Donald Trump is the most pro-school choice President in history. “As president”, he has said, “I will establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child”. “If we can put a man on the moon and win two world wars, then I have no doubt that we as a nation can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in America”.
Unfortunately, Mississippi has made little progress towards school choice due to a tiny handful of anti-school choice Republicans. Even though three of our surrounding states, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana, now have school choice, we still don’t. The biggest obstacle to the education reforms we need is the current Senate Leader, Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann. He has taken every opportunity to thwart efforts to achieve more parent power.
Initially, Mr. Hosemann took to claiming that school choice would be unconstitutional. This is an erroneous argument, as a carefully prepared legal briefing note we circulated shows. Having conceded that there is, indeed, no constitutional barrier to school choice, our Lieutenant Governor began to search for alternative excuses. Schools might not have the capacity, seems to be his latest one.
That is why the draft bill we worked on ensures school boards get the final say as to their capacity. No one is forcing them to take more kids. Another excuse crumbles….. One by one the arguments invoked by anti-school choice Republicans to justify their inertia have been dismantled. But it still appears that the will to give Mississippi families the parent power they have in our neighboring states just isn’t there.
Why is a Republican Lieutenant Governor in a conservative state teaming up with progressive activist groups, like the Parents’ Campaign, and briefing leftist media outlets like Mississippi Today to thwart reform? Mr. Hosemann, I gather, has indicated he is flat out opposed to a tax credit. This means Mr. Hosemann is very likely to be on a collision course with the next President, whose team, I understand, is literally finalizing plans for a federal tax credit right now. Will Mr. Hosemann continue to oppose a tax credit?
Mr. Trump has made it clear he will abolish the federal Department of Education. Trump does not intend to dismantle power in DC only to see it handed over to local bureaucrats in Jackson. He would like to see parents have control over their child’s education. If a handful of local Republicans continue to kill off school choice (“It died in committee”, is likely to be their next excuse), I suspect that the conspicuous absence of invitations to Mar-a-Lago may become the least of their worries.
In a fight between anti school choice Republicans and Team Trump, I imagine Trump will win. He’d certainly have support from the local conservative base who have voted conservative for years but not always got a great deal to show for it. Perhaps part of the problem is that one or two of our anti school choice Republicans have an unfortunate habit of never wanting to engage with anyone with different ideas to their own. That can become a problem if you don’t actually have very many ideas of your own. I’m not sure that a policy on four semesters a year, or cell phone usage in schools, quite cuts it ….
Those that get endorsed by Trump to run in 2027 will, I imagine, be Republicans that actually support the new President’s agenda in the coming months, particularly the 2025 session. There’s still time to get on board with school choice in Mississippi.
“All political lives end in failure” observed the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. His did. So, too, will Joe Biden’s.
Forced out after four years, it is difficult to think of a single significant achievement by the Biden administration. Biden’s legacy will be higher national debt and a more divided America. But is it really the case that political lives always end in failure?
Watching the recent movie about Ronald Reagan, it was obvious that after two terms in office, the Gipper’s accomplishments clearly outweighed any defeats. Reagan’s legacy was a buoyant economy, stronger America and the defeat of Soviet communism.
If Biden’s legacy is of extreme failure, and Reagan’s of remarkable success, many politicians don’t seem to leave much of a legacy at all, good or bad. Like footprints on a beach at low tide, tomorrow it will be as though they were never there at all.
Many politicians fail to leave much of a legacy for the simple reason that they hold office but have little idea what to do with it. That’s not, of course, what they tell themselves in the early days. In the afterglow of their election victory, surrounded by staffers, and praised by smooth-tongued lobbyists, political leaders busy themselves with the business of government.
Yet often the urgent squeezes out the important. Once in office, they end up playing the role of Senator, Congressman, or state Governor, like an actor in a movie handed their lines by someone else.
Rather than implementing a blueprint that matters, they are distracted by the trivial. Instead of delivering difficult messages, they delude themselves that another press conference about blah blah is vital.
Rare is the type of politician who can make the political weather, rather than respond to it. Many politicians fail to leave a legacy because they fool themselves that they are responsible for things that would have happened anyhow. Or they imagine that they will be fondly remembered for things that happened on their watch.
How many Mississippians remember who was governor when the Nissan factory came to Mississippi? How many credit whoever happened to be in office? Any politician in our state wanting to leave a real legacy needs to address those things that have kept our state 50th out of 50 for too long.
First is education. Mississippi needs a wholesale reform of education, with school choice and parent power. With so many surrounding states implementing universal school choice, change is possible. The first wave of Mississippi leaders to actually come out and lead on this will be seen to deliver historic changes for the better.
