Southern Echo will participate in the Pushback Network Steering Committee meeting in NYC Dec. 2 to Dec. 4, 2008 where representatives from 8 states will analyze the voter registration and turnout work in the November election and strategies for building grassroots civic engagement in several regions in the nation.
State Legislature will spend three months wrangling over public policies and appropriations. Public education, health care and tax reform will be major battlegrounds.
Also 3rd convening of South X Southwest Experiment. Intergenerational delegations from SWOP in New Mexico, SWU in Texas, and Southern Echo and Catalyst Roundtable in Mississippi will share histories, analysis and strategic planning for 2009.
Jackson, MS, Nov. 18, 2008 — At the end of October 2008 MS Governor Haley Barbour demanded that the MS Dept. of Education cut 2 percent from the current state appropriation for local school district funds, along with every other state agency, to address the revenue shortfall caused by the economic recession.
State Supt. of Education Hank Bounds vigorously opposed the cuts and shot back that a 2 percent cut in the middle of this fiscal year would force at least 20 local school districts into the “red” in violation of the state law prohibition against school districts operating with a budget deficit. Bounds was supported in his opposition to the cuts by the Lt. Governor, the Chairs of the House and Senate Education Committees, members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, numerous parent and student organizations both black and white, local school district leaders and business organizations. (more…)
Itta Bena, MS, Nov. 13, 2008 — First they spent the day talking some serious stuff, then they par-tayed. 500 students, parents, educators and public officials from more than 20 counties in the Delta region came together at the MS Valley State University campus on Nov. 13 for a one-day celebration of the past 5 years of work together to impact state education policy in the effort to build a quality public education accessible to all children.
This conference was the 5th and final gathering in the series that begin in 2004 as a partnership of Southern Echo and the MS Delta Catalyst Roundtable with the MS Dept. of Education and MS Valley State University.
The conference focused on assessments of the successes, limitations and lessons learned from the collaboration to impact education policies concerning full funding of the MS Adequate Education Program, enhanced funding for children at-risk, dropout prevention and graduation rates, the use of state and local budgets to control education policy and the central importance of effective engagement of parents and students in policy formation and implementation at the local school district level. (more…)
