Press Release: New Education Report Highlights Reforms for Mississippi

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].