Jackson Jambalaya

Please note that these geniuses have yet to cite any research whereby school choice has improved academics to any significant degree. This is a scam for their rich supporters to have their children's private school tuition paid . This is what has happened in the states after which they want to " model " ours. I am absolutely amazed at the degree of gullibility some people exhibit in buying into this obvious scam.

Democrats, especially those in MS Legislature, don’t like this and will NEVER
support it. They would rather have perpetually failing schools than lose any power and control.

School choice wasn’t a serious consideration here before the lottery. Private schools want a piece of the pie.

Giving families $6000, while good private schools cost $12-15,000 , means the only people who will benefit are those who are already paying the $12-15,000. They get a $6000 taxpayer funded gift. Meanwhile most public school families still can't afford the good private schools.

The really good schools will opt out of the ESA

Survey a proportional sample of parents of students in public schools if they would drive from X to Y twice a day to ensure their students get to their chosen school. If a sizable minority is for it, do it. I simply don’t hear the general public calling for this nor is it a practical reality. There is no there there.

For the umteenth time:
In other states where this policy has been enacted this is how it went down.

For folks spending twenty grand for high school education, their $6600 is vacation money. For those wishing to get their kids into a private school, the low cost schools (say $9,000/year) just got cheap and they better be ready to expand. For poor folk, well all the best public schools are already full and those parents have their $6600 too. So there’s no change.

Summary, rich folks get a vacation, upper middle class folks have more to brag about. For everybody else life’s the same. It’s just another government giveaway to rich folks, this one being more obvious than most.

If we’re entertaining crazy ideas, how about eliminating all sales taxes. In crease the state income tax, or simply do that instead of a tax cut. If you want to see a stimulus give the tax break to those whom spend it.

“Ruined” - “per pupil”

I see the pJackson Pep crowd is mad that the poors might have a shot at going to their esteemed institution.

AFP hung their hat on School Choice in the last state election. They didn’t have a lot of money so they put most of it supporting a guy named Jeremy Lee for a House seat in south rankin county. They sent mailer after mailer saying polling showed 70% of voters wanted School Choice. Lee got beat by Lance Varner 60/40.

The two libertarian groups mentioned are 'principals'?

Naturally the keyboardists associated with those two are actively engaged here on this thread.

It's almost laughable to suggest that so-called school-choice will result in improved schools due to competition. What hogwash.

If this nuttiness ever gets approved and off the ground, the only result will be an increase in the number of average and below average schools.

The whole idea is nothing more than a recipe for a disastrous melting pot.

You have to be ridin' high on the dumb-wagon to think this social experiment has anything to do with private schools.

Nothing gets people’s dander up more than school funding, but the fundamental issue here is that parents who don’t use the public school system should not have to pay for it. At the very least, we should get a tax credit for the specific amount of taxes we pay that go to the school system, at least insofar as that is discernable, like on our car tag or property taxes. Not a windfall, but just don’t make us pay for schools we don’t want to use.

THIS: “Two other goals call for legislators to create a state budget for each individual student and to provide tax credits for costs to send children to private schools” WILL BE A DISASTER!

There’s a lot of hard working parents that sacrificed their entire retirements (i.e. they are NOT RICH) by spending what could be savings on private schools. And, if they own a home, they pay the school tax most of their entire life. So, the tax credit could be seen as equitable.

HOWEVER, those that sacrifice their retirements paying private school tuition do so to keep government idiots and opportunists, and EVIL, from poisoning the minds of innocent children (Bill Crawford, see 4/23/24 AP article re: new fed rule barring bathroom bans - i.e. boys with penises get to go to the little girl’s bathrooms – i.e. left-wing values requiring no approval from Mississippi school boards).

If you want to destroy private schools, get the idiot politicians and their opportunist buddies involved. Private school tuition is market driven and is in accordance with what the market will pay - i.e. TUITION WILL SKYROCKET - AND, government $$$ always comes with gov rules. Keep the idiot politicians from both parties out of private schools!


The Lord hates a lying tongue, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. Proverbs 6:16-19

Other than the think tank people, who actually wants this? Democrats with bad schools don’t want to lose students and funds, good school districts don’t want a flood of new kids coming from out of district, and private schools are already packed full.

