Video: Lt. Gov. Reeves Visits Columbus

[jwplatform am0nZs7P]

COLUMBUS, MISS. (WCBI) – It’s not often that Mississippi’s Lieutenant Governor stops by for lunch.

But it happened today at the Columbus Exchange Club.

Tate Reeves shared insider stories from the state capital and talked with WCBI’s Alyssa Martin about two topics that he holds near and dear.

Education reform, an increase in jobs and other successes in the state are only a few topics on Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves’ agenda as he addressed the Columbus crowd today.

Now in his third year as Lt. Gov., Reeves says the state is seeing many changes in the education system, including implementing the common core curriculum.

The need for a better educated workforce is one of the driving forces.

“We have invested in public education over the last three years, we are going to spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars more on education in the current fiscal year then we spent just three years ago. But we’re not just investing in the current statuesque and thinking things are going to change overnight. We’re also talking about reforming our educational system,” said Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves.

In the past three years, the public education investment has grown by more than $200 million dollars, all the way from grade school to the university level.

“We’ve done things like adding school choice to give parents a choice in their child’s education by passing a public charter school bill that works for Mississippi parents, in addition to that we’ve changed the way we rate our individual schools, so that parents and grandparents really understand the kind of district and the kind of school that their kids are going to,” said Reeves.

And at the next level, proper workforce training is important to draw industries to our area.

“You look at what’s going on at EMCC, you look at what’s going on a Mississippi State, we’re training a workforce that can provide the jobs of tomorrow,” said Reeves.

This week, Reeves was honored with a Champion of Small Business award.