi Today also asked Keith Turner, attorney for the flood control district board, why they made the announcement without coordinating with the Corps.

“I don’t know why (the Corps) chose to not be as public as we were,” Turner said. “To us, it’s really important because it’s a big threshold.”

Jill Mastrototaro, state policy director for Audubon Delta, said the Corps’ last study, released in 2025, is missing significant environmental considerations.

“I think that the claims of victory by the (project’s) proponents are very premature and very ambitious,” said Mastrototaro, a longtime stakeholder in the project’s studies and opponent of damming the Pearl River.

“There is going to be a lot of additional study,” she said, pointing to needed hydrologic and sedimentation research, as well as habitat mitigation plans, that were lacking in the last publication. “There are still many shortcomings, many questions, many inaccuracies in that flood plan.”

Damming the Pearl River, the difference between alternatives D1 and E1, is an essential piece of the local flood control district’s preference. The inundation would allow for more development and recreational opportunities along the section of the river neighboring downtown Jackson. The dam, though, would not only make the project more expensive but also, opponents argue, impair valuable wetlands and habitats and disrupt the flow for the communities downstream on the river.

The Corps’ own draft study estimated D1 would remove 740 acres of forested wetlands as well as 230 acres of riverine habitat.

When asked about potential mitigation to compensate for those losses, Turner said the plan is to protect habitats along the Pearl upstream of Jackson. Those details, though, still need to be worked out in the final study, he said.

Rep. Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, argued the project’s goal is only to enrich people in the Jackson metro area. She said the Corps isn’t considering the other communities who share the Pearl River.

“I don’t believe they have a clue what it’s gonna do (downstream), and I don’t think they care,” Currie said.

A project with the dam would cost roughly $900 million, the Corps estimated last year. With the federal government responsible for 65% of the cost share, Mississippians would be on the hook for over $300 million. When asked if the Legislature would help fund the project, Currie just said, “I hope not.”

So far the federal government has allocated $221 million for the project, which would be far less than the 65% share needed, or close to $600 million.

Even farther downstream in Slidell, Louisiana, residents are largely against the proposal, and officials from the state, including Gov. Jeff Landry and U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, have asked for more research on the plan’s impacts on their section of the Pearl River, NOLA.com recently reported.

At the Feb. 27 event in Vicksburg, Telle said it was important to him to avoid any downstream disruptions to the river, and that he instructed Gipson’s team to “take care of those folks.”

Mississippi Today is marking a milestone this month – our first 10 years of publication.

Now the state’s largest newsroom with more than 30 journalists on staff, the online nonprofit news organization began a decade ago with a few reporters and a mission to provide news coverage that holds officials accountable and keeps the public informed.

This startup happened even as many other news operations in the state and around the U.S. were tightening their belts. Then – as now – Mississippi Today supports other media outlets by allowing free publication of our articles.

Over the coming year under the theme of “All In On Mississippi,” we at Mississippi Today are reminding readers of the work our team has done and are vigorously recommitting ourselves to the goal of providing detailed, in-depth reporting on important issues.

Here’s a look at some of Mississippi Today’s accountability-focused reporting:

– Anna Wolfe won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for The Backchannel, her series of investigative reports about how Mississippi misused welfare money that was intended to help some of the poorest residents in one of the poorest states in the nation.

– Wolfe and Michelle Liu spent 14 months investigating how Mississippi was running debtors’ prisons, making it nearly impossible for inmates to earn enough money while incarcerated to pay off the fines, fees or restitution they owe. Wolfe and Liu collaborated with other news organizations, including the Marshall Project, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, The Clarion-Ledger and USA Today Network. The work was awarded the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

– When the state was forced to close dangerous bridges in 2018 and 2019, Mississippi Today journalists created an interactive map, interviewed people whose lives were affected and followed the process of how politicians were spending money to fix the problem.

– Photographer Eric Shelton in 2019 documented how Mississippians’ lives are affected when rural hospitals close or are at risk of closing.

– Reporters Aallyah Wright and Kelsey Davis wrote a series in 2019 about Mississippi’s longstanding teacher shortage problem.

– Mississippi Today covered the 2020 legislative struggle over retiring the state flag that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem and replacing it with a flag that features a magnolia and the slogan, “In God We Trust.”

– Alex Rozier, Molly Minta and other journalists documented the near-collapse of Jackson’s water system in 2022 and the ongoing battles over water rates and control of the system.

