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Why Not Honor Softball?Flynn, p 31

Inside the Push to Keep Kids in School

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Inside the Push to Keep Kids in School

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JACKSONIAN MONICA FLIPPIN WYNN

F or Monica Flippin Wynn, social media is not a distraction from her class; it pro-vides useful tools for her students. As an assistant professor in the mass communi-cations department at Jackson State University, Wynn uses the latest forms of communication to stay in touch with the younger generation. Originally from Milwaukee, Wynn earned her masters degree in communication from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. While in Milwaukee, she also worked as an assignment editor and weekend producer for television station WITI and then as a public relations assistant and assistant producer for ra-dio station KS95 FM. She went on to work for Minneapolis TV station KARE as an assign-ment editor and assistant producer. I knew I wanted to be some place where people were always in the know, she says. I needed to be on top of things, and for me, thats education, where things happen so quickly, or news, where you know everything. After spending years in media, Wynn re-entered the world of academia to pursue her doctorate degree in communications at the University of Oklahoma. She took a break for about five years before returning to complete her degree, only to learn that many of her course credits were lost. It was during the dissertation phase of her degree that she began teaching at Jackson State University in 2009. At the same time, she still had to complete her degree in Oklahoma.

Since Wynn began teaching at JSU, she has worked persistently to investigate and modify teaching techniques. In 2010, she at-tended the Global Inquiry Faculty Teaching Seminar, a month-long faculty-development institute where participants focus on im-proving teaching methods, materials and technologies in global platforms. Trainees who excelled were invited to participate in a four-year pilot study that encouraged teach-ers to find new teaching methods for incom-ing freshmen at their respective colleges. Fall 2015 will be the first semester to integrate the results of the study in regular courses. What we do is give them the tools that theyre going to need analytically, she says. Technology in education is a new thing now. We dont have to give up the tradition-al, but weve got to meet the students where they are, and they use (social media) tools. After a student told her, Email is so archaic, Wynn began using apps such as Twitter to communicate with her students. She has used Instagram as an attendance tool and often tasks her students to make six-second Vine videos, challenging them to be concise. This summer, Wynn will work with the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute for the Elimination of Health Disparities, in a two-week summer institute and a two-year training program that begins in the fall. Jordan K. Morrow

MAY 13 - 19, 2015 | VOL. 13 NO. 36

4 ............................. EDITORS NOTE6 ............................................ TALKS12 ................................ EDITORIAL13 .................................... OPINION15 ............................ COVER STORY20 ......................................... FOOD20 ................... GIRL ABOUT TOWN22 .......................................... ARTS24 ....................................... MUSIC24 ....................... MUSIC LISTINGS25 ....................................... 8 DAYS27 ...................................... EVENTS28 ..................................... SPORTS31 .................................... PUZZLES33 ....................................... ASTRO

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9 Supporting Black BoysEducators in McComb are fighting to keep young black males from dropping out of schools.

20 Power and Control Writer Julie Skipper recently encountered a situation that made her think about the line between chivalry and control.

22 The Age of NaughtI think its a culmination of all the experiences weve had over the years. Weve grown, and its not just the teenage mindset of Lets play fast. Lets play loud. Lets play something thats obscene. Were actually more into the craftsmanship of songs and writing heavy music thats not just for people that like heavy music. Way Barrier, The Age of Naught

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by R.L. Nave, News EditorEDITORS note

A few weeks ago, another American city erupted over another dead black body at the feet of men and women sworn to protect. The Baltimore uprising was a near car-bon copy of Ferguson last August: A black boy gone too soon; cops too brainwashed to see the humanity of the population they serve; outrage from black folks; outrage from white folks over black folks outrage; lies (and laziness) from the mainstream me-dia about peaceful protests turning violent, like gentle pets turned mad dogs; arguments between strangers about right and wrong; arguments between friends about respect-ability; us versus them. While Baltimore burned, Missis-sippi smoldered. As people and mainstream-media pun-dits policed the respectability of protesters and wept for the loss of convenience stores in Baltimore, just as many did a year ago in Ferguson, the federal government brought to a close its largest ever prosecution under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The law passed and took effect in 2009 after being tied up in Congress for almost a decade and only af-ter a black president briefly had Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. The crimes for which 10 young white men and women were charged and con-victed of four years later are unnerving, like the plot of a movie a middle-school teacher might show her class about how bad racism used to be. Basically, over the course of sev-eral months, the defendants assaulted poor and homeless black people for kicks until they got bored enough with throwing beer bottles and found one to kill: James Craig Anderson, on June 26, 2011. At the time, I was living in Boulder, Colo., and had just applied for a reporter position here at the Jackson Free Press. I had a difficult time wrapping my mind around

the fact that it happened in Jackson in 2011. As a kid, my family often visited relatives in Raymond so I thought I had a good grasp on the nuances of race relations. Mississippi isnt racist, and racism in Mississippi is compli-cated. It just seemed unlikely that a group of white kids from the suburbs had the gall to get in their trucks, drive all the way to Jack-son and kill an African American. I guess I dont know as much as I thought. As the feds announced the indict-

ments in the case, several members of the groupeight men and two women, most of them from Rankin Countystayed out of jail on bond. In the meantime, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Walter Scott, Tanisha Anderson, Miriam Carey, Freddie Gray and others were all killed after meeting the wrong cop(s) on the wrong day. In sentencing three of the co-defendants earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, the second African American ap-pointed to the federal bench in Mississippi, read a speech that NPR published online. In the speech, Reeves said the sentences wouldnt bring back Anderson or restore the humanity of the defendants. James Andersons mother, who is now 89 years old, lived through the horrors of the Old Mississippi, and the court hopes that she

and her family can find peace in knowing that with these sentences, in the New Missis-sippi, justice is truly blind, Reeves said. A lot of people also say justice was served in the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man whose severed spine was the apparent result of negligence on the part of the offi-cers who arrested him. In that city, following days of unrest, six officers were charged with his death. The prosecutions are surprising and, for many, a welcome twist in these now all-too-familiar stories. Finally, we might see justice and some semblance of peace. Many rejoiced. I did not. A couple months ago, I was in Judge Reeves courtroom covering a federal class-ac-tion lawsuit over conditions at the infamous Walnut Grove Correctional Facility in Leake County. Two prisoners attended the hearing as representatives of the plaintiff class. One of them was a black man who had an associates degree in nursing. The other prisoner was white and a former law-enforcement officer. Despite the differences in their back-grounds, the men and their fellow inmates, as army buddies might say, were all in the sh*t together. After covering these court cases, reading narratives of prisoners in law-suits and talking to lawyers, experts and ad-vocates about our mess of a criminal-justice system, I cant rejoice in any human beings subjugation to it. Of course, there is a role for police, courts, jails and prisons, but my discomfort has more to do with the fact that as a nation, we dont give much thought on what to do next. As a nation, we have perfected punish-ment. Thats one of the many reasons out-rage trolling over black-on-black crime falls on deaf ears. If theres one thing we do well, its locking up black people. In fact, we have the most incarcerated citizens on the planet, a disproportionate number of them poor whites and nonwhites. Now, even our school districts have police forces (see page 6), sup-

