All candidates for this office were offered a questionnaire by The Parents’ Campaign regarding education issues.

What is your vision for Mississippi, and how does education fit into that vision?

Everywhere I go we talk about Making Mississippi First. What that means is that we want to move Mississippi off the bottom of national rankings like education, health care, job growth, economy. And the key to all of this is education. An educated society is a healthier society. An educated society is a more productive society. An educated society works together better. An educated society stays married longer, raises children to value education and seeks to find peaceful solutions to problems. If we do not improve our educational system in Mississippi, then we will never be able to reach the heights of success that I know we are cable of reaching. 

What do you see as the greatest challenge facing Mississippi schools and how will you address it?

Funding is one of the greatest challenges, if for no other reason than without adequate and consistent funding we cannot address other problems. But funding is not just about MAEP. Funding also means that the state must live up to the promises it has made. The state needs to make sure that teachers are paid a decent wage. If we continue to ignore this problem, then teacher retention and teacher recruitment will grow harder and harder. If we do not fill our schools with the best and brightest teachers, then we cannot produce the best and brightest students. Funding also means that we ensure programs like EEF deliver what they promise. If we tell the people of Mississippi that an additional tax is to go to education, then it should go to education. In the past it has gone to anything but education. But funding alone will not fix public education. We must also look at ways we can restructure key parts of our education system. We need to look at how we can institute early childhood development initiatives in the absence of a state-funded program. We need to provide better training opportunities for perspective teachers when they are in college. We need to introduce graduation coaches to help those students who are on the bubble, and we need to help them not only with academic concerns but with other things that might be hindering their graduation prospects. And we also need to get back to ensuring that we have strong vocational and technical tracts for students who may not see a four-year college degree as their route to a successful life. In short, there is no one greatest concern. We are at the point that we must look at everything and get to work. We may not fix everything all at once, but we have to start somewhere. Too long we've sacrificed the good in pursuit of the perfect.

For Fiscal Year 2012, the MAEP appropriation is underfunded by $237,386,693. Assuming no more than 2% inflation, the formula would likely require about $2,365,180,600 for Fiscal Year 2014 (to be decided in the 2013 Legislative Session), about $392-million more than was appropriated for Fiscal Year 2012. Would you support getting to this full funding level in two legislative sessions? 

Absolutely. Funding MAEP should become an absolute given priority. The reason is that funding MAEP does not ensure excellence in education, but adequate and consistent funding does guarantee that educators and educational leaders can stop worrying about whether or not they have enough money to conduct the bare minimal of business and instead start focusing on other problems, projects and opportunities. Furthermore, to ensure that we don't continue to face this same fight year after year, I would ask that the Department of Education and the Legislature start looking at three-year budget projections when undertaking the budgeting process. This will allow everyone involved to plan better for upcoming years. Our goal should be adequate, consistent funding. We can't do that on a year-to-year basis. We need better long-range planning. Our schools already do this. Our Legislature should start doing this as well, with education being the place to begin.

How can Mississippi get creative to ensure sufficient revenue to fully fund education and other vital state services?

First, we need to stop relying on year-to-year projections. Every department should submit three-year projections for budgeting purposes. The Legislature should budget based on current year needs while also keeping an eye on where projections for the next two years will take us. This is basic budgeting practices. We do long-range budget in Hattiesburg, successful businesses do it, and the State of Mississippi should do it as well. Past that, we must also find new revenue. I'm not talking about tax increases. In 10 years as mayor of Hattiesburg, we've gone through Hurricane Katrina and the economic recession. We've not cut services, not furloughed employees and created 2,000 jobs over the past 18 months. We've done this without raising taxes but instead by using technology to become more efficient. We can do that on the state level as well. Finally, we have to close tax loopholes for personal and corporate income taxes. Individuals pay approximately 60 percent of our state's tax revenue through income tax and sales tax, but 80 percent of our corporations pay no corporate income tax at all. We need to review our corporate tax incentives and make sure that they are upholding their end of the agreement. If they are not creating jobs they promised or making the investments they promised, then we need to end their incentives until they do. And we need to make sure that people who live in Mississippi near Tennessee and Florida are paying Mississippi income taxes. Too many maintain a home here but claim residency in one of these two states because Tennessee and Florida have no personal income tax. That's not fair to the hard-working, tax-paying Mississippians who are upholding their financial duty to Mississippi. 

In Mississippi, some local school superintendents are elected rather than being appointed by their boards. Would you support or oppose a phase-out of elected superintendents, moving to appointment as incumbent elected superintendents retire or leave their positions?

I would support this. Only three states currently have elected superintendents. Of the more than 14,000 districts in the U.S., only 147 have elected superintendents. That means Mississippi makes up approximately half of those. I have no problem with elected school boards, which offer voters a say-so in the educational process. But we need appointed superintendents and agreed-upon basic minimum requirements for all of our superintendents. 

What would you do to address Mississippi’s teacher shortage?

Some of what has been discussed will help with both recruitment and retention: paying a better wage, upholding funding promises, ensuring better training while they are in college. The bottom line is that we have to show our teachers that they are respected. If we continue to make empty promises and heap more burdens upon them, then we will never be able to successfully recruit and retain good teachers. 

What steps should be taken to improve the quality of teaching in Mississippi?

I think we need to make sure that students training to be teachers have a better understanding of what is required of them. For instance, right now teachers complete only one semester of student teaching. I would like to see that increased to two semesters so that teachers can have an entire year training under a licensed teacher and working in a classroom. The lost college instruction time can be replaced using independent study so as not to require teachers to go to college any longer. In fact, I'm working with the University of Southern Mississippi right now to create a pilot program in Hattiesburg that would do just this. We also need to continue our focus on programs like National Board Certification and continuing education requirements. But in doing so, we need to allow teachers to help shape these types of programs to focus on the areas that are of the most interest to them. 

What steps should be taken to improve the overall quality of Mississippi school leaders?

We need to look at the minimum requirements for each administrative position, as I said with appointed superintendents. This is something that should be continually reviewed and updated as the needs of our schools change. We also need to make sure that teachers, administrators, parents and groups like this one are sitting at the table when the state is creating education policy or undertaking budgeting efforts. In Hattiesburg, when we tackle problems or take advantage of opportunities, we make sure that everyone with a vested interest in the issue is at the table, offering their ideas and critiquing the plan as we go. That is the only way to ensure success. 

Would you support state funding for a statewide non-compulsory early childhood education program? If yes, what is your plan for getting state funding for early education? If no, why are you opposed to state funding for early education?

Absolutely. To help fund it, I'll point back to my budgeting priorities: close income tax loopholes for corporations, review state leases, review 16th Section land leases and make sure that everyone who should be paying Mississippi income tax is paying Mississippi income tax. But I think we also need to recognize that early childhood development is too important to wait on until the funding is there. We can make steps toward a state-funded program by undertaking public/private partnerships with existing day care and preschool programs. We can incentivize these programs to adopt state curriculum that feeds into their local public schools so that the children who go through these programs are learning what they will need when they enter kindergarten. We can also look at ways to help parents who cannot afford these programs to get assistance from the state. This is not a perfect program, but early childhood development is too important for us to sacrifice a good plan in pursuit of a perfect plan. That said, our ultimate goal should be building toward the day when our state can fully fund such a program through our existing public education structure.