{"id":152817,"date":"2025-10-22T14:14:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=152817"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:14:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:14:27","slug":"mississippi-puts-real-money-into-schools-now-let-parents-choose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/mississippi-puts-real-money-into-schools-now-let-parents-choose\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Puts Real Money Into Schools. Now Let Parents Choose."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I served in the Legislature, every time I spoke up for school choice I heard the same tired line: \u201cIf you support choice, you\u2019re anti-school.\u201d Nonsense. Mississippians value education\u2014and we pay for it. The question is whether our kids are actually learning and whether parents have the power to put their child in a school that fits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we spend<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mississippi now spends roughly $12,000 per student (that is a lot of money)<\/strong>, right in line with our neighbors. We are not starving the system. We\u2019re funding it. Taxpayers have done their part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we get<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some wins:<\/strong> Our early-grade reading reforms worked. Fourth graders have posted some of the best gains in the country. Graduation is up, too. That\u2019s good news and it took effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, <\/strong>by eighth grade the edge fades. Too many students are walking across the stage without the skills they need for college, a trade, or the military. That\u2019s not a funding problem; that\u2019s a results problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How we stack up to private schools<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Private high schools typically graduate more of their seniors and post stronger scores. Yes, some of that reflects family factors, but it also reflects mission, discipline, and the freedom to run a school that fits its students. Families who can match a child to the right school usually see better outcomes. That\u2019s not \u201canti-public.\u201d That\u2019s pro-student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are we getting our money\u2019s worth?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Partly. We paid for improvement and got some\u2014especially in early literacy. But taxpayers aren\u2019t buying fourth-grade scores; we\u2019re investing in adults who can read, reason, and work. If a child spends twelve years in a school system and still isn\u2019t ready for what\u2019s next, the system\u2014not the child\u2014failed. Paying more into the same structure and expecting different results is the political habit we need to break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How school choice helps Mississippi kids<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Choice isn\u2019t a threat to public schools; it\u2019s a promise to parents.<\/strong> When money follows the student, every school\u2014district, charter or private\u2014has to earn a family\u2019s trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mississippi has proven we\u2019ll pay for education. That should end the slur that conservatives are \u201canti-school.\u201d We\u2019re anti-excuses. If we truly value kids more than systems, we\u2019ll let parents choose, let schools compete, and demand results worthy of the dollars we already spend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I served in the Legislature, every time I spoke up for school choice I heard the same<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124494,"featured_media":152818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32635],"tags":[1147,5,32786,5447,11291],"class_list":["post-152817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dana-criswell","tag-education","tag-mississippi","tag-school-choice","tag-schools","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/schoolschoice.jpg?fit=1080%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152824,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152817\/revisions\/152824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}