ported with funding the state is all too happy to provide, even as our lawmakers scrimp on funding everything else for schools. But is punishment justice? The cop (or neighborhood-watch volunteer) shoots the kid who mouths off or runs away. We lock up the criminal. Maybe we charge the rogue cop. We spank the disobedient child. We kick the bad kids out of school. Then what? What we get is a never-ending cycle of violence and sadness, long after the so-called threat is ostensibly neutralized. What we get is damaged people. And if were being hon-est with ourselves, we have to recognize that even white officers who kill unarmed black teenagers are every bit as damaged as the so-called thugs they think need discipline in their lives. As angry as I am about the actions of those young whites from Rankin County that ended Andersons life, Im just as un-comfortable branding those young adults as white thugs as I am with the silly idea that Mike Brown was a thug who deserved to be shot and killed by Darren Wilson. I was as ambivalent about the St. Louis County grand jurys refusal to indict Wilson as I was about the destruction of the gas station blocks from where my grandmother sleeps. An attorney friend put it best when she told me that equality and progress cant just mean taking the same broken system that victimizes black and brown folks and apply-ing it to white people. Judge Reeves took an oath to follow the rule of law, which sometimes means punish-ing people for crimes they commit, an oath he upheld in sentencing defendants in the James Anderson case to prison terms. Reeves said, and I agree with him, that Mississippi has a present and a future. That present and future has promise. Now, we just need to fig-ure out what we want that future to be. To send news tips, email rlnave@jackson freepress.com.

CONTRIBUTORS

On Punishment

Freelance writer Patty Limatola is a chef and resides in Califor-nia. She has two teenage chil-dren, teaches cooking classes and owns the blog MmGood.com. She is well traveled and loves exploring life. She wrote a food story.

Music Editor Micah Smith fights fire with 70s funk band Earth, Wind & Fire. He played Stunned Bystander in the Life-time original movie, My Neph-ew Is a Dracula, Part 2. He performs with the band Empty Atlas. He wrote an arts story.

Assistant Editor Amber Helsel has a bachelors degree in jour-nalism. She is secretly a super villain whose goal in life is to incovenience those around her with her amazing brand of humor and practical jokes. She wrote a music review.

Sportswriter Jon Wiener is the host and producer of Home Cookin on ESPN 105.9 FM The Zone. The native Jacksonian and proud Mississippian has a bach-elors degree in English and mas-ters degree in broadcast journal-ism. He wrote a sports story.

Art Director Kristin Brenemen is an otaku with a penchant for dystopianism. Shes pour-ing all her creative energy into cosplay lately. Bee, Pizzazz and Pam will soon be ready! At night, she fights crime. She designed much of the issue.

Staff Photographer Imani Khayyam is an art lover and a native of Jackson. He loves to be behind the camera and capture the true essence of his subjects. He took photos for the issue.

Music Listings Editor Tommy Burton is keeping the dream alive, one record at a time. He can usually be seen with a pair of headphones on. He com-piled the music listings. Send gig info to music@jackson freepress.com.

Assistant to the CEO Inga-Lill Sjstrm is happy, easygoing and friendly. She enjoys dig-ging into new things and is curious about everything from music to food to fitness.

Equality and progress cant just mean taking

the same broken system and applying it

to white people.

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O n May 6, Jackson Public Schools seemed to be suffering from a split personality. That morning, at Wingfield High School in south Jackson, education advocates and school of-ficials hailed the school for lowering discipline problems by 94 percent between 2013 and 2014 without kicking students out of school. Meanwhile, JPS officials have also beamed about a decrease of 1,000 discipline incidents across the dis-trict between last year and the cur-rent one. Suspensions and expulsions dont work. Theyre coming back, and theyre coming back behind, Willie Killins Jr., Wingfields princi-pal, told reporters seated at desks in a second-floor classroom, referring to the students who get kicked out. A report titled Classmates Not Cellmates from the Missis-sippi-based group Fight Crime: Invest in Kids concluded that be-cause kids who are not in school are more likely to interact with law enforcement, schools should come up with other ways to respond to less serious situations. The afternoon painted a much differ-ent picture of discipline in JPS, however. Seated in the chairs that city council mem-bers usually occupy, members of the Jackson

Federation of Teachers, a labor organization, unveiled their own report, titled Reclaim-ing the Promise of Great Public Schools. The report grew out of a questionnaire

JFT circulated among teachers and staff members in JPS that included narratives of unnamed workers who say they were threat-ened, insulted and harassed by students. A survey revealed that two-thirds of the 1,021 people who responded said their work envi-ronment is out of control daily or weekly.

Todd Allen, who teaches history at Wingfield and is a member of JFT, be-lieves JPS reaction to the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon, where kids who get

pushed out of school end up in the criminal-justice system, was a pen-dulum swingfrom over-policing to under-policing. I just dont think there was a major revival that caused 90 percent of students to improve their behav-ior, Allen said during the city hall press conference.

Defining Effective As Allen pointed out, school discipline has come into sharp fo-cus in Mississippi and around the nation in recent years. In 2013, the Washington, D.C.-based Advanced Project said the state was mired in an extreme school discipline crisis. In 2012, the U.S. Justice Department said Meridian was running one of the worst school-to-prison pipelines in the nation. Also, in 2012, JPS

settled with students whom district officials regularly handcuffed as punishment for dis-cipline issues. On April 28, attorneys from the Ad-vancement Project filed a lawsuit against the DeSoto County School District, challenging discipline policies that

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Wednesday, May 6 Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan re-scinds the state of emergency he de-clared in response to riots in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray and says all 3,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 state police deployed to the city have been pulled out.

Thursday, May 7 A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the NSAs phone data collection program is not legally justified under Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The U.S. Sen-ate votes 98-1 in favor of legislation that would let Congress review and possibly reject any final deal the United States makes with Iran in a historic accord un-der which the country would roll back its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

Friday, May 8 U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announces that the Justice De-partment will conduct a broad investi-gation into the Baltimore police force in search of law enforcement practices that are unconstitutional and violate civil rights. Thousands attend the funeral of slain New York Police Department Officer Brian Moore, calling for respect and understanding at a time when law enforcement is being deeply scrutinized.

Saturday, May 9 Hattiesburg police officers Benja-min Deen and Liquori Tate are shot and killed during a routine traffic stop. Au-thorities arrest four suspects in connec-tion with the shooting.

Sunday, May 10 Boats carrying nearly 600 Bangla-deshis and Rohingya Muslims from Myan-mar wash to shore in western Indonesia, but an estimated 7,000 more remain cap-tives of human traffickers in the Malacca Strait and nearby international waters.

Monday, May 11 The United States faces the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva for a second review of its rights record follow-ing the first in 2010.

Tuesday, May 12 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks con-cerning Ukraine and Syria.

