FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Jackson, MS): Today the Mississippi Center for Public Policy released a report on the state's K-12 Public Education System, identifying issues and offering solutions.

The report reveals that:

• Academic standards among Mississippi public schools are poor, and no significant improvement has been documented with validity.
• The problem in K-12 education is structural, not merely a lack of money.

The report then goes on to set out a roadmap to address some of the systemic obstacles to improving public education in the Magnolia State. The report calls for:

• Capping administration costs: Some school board districts spend too much money on bureaucracy. Today’s report shows the steps that are needed to ensure money goes into the classroom instead.
• Open enrollment: Instead of automatically enrolling children in schools, the report shows how Mississippi families could be given a new right to choose a school for their child.  
• Multiple charter school authorizer boards: Today’s report reveals that less than half of one percent of Mississippi students attend a charter school.

“Today’s report shows what we need to do to address Mississippi’s historic education underperformance,” said Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. “The great news is that right now there are a number of bills in the state legislature that would give us the three key reforms we need to transform Mississippi education.”

Carswell continued saying, “HB 874, the Mississippi Scholarship Act, would ensure that every parent had a choice to get the best for their child. HB 1349 and SB 2177 would achieve open enrollment. There are also two bills in the Senate that would begin to cap administration costs, and I am excited to see HB 1194, which would establish multiple authorizer boards to ensure that we get more Charter Schools across the state.”

For media inquiries, please reach out to Stone Clanton, [email protected].

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Public school enrollment continues to decline in Mississippi, with 2018 being the seventh consecutive year that less students are enrolled than they were the year before.

According to the latest numbers from the Mississippi Department of Education, 470,668 students are enrolled in public schools. This includes both district and charter school students. If the 1,641 students in charters are removed, the number dips slightly to 469,027.

In 2012, total enrollment was 492,847. And there was no competition from charters at the time. This represents a drop of about 4.5 percent over the past seven years.

What is causing the decline?

The state population has declined over the previous couple years. But if we go back to 2012, the population compared to today is largely stagnant. And maybe even a little higher today depending on 2018 Census estimates. And Census data doesn’t show a major change in the ages of the population so we have roughly the same number of children ages 5-18 today that we had in 2012.

So, it is not due to outmigration. And we see that even when we look at specific districts. While Rankin county isn’t growing at the pace it was over the prior two decades, the county has grown about 4.5 percent since 2012. Yet, enrollment in the Rankin County School District has dropped slightly from 19,448 to 19,206 this year. This is a drop of a little over 1 percent. Not huge, but not the numbers you would expect in a growing suburb.

When you look at enrollment among younger students, the numbers though are more staggering. Kindergarten enrollment has gone from 1,569 in 2012 to 1,365 today, a drop of 10 percent. Enrollment in first grade has decreased from 1,611 in 2012 to 1,438 this year, a decrease of almost 11 percent.

What about areas of the state that are losing population? That certainly includes the city of Jackson. Jackson Public Schools have seen the greatest decline in terms of real numbers. And they are the district most impacted by parents having a choice in their child’s education through charter schools.

In 2012, 29,738 students were enrolled in JPS. Today, they are under 24,000 students. This represents a drop of 20 percent, far greater than the 5 percent decline among the city’s population during this time. And the decline is 32 percent among kingergartners. The Hinds County School District, though much smaller, saw a 10 percent drop in students from 6,267 in 2012 to 5,619 today.

Also in the Jackson metro area, both Clinton and Madison county posted enrollment gains over the past seven years. Clinton grew from 4,756 to 5,310, a 12 percent gain. Madison grew by 6 percent, from 12,507 to 13,302.

Winners and losers

Outside of the Jackson metro area, we saw enrollment trends largely mirror migration trends.

Desoto County long ago passed JPS as the largest school district in the state and it continues to grow though the pace has slowed some. Today, enrollment stands at 34,392, a 5 percent gain from 2012.

Harrison County, the fourth largest school district in the state, has grown by 7 percent, from 14,037 to 15,010. The Harrison County School District is one of five districts in the county. Biloxi and Gulfport also posted gains, of 17 and 8 percent respectively.

In Jackson County, the Jackson County School District dropped 3 percent, from 9,518 to 9,209. Similarly, the Pascagoula-Gautier School District experienced a 1 percent decline, from 6,902 to 6,866. However, Ocean Springs grew by 6 percent, from 5,590 to 5,936 students.

