Here’s something we don’t get to say very often: “Way to go Mississippi!”

This state has long been ranked dead last in important measurements like healthcare, workers’ wages, and rural opportunities. In recent years, though, Mississippi has steadily been advancing to the top in one vital category: Best places for a poor child to get a good education. What a miracle!

No. It’s the product of ordinary citizens who got fed up with plutocratic state rule that lavishes taxpayer funds on corporate elites, while shortchanging the basic needs of workaday people. In the past decade, savvy grassroots coalitions like Mississppi United have arisen and spread, gaining local political punch in county after county that could not be ignored by legislators.

Early on they achieved major state investments in pre-K education, producing remarkable advances, especially by low-income children in many of the state’s poverty-stricken, rural counties.

This year, building on that success, the movement scored two huge educational victories. First, they produced a unanimous senate vote to defeat a school privatization scheme pushed by the right-wing governor, the corporate establishment, out-of-state school profiteers… and Donald Trump! Then, to emphasize and expand on the state’s commitment to quality public education, the legislature passed a $5,000 teacher pay raise.

As a legislative leader from Starkville said after the senate vote: “Our public schools are the cornerstone of every community in this state, and this unanimous rejection sends a clear message: Mississippi will not abandon the students and families who depend on quality public education – no matter how much out-of-state money tries to buy our legislators.”

To learn more about the uplifting “Mississippi Miracle” go to ACLU-MS.org.

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