– In a 2023-2024 series called Committed to Jail, journalists from Mississippi Today and Pro Publica collaborated on articles that exposed how Mississippi jails people who have mental illness.

– Rozier and Devna Bose examined how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi reimbursed the University of Mississippi Medical Center at lower rates than other major insurers for many common procedures, including emergency room visits and X-rays.

– Mississippi Today reporters including Mukta Joshi, Jerry Mitchell, Brian Howey, Nate Rosenfield and Steph Quinn worked with The New York Times on investigative reporting that exposed longstanding problems of the abuse of power in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and violence inside the county jail. 

As Mississippi Today journalists focus on the future, we will continue to examine and challenge systems that need to be changed. And, yes, we will also celebrate the culture of this place we call home, by birth or by choice.

Jasmine Murphy returned to the Mississippi Delta after years away, driven by the sense she was meant to return home. 

But decades of disinvestment in the region by state leaders have made it difficult for residents to find stable housing, good jobs, educational opportunities and for culture to thrive, she said Wednesday at a convening of a national commission at Mississippi Valley State University, a historically Black university in Itta Bena. The commission traveled to Mississippi to hear from local leaders and community members about the challenges facing rural communities.

“The people here are full of talent and passion, and they want opportunities to be able to dream and to have those dreams come true,” said Murphy, an Itta Bena native currently a graduate student studying rural public policy and planning at Mississippi Valley State University. “They don’t have those opportunities and those chances because there’s no one here to invest in them.”

The bipartisan commission was convened by two D.C.-based public policy think tanks, the Brookings Institute and American Enterprise Institute, to craft federal policy suggestions that support rural communities before 2027. The committee is chaired by former U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat from North Dakota, and former New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.

The group has traveled to other locations across the U.S. and spent time discussing how funding and resource allocation decisions made in Washington are outdated, Sununu said.

“It hasn’t paid attention to rural America, because to do that would mean to look at a different set of metrics and a different form of accountability,” he said. “And what this organization is trying to do is change that paradigm.”

Janti Soeripto, the president and CEO of Save the Children US and a commission member, said each of the group’s site visits has brought new insights about the challenges facing rural communities in America, which are varied and distinct. 

“If you’ve seen one rural community, you’ve seen one rural community,” she said.  

The commission also heard from Mississippi leaders, including Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons, Corey Wiggins, the federal Co-Chairman for the Delta Regional Authority, and Bill Bynum, the CEO of Hope Credit Union. 

Wiggins and Simmons said some of the most helpful federal resources for rural areas are planning funding that supports local communities conducting feasibility studies and pre-development work for infrastructure projects. 

Simmons said small, rural communities often struggle to apply for and access federal funding for projects. Programs like the Rural Partners Network, which was designed to help rural communities navigate and secure resources by connecting them with federal agency staff, can make a difference. But federal funding cuts have made it harder for communities to tap into those supports, he said. 

He suggested a “common app” — akin to the common application used by many colleges and universities — could make it easier for rural communities to quickly apply for federal funding.

“Rural communities are not waiting to be rescued,” Simmons said. “We are building, from disinvestment to development.” 

Jaelon Jordan, a Mississippi Valley State University student from Utica, said that rural communities in Mississippi need support. Many of the challenges facing the Mississippi Delta are visible on campus at MVSU, she said, like food insecurity and underfunded education.

Murphy said her resolve to confront these challenges is shaped by the legacies of Mississippi leaders like Ida B. Wells and Fannie Lou Hamer, who inspire her to continue her work in Itta Bena.

“When you’re born around that type of legacy, you feel like you feel the sole responsibility of making sure that that doesn’t die,” she said. “And you want to revitalize what is dying. That’s why I came back.”

The NCAA is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to quickly throw out a trial court judge’s ruling that granted Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss one more year of college sports eligibility.

“If courts can intervene in NCAA eligibility decisions to provide special treatment to favored athletes, then the NCAA’s ability to ensure fair athletic competition in which all participants play by the same rules will depend upon the whims of trial courts throughout the country,” attorneys for the college sports’ governing organization wrote in papers filed Thursday.

“Orders that substitute a trial court’s judgment regarding NCAA eligibility for that of the NCAA pose an existential threat to the NCAA’s administration of collegiate sports,” they wrote.

The NCAA attorneys also argued that speed is necessary.