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MCCOMB, Miss.Monique Gilmore, who directs school and community relations for the McComb Public School District, enthusiastically greeted students at a school celebration last month, placing green Mardi Gras beads around their necks while proclaiming: Here comes another scholar star! Gilmore clapped and smiled as princi-pals called out the names of top performers in this southwest Mississippi city of 14,000. Parents snapped cell phone photos as if at-tending a concert of their favorite singer. Throughout the ceremony, as primary- and middle-school students walked to the stage to receive recognition, the dominant presence of black boys in the lines was ac-centuated by their smiles as they returned to their seats with beads. But by the time Mc-Comb Superintendent Cederick Ellis called high-school seniors to the stage, not one black youth walked up. The glaring gap was all too apparent. Where had all the black boys gone? There wasnt a single black male senior among the students who had maintained an A average for three consecutive nine-week periods. This absence provided another re-minder of the failure of schools in Missis-sippi to improve the academic performance of black boys, despite last years efforts from the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color, a Boston-based group with a mission to improve the social, emotional and aca-demic development of boys and young men of color. Its not that progress hasnt been made: McComb High School moved from a grade of F to a C within the states accountability system last year. But the graduation rate at McComb High is still eight points less than the states average of 74.5 percent. And its

high school drop-out rate of 24.5 percent is more than 10 points higher than the state, where it is 13.9 percent.

Its not yet known how many of the black males who entered McComb High School four years ago will cross the stage at graduation and pick up diplomas this month, but the most recent statistics provide a fright-ening glimpse of failure. Of the black males who entered high school in the 2007-2008 school year, according to the state, only 55 percent graduated or received a high school diploma, certificate of completion or a GED within five years, compared to 83 percent of white males. McComb provides a close-up example of the stark disparities that remain in the edu-cational performance of blacks and whites in Mississippi schools, which havent outgrown a legacy of segregation and racism. One glaring

example: In 2014, black students in Mississippi averaged just 16.5 on the ACT, compared with 20.8 for white students. The national average

for all test takers last year was 21. Mississippis black boys are also over-represented in special education and are less likely to take college-level Advanced Place-ment tests. The states persistent disparities are symptomatic of a national problem rec-ognized by President Barack Obama, who in 2014 launched his My Brothers Keeper initiative, which aims to improve outcomes for boys and young men of color. In McComb, history has strongly in-fluenced how schools serve blacks. The Civil Rights Movement and the end of legally sanctioned segregation met bitter and violent resistance from white groups in the county. During a two-month period in the early 1960s, there was so much incendiary violence

against civil rights groups that McComb be-came known as the bombing capital of the world. More than 50 years later, the citys five public schools remain segregated. Of the 2,743 students, 89.25 percent are black; just 8.6 percent are white. Meanwhile, the city it-self is 31 percent white and 66 percent black, according to U.S. census data. Many white parents send their chil-dren to the predominantly white North Pike School District, even though they live in Mc-Comb, said Ellis, the McComb school super-intendent. North Pike is 66 percent white and 32 percent black. Other white families choose Parklane Academy, a private, predominately white K-12 Christian School, he said. North Pikes 2013 graduation rate of 76 percent is almost two points higher than the state aver-age and 10 points higher than McCombs. There has been an out-migration of the haves, Ellis said. Everybody who thinks that another school system, because of the population they serve, can provide a better education than the McComb School Dis-trict, they do that.

A City in Transition Named after New Orleans railroad baron Henry Simpson McComb, this citys fortunes followed the rise and fall of the rail-road. Like many small municipalities, Mc-Comb hasnt replaced the industry that gave it a name. Today, McComb moves along two dis-tinct tracks, one black and the other white. The black unemployment rate of 14 per-cent is more than double the white rate of 6 percent, according to American Commu-nity Survey data. White households earned approximately $36,400, while black house-holds earned about $29,200. Both groups

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McComb Educators Savor Small Victories While Wondering: Where Have all the Black Boys Gone?by Andre Perry, The Hechinger Report

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McComb Superintendent Cederick Ellis untangles a students medal from his beaded necklace. Ellis honored students who maintained an A average for three consecutive grading periods.

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earn less than the U.S. average of $53,000, a gap that has existed for more than a decade. Manufacturing remains the largest industry in Pike County, where McComb is located; the retail and service industries round out the main outlets of employment. McComb has fought hard to improve its public schools. Some of the districts prog-ress stems from a concerted effort beginning in 2009 to boost its then-wanting gradua-tion rate of 63 percent. Although numbers indicate that black achievement, overall, is significantly lower than white, the district decided to focus reform efforts specifically on the performance of black males. The need for a focus on African Ameri-can males remains. Overall, Mississippis black males graduated at a rate of just 51 percent for the 2012-2013 academic year, compared to 63 percent of white males, ac-cording to the Schott Foundation for Public Education, which, in a report titled Black Lives Matter, drew on multiple data sources to estimate and publish more complete graduation rates than those the state presented. The report also revealed huge discrepancies in black and white suspension rates: Some 17 percent of black students were suspended in Mis-sissippi in 2012-2013, compared to just 7 percent of whites.

Outside Support Aware of the disparities, school leaders in McComb sought ways to help improve student performance and black male outcomes, in par-ticular. Eventually, they decided to get in touch with COSEBOC, a membership organization that has become a leader in the education of black boys. McComb paid $3,500 to join the group. COSEBOC held its first-ever national conference at Mississippis wJackson State University last June, gathering hundreds of experts from across the U.S. to attend workshops and discuss COSEBOCs standards, which include ways to meet the needs of black boys in everything from test preparation to curriculum and college enrollment. COSEBOC relies on spe-cific tools, training and standards developed in partnership with New York Universitys Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. In 2009, under the leadership of then-Superintendent Therese Palmertree, Mc-Comb became the first district in the state to adopt COSEBOC standards. At first, the standards were a set of lofty goals, said David Bickham, the consultant with whom the McComb School District and COSEBOC contracted for $7,500. It

wasnt until the district went through real training at the Jackson State gathering did they make real operational sense. School officials were shown ways to make the school environment more supportive of black boys, in a program that examined everything from guidance counseling and school culture to the cul-tural relevance of the curriculum. In McComb, the COSEBOC guide-lines are being introduced as the states prin-cipals and teachers are struggling to keep up with new academic and professional stan-dards that seemingly change every year. The organizations director, Ron Walker, believes the extra effort is worth it. While superintendents are held ac-countable to state academic standards, there should be additional standards that support boys of color, Walker said. Our standards raise different questions that may not be asked in the day-to-day curriculum.

One Superintendent at a Time Mississippi educator Rhea Williams-Bishop believes last Junes gathering in Jack-son elevated the conversation and raised val-id questions about the significance of black male achievement, and says she promotes

COSEBOCs standards via her work as ex-ecutive director of the non-profit Center for Education Innovation, based in Jackson. Still, Williams-Bishop cant point to any policy changes at the state level that resulted from the gathering. And without the states endorsement, the most a district can do is encourage better teacher training. In one effort to boost black male achieve-ment, the board of Alignment Jacksona nonprofit that works with public schools in

Jacksonbrought together university faculty, lawyers and other leaders to develop and form ninth-grade academies within each public high school in Jackson. The group identified the need to focus on ninth-grade students and created a plan to reorganize schools to help make that happen.

