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Dear Jack,
A school choice revolution is sweeping America. Mississippi is now sandwiched on either side by school choice states.
In Arkansas and Alabama, families now get control over their child’s share of state education tax dollars. From 2025-26, each state government will pay between $7,000 - $9,000 into a dedicated Education Savings Account for each individual child. Mom & dad will be able to allocate that money to a school that best meets the needs of their child.
What would it take for Mississippi to join the school choice revolution?
“The Parent Revolution”, just published by Corey DeAngelis, one of the architects of the school choice revolution, shows that Covid lockdowns were an important catalyst for change.
Corey DeAngelis explains how the Parent Revolution came about ….
Pre-Covid, many parents meekly assumed that education meant sending their kids to whichever government school people in their zip code were assigned.
Covid showed millions of Americans that many government schools are run in the interests of teacher unions and school board bureaucrats, rather than their kids. Teacher Unions were quick to call for schools to be closed, and fought to keep things that way. They attacked suggestions schools reopen as “rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny”.
The vice president of the Chicago Teacher Union attacked proposals to return to in-person teaching - while on vacation in Puerto Rico!
Covid lockdowns meant that moms and dads across the country questioned what it is that their children were actually being taught.
Many government schools in America have clearly been promoting Critical Race Theory, an off shoot of Marxist academic theory. Often this has been done innocuously, under the banner of promoting equity, diversity or inclusion.
Sometimes the mask slips. We know, for example, that here in Republican-run Mississippi, our own Department of Education has recommended that teachers use social studies resources calling for the abolition of Christopher Columbus Day and the payment of racial reparations.
Despite having a solid Republican majority for over a decade, Mississippi has made little progress towards school choice.
Our state has a total of nine Charter Schools in the entire state, less than 0.8 percent of the total, and fewer than are to be found in a single suburb of New Orleans. Our school choice program for Special Needs students has hardly grown at all.
Advocates for school choice often make their case with an appeal to a sense of social justice. School choice, they say, would give every American child opportunities that today only rich families have. That isn’t enough.
Nor is writing white papers nobody reads or draft legislation that is never passed.
To win, school choice needs to be seen as the antidote to the ‘woke’ takeover of government-run classrooms by the ideological left.
Corey at MCPP event
In Mississippi, many of our elected officials simply don’t see the need for change. Perhaps it is uncomfortable to acknowledge the extent to which many government schools underperform.
Here are some facts about government schools in Mississippi that need to be acknowledged:
* 2 in 3 fourth graders in Mississippi government schools fail to achieve proficiency in reading. Data shows that only 31 percent of fourth graders were at or above reading proficiency in 2022. (National Assessment of Educational Progress data. Here’s the link ([link removed]⊂=MAT&sj=&st=AP&year=2022R3)
* Almost 4 in 10 fourth graders don't even reach the basic reading standard.
* 2 in 3 fourth graders in Mississippi government schools fail to achieve proficiency in math. Data shows that only 32 percent were to or above proficiency in 2022. (National Assessment of Educational Progress data)
* By eighth grade, 8 in 10 were failing to achieve math proficiency in 2022. (National Assessment of Educational Progress data)
* Almost one in four Mississippi students – 108,000 individual children - is chronically absent from school. Data for 2022-23 shows Mississippi public schools have a 23.8 percent chronic absentee rate, far above the national average. (Mississippi Department of Education data). Almost one in four Mississippi students in 2022-23 missed over 10 percent of their schooling and the absentee rate has skyrocketed! (From 70,275 in 2016 – 17 to 108,310 in 2022-23. (Mississippi Department of Education data)
DeAngelis shows us that there are no shortage of vested interests - teacher unions, education bureaucrats, federal officials - determined to do everything they can to keep your kids captive in government-run classrooms.
We could overcome those vested interests if we first addressed the anti-school choice Republicans who indulge them.
Here the lesson from Texas, as recounted by DeAngelis, might be instructive. Gov Greg Abbot was a “fully-throated champion of universal education savings accounts”. He threw his weight behind change, only to have a dozen or so “Republican” members of the legislature scupper the plan.
When Texas voters saw those anti-school choice “Republicans” vote to deny them school choice, they made these “Republican” lawmakers ex-lawmakers. School choice, I suspect, will sail through the Texas legislature in the next session.
No more playing nice. Either you are a conservative and support school choice, or you aren’t. It seems that Donald Trump agrees.
Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!
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Warm regards,
Douglas Carswell
President & CEO
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