Jackson Free Press

The Obama administration has announced the recipients of this year's Race to the Top grants, and Mississippi is not on the list.

Gov. Haley Barbour issued a one-sentence statement in response to the announcement: "Of the nine states that got a Race to the Top award, only one has a Republican governor. I wish it had been us."

This year, the Race to the Top grants will go toward improving early childhood education. A list of the states that will receive the grant money has been posted on the U.S. Department of Education's website, along with comments on the applications from states that applied. Mississippi's score fell near the bottom of the list, ahead of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and North Carolina had the highest-scored application.

Read more about the grant program in the JFP's previous story, "Racing to Fund Pre-K."

Previous Commentsshow

Seems like there's *something* more insightful he could have said; perhaps, "This just goes to show you that our state should work on improving its plan for pre-K education." Ha, nope.

lizwaibel

Dec 19 2011

I know. It's kinda remarkable, considering that our governor has made a big deal about not wanting to accept federal dollars. Maybe that's why we didn't get it? I guess he's blaming it on his being Republican? That hasn't kept us from being one of the highest-dollar pork receivers in the nation. Or, is it the highest? Weird.

DonnaLadd

Dec 19 2011

Our pork receipt is most likely thanks to Thad Cochran. Obama's DoE is administering these grants, correct? Apples to oranges in terms of who's calling the shots I would say, Donna.

RobbieR

Dec 20 2011

... and Roger Wicker and Trent Lott and every congressman and, yes, both Democratic and Republican governors. The point, Robbie, is that Barbour like to scream and wriggle over not wanting federal dollars, and then puts out a juvenile partisan press release like this one. As for the administration, I don't know why they didn't choose us and wish they had, too. I was responding to Barbour's weird press statement. Seriously: the state is paying for that release to go out? Notice that taxpayers supported a straight-up partisan swipe on that one. It was done on the company account, so to speak.

DonnaLadd

Dec 20 2011

To be fair, it probably didn't cost us that much to write that "press release." More like a tweet.

lizwaibel

Dec 20 2011

Hmmm. I think Barbour is showing his rear on this one. First of all, the program was scored by peer reviewers outlined here: Peer Review Bios (398k) and the scoring and comments are available here: Mississippi Comments (PDF, 7.6M). Quick examples: Mississippi gets 10 of 20 points for past commitment to early childhood education, in part because we don't actually have K and Pre-K programs. (By comparison, North Carolina, one of the winners, got 20 of 20.) Mississippi gets 8 of 20 points for articulating its reform agendy for early childhood education... "Information on measurable goals, how goals are met and accountability are missing." (By comparison, North Carolina got 20 out of 20 on that section.) If you read through the application (which I've done *very* briefly) you also find buried in the comments the suggestion that Mississippi's application asked to opt out of some of the programs or phoned in parts of their application because the state doesn't have comprehensive programs to promote or measure the items that are being asked for by this grant. Mississippi's application consistently scored at half or less than half on nearly all of the rubric milestones. Perhaps one could argue flaws in the Race to the Top programs or that, somehow, the program favors states that do the sorts of things that Democrats do (like support and fund public education and early education programs.) From the Program Description: Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive early learning education reform. So, suggesting that the money didn't come to Mississippi because of the party of the Governor is not exactly borne out by the evidence presented. If the Governor feels that he should be blamed in any measure, then it sounds like the commitment and follow-through on early childhood education over the past 8 years might have been limited, which could have affected eligibility for this grant. Likewise, Mississippi's application for Race to the Top could have been somewhat to blame as well, whether the application itself was wanting, or perhaps we really simply don't have the programs and measurements in place to convince the experts that Mississippi would represent a good environment for building best practices ("leading the way") in early childhood education. In any case, those comments are interesting reading.

Todd Stauffer

Dec 20 2011

That's not the point, Elizabeth, although it was more than a tweet. The point is that he send out a blatantly political press release, or his press person did, on the state account. No one should do that, regardless of party. At least hide your partisanship in actual copy and reasoning. ;-)

DonnaLadd

Dec 20 2011