Williams-Bishop said COSEBOC stan-dards are being introduced in schools through-out Jackson via the districts Cultural Compe-tence/Relevance Committee, which she chairs. Walker of COSEBOC sees this as progress. Of course policy change is the goal, Walker said. Were just not there yet, but we have several district leaders at the table. Were getting buy-in, one su-perintendent at a time.

Is Change Going to Come? That might not be soon enough for Mississippi, which, along with Louisiana, has the highest proportion of young adults aged 16 to 19 who are considered disconnectedthey are not in school or workingaccording to the Kids Count Data Center, a proj-ect of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report found that with 12 percent, Mississippi has some 22,000 disconnected youth. If all these youth were in the same school district, it would rank as the third largest district in the state. That number is far too large, says Donna Harris, an independent researcher in Rochester, N.Y., whose work focuses on how students prog-ress from kindergarten through 12th grade. We need to look at how schools policies and practices push students out of schools, Harris, a former faculty member at the Uni-versity of Rochester Warner Graduate School of Education and Human De-velopment said. Its too easy for us to say its the parents and the kids that are causing the disappearance. Most people refer to students who

leave school prematurely as dropouts. Harris says too many students are actually pushed out because they are bored, miss too many classes or lack social and emotional support.

Dreams and Hopes Lakeivion Isaac, a junior track and field star at McComb High School who hopes to be an engineer, believes the training he got when he attended a COSEBOC conference in Durham, N.C., as an eighth grader in

2012, made a difference in his life. I want people who know me to say I went to school with the person who made that car, said Isaac, an honor stu-dent who is on the superintendents advi-sory board. Robert Lamkin, Isaacs current prin-

cipal, credits COSEBOC with giving students a larger worldview. At the 2012 Durham conference and again at the 2014 event in Jackson, they had a chance to meet university presidents and top professionals, while attending seminars on college admis-sion, he said. For Lakeivion, and the others who went, there was a newfound awareness of who they were as African American men, Lamkin said. You could tell their eyes were exposed to something much larger than what McComb has traditionally been. The impact of COSEBOC and its stan-dards on students who attended the confer-ence inspired Lamkin to create Men on the Move, a college exposure and mentoring pro-gram that takes students of varying academic abilities on college tours and also introduces them to local leaders in McComb. Some 62 McComb students are in the program now, he said. The research is mixed on whether men-toring programs effectively keep students on track for graduation. However, Isaac, who is a member of Men on the Move, believes the program will help boys like him. Its not normal that youll see black men in such leadership positions, Isaac said. Its not tradition in McComb. It gave me dreams and hopes to do what theyre doing. James Brown, who was Isaacs principal at Denman Junior High when he attended the Durham conference, said he would love more of his students to have the extra sup-port and guidance COSEBOC training pro-vided. Lakeivion is the exception, Brown said. But he shouldnt be. Lamkin said he will stay focused on black boys and the obstacles they face, and keenly feels their absence from senior pictures of the districts highest academic achievers. We want to set the stage of what our kids view being African American is, he added, noting proudly that Isaac will gradu-ate fourth in his class. Its only a matter of time before they break the top. This story was produced by The Hech-inger Report, a nonprofit independent news organization focused on inequality and in-novation in education.

AN

DR

E PERRY

Lakeivion Isaac, 17, carries a 4.11 GPA and placed third in the state championships in the discus throw.

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We want to set the stage of what our kids view being African American isIts only a matter of time before they break the top. Robert Lamkin, McComb High School principal.

>]xUv

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No Justice, No Peace

Time to Rethink Third-Grade Tests

A s predicted, a sizable chunk of Mis-sissippis third-grade students failed the so-called third-grade reading gate test and may have to repeat the whole school year. Roughly 15 percent of kids in the third grade might be held back if they dont score bet-ter in two make-up exams in the coming weeks. In Jackson Public Schools, the states largest ur-ban school district, the numbers are even higher, nearly double the statewide average. It could have been worse; JPS was actually bracing to fl unk two-fi fths of all third graders. The thinking behind the legislation, offi -cially called the Literacy-Based Promotion Act and based on a similar plan Jeb Bush pushed when he was governor of Florida, was to invest in reading instruction during kindergarten through second grade. That way, by the time kids tested in third grade, only the students who needed the most reading help would be retained. But thats not what happened. For one, the Legislature never provided schools the funds to hire enough literacy coaches. As a result, as JPS Superintendent Dr. Cedrick Gray told this pa-per, the district had to get creative in reallocating scarce resources to focus on preparing students for the test even though schools were not told ahead of time what the pass-fail score would be.

In other words, schools had to focus all their resources on the third grade. Now, JPS will have to use more resources to re-prep kids one or two more times. No matter what happens, however, third-grade classrooms will be larger in JPS and around the state come next year, and there will be no additional funding for it. We cant help but wonder how few students would have failed the test had the state actually fol-lowed the lead of Florida (instead of just pretend-ing to), which earmarked around $1 billion for its literacy program and focused on teaching reading in the earlier grades. We are certain that the num-bers would have been miniscule had the Legislature followed the law for the past 17 years and provided schools adequate funding under MAEP. The state could redirect money taxpayers are shelling out on attorneys for the states law-suits: one to block a ballot initiative that would require adequate education funding, and one to close down the states only abortion clinic. Meanwhile, in Florida, a Republican-led effort seeks to do away with the testing. A state Senate committee is reviewing the proposal. So maybe get rid of the tests altogether? If Gov. Bryant thought it was a good idea to follow Florida in implementing the third-grade gate, maybe he should follow the states example and seriously rethink it.

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>]xUv

12

M r. Announcer: In the ghetto criminal-justice system, the peo-ple are represented by members of the newly established Ghet-to Science Community Peace Keeping Unit: police offi cer and part-time security guard at the Funky Ghetto Mall, Dudley Do-Right McBride, attorney Cootie McBride of the law fi rm McBride, Myself and I, and guest rookie peace offi cers Johnnie Cocran and Charlie Charles Houston McBride. This is their story. Dudley: Anytime Im riding in the Law-N-Order SUV with my legendary cousins, Johnnie and Charlie, something is about to happen. Johnnie: When the need gets great, its time to activate. Charlie: Johnnie is right. Now is the time for common folk to see the light and stand up for their rights. Dudley: Cousins are talking in lawyer code again. Please translate, Cootie. Cootie: Johnnie and Charlie are responding to the arrest of Freddie Gray and the actions that led to his death in Baltimore. Dudley: I hope their response will not be like those who chose to riot and loot. Cootie: They were very impressed with Maryland State Attorney Marilyn Mosby when she said, I heard your call for no justice, no peace. Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice Charlie: Cootie, Johnnie and I plan to advise, inform and instruct our disenfranchised community members about the law and their rights so they wont get beat or gunned down. Johnnie: We call it the Peoples Justice for Peace Empowerment Sessions. Dudley: Better known as Watch the Police. Doink, doink.

behaved

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'OV 0HIL "RYANT RESPONDING TO7!04 REPORTER"ERT #ASE ABOUT PROTESTS IN "ALTIMORE

Why it Stinks: Bryant neednt look much further than his home county of Rankinalso home to most of the 10 white defendants accused of participating in the events that led up to the death of James Craig An-derson, who was blackto get a fl avor of how far race relations have come. Whats more, what is this nonsense about Mississippians being better behaved than people in Baltimore? The underlying sentiment of Bryants remark seems to be that the power structure here has suffi -ciently crushed its citizens into submission. What Bryant doesnt realize is that such crushing is the very thing that set Baltimore afi re.

