Mississippi is now entirely surrounded by states that have either passed, or are in the process of passing, laws that will give every family school choice. A proposal to do something similar in our state never even made it to a full vote in the legislature.
How odd that there has been so little progress towards school choice in such a solidly conservative state. School choice, surely, is the one policy that unites every wing of the conservative movement across America more than any other.
School choice appeals as much to blue collar Trump conservatives as it does to the conservatives of the country clubs. Donald Trump has spoken passionately in defence of universal school choice. His Education Secretary, Betsy De Vos, has fought heroically – both in office and afterwards - for school choice.
Universal school choice has universal appeal for conservatives – except it seems in Mississippi.
Even more odd, perhaps, is that it is not only school choice that has failed to advance in the Mississippi state legislature in 2024. A whole raft of solid conservative measures have failed to advance during this session.
Two months ago, there were high hopes that the legislature give back to voters the right of initiative. The measure died in the Senate.
Most conservative, you might think, would oppose the DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) agenda that has run rampant across US university campuses. A modest bill was put forward to prevent your tax dollars funding DEI programs at our public universities. The measure was killed off in committee.
At the start of the session many leading lawmakers agreed that something needed to be done to deal with the mismanagement of Mississippi’s Public Employee’s Retirement System (PERS). A modest proposal to change the way PERS was overseen was shot down in the Senate.
Most people accept that healthcare in Mississippi is not as good as it needs to be. HB419, which could have removed some of the intentionally restrictive red tape that limits the number of healthcare providers able to treat patients. The measure was killed off.
At some point, I put it to you, the voters might start to notice. It is not long term sustainable to have voters repeatedly vote conservative but to get so little conservative policy in return.
The US South is flourishing. For decades now, there has been what you might call the Southern Success Story. Texas, North Carolina and Florida have taken off. Tennessee, Alabama and even Arkansas are seeing strong, sustained growth, too. Why not Mississippi?
To be fair, we are starting to see signs of the kind of growth we need. Our Governor has helped attract so much inward investment there is a danger we grow blasé about yet another billion dollar announcements. It seems that there are now more people moving to Mississippi than leaving. Every time I visit Hattiesburg, Laurel, Starkville, Oxford or the Coast, I see evidence of growth all around.
Nor is there anything pre-ordained about Mississippi being ranked 50th out of 50 states. It is a choice if we do not do more to emulate the kinds of reforms that have helped transform other southern states for the better.
If a conservative were to run for office today against tax cuts, they’d be unlikely to get very far. It wasn’t always that way until people like Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform helped make being a conservative synonymous with wanting lower taxes.
We need to do something similar when it comes to school choice. We need to make it unthinkable to run as a conservative unless you favour universal education freedom accounts.
The good news is that this beginning to happen. In Texas, for example, a few weeks ago, almost all anti-school choice conservatives lost out in their primary elections. It would be impossible that anyone could run as a conservative in that state to be Governor or Lieutenant Governor without being unequivocally in favour of universal school choice.
Why stop with school choice? I doubt it will be possible to run as a conservative unless you oppose spending tax dollars on divisive DEI or favour giving citizens back their right of initiative either.
Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
This post was sponsored by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
28 comments:
Thanks Delbert the Democrat
The notion that more people are moving to MS than leaving is not born out by the data. The Census reported the state's population increased by less than 800 people in 2023, and that was the first time in many years the state didn't lose thousands of residents. The cities he listed may be growing, but almost all of that growth is coming at the expense of the surrounding areas. More than half of the state's counties are losing population.
Regarding "school choice" we all know its about funneling taxpayer money out of public schools and into white private Christian academies making the already desperate schools even more strapped not to mention the race politics involved in this whether people want to admit it or not. Its hilarious to see conservatives point to cities like Oxford, Starkville, Hattiesburg etc as examples of growth which is no thanks to conservatives. Some basic thought might lead one to wonder why these school choice bills fail. Do you think successful districts like Madison and Oxford want vouchers being passed out to decimate what they have built? Yea lets gut our few stand out districts to give the rest of the country more fodder to mock us about regarding education. For a think tank, MCPP doesn't seem to do much thinking, but does do a lot of taking of billionaire money from folks like Betsy Devos.
There must be more Democrats than just Delbert, there must be many Democrats in Republican's clothing.
1:04 for the win! No one else needs to comment on this post since we have a winner.
If any aspect of school choice involves using public funds to support private schools, then it would violate the Mississippi Constitution. The Constitution would have to be amended.
I remember this issue was on local news about 3 yrs ago downtown at a rally. It was inner city black moms that were supporting this school choice while white liberals from St. Andrew’s protested school choice. Odd that white libs are so against what the black community is in favor of in this case
Talk to inner city moms and they largely support school choice. Hey my 3 kids are in private school bc I can pay for it and live near JA however these inner city moms can’t so they have no school choice and that’s not right.
