What would it take for Mississippi to embrace School Choice? How can we join our neighboring states in empowering families to control their child's share of the education budget? For School Choice to happen, we would need to see several steps.
Number one, we would need a committed Governor, ready to invest his political capital in this great conservative cause. Great news! This week, Governor Tate Reeves signaled in an interview with SuperTalk that School Choice will be his top priority for the 2026 legislative session. Step two, we would have to have a supportive House Speaker. Once again, good news. This week, Speaker Jason White confirmed that the House is actively crafting legislation for 2026.Thirdly, we would have to have strong grassroots support. Polling already shows that more than two-thirds of Mississippians support School Choice.This week, Americans for Prosperity – Mississippi hosted an outstanding event in Jackson, led by the amazing Starla Brown. Speakers like Pastor Greg Divinity and Leah Ferretti powerfully articulated the moral imperative: Every family should have the choices that today are reserved only for the wealthy. Fourth, it would be a big help to have the endorsement of Team Trump. Fantastic news on that front, too—having discussed this at the White House some time ago, it's evident to me that Team Trump is not just supportive; they're deeply passionate, viewing School Choice as "the civil rights issue of our time." Fifth, if we are to allow families control of their child’s share of the budget, it would be helpful to know what “their share” consists of. Thanks to the 2024 school funding reforms, every child now receives a base amount of about $7,000 annually.
All we ask is that those who want to have that money paid into an Education Savings Account that they can then allocate to a school of their choice. Finally, it would be tremendously helpful if those against School Choice endlessly resorted to misleading claims and hyperbole. I don’t think we’ll be disappointed there, either. Claims that school choice would force your local school board to accept students from outside areas are simply untrue—and I believe many of those that suggest otherwise know it. Every proposal I’ve seen ensures school boards retain the final say on capacity. As I learned from the Brexit campaign, dishonest claims from opponents only undermines the credibility of their campaigns. Having been able to rely on establishment opinion for too long, they’ve never mastered the art of making their case convincingly. All the ingredients are there for Mississippi to adopt School Choice in 2026. Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
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12 comments:
Sooooo I can just choose to send my kid to another school district? They HAVE to take him?
This really is the best way to disrupt and dismantle the “seg academies” that were established statewide as the way whites have been able to re-segregate schools.
My guess is the brit doesn’t understand that the reason private schools do so much “better” than public, is simply because they are too exclusive for the disruptive bullies.
Why are parents not speaking up if they
are for school choice? It seems like it's
only elected officials that are pushing
it.
I know of zero people who have been polled about school choice. But of course one should never let the truth get in the way of your agenda. How many will respond today who have been polled. Just wondering.
"Every proposal I’ve seen ensures school boards retain the final say on capacity."
If the local public school board gets to have the final say on capacity, as do the boards of private schools, how many students will actually be able to move to another school? The A-rated schools are only going to have room for a few star athletes and exceptional students. Otherwise they will always claim to be at capacity.
Having the ability to take $7,000 to send your child to a better school is meaningless if there is no place to go.
This is a punish everybody else bill because our elected leaders allowed Jackson and JPS to fail. Speaker White (please step down) is not from this area and will be hated by every private school parent that is not a part of evil, greedy, money train for the hand selected urban athletes. Delbert, Tater and any other politician that thinks they can waltz up into the high school football games on Friday nights hobnobbin and elbow rubbin.
The legislature knows they can force this down our throats because they haven’t restored the people’s right to amend the state constitution by ballot initiative. They know if they pass this school choice garbage, it would be overwhelmingly overturned by the people via ballot initiative. Which is why they’re going to keep blowing hot air about it but never restore it. Vote every single one of these assholes out.
then that would make it more like a welfare for private school tuition
Can someone please explain which schools (public and private) have the capacity to take on a large transfer of students? I doubt Rankin County and Madison County schools have the means to bring in hundreds of new students.
Who is responsible for getting the scholars from their neighborhood to another schools that is at least a 30 min drive? What sucks for these kids is that they are legitimately stuck. No one will DEPENDABLY take them day in and day out. Sad really. It just makes me think this is a lot of hooting and hollering over nothing.
I see this as a really great way to institute some type of competitive pressure at public schools to improve! If schools don't respond to parents’ concerns, parents would be empowered to select somewhere else should they be given the trust to direct ~ $7k in state money (derived from their taxes no less – it isn’t he governments money) per child.
Does anyone recall what cell phones contracts were like before federal legislation was passed for phone number portability? Back in the old days, if you wanted to leave your carrier, you might end up losing your phone number, which is equivalent to the disruption in having to pack up and move to another district so to speak to change schools. Since phone number portability came into effect in 1996, cell carriers are a lot more responsive to coverage complaints, as you have options with minimal disruption.
The proposals out there are a way to place a bit more bargaining power behind parents when they go meet with the principal to discuss a low-energy teacher, as that principal would be mulling in the back of their mind which direction is easier for them, address a teacher's performance in a difficult performance conversation or see the $7k in state funds get subtracted from their school budget.
The $7k per student is roughly the incremental cost per student at a large urban school district. The municipal property taxes and federal grants cover the fixed costs roughly of buildings, transportation, and other support services. In theory, if students were to choose to leave a municipal school district their overall budget would go down (placing pressure on administrators) but the amount of money per student would go up as the fixed property tax haul would be divided by fewer students.
Overall, I see the ideal as a durable way to create a responsive feedback loop in public education.
Madison and Rankin are barely hanging on even with the current amount of Jackson expats. Flood the schools with any more and the whole fleet goes down.
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