For students at Jackson's Bailey Magnet School, Amani Floyd's dedication as a teacher has paid off well. Floyd, a student in the Mississippi Teacher Corps program at the University of Mississippi, helped the kids raise their American history test scores by 10 percent, with 95 percent of students passing the state exam. That's the highest rate of inner-city students passing the exam in four years.

State Rep. Cecil Brown took notice of Floyd's accomplishments, naming her the first Nancy H. Brown Teacher Corps Fellow. The fellowship is named in honor of Brown's wife, who teaches math in the Jackson Public Schools.

"Nancy and I agreed when I was elected to the House nearly 10 years ago that we would always give all of my legislative pay to charity," Brown said when he established the endowment last year. Being chosen for the fellowship is honorary until the endowment generates funds, at which time recipients will receive monetary awards to use in their classrooms.

Floyd, who returns to Jackson in the fall for her second year in the MTC program, praised Brown for establishing the fellowship.

"That's really bold for a politician to do something like that. Instead of just talking, he legitimately took some action. It's really generous of him," Floyd said in a release.

MTC is a two-year alternate route teacher certification program that recruits college graduates and places them as teachers in the state's most poverty-stricken areas while they complete a master's degree in education. A native of Shaker Heights, Ohio, Floyd spoke with the Jackson Free Press via telephone this morning about her teaching experience in Jackson.

"It's been a mixed experience," she said, saying that in Ohio, high-school students were driven to advance to college. In Jackson, she found many seniors aren't prepared to continue their education and are often willing to accept low grades as long as they pass.

At the other end of the spectrum, though, Floyd expressed how fond she is of her students.

"I truly, truly, truly love my kids," Floyd said with a laugh. "Even when they try to be bad, it's a 'respectful' bad," she said, making sure to address her as "ma'am."

"They keep me entertained, and they work hard for me," Floyd said. "They really work hard when they know somebody cares about them."

Previous Comments

ID

149588

Comment

Congratulations Ms. Floyd, you are well deserved recipient of the honor. Shaker Heights, OH is where research was centered on the notion of the racial achievement gap. If Ms. Floyd was raised there and went to school there in the 1990's, she probably has first hand knowledge of the efforts to identify strategies to equip schools to better prepare Black students for college. She is correct in that most seniors (especially African Americans) are not really academically prepared for the rigor of college coursework. It does take specific, targeted programs that address academic skills, college prep courses, personal and social development and resource identification and utilization in order to help most inner city kids become academically prepared to go to college. If these things take place, the money for school takes care of itself. Blackwatch!!!!!!

Author

Renaldo Bryant

Date

2009-07-13T14:45:23-06:00