Lamar county became the sixth district in the state to pass 10,000 students this year. The district has grown by 13 percent over the past seven years, from 9,404 to 10,624. Also in the Pine Belt, Hattiesburg had a drop of 14 percent, falling from 4,608 students in 2012 to 3,953.

The school district which saw the greatest percentage decline, among the 30 largest districts in the state, was Greenville, which saw a 22 percent drop. The district dropped from 5,714 students to 4,480. Jackson and Columbus both lost 20 percent of their student enrollment, followed by Meridian’s 16 percent loss.

Certainly, some of the decline is due to outmigration. But there appears to be more to the story. The state does not track private school enrollment or the number of children who are homeschooled, but the number of children leaving district schools is greater than the number of children leaving the state.

School district enrollment change, 2012-2018

Mississippi’s Dyslexia Scholarship program provides hope to families whose children are not receiving the support they need in their assigned, district schools. And at the same time, it saves taxpayer dollars.

During the first three years of the program, from 2013 through 2015, it saved taxpayers $1.4 million, or about $6,500 for every child that received the scholarship. This is according to a new study from EdChoice. In 2013, the savings totaled $204,536, in 2014, the savings increased to $458,296, and in 2015, the savings were up to $780,497.

In 2012, the Dyslexia Scholarship became Mississippi’s first private school choice program, providing a scholarship to students with dyslexia equal to the base student costs of educating a child in Mississippi. For the first three years, that ranged from $4,400 to $4,700.

Source: EdChoice

This program is wildly popular among participants, growing from 32 in 2013 to 237 today. Still, there are major limitations to the program that have prevented it from reaching all that it was designed for. To participate, a private school must be accredited by the state. Therefore, the numerous private schools that provide dyslexia therapy services, but are instead accredited by other associations, are not allowed to participate.

On numerous occasions, parts of families have been uprooted so their children could attend a school like the 3-D School in Petal while another member of the family stays home to work.

Two years ago, the legislature debated, and the Senate passed, a bill that would have expanded the program to all accredited private schools who meet the dyslexia therapy qualifications. But the House chose to go with a much narrower expansion, and many families still remain in the dark when it comes to receiving the services their children need.

A new report places Mississippi in the middle of the pack when it comes to providing parents with additional options in the education of their children.

Center for Education Reform’s Parent Power Index placed Mississippi 23rd overall, but gave the state a score of just 58, which is an F. That wasn’t terrible compared to everyone else. Indeed, the national average is only 52 percent, with 29 states earning an F.

“The Magnolia state’s weak charter school law and modest opportunity scholarship programs do not provide needed opportunity for students in the state. Additionally, Mississippi has thus far done very little to promote innovative options that foster personalized approaches to learning. While some robust teacher quality mechanisms work well and school board elections are held during general elections, Mississippi has a long way to go before parents have true power,” the report notes.

CER gives Mississippi a D for the state’s charter school law, ranking it 38th among the 45 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have charters.

More than 2,300 children in Mississippi exercise school choice and while that number is growing, it is still just a sliver of overall student enrollment. That is largely due to the limited availability of charter school seats, scholarships in the ESA program, and schools authorized to participate in the Dyslexia Scholarship.

Each of Mississippi’s neighboring states did slightly better, earning a D. Louisiana was the highest at 16th overall. Florida was the top-rated state in the nation for parental empowerment, while Indiana was second and Arizona third.

“Parent Power is the degree of access parents have to impact education opportunities. The Parent Power Index measures the ability in each state of a parent to exercise choices, no matter what their income or child’s level of academic achievement, engage with their local schools and school board, and have a voice in the education systems that surround them,” CER writes.

The Mississippi Justice Institute filed an appellate brief in the Mississippi Supreme Court in a lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center challenging the constitutionality of charter school funding in Mississippi.

The brief was filed on Friday, November 9.

MJI represents several parents of children who attend charter schools in Mississippi, and urged the Mississippi Supreme Court to affirm a trial court’s ruling that the funding for charter schools is constitutional.

The appeal is being handled by MJI Director, Aaron Rice, and MJI pro bono counsel, Michael B. Wallace, a shareholder in the law firm of Wise Carter Child & Caraway, P.A.  MJI joined with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, MidTown Public Charter Schools, and the Mississippi Charter School Association in filing the joint brief.

The Mississippi Justice Institute is the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.  It represents Mississippians whose state or federal Constitutional rights have been threatened by government actions.

The Mississippi Justice Institute is supported by voluntary, tax-deductible contributions. It receives no funds from government agencies for its operations.  To learn more about MJI, visit www.msjustice.org.