“If this case proceeds in the ordinary course, it is unlikely that it will be resolved before UM’s first contest of the season during the first week of September,” they wrote. “Expedited review is essential to prevent irreparable harm to the NCAA and its members, to UM, and to Respondent (Chambliss).”

Chambliss led Ole Miss to its most successful season in 2025, culminating with a final No. 3 national ranking. The NCAA said, though, that he had exhausted his years of eligibility.

After a daylong hearing Feb. 12 in Pittsboro, Chancery Judge Robert Whitwell granted a temporary restraining order that Chambliss requested against the NCAA.

Whitwell ruled that the NCAA “acted in bad faith” in denying Chambliss’ appeal for another season of eligibility.

If Whitwell’s decision stands, Chambliss is expected to lead the Ole Miss team when its season opens in September.  Chambliss presumably would enter the season as a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy. He finished eighth in Heisman voting in 2025.

Chambliss transferred to Ole Miss last spring after leading Michigan’s Ferris State University to the Division II national championship in the 2024 season.

The NCAA argued that Chambliss, who spent four years at Ferriss and then one at Ole Miss, had used up his allowed five years of eligibility to play a maximum of four seasons.

But Chambliss didn’t play at all his first two seasons at Ferris. He red-shirted as a freshman in 2021 and then was plagued by severe upper respiratory illness as a sophomore. He testified that he was told the 2022 season would count as a medical redshirt season. The NCAA argued otherwise.

The Mississippi House and Senate unanimously passed separate bills Thursday intended to ensure hundreds of millions of state opioid settlement dollars are spent on efforts that prevent more overdoses.

The process is not over. The two chambers are expected to enter final negotiations in the coming weeks. Both chambers must agree on language before sending a bill to the Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk.

The legislation would require local governments to spend opioid settlement money on strategies that address addiction, prevent them from using settlement dollars to replace existing funding  and strengthen rules to prevent conflicts of interests for members of the state Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council. 

Both bills were amended Tuesday to address issues Mississippi Today has identified over the past year. They would reform state code that governs money won in national lawsuits, where governments across the country charged massive drug companies with using dangerous business practices related to prescription pain pills. Those practices catalyzed the deadliest drug crisis in American history.

In Mississippi, over 10,000 people have died of overdoses since 2000, and the state is expected to receive $421 million in opioid settlements through 2040. The money was viewed by most as a lifeline to address what recent surgeons general have identified as among the country’s most urgent public health crises. 

But a September Mississippi Today investigation found that of the roughly $124 million Mississippi had received by last summer, less than $1 million had been used to address the opioid epidemic. Significantly more had been used for lawyers’ fees and general expenses.

A big reason for that was because Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who set the ground rules for  how these funds would be  distributed, directed 15% of the settlement funds to cities and counties with no restrictions and no reporting requirements. It wasn’t until Mississippi Today requested opioid settlement records from all of these governments that anyone knew how local elected officials were spending the funds. 

Soon after the newsroom published its investigation, Republican House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore told Mississippi Today he would work to pass legislation that ensured local dollars would be used to address the problem the state’s lawyers highlighted in the opioid settlement lawsuits — for the public health epidemic that the companies helped create. 

When discussing the bill on the House floor, the New Albany lawmaker cited findings from Mississippi Today’s September investigation, such as the amount of money not being used to address the addiction crisis, as a reason why this bill was necessary. 

“It’s just sitting in a bank account,” he said. “This new language we added gives these cities guidelines, and it’s pretty simple. All opioid settlement funds received by the local governments shall be used exclusively for abatement of harms caused by substance use disorder and related public health issues.”

Rep. Bob Evans, a Democrat from Monticello, questioned Creekmore about why the bill did not mandate that local governments publicly report how they spend opioid settlement money. Creekmore said he wanted to keep the bill simple for cities and counties, but those types of reporting requirements may be added as the Senate and the House continue to work on the bill. 

Creekmore’s amendment also tasks the Mississippi Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council — the committee the Legislature created last year to solicit, review and recommend grant applications for the majority of the state’s opioid settlement money — with using some of the lawsuit funds to hire an outside group to help improve that process. 

It’s a step some council members endorsed after Mississippi Today reported that the committee’s initial grant recommendations called for sending most of the money to organizations the members were affiliated with.

