Gov. Bryant not good for the future of Mississippi

Phil Bryant is the last thing Mississippi needs in an ever-evolving world.

Gov. Bryant has worked from within the government of Mississippi for more than two decades. Bryant is a man fully entrenched in the dredge that is modern government. He has little perspective on what life is like for everyday people, and his early planned policies already show his lack of perspective. 

Foremost is Bryant’s suggested action to help Mississippi’s failing education system. During his recent State of the State speech, Bryant gave some focus to his so-called education reform. Bryant has proposed a performance-based pay scale for teachers throughout the state of Mississippi. 

A performance-based system seems like a great idea, but implementation of such a program is very tricky. 

First and foremost, an incentive-based program creates greater gaps between the best performing and worst performing schools. Rewarding teachers for hightailing it to Madison County so they can get their pay raise instead of actually trying to help those that need the best teachers will not create a better Mississippi. 

Additionally, this idea of performance-based budgeting can easily be pushed onto the funding of each individual school district. High performance schools have a much lower need for additional funding than schools that are struggling to advance their students through elementary and middle school. Funding and pay should be based on which districts truly need funding and better teachers to give young Mississippians a chance to live their lives. 

Bryant also proposed a plan that would allow failing high school students an opportunity to enroll at local community colleges for workforce training. Rather than focus on building a successful school system that allows young Mississippians to succeed, Bryant is admitting that the school system is a failure and that he wants to place a band-aid over it. 

If you have a weed, is the best fix to cut off the very tips of the leaves? Of course not. You want to pull out the root so the weed doesn’t grow back. Bryant’s idea of taking high school students who are failing and offering them an alternative will do nothing to fix the education system. Mississippi needs a governor who has ideals that are based in creating change, not just making minor fixes. 

Bryant was also lieutenant governor under former Gov. Barbour from 2007 until his election. Bryant has promised to focus on job creation during his term in office. And given Barbour’s take on job creation, this is what we can expect: deals with special interests, offering tax cuts to large corporations to come in and hurt small businesses and encouraging a state of corporate welfare. It makes sense that in a time when large corporations aren’t hiring, that we should encourage more of them to come to Mississippi. 

If Bryant wants to create jobs, he should take a different path from Barbour, who did little to create jobs during and since the recession that started in 2007. To have higher-paying, better-living jobs, Mississippi needs to train a workforce that can attract jobs in quickly growing fields. Mississippi needs a workforce that is well educated, and one that can live in the 21st century. Entrepreneurship should be encouraged, rather than corporate takeover. 

Bryant is not what Mississippi needs, but he is what Mississippi has. Now is the time to let the governor know what is best for his state because it is clear that he doesn’t have a solid understanding.

Jay Nogami is a sophomore public policy leadership major from Denver, Colo. Follow him on Twitter @JayTNogami.