A school district in Mississippi appears to have backtracked from comments that appeared in a recent article detailing the district’s new proposed policy for homeschool students.

According to the Delta Democrat Times, Greenville Public School District Deputy Superintendent Glenn Dedeaux said the district is “legally responsible to ensure every child of educating age receives an adequate education” and he warned that not all homeschool curricula “are approved by the Mississippi Department of Education to meet the necessary standards.”

Dedeaux also implied that homeschoolers must take subject matter tests to graduate.

Regardless of what you may or may not think about homeschooling, these comments run counter to Mississippi law. Indeed, Mississippi has one of the most parent-friendly homeschool laws in the country.

Mississippi code specifically says:

[I]t is not the intention of this section to impair the primary right and the obligation of the parent . . . to choose the proper education and training” for their child, “and nothing in this section shall ever be construed to grant, by implication or otherwise, to the State of Mississippi . . . any right or authority to control, manage, supervise or make any suggestion as to the control, management or supervision” of the private education of children. Further, “this section shall never be construed so as to grant, by implication or otherwise, any right or authority to any state agency or other entity to control, manage, supervise, provide for or affect the operation, management, program, curriculum, admissions policy or discipline of any such school or home instruction program.

To homeschool in Mississippi, a family must file a certificate of enrollment with the school attendance officer where the family resides. They must do this by September 15. Beyond that, parents have the freedom to make their own education decisions for their children.

While there is not official data on the number of homeschoolers in Mississippi, estimates put it at around 17,000 students statewide. If homeschoolers were a single district, they would be the fourth largest district in the state.

Dan Beasley, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, reached out to Dedeaux. Dedeaux said he was misquoted in the original article. And, to his credit, he understands he has no authority over which program a homeschool family selects.

Mississippi families who choose to homeschool their children should not be susceptible to illegal attempts by school districts to regulate their education.

Dubbed the "wild west" of charter schooling by detractors, Arizona is showing that a model that provides parents with numerous choices, and bottom-up autonomy, works.

Two years ago, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NASCA) gave Mississippi the eighth highest score on their policy analysis of state charter laws. At the same time, Arizona came in at just 18th.

In the eyes of organizations like NASCA and others, states like Arizona do not have the necessary regulations in place concerning key issues like renewal standards, academic performance, or a default closure provision. And they don’t perform authorizer evaluations.

Mississippi took a different approach and developed a “model” charter law that was based on best practices from NASCA and similar organizations. But as we have seen, charters have been slow to open in Mississippi. Not because of lack of interest among operators or parents, but because of the process of authorizing charter schools in Mississippi.

This year, 16 different operators proposed opening a total of 17 schools across the state.The prior two years, 18 operators filed similar letters of intent to begin the charter school application process. Yet just five schools are currently opened for this school year, with one more coming in 2019.

Arizona, on the other hand, has approximately 600 schools serving north of 185,000 students. That accounts for about 20 percent of public school enrollment in the state. Deemed the “wild west” by detractors, over the past five years some 200 schools have opened with about 100 closing. Those numbers aren’t because of a law, either for better or for worse. But because parents in Arizona now recognize that they are empowered to choose the right school for their child.

Administrative attempts to shut down a public school, regardless of how poor it is doing on test scores or other measures we commonly look at, is not an easy task. You are usually met with a fierce opposition of loyal parents and potentially lawsuits as well. For the most part, Arizona parents have moved beyond that.

Arizona parents don't wait for a school to get better

They move on. It is parents who are now closing poor performing schools, not the government. Of those schools that closed, they were open on average just four years (even with a 15 year reauthorization window) and had only 62 students their final year. Without government intervention, parents were able to determine what wasn’t working.

We shy away from using words like “market” when it comes to education, but that is exactly what is happening. After all, parents have the ability to make a choice.

So it’s a different model, but how is it working? After all, our focus should be outcomes and not intention.

A review of the most recent NAEP scores among Arizona’s charter students helps to answer that question.

• 8th grade math was ranked first in the nation (the state rank was 25th)
• 8th grade reading ranked second in the nation, behind just Massachusetts (the state rank was 35th)
• 4th grade math was ranked 16th in the nation (the state was ranked 41st)
• 4th grade reading was ranked 16th in the nation (the state was ranked 42nd)

Beyond the overall numbers, perhaps more newsworthy, Arizona charter schools have also boosted the largest gains in the country over the past eight years among all four tests. No state showed more progress in terms of points gain between 2009 and 2017 (when Arizona charter schools are compared to the 50 individual states).

