Local mom, Amanda Kibble, is celebrating an important win for her family, and for school choice.
Earlier this year, Governor Tate Reeves signed HB 1341 into law. This new law gives military families in Mississippi the right to transfer their children to any traditional public school around the state, assuming that the receiving school has capacity. Early indications suggest this is extremely popular, with lots of military families using school choice to switch schools.
Amanda, and her family, found out the hard way that the law might not apply to those who serve their country in the National Guard. There was a real risk that Amanda’s son might lose his place at his preferred school.
That’s when Amanda approached MCPP, and we took up her case. MCPP has a long history of fighting for school choice, and our legal arm, the Mississippi Justice Institute has successfully litigated in defense of school choice.
I am delighted that Attorney General, Lynn Fitch, has now issued an opinion that the new school choice law for military families also applies, at least in part, to those in the National Guard. Three cheers for the AG!
If military families now have public-to-public school choice, why shouldn’t everybody? That is exactly what our “Move Up, Mississippi!” campaign aims to achieve.
This week’s win for school choice makes it all the more disappointing that the new State Superintendent for Education, Lance Evans, took a sideswipe at school choice recently.
Speaking at a lunch in Jackson, Evans criticized school choice, suggesting that if a single dollar of public money went into private schools, those private schools should be subjected to the regulatory oversight that public schools are subject to.
Those that oppose school choice, and indeed I suspect Mr. Evans, know full well that extending state oversight across the private school sector would be untenable – which is why they suggest it. But it is not the clever argument against school choice that they might imagine.
Giving every family in our state the right to choose a public school, as military families are now able to do, would not transfer public dollars into private schools.
Amanda Kibble and those military families that now have school choice are not taking money out of public schools. Does Lance Evans oppose their right to choose a school for their child?
MCPP proposes that under a separate program, families that attend private schools, or who home school, could get a tax credit reflecting the fact that they are already paying for a place at a public school that they are not taking.
Evans attack on parent power was not the worst of it. More disappointing was the plodding presentation that preceded it about how amazing education is in our state.
Evans trumpeted the fact that about a third of districts were rated D or F in 2016. Now only a handful are rated D or F. This, he implied, was evidence of progress, rather than a reflection of a broken accountability system.
When officials invoke the broken grading system as evidence of improvement, it is not just the credibility to the grading we should question.
How bizarre, that in a solidly Republican-run state, we have somehow ended up with an anti-school choice official in charge? Are the nine-member State Board of Education aware of Evans’ anti-school choice position? Are the various state leaders that appointed those members of the Board?
Since 2000, the number of students in America has increased by 5 percent. The number of teachers by around 10 percent. The number of education administrators, however, has shot up by 95 percent.
No wonder the education bureaucrats don’t want mom and dad to have control over where their child’s share of the education budget goes. They might start to demand that it goes into the classroom.
Lance Evans talked about making private schools accountable. Private schools already are accountable to every fee-paying parent. The issue is how to ensure that public schools are made similarly accountable, too.
We need to give every family in our state the public-to-public school choice that military families now have.
Parent Power: Local mom, Amanda Kibble, with Douglas Carswell from the
Mississippi Center for Public Policy
Rankin county mom, Amanda Kibble, is celebrating an important win for her family. Her victory could also help military families throughout the state.
Earlier this year, House Bill 1341 was signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves. The new law allows families of military personnel to transfer their children to any traditional public school in the state, assuming receiving school has capacity. It means that military families effectively now have school choice within the public school system.
“When this bill was passed” explains Amanda “it meant that we would be able to keep our little boy in the school we really wanted him to be in”.
“Last year, we were so excited when the bill passed. It meant our son, who has a dyslexia diagnosis, could get some stability. As a military kid, he’s already experienced enough difficulties and instability.”
However, the good news did not last.
“At the beginning of the year, we were told that we had misinterpreted the bill” Amanda explained. “House Bill 1341 was, they said, not for National Guard families. It was only for Active Duty personnel.”
“This was a real blow to our family. At his current school, my son grew so much in confidence. I was really anxious that would all be lost if we were forced out of the school of our choice”.