Where was the mismanagement of PERS? Unless you're talking about what the Legislature did to it 25 years ago.
well...take out student loans for JA or Prep..
why should my money go to support private education??
you want to pay for private school--go for it.
4:01 with the political post of the week. Ding ding ding.
Rich folks already have school choice (private schools). So does the middle class (suburbs). And they all want to prevent the Po folks from having school choice. Rich folks plus middle class plus public school unions equals no chance for school choice. Sorry Johnny.
There are opportunists lined up to capture the dollars once school choice is approved. Administration and investors will suck the funds dry. Same model we have, only with more profit motive.
But boy those public policy wonks get a boner when the subject comes up.
Fix the roads and fix PERS. That’s about as conservative as you can get.
I’m 100% a public school supporter, but I’m not opposed to school choice (vouchers) as long as the same accountability standards in place for public schools follow the money. If accountability is tied to the $$, you’ll see how fast some of the private schools duck and run. Most private schools won’t enroll a special needs student because they can’t/don’t provide the required services. Again, the elephant in the room is accountability.
What makes private school special that they don’t depend on the government. If they take government money then government will have a say in what they do. Private schools need to keep government out or they will look like public schools .
No matter what you do, some people will NEVER be satisfied. Everyone can't have the same education, the same house and the same things.
@535
“Rich folks”. My wife and I busted our asses working more than two jobs so we could send our kids to private schools and still paid taxes for you to send little Johnny to public school. Kiss my a$$!
The redcoats are coming!
There are two main problems with the voucher plans where these other states are struggling.
1) Good old fashioned prejudice… It shows its ugly face no matter how “liberal”, “black”, “white”, poor, rich, or educated one is. The ole verbiage “you can take the person out of the ______ (hood, trailer park, ect..) but you can’t take the ______ out of the person is more true than not. Moving a kid from the inner city and putting him in a great private or public school sounds like a great idea but there is absolutely no proof that it actually works. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect with that kid not being able to keep up academically and/or having attitude problems and becoming a distraction for everyone else. There is much more proof of the latter than any brain surgeons coming from the trailer park.
2) The formula for funding the vouchers. Many in the suburbs pay MUCH higher property taxes to pay for better schools. Someone paying $3500 - $5000 a year in property tax is going to have a better school than someone that pays $300 a year. How will the state be able for formulate an equitable formula? A voucher to JPS might only be worth $1000 a year per student where one to Madison schools maybe $4000 a student. Where will that extra $3000 come from? That’s a HUGE problem to some of these states that have passed vouchers.
In my opinion, you’ll see a lot of these states dropping these programs and going back to a magnet school type system.
It is a misnomer to call state funded schools public schools, when in fact they are government schools.
April, 11, 2924 at 6:40 PM, what accountability standards are you talking about?
What I really want and need to say can’t be published. Move on. Nothing to see here.
I am not rich by any monetary measure, but I make big sacrifices to send my kids to private schools because they are better off academically, socially and spiritually.
When I pay my property taxes, I'm paying for public school services that I'll never use. It sure would be nice to have some of that money back in my pocket.
By the way, if/when the day comes that I'm priced out of private schools, I will homeschool my children. It's akin to child abuse to put your kids through JPS.
Geez...
How about you ask the kids who left? Even better, that left and came back and left again? Pete?
It is not the schools people, it's the PARENTS (or lack thereof).
@ 1:43 - Your repetitive racist chirping is tiring and boring. Same song, fourteenth verse.
I've learned to flag you, so you won't continue to be an irritant.
April 11, 2024 at 1:43 PM, it looks like the Jackson public schools, and parent groups, loves a little billionaire money, also.
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2017/01/29/jackson-parents-group-gets-1-million-dollars-literacy-kellog-foundation/97226746/
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2019/03/18/kellogg-foundation-gives-1-2-million-jackson-beef-up-pre-k-learning-centers/3199866002/
https://www.wkkf.org/news-and-media/article/2020/09/community-and-national-funder-support-jackson-public-schools-strategic-plan/
The formula for a Parental Choice Voucher account is based on a prorata State cost to educate one student in a public school. Probably in the range of $7,500 to 12,500 each.
The system intentionally takes power away from the school system and empowers the parents to select a public school or apply the voucher towards a private school.
Successful models exist now in Sputhern states for the dummies in the legislature in MS to ape.
I would believe that vouchers were about the children if the legislature evened the playing field between public and private schools. As was mentioned above require the same accountability and the same services. My kids go to private school and I happily pay my school taxes. But, you can't compare apples to oranges cost wise. We transport our children to school. We pay additional for the dyslexia services one of my children requires. We don't have expensive testing and we don't spend the fourth nine weeks of every year doing it. We pay to play sports and so on. If public schools weren't required to do those things then they could lower the cost of attendance and the stress level of students. Until you let public schools opt out, or have private schools opt in it isn't a fair comparison.
By this logic, Douglas, we are also falling behind on the expansion of Medicaid. When are you writing that opinion piece?
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