It is unlikely that a bill to give what some people call universal school choice to families in Mississippi will pass through the Legislature this session.
However, versions meant to “baby step” the initiative, as House Speaker Jason White put it during a Monday podcast with Super Talk, will come up for debate in both chambers.
“A great school is part of the ingredients that makes a community great, but let’s be honest, while that is what we all strive for, that is the exception and not the rule in our state, and all we’re saying is, let’s give parents some choice,” White said. “These are baby steps, and ones that we think we can methodically phase in and see where we get. If the sky falls, we’ll back up.”
Unfortunately, the largest step in White’s ongoing argument for school choice, as it has so far been proposed, might not help some students in the poorest-rated schools in the state.
White said Monday he will support a bill that allows students in D and F-rated school districts to relocate to private schools and use the state’s portion of education funding for each student, $6,995, to pay for tuition. Students would also have to have been attending a public school for at least one year prior to applying to a private school with public dollars.
If that includes kids attending specific F-rated schools, private schools might not even be a viable option in some areas of the state.
“Does he care enough about that to check to see whether or not those children would be getting a better academic education if we’re paying for private education?” said Nancy Loome, director of the Parents’ Campaign, a Jackson-based nonprofit advocating for the state’s public schools.
Loome said there are not enough private schools to make up for every failing school.
Mississippi House Speaker Jason White speaks during MEC Hobnob 2024 at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson on Oct. 31. This year, White, R-West, is looking to push legislation to allow children in D and F-rated school districts to use public dollars to pay for private school education.
Still, White said the state should give parents more options when it comes to the tax dollars they pay into the public school system. He said continuing to invest in the public education system is vital to securing better education outcomes for Mississippi’s students.
“We’ve funded (public education) like never before,” White told the Clarion Ledger on Tuesday. “Last year was record levels. … But with that comes accountability and other things that people want to see. For some people, their local public school is not a good option for whatever reason, either because of their own child or because of the school district. So, where we can give them a choice, we want to.”
In 2024, school choice legislation took the back burner to debates on the Mississippi Student Funding Formula, which passed and is now the model for the state’s portion of public K-12 education funding.
Failing public schools to private school ratio in Mississippi
According to Mississippi Department of Education data released in 2024, Greenville Public School District and Wilkinson County School District are the only two F-rated districts. West Bolivar Consolidated School District was the only D-rated district, with two charter schools also being listed as D districts on the report.
Aside from districts, the report listed 89 D-rated and 26 F-rated schools. The number of D and F-rated schools have both risen by 10 since 2023, respectively. Most are elementary and middle schools.
When looking at the number of failing schools in a municipality or county, Jackson had the most with 12 F-rated schools. Greenville had the second most with four F-rated schools and Wilkinson County had only one F-rated school.
In some of the state’s rural areas with failing public schools and districts, there aren’t many private school options. For example, in Lawrence, Jefferson and Walthall counties, there aren’t any private schools from which to choose for children, according to CountyOffice.com, a government- and private-sector office location website.
In comparison, the Greenville area features about nine private schools with about half of them being affiliated with religious institutions. The Jackson area has about 20 private schools and nearly half are affiliated with religious institutions. Other areas with failing schools have far fewer, often between one and two private schools.
As for the failing school districts, there are only a handful of private schools between them to take the students, and most are religious-affiliated schools.
Mississippi Center for Public Policy Director Douglas Carswell, a long-time advocate for universal school choice, said despite possible issues to arise, the Legislature should pass school choice and bank on private and charter schools picking up where he sees public schools have left kids hanging.
“Of course, it may take time, they may expand, they may grow, but that is not an excuse not to give people control over their tax dollars now,” Carswell said.
Could parents afford private schools with MSFF public education allotment?
In Mississippi, the average cost of a private school education, without factoring transportation and other costs, is about $6,759. The MSFF funding is roughly $200 more than that.
The lowest-cost school in the state is Holy Child Jesus School in Canton, which charges $2,300 in tuition, according to data from Private School Review. The highest listed was St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Jackson, which costs $22,930 in tuition.
What is school choice?
School choice is a loaded term with several different interpretations. Mainly, school choice refers to myriad options parents have for sending their children to certain schools in both the public and private education sectors.
That can range from specialized programs to allow students to use public dollars on certain private education for children with special needs, the ability to move from one school or school district to another more freely and, of course, universal school choice to allow those public education dollars to be used by families on either a public school or private school.
Mississippi also features several charter schools, which are public schools governed by independent boards and set up in failing school districts.
Other school choice related bills this year
White and House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, both said they would support a bill to allow students to move more freely from one school district to another by not allowing the original district to prevent a student from leaving.
Roberson and Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, are also looking at legislation to modify the state’s already existing Education Savings Account program for children with disabilities. DeBar said he would not support a universal school choice program.
DeBar said his plan is to remove a cap on the number of disabled students’ families that can apply for the program and to pump $2 million into the program to allow about 158 kids on the program’s waiting list to attend a private school. He also wants to eliminate a 500 student cap on the program.
White in an interview with reporters also said he wants to allow charter schools to locate in any school district that was D or F-rated in the last five years.
Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi school choice options being pushed in 2025 session