Amanda reached out to local Senator Josh Harkins – and contacting the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, which fights for school choice.
Now the Attorney General has issued a formal opinion stating the National Guard AGR families are included in the legislation after all. National Guard families can have school choice.
“We are ecstatic to have won and to have the opportunity to let my son stay in his school for the rest of the year. However, while we have won a huge victory, our family will have to move next year. We want to see a change so that school choice is a reality for all families”.
“The Attorney General’s opinion applies specifically for National Guard Active Guard Reserve (AGR) but does not yet apply to Traditional Guard Members or those on Active Duty for Operational Support (ADOS) orders or Title 32 orders. This needs to change”.
“Senator Harkins was wonderful and did so much to help” she added.
“This is good news for Amanda and her family – and its great news for Mississippi military families” explains Douglas Carswell from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
“Any families in a similar situation should get in touch with us”, he added.
“Thanks to HB 1341, which was passed this year, military families – including those in the National Guard – more families can have more school choice from public school to public school. Anecdotal evidence suggests that demand to take advantage of this scheme is high”, he added.
“But why not let every family have the right to choose? Provided that schools have capacity, parents should be able to send their kids to a school in a different district, or even a different school within the same district”.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy, which helped Amanda fight her case, has a legal division, the Mississippi Justice Institute (MJI). MJI successfully litigated to defend Charter Schools, and has a successful track record of litigating in support of school choice in our state.
“Parents have a right to expect the best for their child and school choice would give moms like Amanda control over their child’s education”, Douglas added.
There’s a real chance we could see school choice in Mississippi. Thanks to our new school funding formula, each public school student in our state now has a personalized budget designed to meet their individual education needs. Why not let families take their personalized budget to a school of their choice?
That is precisely what families can now do in three of our neighboring states, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama. So, why not Mississippi?
One of the obstacles standing in the way of school choice in Mississippi has been the ridiculously misnamed “Parent’s” Campaign. For years, the “Parent’s” Campaign has lobbied lawmakers to prevent parent power. Nancy Loome, who runs the “Parent’s” Campaign, was at it again recently. In “The Lie of School Choice”, she recycled various tired myths and misinformation about what parent power really means.
Myth One was the claim that school choice takes money away from public schools. It doesn’t. Now that every child in the public school system in our state has a dedicated budget, we are proposing that they be allowed to take their share of state funds to a public school of their choice. Any family that prefers not to take up their child’s place within the public school system, because they opt to go private or to home school instead, would receive a tax credit to off-set the fact they are currently paying for their child’s education twice. It is factually wrong to claim that any of this would divert public money away from public schools.
Myth Two is that school choice means some hidden agenda to deny admissions. Under our proposals, each school district would have the power to define capacity. This is precisely in line with what Lieutenant Governor, Delbert Hosemann, has said publicly he would support. Schools must have strong safeguards that allow them to reject applications from those out of district with a history of disciplinary problems.
Myth Three is that school choice is somehow unfair because it doesn’t provide transportation costs. We don’t propose paying for transportation costs for a very good reason. The point of school choice is to raise standards in failing districts, not to facilitate the transfer of kids from failing districts into good performing districts.
Myth Four is that school choice is all about benefiting private schools, rather than raising standards in public ones. Again, this is false. Private schools in our state are doing fine. Since 2021, the number of kids enrolled in private schools in our state rose from 49,000 to 56,000. It is public schools, where enrolment fell 12 percent over the past decade, where school choice in most needed. We want school choice in Mississippi not because we are against public schools, but because we support them and want them to thrive.
Myth Five is the claim that “Mississippi’s public schools are delivering impressive results”. Some districts achieve good results. Most do not. One in four students in the public school system in our state routinely skips school. Four in ten fourth graders lack the basic reading standard required to read this sentence. Eight in ten eighth graders are not proficient in math. Mississippi’s accountability system may indeed only rate a handful of school districts as D or F. That says more about the inadequacies of the accountability system than it does about the quality of education.
