Toppings news this week:

• The Department of Health announced that it will close six of its nine public health district offices across the state by June 30. The agency is reorganizing after a $12 million budget cut by the Legislature.
• Two Democratic lawmakers are suing the state after Gov. Phil Bryant’s mid-year budget cuts to public schools. The lawsuit, filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of Rep. Bryant Clark and Sen. John Horhn, says the nearly $20 million cuts to school districts violates the state constitution.
• Mississippi third-graders passed their literacy test at a record rate. The Department of Education announced Thursday that 92 percent of third-graders passed the reading test they have to take to be promoted to the fourth grade. Last year’s pass rate for first-time test takers was 87 percent.

Close window X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Mississippi Today’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications:

• Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
• Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
• You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
• You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
• Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
• If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.

For print publications:

• You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
• You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
• You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Michael Guidry for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
• Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
• You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
• You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
• Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
• If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.

If you have any other questions, contact Audience Development Director Lauchlin Fields.

This Week: Health offices close, lawmakers sue state, third-graders score high on literacy test

by Gabriel Austin, Mississippi Today
May 19, 2017

<h1>This Week: Health offices close, lawmakers sue state, third-graders score high on literacy test</h1> <p class="byline">by Gabriel Austin, Mississippi Today <br />May 19, 2017</p> <p>Toppings news this week:</p> <ul> <li>The Department of Health announced that it will close six of its nine public health district offices across the state by June 30. The agency is reorganizing after a $12 million budget cut by the Legislature.</li> <li>Two Democratic lawmakers are suing the state after Gov. Phil Bryant’s mid-year budget cuts to public schools. The lawsuit, filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of Rep. Bryant Clark and Sen. John Horhn, says the nearly $20 million cuts to school districts violates the state constitution.</li> <li>Mississippi third-graders passed their literacy test at a record rate. The Department of Education announced Thursday that 92 percent of third-graders passed the reading test they have to take to be promoted to the fourth grade. Last year’s pass rate for first-time test takers was 87 percent.</li> </ul> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/19/this-week-health-offices-close-lawmakers-sue-state-third-graders-score-high-on-literacy-test/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://mississippitoday.org&quot;&gt;Mississippi Today&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.&lt;img src=&quot;https://cdn.mississippitoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/06074517/MT_icon-logo-favicon-1-200x200.png&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://mississippitoday.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=69176&amp;amp;ga4=G-VSX4B701MS&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/19/this-week-health-offices-close-lawmakers-sue-state-third-graders-score-high-on-literacy-test/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/mississippitoday.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p> Copy to Clipboard

1