Despite getting a share of state dollars for construction, Towner couldn't build a new library. Instead he had to convert a bathroom into one.

And once he had the library, he was still only halfway there. He ran into what is one of the most persistent problems school administrators in the Delta face: He couldn't find a librarian to staff it.

Like any number of Delta school districts, Quitman County's has a chronic teacher shortage because too few good teachers will move to the Delta to work.

They can't find housing and they can't have the quality of life with movie theaters and shopping malls that people want, Barnes said.

"There's nothing but a job to keep people here. There's no social interaction. There's nothing available," he said.

Estes Taplin, superintendent of South Delta school district in Rolling Fork, sees another huge barrier to student success: having to cross the river.

He doesn't mean the mighty Mississippi. He means the Yazoo River that meanders through the Delta, dividing the tiny south Delta towns of Rolling Fork and Anguilla from the capital city of Jackson.

Taplin, who has traveled to 35 states, Canada and Jamaica with his own children, sees the rural isolation and lack of cultural awareness – partially outgrowths of poverty — as the true enemies of his students.

"We have some very bright kids in the Mississippi Delta. Our kids are just as eager to learn as other kids. A lot of our kids are not exposed to things that other kids are exposed to," said Taplin, a former social studies teacher. "They have not left the Mississippi Delta. They have not crossed the Yazoo River. They haven't been to Jackson. I find that hard to believe."

What the Delta schools have in common is easy enough to see — poverty, rural isolation, separate systems for white and black and shortages of quality teachers willing to move in.

What educators can do to have an impact on student learning isn't as easy to ascertain.

Sunflower County educators don't see themselves as the culprit in students' poor test scores.

"I don't think we're Level 1 because of what we do or do not do here," said Linda Stapleton, Inverness Elementary fifth-grade language arts teacher.

The vast majority of Edwards' students, 97 percent, are black, which means most of the white students in his district have the money to make other choices such as private schools or home schooling.

Eighty-eight percent of Edwards' students qualify for the federal free lunch program, which means they're from impoverished homes.

Although he has heard the experts say student poverty and a school's test scores are closely linked, Edwards says he refuses to accept that as an excuse for his schools' low test scores.

He focuses on two other barriers he sees — lack of parental involvement within most of his seven schools and a dearth of qualified teachers willing to move to his isolated, rural district.

"Our parents ... don't like the publicity we get for being Level 1. They want our schools to be successful," he said. "They need to be more involved on a regular basis with what's going on. They need to offer their services more. If we could get more parents involved, it would make a big difference."

Edward Phillips of Greenville, whose son attends O'Bannon High in the Western Line school district, said schools could do a better job if parents were more supportive. "If we put the support into public schools, students would do real good," he said. "They need support. If they had the support and the funds the private schools have, the public schools would have it better."

Said his wife, Betty: "I feel like a lot of the parents don't show enough interest in children, theirs or anybody's."

Greenwood lawyer Charlie Deaton, a longtime member of the state Board of Education and a former state legislator, agrees that parental interest is one of the big factors missing in Delta schools.

"I don't believe being poor is necessarily a detriment to getting an education. If that were so, a lot of people today wouldn't be educated. I don't believe being black is the cause of it," Deaton said. "It boils down to that desire of a parent or parents to see that their child learns."

Said Ruleville Central High Principal Dorothy Burton: "You get teachers involved, community involved and the students involved. It's a package deal. Everybody has to be interested in the students' performance."

Staff Writer Butch John contributed to this report.

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Photo Credit for Bearden Elementary: Maude Schuyler Clay
Photo Credit for Walton Elementary: Chris Hamilton