What a week! This has been the most exciting few days for education freedom in Mississippi for years.
A blizzard of bills have appeared in the Mississippi legislature that could transform education for the better.
The Mississippi Student Freedom bill (HB 1449) would establish in Mississippi a system of school choice similar to what Sarah Huckabee Sanders established over in Arkansas. This would be awesome!
Phased in over time, families would have the right to have their child’s share of state education tax dollars paid into their own Magnolia Scholarship Account. The family would then be free to allocate that money to meet their child’s needs in both the public, private and homeschool sector.
Under this bill, school districts would not be compelled to take kids from out of area if schools in those districts are already full.
Education freedom could soon be a reality.
Opportunity Scholarships bill (HB 1452) proposes something similar, but the Opportunity Scholarships would only be available for those in failing school districts. This would be good, if not quite excellent.
The INSPIRE bill (HB 1453) promises a complete overhaul of our antiquated school funding system. A relic of a by-gone age, the existing education funding system in Mississippi is Soviet in its approach. It allocates money to the system, not to students. As a result, your tax dollars never seem to make their way where they are needed – the classroom.
Now along comes Rep Rob Robertson with a superb proposal to allocate funds to each student. Every kid in Mississippi public schools would get an amount based on various weights. For years, policy makers have talked (and talked and talked) about change. Now there is a plan to make it happen.
Architect of education reform - Rep. Rob Roberson
What is really significant is not that these bills have been tabled, but that they have all been the work of the House’s new education committee chairman, Rep Rob Roberson. We should all be in awe of him.
It is clear, too, that Speaker Jason White is the driving force behind these remarkable reforms. Kudos to the new Speaker.
Secretary of State Michael Watson reacts to this week's proposals.
Of course it is one thing to table a bill, and quite another for it to become law.
Someplace out there will be progressive activists, masquerading as journalists, drafting bogus ‘news’ articles predicting disaster if every child gets a specific funding allocation.
With a massive conservative majority in Mississippi, it would be odd if what is regarded as mainstream conservative policy throughout the southern states was derailed.
Every neighboring state – Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana – is now implementing the kind of reforms presented in our state Capitol this week. Let’s hope that our leaders make it happen!
Have a wonderful, uplifting and optimism-filled, weekend!