L ast weekend, I attended a remarkable conference where I learned about something called othering and be-longing. Othering, also known as implicit bias, is a survival mechanism and core brain function that categorizes people, largely by appearance, into allies and threats. Categories for othering include gender identity, body type and size, race and skin tone, age, physical and mental ability, or any other trait that our culture might choose to exalt or demean. As humankind, we have used othering to justify horrific be-haviorswaging war, enslaving people, com-mitting genocide, or exploiting life, land and culture. Everyday, we label and judge others as snobs, thugs, jocks, princesses, sissies, and the list goes on. Belonging implies safety, comfort and our highest aspiration: con-nection. We often de-scribe this as our com-munity, our tribe. But by definition, belonging can imply that there are others who fall outside our circle of safety and concern. For me, whenever I enter a situa-tion, I scan the environment. Where are my people? Who do I know? Who looks and acts like me? If my scan yields a feeling of belonging, my body relaxes. If not, I tense up and other myself before anyone else can. A few days ago, I attended a May Day celebration in the mountains of Tennessee. I arrived and began to sort and label the 500 people gathered there. I saw hippies of all ages dressed in festive, androgynous outfits with lean body types that years of yoga and vegan diets conditioned. I counted fewer than 20 people of color. Other than my two friends who invited me, I didnt know a soul. I had no rational reason to feel unsafe, but I did. I went into protective mode and oth-ered myself, feeling frustrated, angry, dismis-sive and unsafe. These feelings kept me on the mar-gins, looking for an escape. I wanted to be left alone, and people accommodated that. When night fell, I found a quiet place near the bonfire. Burt, an elderly man wearing a fringed leather vest and a sequined rainbow beanie, sat next to me. He was born and reared on this mountain, as were his ances-tors four generations back. I spoke with him about othering and belonging, and he shared this story.

For most of my life, we lived under the ugly cloud of Jim Crow. My black friends and neighborspeople I grew up withwere treated like animals by white folks, including some of my relatives. We othered them, and they othered us. But what mattered to me was the relationship. I made a pact with my black friends that no matter how bad the situation was, we had to be able to stand in the middle of

that madness, and with no more than a glance, know that we had each others backs. I asked Burt his opinion about the events in Bal-timore and he said, They can continue throw-ing rocks at each other, trying to put the other guys out or knock some sense into them. Or they can stand in the middle of the madness like we did and take care of each other until the system changes. Burt shook my hand and said that

if I felt othered through the course of the evening, to seek him out, and hed let me know I belong. All of the fear, tension and frustration that I was holding dissipated, and I relaxed. Over the past few weeks, images of othering in Baltimore have barraged us. Videos played in endless loops of the bru-tal and monstrous police and out-of-control thugs. This has only exacerbated the tension of othering. Building communities of belonging requires conscious engagement. It starts when you reflect on these three questions: 1) Where do I other? 2) What does it look and feel like? 3) How does it separate me from my humanity? When Burt noticed me separating from my humanity, he sat next to me, took me in and told me that I belong. His conscious engagement may provide an example for us to move beyond our basic instinct to other and connect to our higher aspiration: belonging. Kevin Fong, who lives in San Francis-co, is a nationally recognized and respected facilitator, trainer and speaker in leadership and executive development, and organiza-tional systems, philosophy and design. Visit elementalpartners.net.

Othering and Belonging

KEVIN FONG

>]xUv

13

Belonging implies safety,

comfort and our highest aspiration:

connection.

Editor-in-Chief Donna LaddPublisher Todd Stauffer

EDITORIAL

News Editor R.L. NaveAssistant Editor Amber HelselJFP Daily Editor Dustin Cardon

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ART AND PHOTOGRAPHYArt Director Kristin Brenemen

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The Jackson Free Press is the citys award-winning, locally owned newsweekly, with 17,000 copies dis-tributed in and around the Jackson metropolitan area every Wednesday. The Jackson Free Press is free for pick-up by readers; one copy per person, please. First-class subscriptions are available for $100 per year for postage and handling. The Jackson Free Press welcomes thoughtful opinions. The views expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of the publisher or management of Jackson Free Press Inc.

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With every street we cross, theres an

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Coahoma County, Miss. A few months back, DeAn-gelo Bryant, a 19-year-old senior at Coahoma Agri-cultural High School, was in danger of not graduat-ing. He had failed the state

subject-area test in U.S. History, which is re-quired for graduation. And he wasnt entirely clear on the point of getting a diploma. Most of the people he grew up with in Jonestown, a small outpost outside Clarksdale, dont have high school degrees. Even the ones with diplomas usually cant find good jobs. But a series of events recently changed Bryants outlook. One afternoon during football practice this fall, he noticed some men working near the field. They were welding, a teammate told him. Bryant watched the men at work and was intrigued. A few weeks later he told Angela Jones, an administrator at the high school, that he wanted to become a welder. Jones recognized Bryants interest as an opportunity to explain what can be a for-eign concept in this poor region with scant job opportunities: School can actually lead to well-paying work. I told him its a very lucrative field, said Jones, who showed Bryant a path that began with graduating from high school and ended with a stable career in welding. I told him to get his certificate so he could become a journeyman and move on and make the top dollar with the union. Bryant, who is already a father and has seen his parents struggle to support 10 chil-dren, took noteespecially when Jones ex-plained that the certificate could help him

land a job that pays $25 an hour. Jones also made sure that Bryant had multiple opportunities to score well on his ACT test, which, due to recent changes

in graduation requirements, improved his chances of getting a diploma. The percentage of students who grad-uate from Mississippi within four years74.5 percent for the 2013-2014 school

year according to statistics from the Missis-sippi Department of Educationisnt too far below the national rate of 81 percent. (The national number is for the 2012-13

school year.) But in some poorer districts, those numbers are far lower. Before the cur-riculum was revamped, the graduation rate at Coahoma Agricultural High School, or Aggie as locals know it, had dropped as low as 46 percent. And about three miles down the road from Aggie, the Coahoma County School District has a four-year graduation rate of 52 percentup from just 45 percent the year before, according to state data. The Legislatures goal to increase the statewide graduation rate to 85 percent by the 2018-2019 school year has, in part, fu-eled Mississippi to work hard to keep stu-dents in school. In 2006, the state created an office of dropout prevention. And two years ago, the Legislature required the 109 districts that had graduation rates below 80 percent to come up with a plan for restructuring their dropout prevention effort. Since then,

districts have responded with everything from training to help teachers engage with disaffected students to updated curricula de-signed for todays job market. Although the dropout rate is a state-wide issue, the problem is particularly acute in Mississippis poorest areas, including the Delta, where graduation rates sometimes dip below 50 percent and educators face huge barriersamong them, an entrenched mindset that school simply doesnt matter.

