Torsheta Jackson is the Education Equity Solutions reporter for the Mississippi Free Press in Jackson, Mississippi. Prior to joining the newsroom full time, Jackson spent 19 years as an educator and coach and 12 years as a freelance journalist. She has bylines in YES! magazine, Mississippi Free Press, Mississippi Scoreboard, Jackson Advocate, Jackson Free Press, Eater and Bash Brothers Media. Her work as part of the newsroom’s Black Women and COVID project covered education history, equity and access in Noxubee County and garnered national recognition.
Jackson earned a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from The University of Southern Mississippi, graduating top of her Broadcast Journalism cohort. She also holds master’s degrees in curriculum and instruction from the University of Mississippi and in human lactation from Union Institute and University. She lives in Richland, Mississippi with her husband Victor and the two youngest of their four children. She enjoys traveling, making memories with her family, reading and coaching youth sports.
Beat: Educational equity across Mississippi
This reporter is a key part of MFP's new Education Equity Solutions Lab team, doing deep-dive reporting and data comparison/gathering in communities across Mississippi to interrogate inequitable education systems, the historic reasons those systemic barriers exist, and report those causes as well as potential solutions that community members tell us they need or that reporting reveals as potential solutions. The reporting will compare and contrast education realities in various counties in Mississippi to reveal why those inequities exist and what can be done about them beyond partisan solutions that have not previously worked. A prototype the team will build on is our "(In)equities and Resilience: Black Women, Systemic Barriers and COVID-19" project at mfp.ms/bwc (see Noxubee project).