During this year's legislative session, lawmakers took steps to make school superintendents and school boards more accountable to their districts.

Superintendents will have two years to improve a low- or under-performing district before being removed from office.

School boards of those districts are required to take educational courses. And a first-of-its-kinds legislative task force will leave no stone unturned as it attempts to improve the state's public schools.

Corky Wicks was appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour to be a part of this task force to study under-performing schools. As a father of two boys currently in Clinton Public Schools, he said he feels it's his obligation to improve education in Mississippi. But not his alone.

"I think you get parents and the community involved," said Wicks. "And you can help compensate for a lot of things that may not be economically there."

The group is charged with using every resource available to find more teachers, inspire principals, superintendents, and school boards, and raise community expectations for better education. The immediate target is low- and under-performing schools. There are 110 of those in the state.

"I don't think our fight is going to be easy, but I do think it's possible," said LaTina Kitchens-Lloyd, a teacher at South Panola.

Kitchens-Lloyd sees more high qualified teachers as the way to go.

"Insuring that every child in the state of Mississippi has the best teacher possible, I think, is the biggest hurdle for us to cross right now," said Kitchens-Lloyd.

State superintendent Dr. Hank Bounds said he hopes all this leads to improving test scores statewide, which is how the state is graded nationally. But at the state's current rate of improvement, reaching the national average may take a while.

Using the National Assessment of Educational Progress, it would take Mississippi years, and in some cases, decades to do that. That's why extreme changes must be made.

"Really it doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is education in our state. I think more people are tuning into that fact," Bounds said.

Bounds will announce this week a change in the educational curriculum statewide. He said it will meet national standards, as well as speed up current student achievement to raise test scores to the national average.

The state school board's goal is to meet the national average in the next five to seven years.