Second is the state economy. Mississippi’s economy continues to be weighed down by a relatively high tax burden and red tape. Despite cutting the state income tax, Mississippi families and businesses still pay more than in surrounding states. Certificate of Need laws hold back the healthcare economy in our state. State leaders that lead on lower taxes and deregulation would stand out nationally and historically.
These are the issues that will define the future of our state. Our state leaders will be defined by if and how they address them. State leaders that address these issues will leave a giant legacy. Those that don’t, won't be a household name in their own home.
We are now less than two weeks away from the Presidential election – and Trump seems to have momentum. In the all-important states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, Trump looks ahead of Kamala. By a whisker.
From a policy perspective, what might a Trump victory on November 5th mean? A Trump win would be bad news for the administrative state. Talking to one of Trump’s policy people a couple of months ago, they suggested to me that in his first term Trump had been too trusting of officialdom. The 45th President had underestimated the extent to which the bureaucratic machine in Washington would try to frustrate his policy goals.
I doubt that in a second term Team Trump would let that happen again. If Trump wins, I expect to see parts of the administrative state dismantled. Rumors suggest that Elon Musk would be asked to form an efficiency task force. With a ballooning national debt, perhaps Musk could reengineer government to reduce its size and costs, while improving its effectiveness? Trump has explicitly committed to eliminating the federal Department of Education. Speaking on “Fox & Friends”, Trump reiterated the point, saying that he wanted to get “education out of Washington”. In response to a question from a student, Trump said school choice “is one of the biggest things on my platform”.
Trump went on to point out that the US currently spends more on education than many other Western countries, about $16,000 per student per year. Unlike some in Mississippi, Trump did not pretend that there had been some sort of education ‘miracle’. Indeed, Trump emphasized that the education system produces poor results, despite all the money lavished upon it.
Honesty about the true state of education is the essential first step if there is to be significant reform. In conservative Mississippi, we have somehow ended up with a new Education Superintendent, Lance Evans, that is anti-parent power. The other week, Evans went out of his way to attack school choice.
How odd that in a Republican-run state we should have such an anti-school choice Education Superintendent at the moment when Trump looks likely to win the White House. Did the Republican leaders of our state not know Evans was anti school choice before he was appointed? Or did they know the man they were about to appoint was anti parent power, but go ahead all the same?
A Trump victory will surely flush out the anti-school choice Republicans in states like Mississippi who have done little to advance parent power. It is not enough to pay lip service to school choice, yet somehow allow anti school choice officials to take the helm at the Department for Education. Nor is it acceptable to say you want school choice, when we have only a handful of Charter Schools because those appointed to oversee the Authorized Board seem happy to say “no” to new schools.
This kind of politics has all the integrity of WorldCom accounting. A Trump win on November 5th could have the effect of an audit. Time could soon be up for anti-school choice “conservatives” in states like ours.
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.
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!
Great news! The University of Mississippi has just announced it will be closing its DEI department, the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.
The University’s DEI department has been the driving force behind “Pathways to Equity”, a five-year university wide strategic plan committed to equity and racial justice.
Under “Pathways to Equity” everything at the university – including curriculum content – has been increasingly managed through the prism of intersectional ideology.
According to public records requests that MCPP submitted, Ole Miss is still spending millions on its various DEI initiatives. The head of the Division of Diversity, Shawnboda Mead, alone is on $246,881 a year.
If Ole Miss really is going to dismantle the apparatus of woke ideology, great. I fear, however, that what we have here is merely a rebrand.
Chancellor Glenn Boyce, who made the announcement about the name change in an email, must surely sense that the political climate is changing. Alumni are increasingly reluctant to donate to what they perceive as ‘woke’ academics who despise their values.
Boyce seems to be trying to head off anti DEI legislation.
Until now, Mississippi’s liberal Senate leadership has been able to block various bills that would tackle DEI in our public universities. However, the Senate leadership is increasingly weak, if not yet a lame duck.
Mississippi’s weak Senate leadership failed to block school funding reform in the last session, despite every effort. The weak Senate leadership will only grow weaker in 2025 and may not have the strength to keep blocking anti DEI law.
Boyce perhaps senses this, and has cooked up a deal with the good ole boys to try to head off the anti DEI legislation we need.
Governors in many nearby states have taken effective action against DEI ideology, issuing Executive Orders. Curiously our Governor has chosen not to take any action against ‘woke’ ideology despite mountains of evidence action is needed. This is puzzling.
I suspect this may change. The urge to appear on Fox News or get noticed by Team Trump may soon exceed the desire to keep in with university bureaucrats.
The rising generation of Republican leaders in our state, such as State Auditor, Shad White, are clear that they want to see an end to using public money to promote divisive, race-based DEI ideology.
Chancellor Boyce’s move seems to me as much an attempt at deflection, as it is a serious effort to root out woke ideology. What the university really wants is to head off legislation that would outlaw the promotion of an ideology that is increasingly commonplace among third rate academics in our public universities.