The Senate’s amendment would address the potential for council conflicts of interest as well. Submitted on Tuesday by Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford, the amendment would prohibit committee members from directly or indirectly influencing the council’s evaluations of recommendations they could stand to benefit from. It also gives the Legislature more power to alter how they fund grant applicants. 

When speaking about that proposal on the floor, Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, said this potential protection would be implemented before the council evaluates the next round of awards. 

“We probably all have heard the complaints that came out of the process,” he said. “Let me say, I saw some of that. I think they’re valid, but I also think the people that did the recommendations were performing the job admirably.”

Update, 3/5/2026: This article has been updated with additional details about the legislative process.

Since the U.S. and Israel began attacking Iran, every place Delana Karimi-Tavakol’s family previously lived has been bombed.

Karimi-Tavakol is an Iranian-American who lives in Jackson. Both sides of her family are from Iran. Though none of her relatives live there now, some of her friends and family members’ friends have been impacted.

She was among those protesting Thursday with Mississippi for a Just World, at the corner of Woodrow Wilson and North State Street in Jackson, to oppose the Trump administration’s ongoing attack on Iran.

The group’s “Stop the War on Humanity” protest opposes the attack on Iran, what the group believes is the inhumane treatment of Palestinians and the crackdown on immigration in the United States.

The protesters said the attack on Iran is aggressive and unconstitutional. They’re also concerned that underprivileged Black and brown people in the U.S. military will be most at-risk in a ground invasion, and that the money spent on the war could be used to improve the lives of U.S. citizens.

“It’s an endless war that is going on on humanity, and so we wanted to bring attention to that,” said Candace Abdul-Tawwab, co-founder and executive director of Mississippi for a Just World.

The group is asking supporters to sign a petition. Faridah Abdul-Tawwab, director of research and education for the group, called on Mississippians to call their congressional representatives to urge them to vote in favor of a war powers resolution requiring congressional approval for President Donald Trump to continue the war.

“If an action, if an initiative, if a policy, if it supports human dignity, we’re asking Mississippians to support it,” Abdul-Tawwab said.

“And if it’s an assault on human dignity, if it somehow undermines human dignity in any way, shape or form, whoever supports it … we’re asking that you oppose it on the grounds of a shared humanity.”

Early Saturday, the U.S. and Israel launched joint attacks against Iran as part of a military campaign the U.S. is calling Operation Epic Fury. In retaliation, Iran has launched attacks against U.S., Israeli and allied targets in the region.

The conflict has spread across Persian Gulf states, with no clear end in sight.

The death toll in Iran is over 1,230. Among the casualties were Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several top government officials and at least 175 people at a girls’ school. Six American service members were killed in Kuwait on the second day of the conflict.

On Wednesday, Republicans in the Senate voted down a war powers resolution that would have required the president to get Congress’ approval before taking further action against Iran. The House voted down a similar resolution Thursday. 

While Karimi-Tavakol said she opposes the regime and wants Iran to be free, she doesn’t believe foreign intervention is the right path. She echoed the belief that the money spent on this conflict would be better spent on U.S. domestic issues such as health care, education and infrastructure.

“As a Mississippian, if you have any issues at all with your quality of life around you, then you have a problem with the U.S. war machine, because it is taking money straight out of your pocket … and into bombs to kill other people,” she said.

She also expressed concern about the loss of human life, ecosystems and culture.

“We’re losing our medicines. We’re losing our biodiversity. We’re losing our histories. We’re losing our heritage every time a bomb falls,” she said.

Karimi-Tavakol said many other Iranian-Americans in Mississippi are against their protest.

While she said she can’t speak for them, she thought some people, including a lot of Iranian-Americans, were “engaging in a kind of black-and-white thinking where either you’re against the Iranian government or you’re against the U.S. and Israel.”

She wore a pair of gold earrings with the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” written in Persian. She wore them because she believes these things should be central, and they aren’t in war. The slogan originates from a Kurdish women’s movement and was popularized after the murder of Mahsa Amini, whose suspicious death in 2022 inspired a protest movement in Iran.

“If you support women, if you support life, if you support freedom, then you oppose this war period,” Karimi-Tavakol said.

Mississippi fourth-graders’ academic gains have garnered national attention over the past decade. Now, lawmakers say they want to push students even further — especially in math. 

Mississippi fourth graders’ average math scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress were higher than their peers in at least 18 other states and in 20 other states in reading — a dramatic rise from the state’s standing a decade ago.