Or you could do what has been successful in other states. One state that has good public schools automatically licensed those with a masters degree or PhD to teach in their area of expertise and offer part time positions.( the private "community" for profits will lobby heavily against that). You can fund a residential school for children with behavior problems and another for those with learning disabilities. You can offer schools that focus on learning music or art or foreign language. Start these changes in the largest populations especially those that have a college, university or state supported junior college. They will have faculty that would love to teach one or two courses a day for extra money.
Find a school system that has improved their schools and find out how they did it. If it's good system, you'll find that crime is reduced as well. Make sure kids attend school. You'd be surprised how many parents stop sending their children to school beyond their highest grade level for fear they'd think themselves " smarter than the parent". In many rural areas, that was 4th grade. Indeed, it's become amazing. Indeed, it's amazing how many people don't want others to succeed . If your attitude is " they think they are smart", you are the problem.
An overlooked reason for our economic growth after WWII was skills taught in the military and the GI Bill that once fully covered tuition , even Ivy league. It also helped that the extremely wealthy plowed profit back into their communities or expanded their businesses. They realized that all the money and "bling" in the world wouldn't keep the hordes from storming the gates or bombs from falling and as The Beatles noted, " can't buy you love".

Perhaps it's time for required military service. The Greatest Generation (and most successful) learned that not all people or all places are alike and "viva la difference". They learned new and better ways in some cases. They learned that strength and honor wasn't limited to one group and neither was cowardness, dishonesty.
They learned just being a sharpshooter with a good weapon wasn't enough to win and starving people couldn't fight back. They learned the slow slowed down everyone. They learned they needed the women back home and in the operational theater.

Some of you guys think it's battle strategy that loses wars and that the inability to feed, supply and maintain support at home and keep the home fires burning played no role. Since when did someone else's wealth save your ass or money save you from a tornado or bullet? Being able to see a bigger picture than your small bubble of existence will offer more protection.

Presbyterian money grab.

Florence MS is a lot of things. Liberal ain’t one. This pro school choice crowd tried to be the incumbent specifically on school choice and they got destroyed. Yet they love to say you’re not a conservative if you ain’t for “school choice”. Read the room.

I’d love to see who is funding the conservative think tanks like Empower MS and MCPP. For some reason, they hoot and holler about funding sources for “liberal” causes and yet don’t share any of their own fundraising. If you don’t tell us who is paying to have these ideas shoved down our throats non stop, why should anyone believe it’s in our best interest? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so who is “donating” tens of millions to push this agenda? Once we know who, then we can know the why? I’m certain of one thing, it’s not to better education for our children.

Bill is off by 10x as he said "about $6,695 for this school year. If just 50% of the 55,842 students already attending private schools drew such a stipend, the added costs to taxpayers would be $1.87 billion annually..." It would be $186.9 million.

Below is a link to a FL study of school competition for the lowest performing students. The threat of losing per-child funding in those low performing districts was shown over 15 years (full career of a student) to induce better performance in the school district benefiting even students who traditionally did poorer due to their situation. This is due to the same competitive forces at work in the rest of the economy such as hospitals, restaurants, hotels, etc... Moving funding to follow the student actually benefits children in both public and private schools but it may hurt Supt. Bubba's ability to dispense power.

https://excelined.org/2024/02/08/competitive-effects-analyses-in-florida-showcase-positive-results-for-other-states-pursuing-private-school-choice-programs/

Kingfish will not approve this, but if you are following Carswell off the end of the gangplank, you deserve the sharks beneath.

Who besides MCPP and Empower MS is clamoring for this? Seems we have a lot of other challenges to be faced and this is just a distraction. Teacher shortages, chronic absenteeism, ….

I've never understood how letting students attend whatever school they want doesn't screw up the racial balance in some districts. Obviously in some parts of the state it wouldn't make a difference. But Mississippi has had schools consolidate because enrollment in one school was "too white" or "too black" in violation of federal regs.

Lots of parents would be happy just to be able to get their child into a safe environment, even if it didn't improve academic performance. It's pretty ridiculous to look at the population of our state that live in terrible school districts and the response is just basically to shrug and say you should have richer parents. I don't have a problem paying school taxes, but I would really like to get educated students out of it. I get that we don't know how to do that, but I would settle for at least every student having a shot at a decent education even if his or her parents can't pay for private school and aren't in a good position to move to a decent school district.