• 15 April, 2026

House Speaker Philip Gunn named Rep. Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, to lead the House Education Committee on Friday. Bennett, a 10-12 months veteran lawmaker, replaces former chairman John Moore, a Brandon Republican who resigned the remaining month dealing with a House investigation over sexual harassment proceedings.

Bennett’s appointment, a staunch public training supporter and former training chief on the Coast comes over protest from some conservative “college choice” and privatization factions who antagonistic him being named as chairman, House leadership sources said.

“Sometimes we in this Legislature come across as or get accused of being anti-public colleges; that’s simply now not the case,” Bennett said. “I trust in public faculties. I’m a manufacturer from public faculties, and I’ve fought to improve public schools for most of my grownup lifestyles.”

Gunn said: “He’s a seasoned legislator and former faculty board member, (has) proven amazing understanding of education and received numerous endorsements from fellow House contributors.

“I don’t remember all and sundry else being promoted to the diploma that he became by using his colleagues,” Gunn said. Bennett, 60, takes the chairmanship as the legislative leadership is thinking about a formidable schooling agenda, consisting of a long-mentioned rewrite of the country’s college investment components and expansion of cutting-edge college choice packages.

Read More Articles :

“We are going to work on a brand new (funding) formulation,” Bennett said. “We want superintendents of faculty districts to recognize the amount of cash they may get every year that will plan for the future. I need to remove the micromanagement of our school districts, give greater nearby manipulation to our faculty forums and superintendents, and permit them to do what they want to do to enhance our colleges. They are the professionals in education, and we will have to learn to look for high-quality training to move our training method ahead.”

More: Mississippi legislators set to wrangle with ed funding

Bennett becomes a key participant throughout the remaining 12 months of trying to rewrite the country’s faculty price range formula, efficiently sporting a placeholder invoice for the rewrite inside the House Appropriations Committee. He drastically opposed a representative’s advice to shift the college funding burden onto property-wealthy districts.

More: ’18 Consultation Should Bring Faculty Desire Combat

In the past due December, Bennett became focused in his domestic district with direct mailers via Americans for Prosperity-Mississippi, a set whose chief, Russ Latino, frequently has the GOP legislative leadership’s ear on coverage and ideology problems. The mailers are known as on Bennett’s ingredients to name him “and ask him to face President Trump and Mississippi households by helping Education Scholarship Accounts.”

“Our wish is to paint with Chairman Bennett to extend training alternatives that meet the particular needs of Mississippi’s kids,” Latino said in a statement on Friday. “Access to education scholarship accounts for all Mississippi students remains a driving aim.”

For years, ESA and comparable “vouchers” permitting public college finances to be spent using mother and father at non-public schools were debatable trouble in the Legislature. The Clarion Ledger’s record that faculty choice proponents adverse to Bennett’s appointment became welcomed via the Parents’ Campaign, a public training advocacy institution.

“This is a superb day for Mississippi children,” Nancy Loome, government director of the Parents’ Campaign, said in a message to members. The Jackson-based nonprofit is rallying followers to encourage their legislators to vote in opposition to increasing the country’s current voucher-like software.

“We on the Parents’ Campaign welcome Chairman Bennett and sit up for running with him to strengthen public colleges,” Loomis stated. Bennett is a pinnacle Gunn lieutenant and has served as chairman of the House Gaming Committee, a crucial submit for the Coast delegation. On Friday, Gunn appointed Rep. Casey Eure, R-Saucier, to the gaming chairmanship.

Bennett, 60, has extensive public schooling experience and a circle of relatives tied to the national public education gadget. He became a longtime Long Beach faculty board member and served as its president. Bennett is a former president of the Gulf Coast School Board Association and a former Country School Board Association member. He also became a Harrison County Alternative School Board member and dealt with nearby training troubles as a Long Beach metropolis alderman.

Bennett’s father became a longtime superintendent of Harrison County faculties, and his mother labored for Head Start for 30 years. His wife, now a city alderwoman, is a retired unique-wishes educator. Bennett’s sister serves on the Gulfport School Board, and his son is the assistant primary of Long Beach High School.

Bennett attended Jeff Davis Junior College and the University of Southern Mississippi but did not receive a bachelor’s diploma. He retired from DuPont after 29 years. Phillip Burchfield, executive director of The Mississippi Association of School Superintendents, stated that Bennett’s “wealthy K-12 history” makes him “very familiar with the many demanding situations and opportunities that face Mississippi’s public faculties. MASS is extraordinarily excited and looks forward to operating with him as we address the problems that affect our public colleges.”

“As chairman of schooling, my consciousness goes to be to make our colleges higher for Mississippi,” Bennett stated. “We cannot move ahead as a country until we improve training. That’s my goal.” Each person should have great schooling. It is a demand for us to do higher in existence. We all understand approximately the quote that asserts, “Education is the key to success.” This is proper, in thsensee can be successful and attain high in exislevels ofnce if we’re knowledgeable. Starting our formative years, we’re acquainted. From primary training to high school, then comes university and even better degrees. After we have our careers, we nevertheless keep educating ourselves through learning and other sports.

Education broadens our horizons so thathweigher and wider information about the world around us. It will help us recognize how things are running and how they must be operated. Being in a civilized society, we want to understand better what modern-day globalization has to offer. If not, then we can’t live our everyday lives the way other people do.

Also, we’re in want of schooling because the economic system encourages us to contribute to it. We can expand the competencies that we will use in assisting our you. S. A. The intelligence we can accumulate from the people who teach us will deliver us the capability to be higher residents. We can all see how superior our society is these days. It became all of the contributions from advanced folks whowere once simply youths who educated them to gain expertise in the world  Everything we see now that we are using is based totally on what they’ve discovered and the ideas they got up with based on what they learned.

Just consider how the arena could be 50 years from now if education is preserved. The destiny generations would have a less difficult existence, extra achievement, and happier residences. People may have longer life expectancies by growing present-day medicines or scientific contributions. The governments are probably more secure and strong. Technology can be at its height. All of these things come from an unmarried basis, which is training.

Also, humans who can be well-educated are more assured. They are nicely respected by others. We can always benefit from the praise we want when we get the right education. It is our key to have a better existence. Better, not best, due to the fact we are secure financially, but also because we have the satisfaction and self-esteem that is constructed upon know-how. So before you think of quitting faculty and thinking you’re tired of the ones, take a look at exercises; consider what you might be letting cross if you pause your schooling. Time by no means waits for you. We should act now.

Education Corporation Buys Vatterott

Men’s Fashion Month: The Names to Know