If public schools were doing so well, why are the number of kids enrolled in public schools in decline? If school choice is unnecessary because standards really are so excellent, as Nancy and co claim, why do they fear the consequences of giving parents more power? Finally forced to come out and say in public they’ve been whispering to lawmakers at the Capitol for years, the anti-school choice campaigners’ arguments don’t add up. Exposed to scrutiny, the anti-school choice lobby has all the credibility of the Flat Earth Society. Actual parents across Mississippi, as opposed to campaigners claiming to speak for parents, know this.
At his excellent Policy Summit this week, House Speaker Jason White, shared with the 500+ attendees the results of his recent polling. Not only was there massive support for tax reform, but the slide on school choice showed overwhelming support for parent power.
73 percent of White voters and 65 percent of Black voters support allowing parents a more active role in choosing their children’s education. 84 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Independents agreed. Here is an issue that Mississippi can unite behind.
Time may be up for those that have spent the past decade quietly killing off anything that looks like parent power in various legislative committees. Actual parents aren’t on your side, and the anti-parent power lobby may be about to find that out.
What’s the biggest challenge America faces?
You might think it is $35 trillion of national debt? Or maybe you imagine its uncontrolled immigration? How about inflation, which is still stubbornly high? These are all really important problems, but they are not impossible to solve. If there is the political will, we could cut government spending dramatically to close the deficit. Who says we need to have all those federal agencies and welfare programs?
Immigration laws could actually be enforced if the federal government put its mind to it. What do you think Japan does to illegal migrants who outstay their welcome? Inflation can be tamed. Ronald Reagan showed this was possible back in the early 1980s.
What America cannot do is fix these problems if young Americans grow up thinking the worst about their country.
Over the past generation, the radical left has slowly marched through America’s institutions. They have captured many colleges and classrooms, promoting an extreme intersectional ideology. Young Americans have been taught that their country is always in the wrong. Instead of celebrating this country’s history, they have been invited to judge everyone and everything that happened by the standards of today. This has demoralized America, and is sapping the country’s confidence.
That is why the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, as part of a national movement to push back against the ‘woke’ tide, runs the Mississippi Leadership Academy. This two-part course aimed at high school students is the perfect antidote to ‘woke’ with courses on:
• The moral case for the free market.
• Ethical Leadership.
• Opportunity and our state.
• How the legislative process works.
• American Exceptionalism.
• The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence.
Previous speakers have included Attorney General, Lynn Fitch, State Auditor, Shad White and leading academics. Our Academy is designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to be effective change agents in our state. Those that take part have the opportunity to meet state leaders, and in previous years, a number of those that graduated went on the intern with state leaders.
Do you have children or grandchildren that would benefit from taking part? Please forward this email to them with details on how to sign up below! The two-part course will take place at our Jackson offices on Saturday October 12th and Saturday November 9th, between 10am and 3pm.
Hurry to apply now before places fill up!
Education is the number one thing we need to improve in Mississippi.
That’s why MCPP just launched “Move Up, Mississippi”, a campaign aimed at changing our education system for the better.
Mississippi education is only going to improve if we accept the truth about how things really are:
- 4 in 10 fourth graders would struggle to read this sentence. That’s right. 4 in 10 fourth graders fail to attain the basic reading standard in 2022.
- 7 in 10 fourth grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient in reading in 2022.
- 8 in 10 eighth grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient in math in 2022.
Rather than getting better, the rate of chronic absenteeism in Mississippi schools has got worse.
In 2022-23, over 100,000 students regularly skipped school, up from 70,000 in 2016-17.
So, what’s the solution?
What we need is school choice. Mississippi is now surrounded by states that have school choice. It is transforming education for the better. Let’s not get left behind…..
School Choice would mean every family gets to decide where their share of the state education budget is spent. It would mean that the values being taught in your child’s classroom would have to align with the values of Mississippi families.
To find out what school choice would mean for you and your family, visit moveupms.com
Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama have done more to improve education in 12 months than Mississippi has achieved in 12 years. Sign up and join our movement if you believe it is time to change that!
Tax reform is on the agenda. This is excellent news for our state!
