The Mississippi Board of Education has approved a 2.8 million dollar plan to hire 27 contractors to go to school districts throughout the state. They will provide instruction to educators on how they can better teach math, language arts and early education. Tracina Green is with the department.
"They will be content specialists developing training modules." said Green "What we're going to do is provide school districts with a menu of services and support that these individuals will be able to provide."
Using curriculum specialists to train teachers is nothing new to the state. Currently only two qualified specialists able to provide training to Mississippi's 151 school districts. That's drawn criticism fromthe state's watchdog group PEER. Max Arinder is the organization's director. He says curriculum specialists should already be working with the Department of Education on a permanent basis.
"You do need a central core of highly trained staff that know how to improve instructional processes, that are very competent in cirriculum and instruction issues, because the state needs that expertise in house." said Arinder.
The Department of Ed. will not hire the contractors themselves, but will instead go through a third party which will be administered through the University of Mississippi.