Grim Prospects The prospects are grim for students who dont make it to graduation. Some 68 percent of state inmates are high-school dropouts, according to a 2003 nationwide

Getting to Graduation: Mississippis Statewide Push to Keep Kids in Schoolby Sharon Lerner, The Hechinger Report

SHA

RON

LERN

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The recently revamped Coahoma Agricultural High School, nicknamed Aggie, has a long history stretching back to 1924.

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People are so far out, if its poor weather or bad weather, they dont want to put their children on buses.

Debbie Harrell, superintendent in George County, a rural district in Mississippi.

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estimate. Dropping out costs students an additional $260,000 in lost earnings, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes when compared to high-school graduates, accord-ing to 2008 estimates from the Alliance for Excellent Education. In Mississippi, drop-ping out further narrows already slim em-ployment options. The consequences of not graduating are particularly harsh for black males. According to a 2014 study that the Brookings Institution conducted, black male dropouts born in 1970 had an almost 70 percent chance of winding up in prison by their mid-30sa rate thats three times that of white dropouts. By the time they were 30, black dropouts were more likely to be in prison than to be employed. Two years ago, Aggie was on the brink of failure. The school, one of only two agri-cultural high schools remaining in the state, had begun to seem like a holdover from an-

other era. The Legislature planned to close it last July, and even the districts superinten-dent, Valmadge Towner, understood why. We just knew that the kids were not interested in school, said Towner, who is also the president of Coahoma Commu-nity College, which shares a campus with the high school. We had low community engagement (and) low staff engagement. Towner helped design a program that would make school more relevant to stu-dents in this poor, rural area. Set amidst vast fields, Aggie would return to its roots and teach about agriculture, which had long since faded from its curriculum. But this time, with classes such as agribusiness and agri-mechanics, students would be pre-pared for work in 21st-century agriculture. The idea was to make schoolwork more hands-on and more fun while preparing students for a range of jobs. Thus, on a recent Thursday, students in a food-science class that local chef Lee Craven taught were painting a banner they would hang at a local health fair behind food they had prepared. Students in the agri-science class learned about the economics of farming and planted a garden this year. Cra-vens students recently used those turnips and other veggies to prepare a restaurant-worthy meal. Through its partnership with the com-munity college, Aggie students can take other career-oriented courses, such as auto mechanics, medical billing and welding.

Daunting Budgets The reinvention of Aggie is just one of the efforts the Department of Educa-tion is undertaking to boost graduation rates. The task is a daunting one, in part because, elsewhere in Mississippi, budget woes constrain efforts. Last year the Leg-islature provided the Office of Dropout Prevention only $800,000 to pay for pro-grams that keep kids in schoolprograms that can be expensive. Many districts have struck up arrange-ments with local businesses to pay for some programs. At the comparatively wealthy Gulfport High School, for instance, NASA helps pay for a state-of-the art robotics lab where, on a recent Monday afternoon, members of the robotics team were excit-edly inspecting bi-directional wheels for their new robot. And local hospitals team up with the school for a program in medi-cal careers. In several coastal communities, including Pascagoula and Ocean Springs, Chevron funds Project Lead the Way, a science, technology, engineering and math-ematics program that helps boost math test scores and post-high school outcomes. Unfortunately, poorer regions, which tend to have both higher drop-out rates and less local industry, often have difficulty finding private money to support programs that help engage and retain students. Jean Massey, associate state superintendent at the Mississippi Department of Education, said the private funding in wealthier areas thankfully allows the state to allocate more of its public dollars to poorer regions. We may never get the Chevron that the coast has in the Delta, Massey said. But if Chevron can support the coast, then we have additional dollars to support the Delta.

Compounded Circumstances The scarcity of resources, including the lack of potential corporate sponsors, is just one reason its harder to prevent stu-

dents from dropping out in less densely populated areas. A compounded set of circumstances make it very difficult to do dropout prevention in rural areas, said Sandy Addis, interim director of the Na-tional Dropout Prevention Center/Net-work and a participant in a U.S. Depart-ment of Education project on dropout prevention in rural states, including Mis-sissippi. Finding support for programs to help keep kids in school is very different if I have a chamber of commerce two blocks down, he said. National research shows that risk factors for dropping out include living in areas in which unemployment is high and the percentage of adults who hold high school diplomas is low, and living in low-income, single-parent households. All are common situations in Mississippiand throughout the country. Students in rural areas struggle with additional burdens, in-cluding attendance. People are so far out, if its poor weather or bad weather, they dont want to put their children on buses, Debbie Harrell, superintendent in the Southeast-ern rural district of George County, said. A combination of these issues led Shanika Lewis of Clarksdale to drop out. Its because my household is all Lewis said, her voice trailing off when she tried to explain why she left school in the seventh grade. After a pause, the former dropout, now 19, settled on the phrase just not right. Lewis uneven school attendance ended altogether after her grandmother, who had been caring for Lewis younger siblings, had a stroke. While Lewis mother worked, the 12-year-old stayed home to care for her partially paralyzed grandmoth-er and six younger siblings for the better part of two years. Though she never returned to tradi-tional school, Lewis is now enrolled in Om-budsman, an alternative program offered through the Clarksdale district. Seated in a large room alongside other former dropouts, Lewis has her own laptop and individualized lesson plan, which allow her to work at her own pace and help ease any embarrassment she might feel about being an older student. While she continues to shoulder much of

the responsibility for caring for her grand-mother and still struggles with absenteeism, Lewis is on track to earn a degree through the program. If she graduates, Lewis success will not impact her districts graduation rate: The Mississippi Department of Education will count her as a completer, a special category for students who are neither tradi-tional graduates nor dropouts. As in other districts, a considerable number of Clarksdale seniors dropped out because they repeatedly failed state subject-area tests that, until recently, were a hard-and-fast graduation requirement. They try and try, and eventually, they give up, Dennis Dupree, the district super-intendent, said. Dupree estimates about 35 students this year may not get their diplo-mas because of the tests. Statewide, 3,856 of 28,797 seniorsabout 13 percentare at risk of not graduating because they failed at least one of four tests, according to De-partment of Education data. But recent changes in graduation requirements are expected to reduce the number of students who dont gradu-ate due to state tests. In late March, the Department of Education announced it

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Shanika Lewis, a student in Clarksdales Ombudsman program, dropped out of school in seventh grade.

Clarksdale Municipal School District Superintendent Dennis Dupree in front of the building that houses Clarksdales Ombudsman program.

