Newswise — An inner-city high school in Jackson, Miss., has defeated the odds: Its quiz bowl team has won statewide competition and its students have raised enough money to cover the team's expenses to Chicago for the National Academic Quiz Tournaments competition later this month.
The winning team is from Murrah High School, where nearly all of the students participate in free or reduced-cost lunches, so it's easy to understand the degree of poverty that exists among the student body.
While there are other schools in the Jackson Public School District with greater challenges, Murrah "still faces the many problems a typical inner-city school must tackle," said the school's quiz bowl coach Dave Jones, a graduate of the Mississippi Teacher Corps program at the University of Mississippi.
"It just so happens that the quiz bowl team somehow and miraculously brought together the cream of the crop to create a truly memorable year," said Jones, who earned his bachelor's degree from Notre Dame and is a 2005 graduate of UM's Teacher Corps Program. A native of Endwell, N.Y., he has taught Latin at Murrah since then.
After conquering the competition, the team's biggest hurdle was to find funding to get them to Chicago for the May 25-27 2007 High School National Championship Tournament. With limited support from a few parents, money is always tough going, Jones said. Remarkably, however, team members hit their $3,000 goal to pay for the trip.
Since most of the team's competition from around the state has been students from affluent suburban school districts, Jones said the Murrah team takes even more pride in winning.
"In Mississippi, the quiz bowl competitions are very much an in-the-know sort of club that's hard to break into with a new team that hasn't been there before. We've even been mistaken a few times during awards ceremonies for other schools whom we weren't supposed to beat. We've absolutely trounced all of our competition, and we're thrilled," Jones said.
While Jones credits the team's success to student merit and dedication, he is also receiving kudos. Described as innovative and intelligent, Jones has been an outstanding member of the MTC program, said program manager Ben Guest.
"Dave has done a great job as a teacher. The state championship is a testament to his ability to motivate young people, and we commend him and his students on their success," Guest said.
MTC is an alternative teacher certification program. Since 1989, more than 400 MTC participants at UM have reached an estimated 80,000 students in critical-needs school districts in the Mississippi Delta and urban Jackson.
For more information about the Murrah High School quiz bowl team, contact Dave Jones at [email protected] or 607-222-1810. For more information on the Mississippi Teacher Corps program, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/programs/mtc/.
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