University administrators across America have made a Faustian bargain with their ultra progressive faculty. They tip toe around the cultural Marxists on campus, allowing them to promote extreme leftist ideology, in return for a quiet life.
University administrators have appeased the ‘woke’ monster in the hope that it might eat them last.
This is why the Division of Diversity might be going, but it is to be replaced by a new Division of Access, Opportunity, and Community Engagement. The new Division will be run, it has been reported, by the same head who ran the old one.
Mediocre academics at the Department of English will, I suspect, continue to “embrace diversity, inclusion, and equity as central to the scholarly mission” while “recognizing the ongoing legacies of systemic inequity within the institutions of our academic field”.
Nothing in Boyce’s announcement suggests he is about to get serious about rooting out ultra leftist academics that hold tenure. If there is any new commitment to ensuring intellectual diversity at Ole Miss, I must have missed it. Far easier to keep feeding the monster, rather than confront it.
If Boyce was serious about ending DEI, he would commit to running the university on the principle of equality – treating every person equally – not equity – the idea that outcomes should be manipulated to tackle perceived or historic disadvantages.
What is encouraging is that Boyce and his team are not seeking to defend DEI from first principle.
In just three years, DEI has become indefensible.
Here at MCPP we will keep punching the bruise until this deeply divisive, extremist ideology is no longer being pushed on young minds using your tax dollars. The moral case for discriminating against some of today’s students because of what happened before they were even born has collapsed.
Mississippi’s weak Senate leadership might not appreciate our efforts to end DEI, but so what? The values we teach the next generation of young people in America are vastly more important that the feelings on any ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians.
I am not convinced that rebranding the DEI department is going to be enough to stave off legislation. I doubt that all the free tickets to all the football games will be enough to prevent change.
In order to fix a problem, you first need to accept that you’ve got a problem. In order for families in our state to get the education their children deserve, we need state leaders to recognize that right now they aren't getting a good enough education.
Instead, what we get is propaganda about the Mississippi education ‘miracle’. The other week the Mississippi Department of Education published the results from the 2023-24 Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP). Relying on this data to tell you about education in Mississippi would be like leaving it to your child to mark their own homework.
Sure enough, having marked their own homework, the Mississippi education bureaucracy told us that “student achievement has reached an all-time high” in math, English and science. Just as you get inflation in the economy, you get grade inflation in the education system. MAAP scores are used to help rate schools and districts A-F. There has been a dramatic fall in the number of D and F rated districts in recent years. This is not because those districts are no longer failing, but because even failing districts get given better grades.
A more credible measure of student performance is the national benchmark, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This data tells a less flattering story.
- 4 in 10 fourth graders would struggle to read this sentence. In 2022, they could not reach even the basic reading standard.
- 82 percent of 8th grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient in math in 2022.
- 69 percent of 4th grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient in reading in 2022.
Education standards are bad - and they are not getting better! The claim by the Mississippi Department of Education that Mississippi “students have made faster progress than nearly every other state” is ridiculous. The truth is that during the COVID lockdowns, standards as measured by the NAEP plummeted in other states, but barely changed in ours. This meant our relative position rose, but without any significant improvement in outcomes.
Officials know all this, yet still present a misleading picture of what has happened in the belief that you will be impressed. Equally implausible is the idea that we should celebrate record high school graduation rates. One in four Mississippi public school students is chronically absent from school. Worse, the number of kids regularly not showing up to school has skyrocketed from 70,275 in 2016-17 to 108,310 in 2022-23.
Honesty about the true state of education matters because self-congratulatory propaganda is one reason things don't get fixed. Mississippi has been run by supposed conservatives for over a decade. In all that time, we have seen remarkably little progress towards the kind of big strategic changes we need. In 12 months, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana made more progress towards school choice than Mississippi managed in 12 years. Why?
A lot of it is down to leadership. Politicians merely looking to progress along the conveyor belt don’t need any vision. They simply aim to “go along to get along”. Mississippi is now surrounded on three sides by states that have universal school choice. In every case, change took courage and vision, not self-congratulation. One of the reasons why Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Louisiana’s Jeff Landry and Texas’ Greg Abbott are regularly on Fox News and are emerging as conservative leaders with a national profile is because they have shown the tenacity to fight for school choice in their own states.
Another part of the problem is that too many have an interest in exaggerating the impact of those reforms that have happened. This may be understandable, but laws passed almost a decade ago are not enough to improve education outcomes today.
Our job at MCPP is to push forward conservative policies based on true conservative principles, not dubious press releases. We aim to ensure that conservative leaders in this state finally commit to universal school choice. We are on a mission to ensure that anyone telling you that there has been an education ‘miracle’ looks ridiculous. Only school choice will do.