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would no longer require seniors to pass all four subject-area tests in order to graduate. Starting next school year, a combined min-imum test score will be sufficient, even if students fail one or more of the individual tests. And by the following school year2016-2017scores on standardized tests in algebra, biology, English and U.S. his-tory will constitute only one quarter of a students final grade. This year, for the first time, students who dont pass the subject-area tests may be allowed to graduate based on a combination of their overall course grades in these subjects with their test scores. In Coahoma County, this means 10 of about 60 seniors who were at risk of failure may graduate, according to Coahoma County School District Superin-tendent Pauline Rhodes. Last year, the deci-sion to allow ACT scores to be factored into graduation requirements, which paved the way for Aggies DeAngelo Bryant to get his diploma, helped boost Coahoma Countys graduation rate from 45 to 51 percent. Between the districts own efforts, which include putting a school counselor in charge of dropout prevention, and the changes in graduation requirements, Rhodes is hopeful Coahoma Countys graduation rate for this school year may climb as high as 61 percent.

Getting on Track While the new testing policy is designed to help se-niors, some districts focus on reaching children at risk of dropping out much earlier. Such students can be reliably identified, based on academic performance, as early as eighth grade. According to 2006 research on dropout trends in Philadelphia that Robert Balfanz, a researcher based at Johns Hopkins University, conducted, more than three-quarters of eighth graders who either fail math or English or miss more than five weeks of school go on to drop out. The Star Academy, a program offered in George County and Lynchburg, just

south of Memphis, is designed to catch such lagging students. This school year, Star, which the for-profit company Pitsco operates, enrolled 150 students entering eighth grade who had been held back at least once and gave them the opportunity to do the condensed coursework of eighth and ninth grades in a single year. So far, most Star students in both districts are ex-pected to enter their traditional high schools as 10th graders. In the coming school year, two additional districts will likely create Star academies. But, to make a substantial increase in the graduation rate, change will have to start earlier than eighth grade, Massey said. They need to start in el-ementary school getting kids thinking about what they want to do and why they should stay in school, she said. Its not just learning about careers. Its learning why theyre necessary. Its, If my buddies are drop-ping out of school, how do I stay on track? If Masseys prescribed solution amounts to cultural change, that fits with experts understanding that in order to get at the roots of the dropout problem, change must extend far beyond schools. About two-thirds of the risk factors for drop-ping out of high school are related to in-dividual students, their families and their communities, according to Addis of the National Dropout Prevention Center and Network. The school systems cant do this alone, he said. Some Mississippi schools are attempt-ing to address the more nebulous social issues that underlie school failure. Captur-

ing Kids Hearts, for instance, a training program that includes an intense three-day workshop for school staff, is designed to strengthen the student/teacher bond, a con-nection that has been shown to help keep students in school. The program, which the for-profit group Flippen Education offers, encourages staff to engage students through such basic social niceties as eye contact,

handshakes, and pre-class fist bumps. It (has) connected teachers to kids in a more civilized, caring, empathetic way, Perry Swindall said of the program. Swindall, who teaches physical education and coaches at Oxford Middle School,

feels the more respectful relationships the program has fostered benefit students and teachers alike. That teacher has a harder time raising her voice or losing her temper with some-one that theres a connection to, Swindall said. And students have a harder time mis-behaving when theres a personal connec-tion with that teacher. Oxford, a university town with a higher than average graduation rate of 88 percent, is one of the luckier districts when it comes to a critical resource for dropout prevention: role modelslots of parents who not only graduated high school, but went on to college and a career. In many parts of the state, adults who can demon-strate and speak firsthand to the benefits of a high-school diploma are in short supply. In Coahoma County, for instance, where per capita income is less than $16,000 a year, many students who drop out have par-ents who didnt graduateand thus havent

experienced the value of education. Its a vicious cycle, Devona Jones, the dropout-prevention coordinator for the Coahoma County school district, said. We have parents who dont have the capacity to help the kids. They dont see the necessity of going. A few miles away in Clarksdale, School Resource Officer Earnest Moore sees such

families every day. Moore, one of five school officers that the district employs, visits the homes of students who are absent for more than five days without an explanation. In his daily rounds, he has heard just about every excuse for not mak-ing it to school, from parents not having a babysitter (and thus calling an older sibling into service) to oversleeping. Moore reminds parents that the failure to send their children to school couldat least technicallyresult in the suspension of their public benefits. A few years back, au-thorities here withheld checks from parents whose children were truant, and Clarksdales school district office was soon

flooded with parents who wanted to re-enroll children who had dropped out, according to Dupree. But that provision of the law is no longer enforced. So Moore goes to great lengths to help keep kids in school, sup-

plying rides to school, alarm clocks, clean clothes and plenty of encouragementeven to those who can no longer attend traditional high school. We dont turn our backs because youre 19 or 20 years old, Moore said. Ill go to their house and say, If youre not com-ing back to school, enroll in GED. The important thing, he said, is not to give up. Back at Aggie, DeAngelo Bryant is seeing his persistence pay off. Bryant re-cently scored a 30 on the ACT reading test, which, through the states recently amended requirements, secured his graduation. Now, he said, hes excited not just to walk, but to start preparing for his career. Hell begin welding classes at Coahoma Community College this summer. This story was produced by The Hech-inger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more at hechingerreport.org.

We dont turn our backs because youre 19 or 20 years old. Ill go to their house and say, If youre not coming back

to school, enroll in GED. Earnest Moore, Clarksdale, Mississippi, school resource officer.

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Students participate in a medical careers class at Gulfport High School, which local hospitals partially fund.

We have parents who dont have the capacity to help the kids, Devona Jones (above), dropout prevention coordinator for the Coahoma County School District, said.

DeAngelo Bryant, 19, plans to begin welding classes at Coahoma County Community College this summer.

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girl about townby Julie Skipper

I m all for chivalry. Ill just put that out there. Sure, Im physically capable of open-ing a door for myself, carrying groceries to my car or even killing the occasional spider, but its also really nice if a gentleman wants to do it for me. Same goes for other traditional rules of manners, like when walking two-abreast on the sidewalk, a gentleman walks on the side closer to the street, orand for some reason, this one gets contentious sometimesthe gentleman orders for the table. Some wom-en get all, I can order for myself, but I like that rule. Note, I did not say that my date decides what I can, should, or will eat and drink. Its fun that we know each other so well that often, we can guess what the other would choose on a menu. But its definitely a matter of me letting him know what Id like, and then he orders for both of us. Emily Post and Gloria Vanderbilt would want it that way. And its just nice. I firmly believe manners are ultimately about being gracious and courteous and making others comfortable. Theyre not about being bossy or controlling or making others feel inferior. Theres a distinct differ-ence. Unfortunately, when I observe people out and about, the concept of manners and

chivalry seems to evade many who are out there in the wild. Theres taking charge in a gentlemanly way, and then theres taking

charge and being a jerk. As it so happens, observing people is one of my favorite pastimes. I think you can learn a lot from just watching others and their so-cial interactions. Thats one reason I like sit-ting at the bar in restaurants, as opposed to