Experts say the big gains in fourth grade reading were in large part due to the 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act, a state law that raised literacy standards and established a reading “gate,” a test that third graders have to pass to advance to fourth grade. The legislation focused on reading, but math scores started rising around the same time. 

However, despite the state’s national standing, the proficiency rates are middling. Just 38% of fourth-graders were proficient in math in 2024, and 32% in reading. 

By middle school, those rates falter even further: 22% of Mississippi eighth graders scored NAEP Proficient or better on the 2024 math national assessment. It’s an improvement from 9% in 2000, but still lower than the national average. In reading, 23% of Mississippi eighth graders scored at or above NAEP Proficient in 2024, which is slightly lower than pre-pandemic averages. That average is also lower than in 27 other states.

This year, state leaders are trying to prevent that drop-off and sharpen their focus on math.

Senate Bill 2294 would expand the state’s existing literacy act into higher grades and establish a math framework that would involve interventions similar to those that contributed to the state’s celebrated gains in reading. That framework would be Mississippi’s first statewide math initiative. (The bill’s original language, which was entirely replaced by the House Education Committee, would have required computer science courses for high schools.)

A portion of the bill dubbed the “Mississippi Math Act” would establish Moving Mathematics in Mississippi (M3), a framework that would require supports such as math coaches in all schools, prioritizing grades 2-6, screeners and targeted interventions and establishing a cut-off score on the state’s fifth-grade math assessment to ensure students are ready to take algebra classes.

“I think our reading success is something people talk about because it’s been a national topic of conversation across the country,” said Grace Breazeale, a K-12 researcher at policy advocacy organization Mississippi First. “It’s not that math has necessarily been cast to the side over the past two decades — we have seen improvement — but there’s still a lot of room for improvement as well.”

The math push, in particular, is in line with the Mississippi Department of Education’s shift toward economic development and workforce fortification. The department has recently reworked the standards by which schools are rated with a new focus on career and technical education. The state Board of Education approved the new accountability standards in November. 

Lawmakers say focusing on math will boost the state’s economy and pave the way for higher employment rates. 

“We’ve got to change the culture in our schools,” said Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford. She authored a Math Act bill in her chamber, but the House killed it. “Instead of kids saying, ‘I’m bad at math,’ they should be saying, ‘I can do this.’ When we change that, we’re going to change the jobs our kids are able to go into and the careers they choose.”

Adapting the Alabama model for math gains

Boyd remembers what it was like to look down at a sheet of math problems, wrought with frustration. Decades later, Boyd said, that feeling returned when her daughter came home with math homework and asked her to help.

“ I don’t want a child to feel that way,” she said. “I don’t want any parent to feel that way.”

That’s why Boyd has championed the math act in her chamber. 

The bill was drafted with direction from the Mississippi Department of Education and with an eye toward other states that have implemented similar acts. Alabama, in particular, was a model, Boyd said. 

Alabama established a math act in 2022 aimed at improving K-5 math proficiency through intensive student interventions and teacher training, among other things. Subsequently, Alabama is the only state where average fourth grade math NAEP scores were higher in 2024 than in 2019. There was no significant change in average NAEP scores for Mississippi fourth graders.

Latrenda Knighten, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, has been watching Alabama’s progress closely. 

“They were one of the first to make that commitment and stick to it, and you’ve seen that incremental change,” she said. “Slow and steady wins the race. That is because they thought about what the students needed and what the teachers needed.”

Mississippi Education Department officials say the act’s framework, Moving Mathematics in Mississippi, would build on work the department is already doing, and similarly to the 2013 literacy act, it’s centered around collecting data, identifying struggling students and coaching teachers.

The math efforts would be concentrated in grades 2-6, said Wendy Clemons, the agency’s chief academic officer. 

“Really focusing on those grades, we feel, will make a difference,” she said. “Obviously our state made a very focused, laser-like investment in K-3 literacy. My belief is that much of our tremendous success has to do with that commitment.”

The department already deploys coaches to the most vulnerable districts and schools and hosts a statewide math conference for educators, but teachers say they want and need more support, Clemons said. 

“We worked with the department really closely on this,” said House Education Committee Vice Chairman Kent McCarty, a Republican from Hattiesburg. “They’ve been implementing math coaches in districts throughout the state since 2023. We got a lot of data from them about where that’s worked, and we felt like the best thing we could do is expand on what they’re already doing.”

