Jackson Jambalaya

Another school choice article

While our state has seen some growth in projects this is being spun in a way we are growing quickly. We aren't, and school choice is not the best thing we can do to promote growth nor is eliminating the income tax.

The cartel mentioned in the report is real yet both parties in the state benefit from this. To reduce the influece of this cartel cut the number of legislators in half as well as the number of counties. There will be far fewer egos to appease and perhaps some of those in office who lack brains will no longer have power or influence.

I will give some credit to leadership for bringing in a few quality projects with meaningful jobs but one successful year or quarter doesn't make our state fast growing.

Pure propaganda. And people bitch about the MSM...

Wow. A lot to digest here, asaide from the usual. Surprised to see school choice as number one, considerining it’s already debunked as a handout to rich folks and that our lack of a constitutional right to modify our constitution being still in limbo is ranked number ten of ten.

Woefully misprioritized, but consistent with MCPP’s political purposes.

You’re fuuuunnnnnneeeyyyyy.

The links you describe are truly attributable to Tate’s policies and he should be commended for attracting the great businesses he has. However your postulation is unupposted by your analysis - you offer no intelligible link between cause and effect - just nice graphs and commentary with little analytic link to the cartoons. Poor play, shadowey.

Same tired trolls quickly descend to refute without any sourcing.

2024 - Yep, that's "one in a row." 3:41 PM has some great ideas. It's crazy how many counties that MS has. 82! California only has 58. Lot's of rice bowls and empire building in the 'sip.

If you are going to lie about being a fast growing state, just go ahead and claim we are the richest and kindest state and the least fat. And the smartest. What am I leaving out?

Mississippi's constitution, a true "blueprint for failure" written to maintain segregation and the status quo of the end of the ninetenth century has proved only effective for that purpose. Why not add changing that document to the list? Why not?

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

And yet, according to the Census Bureau, population continues to decline.

MS is not going to land some headquarters office complex for a corporation, but we have a very good chance going forward of landing 200-400 person manufacturing sites with integrated product design. The permitting regime in so many NE, NW, and SW states has gotten excessively complex. TX is running out of easily deployable potable water and the electricity costs are going up quickly. MS is well situated as most of the state has lower storm damage exposure, no major seismic dangers, little wildfire risk, and a lot of transportation options to the middle of the US market.

But we are at risk relative to AR and AL over our K-12 education system. The biggest question for a relocating business is can they find the network of designers who are qualified to learn to fill the roles that a 200-400 person firm needs. The proficiency scores for our graduates (directly relatable to work performance) are what we need to consider in ways the district letter rankings do not.

Yes - I see the competitive effects of parental school choice driving improvements for all types of schools. However, MS also needs to consider the competitive aspects of the business owner looking to move who is thinking about the opportunities for their own children.

MS has discussed the public school system as something for people without options (i.e. let's focus on truancy rates - the product is so poor apparently; children don't want to attend even if given free food) instead of something that drives motivation for business development in MS at the bottom and top of the spectrum. I am tired of old school collectivism centered around the institution, lets focus on developing persons and make the system compete to serve those persons!

The opposition to school choice is Inexplicable, except from school admins.

10:55, except from tax payers, and parents in good school districts, and private schools that are already bursting at the seams.

When Harborwalk is completed the naysayers will shut up.

@10:55 - some of us think education doesn’t need to turn a profit. Do we really need to squeeze every last cent away from schools so some CEO can get a $5 million annual bonus? When privatization of other services occurred, how did it work out? Can you name a single industry that has improved after privatization?

Most private utilities are vastly superior to public utilities.

Most of the folks opposed to money following the student are in favor of Medicaid expansion where money follows the patient.

Speaking of SCHOOL CHOICE - It's a recipe for disaster.

The host of a statewide talk radio program spent at least 90% of his time, Thursday speaking, as it were, to the legislature, presenting, at length, his opinion and data points and facts regarding funding mechanisms, county taxes, private schools, comparisons with other state programs and an assortment of things that not one single school parent is interested in. Not one. Parents of children in the superior performing public schools in parts of this state are not the least bit interested in getting into the weeds of funding, taxes, performance theories or what might be happening in Arkansas, Kansas or New York.


Those who are opposed to School Choice, according to him, are uninformed, ignorant and engaged in scare tactics. Repeatedly he referred to us as ‘fear mongers’.



I would challenge him or the gentleman from England to consider this example:

Madison County Schools is a superior performing school district, one of the top two or three districts in this state.


Canton Separate Municipal School District has ranged from poor to average for several decades, as long as the state has had metrics in place.


The two districts border each other. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are 750 apartment units located in the Canton District several hundred yards from a Madison County District high school. And there are hundreds of other Canton Separate children living within a mile of that Madison County school.


What will result if 80% of these children opt to move over a few feet to a Madison school. 60%...40%? Hell, they could walk to school rather than riding a Canton bus as they do now.


Would that not water down the successful status of the superior school? Is the goal here to make a Madison County District high school average or less than average or struggling? He wants data to show that would be the case. How about common sense? Apply the same logic to other high-performing districts in the state.


Ridgeland High School is in the same district as Madison Central High School, same county, same tax base. Students attend based on address. Ridgeland’s performance indicators (reported by the State Department of Education) rank them much lower than Madison Central.


If a hundred or so from Ridgeland High transfer over to Madison Central (1.5 miles away), what will be the result? Don’t pretend that won’t burden the receiving school and lower its performance and success.


We’re not talking here about a handful of ‘Little Abe Lincolns studying by candle-light’, wishing they had a better chance at a better school’. Nor are we talking about parents (one per house in most cases) who give a hoot about their child’s progress in school.


And don’t pretend that poor performance does not relate to parental values, parental participation in the schools and cultural behavioral issues. Do we choose to import those negatives into well-performing schools?


While the host of the radio program got us lost in the weeds of taxes, finances, private schools, state obligations, county obligations and the difference the parents would have to pay if their child transfers….He conveniently either ignored (or denied) the damage that will be done to high-performing schools with these transfers if school choice becomes law in this state.