In a recent piece in the Clarion Ledger, I asked, “Will Mississippi be the first state to expand educational freedom in 2026?” If Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar (R) has his way, that answer will be, “No.”
Last week, Debar’s committee spent a whopping 84 seconds considering HB 2, the Mississippi Education Freedom Act, before rejecting it. HB 2 is a massive bill, but the centerpiece—and the reason the committee killed it—is an education savings account program called Magnolia Student Accounts. With these accounts, parents would be able to use a portion of state education funds to provide a range of educational options for their kids, including private school tuition, tutoring, educational technology, curriculum materials, specialized courses, and more.
It’s too bad the Senate committee wasn’t willing to have a real conversation about educational freedom. If they’d been more open-minded, they could have heard from Mississippi parents or children who aren’t doing well in their assigned schools but can’t afford another option. They could’ve listened to parents from states with scholarship programs, as they explained how their kids have benefited. They could’ve heard from teachers in choice states who felt frustrated by the public school system and left to create innovative microschools.
But the committee members didn’t do any of that. Instead, they toed the line of the public school establishment, including the teachers’ union and public school superintendents. Unsurprisingly, these groups strongly oppose providing other educational options for Mississippi families. Never mind that public schools would only be affected if families choose other options. Apparently, it’s okay to keep kids trapped in schools that aren’t working for them if it helps the adults who work in the system.
Can you imagine if any other area of life operated like education? What if people who use food stamps or Medicaid were instead assigned to a government-run grocery store or hospital and could only go elsewhere if they paid separately?
The reason we assign kids to schools based on where they live isn’t because it’s some magical approach designed to produce the best outcomes. It’s because the system was designed in the 1850s when travel and communication were extremely difficult. We’re long past those days. There’s increasingly recognition that kids’ needs, not their addresses, should be what determines where and how they are educated.
I’d love to know why the lawmakers who oppose Magnolia Student Accounts seem to disagree. Why do they think educational options should still be dictated by a student’s address? And do they think we should follow that approach anywhere else? We don’t even use it for other levels of education, like preschool or college.
While HB 2 appears to be dead, there could be other routes for the state to adopt an ESA or other school choice program. According to polling last fall, 75 percent of Mississippi voters support education savings accounts—and want them available to all families, rather than limited by income or to kids assigned to low-performing schools. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) supports choice, and the House has already passed it once, albeit narrowly.
I suspect Mississippi families will eventually have access to some form of educational freedom, whether that’s through ESAs or another vehicle. There’s only so long parents are going to wait for it, as they see the opportunities available for kids in states with robust scholarship programs. Until then, kids throughout the state may be languishing, stuck in schools that aren’t working for them. And the Senate education committee couldn’t even give them a chance to tell their stories.