The act won’t establish a “gate” but it would put more focus on the fifth grade state math assessment. If students perform poorly on the test, parents would be notified, and an individualized plan would include specific steps to help that child improve their math proficiency. 

And there’s more to come. Lawmakers, including Boyd, say they’d like to see even more added to the bill, like more support for parents and more math training for education students.

On the right track for improving math instruction

Experts say there are some essential components to successfully teach math.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Knighten’s organization, identifies five “strands” that should be part of math education for teachers and students: conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning and productive disposition.

And the Mississippi Department of Education’s standards, which establish a roadmap for K-12 mathematics education, are based on the council’s standards. The agency allows districts to choose their own curriculum from seven selected “high-quality instructional materials.”

There are also four cornerstones to math education in Mississippi, Clemons said. It needs to be cohesive, on grade level, data-driven and include standards-aligned lessons. 

During Mississippi’s literacy push, lawmakers had the same goal of establishing consistency across districts. 

“We picked this one way that science said works, and we went with it,” Boyd said of literacy instruction. “Training and everything was done with literacy coaches to really make sure we were teaching in one way. So when children moved from district to district, there was a consistency.”

A big part of the math bill would be deploying more coaches to districts across the state to underscore the importance of the standards and applying them uniformly. 

“We haven’t had the investment in mathematics as we have in literacy,” Clemons said. “We just haven’t been able to say, ‘This is what’s gonna make the difference. This will provide a lot more capacity, both at the state level and in the district levels, to provide that support to teachers and to students.’”

Knighten said Mississippi officials are on the right track.

“Math has always been a stepchild, for want of a better explanation. You hear people say they want to focus on math and reading, but when you look at the numbers, we spend more on literacy … so I’m excited to hear about what your state is doing.”

Changing the culture around math

If state leaders want to see math gains, David Rock, dean of education at the University of Mississippi, recommends starting at the college level.

“Everyone seemed to come together on literacy and did the training for pre-service teachers, and the results are there,” he said. “I want to see the same focus and passion on the math side.”

After the 2013 literacy act, college education students were required to take more literacy education classes to graduate. The same needs to happen for math, Boyd said, to combat a culture of fear around math among students and teachers. 

It’s a self-perpetuating cycle: Students who aren’t confident in math don’t want to teach it. Fewer well-trained math teachers means fewer students who have a robust math education. 

“I realize there are people who have math anxiety,” Rock said. “To overcome that, we need to provide more training and opportunity to our pre-service teachers.”

In addition to ramping up math training for teachers, some lawmakers are also interested in enshrining specific math standards in state law, establishing a math “gate” and promoting a single curriculum for math instead of letting districts choose one.

“What I’ve heard from my body is they want more than what we’ve just put in the act,” Boyd said. “It’s a work in progress.”

It’s important to get the bill right, she said — not only for the success of the state’s education system, but Mississippi as a whole. 

“There are so many jobs that are just not available to somebody if they don’t have a solid math background,” Boyd said. “We’ve got to increase these math scores because it opens up a world of opportunity.”

A bad state revenue report for February could give legislators cause for concern as they begin work in earnest on the budget for the year that begins July 1.

While revenue, primarily state tax collections, appears to remain stable through the first seven months of the fiscal year, February was troublesome. Collections for the month were $65.3 million below the estimate, a shortfall of or 13.3%. The estimate is important because it represents the amount of money legislative leaders say will be available to budget for education, health care, law enforcement and other public services.

The state’s financial experts are fond of saying one month of collections does not make a trend. Several factors, such as late reporting or even the late January ice storm, could have played a role in the subpar collections for February.

But still, the February report comes at an inopportune time. If it is a start of a trend, that could mean collections could be down for the coming fiscal year. If legislators believe that is the case, they might want to re-adjust the estimate for the coming year and spend less money.

That could be a bad omen for the prospects of the teacher pay raise – as much as $5,000 per year – that legislators have been touting and dangling in front of public education advocates.

It would be up to Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, as chair of the Legislative Budget Committee this year, to decide whether to set in motion the process to possibly reduce the estimate, resulting in less money for a teacher pay raise and other items.

It is not farfetched to surmise that the war with Iran that threatens to spike gas prices, and inflation could lead to an economic slowdown and lower revenue collections.

At the very least, revenue collections already have slowed dramatically from the post COVID-19 pandemic, when the state had unprecedented spikes in collections.

