State may add workers to help improve teaching

27 could provide training

For some, Southaven Springfest, the city’s annual festival which returns to Snowden Grove Park for its 34th annual run this week, is all about the rides. For others, whether it’s a Pronto Pup bought on the midway or the high stakes of the State of Mississippi Barbecue Championship, it’s about the food.

But for Skyelor Anderson, it has always been about the music, specifically the lineup of country artists that traditionally headline the festival on Friday and Saturday nights.

“I would go to Springfest, and when I would walk in, I’d try to look backstage to see if I could see one of the singers where the tour buses were parked,” Anderson recalls. “I always said that I was going to get on that stage one day.”

That day will be Saturday. That’s when the Southaven High School senior, in what he calls easily the biggest show of his budding country music career, takes the main stage at Springfest, opening for upand-comer Chris Hennessee and the closing night’s headliner, acclaimed singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson.

Anderson’s short but eventful road to the Springfest stage began almost six years ago when his family moved to DeSoto County from Memphis. The rural setting provided Anderson, who is African-American and grew up singing in church, with an unlikely musical direction.

“I never did listen to a lot of rap,” says Anderson. “I was raised on Smokey Robinson and a lot of the old stuff. After we moved to Southaven, I was flipping through the channels one day and saw Darius Rucker on CMT. He had just switched to country music, and he had a song called ‘Alright.’ Just to hear that song, I’d turn on the radio by my bed at night. But before they would play that song, they’d play every other country song, and all those songs seemed to sort of sum up my life. From there, I figured I could definitely do this kind of music.”

As if to prove the point, in his freshman year of high school, Anderson won the school’s “Southaven Idol” competition.

That gave him the confidence to try out for the Fox music competition program “The X Factor” in 2011. Out of more than 250,000 people who tried out, Anderson made it to the Top 8 before being sent home by judge L.A. Reid for, ironically, sounding too country.

“It was probably the best experience of my life,” says Anderson, who doesn’t regret the experience in the least. “I got to meet some

Skyelor Anderson will perform at Southaven Springfest. amazing people, and I got to experience a lot of different types of music.”

When he returned home from Los Angeles, where the show was taped, Anderson discovered he was a celebrity. Fans were stopping him in stores to sign autographs. Girls were screaming his name. And record labels were trying to get him to sign on the dotted line.

Then Anderson did a curious thing: He stepped away from music entirely.

“I didn’t sign because of the money situation they were offering and the rights they wanted,” says Anderson. “I took a year off from music. I put my guitar down. I would play a party here and there or at a buddy’s house sitting by a fire or something, but I didn’t do any shows just to find myself, to take the time out and see if this was something I really wanted to do.”

After a year, the answer was yes. Last August, Anderson began playing again. Currently, he balances his schoolwork with as many as three shows a week at venues like Exline’s Pizza, Wadfords Grill and Bar, The Fillin Station Grille and the Boiling Point.

Almost as soon as he started back, Anderson began laying the groundwork for this Saturday’s show, calling the mayor’s office for months until he finally landed on the bill. Now, with the end of senior year just around the corner, the show seems like as much a graduation present as a career launch.

Not that Anderson will have time to relish it either way. Though he has put on hold plans to move to Nashville, he is heading to Music City before he even collects his diploma to cut a demo with Memphis-raised steel guitar legend Robby Turner producing.

“We’ll just send it out to some labels and see where it goes from there,” says Anderson. “Everything has just gotten bigger and bigger from Exline’s Pizza. It’s crazy. When I started off, I was performing in front of maybe 20, 25 people, and now I’m about to perform in front of thousands of people. I’m very excited about that. I’m definitely going to be backstage for a while this time.”

Associated Press

JACKSON — The Mississippi Department of Education appears ready to add 27 contract employees to help local schools improve teaching.

The state Board of Education discussed the $2.8 million initiative at its work session Thursday and is likely to vote to approve it Friday.

Observers including a legislative watchdog committee have noted that the state department traditionally has been more of a regulator than a participant in efforts to improve education. Today, only two curriculum specialists provide training to Mississippi’s 151 school districts.

“We’ve recognized a real need to expand the number of bodies that provide those services across the state,” state Supt. Carey Wright told the board Thursday.

In 2012, the Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review issued a report critical of the state’s failure to provide aid.

“While staffing improvements have been made in the area of instruction, PEER determined that only 1 percent of positions at MDE are specifically tasked with improving classroom instruction in all of the state’s school districts,” the report stated. “Because MDE has allocated the majority of its resources to other areas, MDE has limited its own impact in the priority area of improved instruction, particularly the deep level of implementation necessary for increased student learning to occur.”

Benton said the state took the PEER report into account when designing the new program.

Chief Deputy State Supt. Kim Benton said the effort will focus on literacy, math, language arts and early childhood learning. She said the focus on math and language arts will help districts make the switch to the Common Core state standards.

“We wanted to be able to support the transition to the new courses,” Benton said, referring to the state’s recent adoption of new course descriptions.

Board member Charles McClelland of Jackson said again Thursday that he’s heard from schools that are worried about making the switch to Common Core from the current state curriculum. “Those districts are telling me they’re still not ready,” he said. “Will this consortium work on getting them ready?”

“Absolutely, that’s what we’re trying to do is meet their needs,” Benton said.

Associate Supt. Trecina Green said the state depart- ment receives phone calls seeking assistance “all the time.”

Green said the workers will provide short-term training at no cost to districts. “We will actively come up with a menu of services and supports for districts,” she said.

The University of Mississippi will administer the budget for the effort and help with hiring. Green said she expects the effort will mostly hire current and retired teachers and administrators. The $2.8 million will come from state and federal funds.