Word: jacksonism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...going to argue with this outcome? Back in 1992 Shunta Belle was on the fast track to nowhere, "hanging around thugs and drug dealers and trying to prove myself to them." Then, as a freshman at Provine High School in Jackson, Miss., she signed up for the spit-and-shine, no-nonsense world of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. For the first year, Belle held on to a few of her underachieving civilian comrades. But over the next three years, she picked up new friends, a better attitude and a fresh set of goals to match. "I got serious...
Like most urban public school districts, the one Belle joined in Jackson suffers overcrowded classrooms, underpaid teachers and students whose scores on the ACT, a standardized college-admissions exam, lag behind the national average (the district average last year was just 16.9 out of a total of 36 points). JROTC has helped to even the playing field. "Jackson has more unwed mothers than just about any city of its size in the nation," says state senator Robert Johnson III. "We're talking about second- and third-generation single parents. The people criticizing JROTC are not the people living in these...
With the odds for success against many of Jackson's students, local educators applaud any program able to bolster academic performance even marginally. The cadets score two or three points higher on the act than their civilian peers. Last year nearly 96% of the district's cadets graduated, compared with 92% of its noncadets. "We have micromanaged these students and conditioned them to be successful," says Colonel Lucius Wright, director of Jackson's program. Says Jodie Brown, 23, a Forest Hill High School graduate and former JROTC cadet who last year returned to her alma mater as a history teacher...
Politically-themed vacations fetched the biggest bids. A week at the Vermont retreat of Ira Jackson, Director of the Center for Business and Government, with Jackson serving pancakes every morning, brought in $3500. A week at former Ambassador to Austria Swanee Hunt’s Columbine Ranch, in Colorado, brought...
Person of the Week THE OSCAR FOR BEST HOBBIT IN A SUPPORTING ROLE GOES TO ...Peter Jackson's first third of the Lord of the Rings epic picks up 13 Oscar nominations, leading the pack this year. J.R.R. Tolkien, who died in 1973, likely didn't imagine this final twist in his novel's enduring and lucrative life...