Through February, seven months into the current fiscal year, state revenue collections are $99.5 million above the official estimate adopted by legislative leaders upon the recommendation of the state’s financial experts, such as the state economist, treasurer, tax commissioner and others. That is 2.1% above expectations.

Through February, based on data recently released by the staff of the Legislative Budget Committee, revenue collections are a modest $76.4 million more than the amount collected during the same period one year ago, up 1.6%.

Those numbers are a far cry from the unprecedented 15.9% or nearly $1 billion increase in revenue from July 1, 2020, until June 30, 2021, followed by a 9.4% increase for the following year. Those collections allowed legislators to build a more than $2 billion surplus that they still maintain.

A number of factors helped lead to those unprecedented collections.

Perhaps the biggest factor was the billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds that poured into the state and spurred the economy, resulting in greatly enhanced consumer spending.

Another factor was the inflation that came as a result of the boost in consumer spending that occurred after a period during the pandemic when people were not shopping and in many instances consumer goods were not available. The return of shoppers coupled with a still-recovering supply chain helped spur the inflation. It happened across the world after the pandemic.

And while it might sound counterintuitive, inflation can be good for the Mississippi government’s bottom line. Inflation actually leads to revenue growth for the state.

Mississippi is heavily dependent on sales tax revenue. If prices increase, that results in more sales tax revenue for the state. This is especially true when grocery prices increase since Missisisppi is among the handful of states that tax groceries. In Mississippi, when the price of eggs goes up, that means more state tax revenue.

But revenue collections have slowed in recent years. The state actually collected 0.83% less revenue for the past year than for the prior one.

To collect less revenue than in the previous year is an unusual occurrence in the history of the state. But it happened two years ago.

Collections were looking much better for the current year – at least until February came along.

The Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would create a pathway for Mississippi to study the therapeutic potentials of the psychedelic drug ibogaine, possibly moving it a step closer to becoming law.

Republican House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore’s bill, which tasks the Mississippi State Department of Health with creating a research collaboration to develop and run clinical trials to study the drug, passed the Senate with all but Sen. Kathy Chism, a Republican from New Albany, voting in favor. 

It says the Legislature will appropriate the money to the state health department for the research, and it requires collaboration partners to provide matching funds.  

In the past, Creekmore proposed using $5 million of opioid settlement money – money state and localities have received from pharmaceutical companies that contributed to thousands of Mississippi overdose deaths –  to study the drug. Sen. Josh Harkins, a Republican from Flowood, said that was still the plan on the Senate floor Thursday, but the bill doesn’t specify how much money the state will use to study ibogaine. 

“I think this takes a responsible approach,” Harkins said.

Mississippi representatives and senators have been aiming to use state money to study ibogaine research for months. Over the summer, Creekmore hosted a hearing for advocates and people who’ve used ibogaine as a medical treatment to share their thoughts with lawmakers. 

States including Texas and Arizona have set aside state money to fund ibogaine clinical trials.

“We’re trying to tie our research into their research so we can have a multiplier effect,” Harkins said. 

Health providers have shown interest in the sub-Saharan African compound for centuries, but the risk of deadly cardiac arrhythmias deterred many from using it. The U.S. classifies ibogaine as a Schedule I drug, a status the Drug Enforcement Administration gives substances that it says have no accepted medical uses.

In recent years, some researchers and cultural figures have expressed interest in the drug’s potential to treat mental disorders such as opioid addiction, traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder. 

A 2024 Stanford study examining 30 veterans with mild traumatic brain injuries indicated that ibogaine helped relieve some symptoms of mental disorders, although it didn’t include a comparison group. It indicated that taking ibogaine with magnesium decreased the risk of severe cardiac events. 

Scientists who’ve analyzed ibogaine studies say it’s unclear if the drug is effective at treating mental disorders such as opioid addiction, pointing out that previous research has had “high risk of bias.” The U.S. already has multiple approved effective medications for treating opioid addiction, including two researchers consider to be the “gold-standard.”

Harkins and Creekmore have said that’s why this type of legislation is necessary — to create better studies while using Mississippi participants for the trials. 

“It ensures Mississippi shares in the benefit of this new drug if the reality ever occurs,” Harkins said. 

Before the legislation passed, the Senate approved an amendment by Harkins to clean up the bill’s language. The amended bill returns to the House, which could seek final negotiations or agree with the Senate’s changes and send the bill to the governor’s desk.