• 8th grade math had a +30 change in scale score
• 8th grade reading had a +20 change in scale score
• 4th grade math had a +11 change in scale score
• 4th grade reading had a +11 change in scale score

A couple other important points to make. While Arizona’s 8th grade students are competing with a traditional top-performing state like Massachusetts, the similarities stop there. Arizona is educating a high-minority population while Massachusetts (and similar states) are largely white. At the same time, Arizona spends about half of what Massachusetts spends per student.

Today, 84 percent of zip codes in Arizona have a charter school, the highest percentage in the country. Mississippi’s new to the charter game so it’s not a fair comparison. But that number is a rounding error in the state.

By making options available in large numbers, also known as supply, and giving power to choose to parents, also known as demand, we see a successful bottom-up accountability system.

The first public charter school opened in Mississippi more than two decades after our nation’s first charter school welcomed students in Minnesota. Today, five years after state legislators finally allowed charter schools to operate in our state, it is safe to say that charter approvals continue at the same snail’s pace.

The Mississippi Charter Authorizer Board recently voted to allow a new school, Ambition Prep, to open in West Jackson next year. It was the only school to be greenlighted by the state in this cycle, though two other proposals were tabled for consideration in October.

In 2018, 16 different operators proposed opening a total of 17 schools across the state from the Coast to Jackson to the Delta. The prior two years, 18 operators filed similar letters of intent to begin the charter school application process.

But when Ambition Prep opens it will be just the sixth charter school in the state, with all but one in Jackson.

Educational entrepreneurs are interested in opening schools. And parents are interested in options. Despite the small footprint, 15-20 percent of public school students in Jackson who attend a grade that is also served by a charter school are enrolled in charter schools. And that number will only increase.

Yet in light of the slow-growing sector, limited enrollment, and swelling wait lists, we wonder whose opinion matters more when it comes to educational choice – government or parents’?

Our charter law emphasizes a rigorous application process and “high quality” schools. Yet this bottleneck has created much greater pressure for early charter schools and a less dynamic and attractive environment for new operators to enter. The restriction of charter applications to D and F-rated districts most recently left the authorizer board torn between rejecting or approving an application faster than they would like to, in the event the district’s grade changes and invalidates the nearly successful proposal.

In advance of the release of school grades, state superintendent Carey Wright cautioned against judging charter schools too quickly, since they face unique start-up and environmental challenges along with the added pressure of serving students far behind academically. But the law makes this reasonable approach difficult: schools have a very narrow timeframe in which to meet certain state-determined guidelines or be shut down.

A different approach

Many years ago, Arizona took a different approach to charters than Mississippi. In Arizona, charters have a 15-year window rather than just a 5-year window to stay in business, as they do here. But most schools take far fewer than 15 years to prove their worth. And instead of the state stepping in to close poor-performing schools, parents do.

Over the past five years, more than 200 charters schools have opened in the Grand Canyon State. In the same five years, 100 other schools have closed. The average charter school that closes in Arizona is open just four years and has an average of 62 students in its final year. Parents don’t wait for the state to say if a charter is or isn’t meeting government benchmarks. They make a determination themselves. The charter sector grows according to demand, not top-down controls, ensuring that parents can make decisions about their child’s education without delay, rather than waiting for years to have a school or seat open up. Families also have many schools to choose from if one is not the right fit.

The data shows us that choice produces better student outcomes than tight government regulations.

In 2017, National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, scores showed Arizona charters again performing as high as or better than traditionally top-performing states like Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey. Arizona did this while spending half of what those states spend and educating a high-minority student population.

Schools like Jackson Academy, Jackson Prep, St. Andrew’s, St Joe’s, MRA, Hartfield, and others compete for students every day. They sell themselves on why consumers, parents, should send their children to their school. And parents make decisions on where to enroll their children based on a host of reasons, ranging from academics to athletics, from values to extracurricular activities. This has created a robust private school market in the area. Why shouldn’t public schools of choice work similarly?

We’re glad leaders in Mississippi are working to create more public education options for those who want them. But the slow pace of opening charters, and the limitations on where they can be located or who can attend, is not leading to a responsive charter marketplace anytime soon. In these early stages of development, Mississippi has the opportunity to learn from other states and decide if parent demand and satisfaction should play a greater role in the charter approval process.

After all, what’s working for Arizona just might work here too.

This column appeared in The Northside Sun on September 20, 2018.