a table. (Other reasons to bar-sit include the attention you get from the bartender and, if youre with your significant other, the ability to cozy up without being the weird couple who sits on the same side of the table.) When you people-watch, you also see mannersor lack thereofin action. One recent night out, my man and I found ourselves bar-sitting at a hip neigh-borhood restaurant, enjoying a good meal. While we wined, dined, and chatted, I kept noticing the couple on a date a few seats away. The fellow seemed more interested in his phone than his lady-friend, which was unfortunate, but, sadly, not unusual for the times we live in. Heck, Im as guilty as any-one else of that on occasion, so it was a good reminder to put the phone up and pay atten-tion to the person I was with. But then, my date, who was closer to the couple than I, did a double-take and nudged me with a, Did you just hear that? I had not, so I perked up. When I did, I was horrified. I thought, If this is what its like out there in the dating game these days, then chivalry is, in fact, dead. Heres what happened: The fellow looked at the ticket for their meal, called the bartender over and told him, I didnt autho-

rize these two drinks (of the ladys), so youre going to need to separate those. Thats right. He made her pay for the drinks that he hadnt authorized. Now, being a fan of reality television, I know that Patti Stanger, the Millionaire Matchmaker, has a two-drink maximum rule on dates, but thats so the daters keep their wits about them; I dont think it means if your date goes over two drinks, you refuse to pay for them. I also understand being on a budget. But perhaps if two drinks can throw you off, you should have suggested a different date altogether. This was not a case of, Oh, let me order your drink for you. This was about control. And thats the opposite of manners, really. I dont know what happened to this couple. I dont know what the bartender thought when the man asked him to split off those beverages. And I dont know who else out there has encountered such behav-ior while navigating dating adventures. I can only hope such incidents are few and far between. In the meantime, lets all at least try and learn from things like this. Put the phones down and pay attention to the folks youre with, and by all means, buy the lady a drink.

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News intern Zachary Oren Smith (right) opens a door for Editorial Assistant Adria Walker (left).

iV Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a non-stick muffin pan with vegetable spray. Remove the crusts from the bread. Using a fork, poke each slice several times. This allows the bread to better absorb the egg mixture. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and egg white together. Add milk, cinnamon and honey, and whisk again. Dip a piece of bread in the egg mixture and press

it into the muffin pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the bread is a little crisp. Once its done, let the cups cool in the pan for two to three minutes before removing. While the bread is baking, mix the ricotta cheese with the orange zest until smooth. To serve, spoon equal amounts of the ricotta mixture into each of the cooled bread cups and top with berries. Drizzle with maple syrup for extra sweetness, if desired. Makes six servings.

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WEDNESDAY 5/13 The Jackson 2000 May Luncheon is 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Arts Center of Mississippi (201 E. Pascagoula St.). Rob Hill, state director of the Human Rights Campaign in Mississippi, talks about the LGBT equality in the state. Attire is casual or business casual. RSVP. $12, $10 members; call 960-1500; email todd@jacksonfreepress.com; jackson2000.org.

THURSDAY 5/14 Cheers for a Cause is 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Great-er Jackson Arts Council (255 E. Pascagoula St.). The event includes art and craft vendors, a silent auction, wine and refreshments from Fan-tasy Food Catering. Proceeds benefit the Mississippi Coalition Against Do-mestic Violence. For ages 21 and up. $30 in advance, $35 at the door; call 601-940-8853 or 601-502-3241; email eventsbyeei@gmail.com; eventbrite.com.

FRIDAY 5/15 The Jason Daniels Band performs 8 p.m. at Fe-nians Pub (901 E. Fortification St.). Jason Daniels is an American-roots music singer-songwriter and guitarist who moved to Jackson by way of Nashville. For ages 21 and up. Free; call 601-948-0055; jasondanielsmusic.com.

SATURDAY 5/16 Dine and Dash is 1-5 p.m. on Capitol Street from The Elite to The Mayflower. The Downtown Business Associa-tion is the host. Includes free food from downtown restau-rants, face painting and live entertainment. Free; call 601-589-0941; email dbajxn@gmail.com. Midfest 2015 is 3-8 p.m. on Wesley Avenue. The Business Association of Midtown hosts. Shop for art and crafts, buy concessions and enjoy live music from Cody Wynne Cox, Dream Cult, Savvy, 7even:Thirty, Empty Atlas and DJ Java. Free; call 404-536-1793; email astinjs@gmail.com; madeinmidtownjxn.com. The Shipwreck Concert is 8-11 p.m. at Hal & Mals (200 Commerce St.). Maranda J hosts performers Akami Graham and the Key of G, with Larry John-son and Beasty Tunes. $15, $50 table for two, $80 table of four; call 948-0888; email aka-miandthekeyofg@gmail.com; eventbrite.com.

SUNDAY 5/17 American Craft Beer Week: Marks Lemonade & Shandy Stand and Seafood Boil is noon at Saltine Oyster Bar (622 Duling Ave., Suite 201). The event closes out a week-long celebration of craft beer with special events, limited-release drafts, pairings and more, which runs May 11-16 at 5 p.m. and May 17 at noon. Visit the website for a schedule. Free ad-mission, food prices vary; call 601-982-2899; saltinerestau-rant.com. K.Marsh IIs Made for a Runway III Fashion Show is 6:15-10 p.m. at Union Station (300 W. Capitol St.). L. Sherie and Fredrick are the hosts. The red carpet event is

from 6:15-7:15 p.m., and the fashion show is at 7:30 p.m. Includes a special guest appearance. For ages 18 and up. $25, $50 VIP; call 707-278-6906; thekmarshiionline.com.

MONDAY 5/18 Author Sarah Frances Hardy signs her book Dress Me! at 4 p.m. at Lemuria Books (Banner Hall, 4465 In-terstate 55 N., Suite 202). $14.99 book; call 601-366-7619; lemuriabooks.com. The Krutz Family Cellars Wine Din-ner is 7 p.m. at BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar (High-land Village, 4500 Interstate 55 N.). Enjoy a five-course din-ner paired with wines. The special guest is Bryan Krutz of Krutz Family Cellars. RSVP. $90; call 601-982-8111; email tanyab@bravobuzz.com; bravobuzz.com.

TUESDAY 5/19 Friends Fest is 9 a.m.-7 p.m. at the Mississippi Craft Center (950 Rice Road, Ridgeland). The open house in-cludes guided tours, programs and more. Free; call 601-856-7546; craftsmensguildofms.org. Meet the Candidates Fo-rum: Hinds County Tax Collector is 5:30 p.m. at Koinonia Coffee House (136 S. Adams St., Suite C). Women for Prog-ress of Mississippi hosts. Speakers include incumbent Eddie Fair and challenger Santore Bracey. Free; call 601-259-6770; email mail@womenforprogress.net; womenforprogress.net.

WEDNESDAY 5/20 History Is Lunch is noon at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building (200 North St.). Missis-sippi First Lady Elise Winter discusses her book, Once in a Lifetime: Reflections of a Mississippi First Lady. Sales and signing to follow. Free; call 601-576-6998.

SATURDAY 5/16Harold Jackson Gridiron Gals Football Clinic is at Jackson State University.

THURSDAY 5/14National Composer Night Out is at St. Andrews Episcopal Cathedral.

WEDNESDAY 5/201 Million Cups Jackson is at The Hatch.

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Jackson-based singer-songwriter Jason Daniels performs Friday, May 15, at Fenians Pub.

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