An effort to allow some public school students in poorly performing districts to use taxpayer money to pay for private schools has died in the Mississippi House. Rep. Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, failed to bring the bill up for a vote on the House floor by Thursday’s deadline.
House Bill 1433, titled the Mississippi “Flexible and Rightful Education Enrollment (FREE) Act,” would have allowed students enrolled in a district rated D or F within the past five years to use state per-pupil funding at a higher-rated public school or to attend an accredited private school.
The bill required students to first attempt to transfer to an eligible public school that met the bill’s criteria within a 30-mile radius of their home. In the case that there was no public school available, the bill also allowed the student to choose a private school and use state funds toward the cost.
The state per pupil cost is approximately $6,995. Under the bill, those funds would have been administered through an Education Savings Account program for students who chose to leave a public school for a private one. Districts would not have received any local funding connected to the student. To offset any funding gaps, the bill would have appropriated $5 million in state funds.
House Speaker Jason White had lauded school choice as his top policy priority, stating early in the session that parents should have options when their children are in a failing school district.
During the Feb. 4 House Education Committee meeting, Roberson refused requests for a roll call vote, instead advancing the bill out of committee on a voice vote. Several lawmakers in the room said that if the roll call vote had taken place, the bill would have died in committee. Roberson told his colleagues that he wanted the conversation to continue despite the pressure he knew committee members were facing to kill the bill.
“I do realize that you all are getting a lot of pressure to push back on this, but we’ve got to keep talking about these things, even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if you’re getting a million phone calls. These kids deserve to have us talking about this,” Roberson said.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, education organizations and teacher unions lobbied Mississippi residents to contact their lawmakers and urge them to vote against the bill.
“Nine out of the top ten states for ‘school choice’ have moved backward on national assessments in reading and math, while Mississippi has the most improvement of any state,” The Parents’ Campaign Executive Director Nancy Loome said in a Feb. 4 email to supporters. “School choice is a bad deal for children and a bad deal for taxpayers! Please make those calls right away. Ask your friends and family to call, too. Together, we’ve got this!”
The House passed a separate bill on Feb. 2 to make it easier for students to transfer between public schools. That bill awaits consideration in the Mississippi Senate.