To prosper, Mississippi must create a tax environment that is friendly to both businesses and families.
We have moved in the right direction in the past three years. According to the Tax Foundation, Mississippi now ranks as the 20th most business-friendly state in terms of tax.
This improvement in our state’s tax competitiveness is a consequence of the Reeves-Gunn tax reforms. Under Governor Tate Reeves and Speaker Philip Gunn, Mississippi passed legislation to cut the state income tax to a flat 4 percent and allowed businesses to fully expense capital spending. But the tax burden in Mississippi is still too high.
Our state is surrounded by states, such as Tennessee, Alabama and Texas, that have a lower tax burden than we do. Even Louisiana manages to tax less than us.
Fortunately, we have some state leaders that recognize this. Speaker Jason White is hosting a Tax Policy Summit in September to look at what might be done. Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann has announced a study group in the Senate to look at fiscal policy, with the ultimate goal, he says, to “lower the tax burden and ensure taxpayer dollars stay in taxpayer pockets”.
Mississippi’s House of Representatives also has a select committee on tax reform, which had its first hearing this week.
To be blunt, the House select committee hearing the other day was a big disappointment, especially seeing as we are a supposedly conservative state. Much of what I heard sounded like special pleading from vested interests to increase taxes, not cut them. I wondered at times if Bernie Sanders was in the room.
The hearing on tax reform began with a witness making the point that Mississippi needed to spend more money to build more road infrastructure. The conversation then became about the best way to do so; raise sales tax, tax gas more or charge motorists per mileage.
Not raising tax revenues was described as a “failure to invest”. Spending more tax dollars would pay for itself, it was asserted. Any serious review of tax policy in our state should not start with special pleading. It should start with the basic facts about the shape of Mississippi’s public finances.
The number one fact about Mississippi public finances is that we have a substantial budget surplus. That is to say politicians in our state have more of our tax dollars than they currently know what to do with.
How could we change the tax system to allow people to keep more of their own money before politicians figure out ways of squandering the surplus? That is where the select committee ought to have started.
What kind of tax reforms are feasible depends on the extent to which our budget surplus is cyclical or structural. In other words, is the budget surplus a temporary phenomenon, caused by growth at this stage in the economic cycle? Or is the surplus a surplus not withstanding fluctuations in economic performance?
This matters because if the surplus is temporary, tax reform will need to be phased in carefully to avoid having to put taxes back up again, as did Kansas. Failure to consider if our budget surplus is a blip or a longer term phenomenon allows those opposed to significant tax cuts to lazily claim Mississippi cannot afford more tax cuts. (Note how when the Senate Leadership was trying to water down the Reeves-Gunn tax cuts in 2022 they were able to get away with the claim that we would be ‘like Kansas’.)
Having established what Mississippi can - and cannot - afford in terms of tax cuts, the select committee should then consider what type of tax cuts.
One possibility would be to cut the grocery tax. This would be a relatively small but symbolic cut, which is why it tends to be favored by the Senate Leadership which is lukewarm about any significant reduction in the size of government in our state.
Another possibility would be to phase out the income tax altogether. This would be a big and bold step, and would need triggers and thresholds to ensure it was not done ‘like Kansas’.
“But who will pay for our roads, Carswell!”, I hear you say. “The witness who said we need to invest in infrastructure had a point, no?” I agree.
There are some things, like roads, that our state government does need to do. As and when we need to raise tax revenue for specific projects, like road building, then our lawmakers should propose ad hoc tax increases to pay for it.
Arkansas asked voters to approve a specific increase in sales tax, for a ten year fixed period, to pay for key state infrastructure. In other words, tax revenue was raised for a purpose. Taxes were not raised on the pretext of special pleading and then kept at the elevated level forever. What is very odd is to allow the special pleading of vested interests to be used as an argument for raising the tax burden, in a conservative voting state, and in front of a supposedly conservative-run House committee.
If Mississippi is going to achieve meaningful tax reform, those considering it need to be less Bernie Sanders, and more Ronald Reagan. The lobbyists might not like it, but the voters will.