How much do you imagine it costs to send a child to public school in Hinds County every year? $5,000 per year? Maybe $10,000? $15,000?
Actually, according to data from the Mississippi Department of Education, when you divide the number of students attending school by the total expenditure, in 2023-24 Hinds County spent $16,589 per student. That is more than twice the average private school fees in our state. Indeed, $16,589 is not far off what it would cost to send your child to a top private school. Now ask yourself if each child in Hinds County is getting a top education for that $16,589? Of course not. A large chunk of the kids can’t read or do basic math. One in three of them regularly skip school. So, why not give families in Hinds County the right to take a portion of that $16,589 and allocate it to a school of their choice? It’s not just Hinds County. The same question could be asked in Madison ($17,037 spent for every public school pupil per year) or Rankin ($15,198 per pupil per year), or Canton ($18,683) or De Soto ($13,820). Even if you take the Department of Education’s own more conservative figure for per pupil spending (which includes all the ‘no-show’ students), Mississippi still spends an average of $14,676 per student. Despite all that money, 4 in 10 fourth graders in Mississippi public schools cannot read properly. Eight in 10 eighth grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient in math in 2022. One in 4 kids routinely skips school. Nor has $14,676 per student spending translated into better teacher pay. Notwithstanding recent pay increases, our teachers still earn significantly less than they did in 2010, when you adjust for inflation. If you happen to be one of the fortunate families happy with the public education options available, great. No need to change and no one is proposing any changes that will affect you. But why not allow those families unhappy how things are the freedom to take their tax dollars to a school that best meets their needs?
Suggesting this provokes outrage not from parents, but from various vested interests who like things the way they are. They like a system that puts the $14,676 they get for your child into their administration budget, rather than the classroom. School superintendents making more than the Governor want to keep control of their multimillion dollar budgets for a reason. It’s a boondoggle for bureaucrats. School Choice will not impoverish public schools. The legislation that Speaker Jason White is proposing would allow families control over the state portion of funding, not locally raised revenues or federal dollars. In Hinds County, for example, that would mean families being able to allocate no more than $6,700 of the $16,589 overall per pupil funding. (Rather than depleting Hinds County public schools’ budget, actually it would make Hinds County better off in terms of per pupil spend.) Giving families control over $6,700 of the state funds will not mean a flood of kids coming into your well run school district. Why not? Because the legislation proposed specifically gives school boards the final say on capacity. What anti School Choice campaigners really fear is not the “wrong” kids coming to your school. What they fear is that you start wondering what the heck they’ve been doing with the $14,676 they get for your child or grandchild every year. All of the arguments we are now hearing against School Choice in Mississippi have been heard in each of the surrounding states that have since adopted School Choice. Alabama’s new Educations Savings Account program, which has just opened for applications, has been wildly oversubscribed. The program provides $7,000 funding per student attending a participating private school, while those enrolled in home education programs are eligible for $2,000 per student. Arkansas allows all K-12 students access to an Education Savings Account from 2025, into which the state government pays the state portion of per pupil funding ($6,600 per year). Families will be able to use this $6,600 money they are given to pay for their child education, including private school tuition. Arkansas also allows public to public school transfers, allowing districts to define capacity. Louisiana’s GATOR program starts in 2025-26 and establishes an Education Savings Account for those on low incomes, with the details are still being finalized as the law only recently passed. Louisiana already has public to public School Choice. Texas and Tennessee, too, are at this very moment debating legislation that would create a universal Education Savings Account for families in those states, too. None of the scare stories we now hear in Mississippi materialised in any of these neighboring states. None of these states has been bankrupted like the critics claimed by letting mom and dad have parent power. Instead, all the evidence suggests School Choice has started to improve education outcomes. Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. The Mississippi Center for Public Policy sponsored this post.
12 comments:
I like the idea of providing parents the ability to seek out a better education for their children and I believe these kids would definitely have a better education than what they receive currently in a Mississippi public school system.
My main concern is what is preventing the private schools from just raising their tuition $5-7k and making more money/still keeping private school out of reach for the public school kids. It would be no different than how universities raised their tuition costs simply because loans became easily attainable with few limits.
Wait until South Jackson show up with vouchers at Brandon, Madison and NWR schools. Rich people at MCPP say no problem at prep, MRA and Hatfield, we just raise tuition. The rest of you can eat cake. It already went down like this in LA. But MCPP and all the far right darlings receive their Koch check. Ladner and the lefties receive their Soros check. All of us in the middle get shot from both directions again
So, let me get this straight. Instead of fixing the bad schools, maybe firing bad teachers, maybe kicking problem students out of school, or mandating parents actually parent their kids, let's just send the students elsewhere? Does that include demoting them to the proper grade for their abilities? Does that include CLOSING bad schools and ending that money pit?
Is abolishing the free lunch program part of this idea?
I used to be all in on school choice and wanting government completely out of the school business (and all other things) entirely, but it seems that it is only relocating problems to other schools that are not having those particular problems. Just saying.
My position/philosophy is and has been for years is that you can’t solve a problem by moving it.
Let's label this looming cluster fudge as the "Choice to Make All Schools Suck Equally Bad" Bill
It costs so much to educate children in public schools because they take care of ALL children, including the ones that private schools won't touch.
Can you imagine the panic at FPDS if they had to accept any child from their zip code?
@12:13 - the goodness of their heart is what’s stopping them from raising rates. Most of the reason kids don’t do well academically in public schools is lack of parental involvement. How is sending those kids to a different school going to fix their family life?
The top private schools aren’t doing anything special, the kids they educate have every advantage that can be measured and it translates to the classroom. If anything, I’d favor abolishing private schools to give those private school kids some perspective.
If parents choose to leave public school A for public school B, then B will receive the tuition allotment that previously went to A. After this swap repeats often enough, School A will become more competitive or disintegrate.
Private Schools would retain the right to test and evaluate public school applicants who brought a tuition choice account.
To access funds from a parent choice account, perhaps a student could be required to first attend a public school for a year. This would eliminate private school student parents from grabbing student tuition money from the district or State, because no private school parent would willingly throw their child into that shark tank, atleast in Jackson.
The market will prevail i.e. private schools will raise tuition therefore the vouchers will do nothing to help private school tuition paying parents over the long term. Why do Republican’s think parents pay private school tuition?
Public school parents spending extra for housing to live in Republican controlled areas do not want their children subjected to the indoctrinated BS their children will be subjected to when children of the Democrat indoctrinators show up with their voucher. Why do Republican’s think public school parents choose to live in school zones not controlled by Democrats?
Phil Bryant f'd central Mississippi when he punted on taking over Jackson Public Schools despite every rationale, criteria and authorization to do so.
It's the brain, not the book.
With all the free stuff - lunches, school supplies, back packs, dentists, haircuts, etc., etc. - one would think that our “young scholars” could read, write, and cipher at a better level.
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