- Giving families choices in education improves outcomes. Denying them that choice is not only wasteful, but immoral.
In towns across Mississippi, there are students being left behind. The long-term consequences are known and dire — fuller prisons, less opportunity, and unbroken cycles of poverty.
As President Trump and Republican governors across the country have recognized, giving families more options to find the school setting that works best for their child’s unique needs is a critical component of improving education. It’s one tool to position the next generation for success.
Still, empowering parents to make education decisions for their families is not without detractors. In a recent column, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale had a message for Mississippi kids in failing schools: stay put.
Barksdale, who famously testified before Congress in the late 90s about the dangers of tech monopolies and the inherent value of choice, now supports education monopolies and opposes giving families any real choice in their children’s education.
The hypocrisy is disappointing, but unsurprising. The anti-school choice movement is filled with people, like Barksdale, who had the resources to send their own children to private schools, but who would deny the same opportunity to the masses.
The arguments put forward by Barksdale in favor of shelving school choice proposals are also tired and wrong.
It is simply untrue that school choice is unpopular, destructive to public schools, cost prohibitive, or ineffective. What is true is that proponents of the status quo — of protecting broken systems — are quite good at fearmongering to preserve political power.
Sunny, Positive Outcomes
As of 2023, 187 studies on the impact of school choice programs on fiscal effects, parent satisfaction, test scores, attainment, civic values, school safety and racial integration had been conducted. Eighty-four percent of those studies found positive impact. Only six percent found a negative impact.
Indeed, studies have shown that not only do school choice programs help the students who make use of them, but the competition created by the programs works to improve public schools more broadly.
One need not read wonky studies to cement this point, though. Look instead to Florida, the state with the most mature array of school choice programs in the nation.
The Sunshine State offers students the opportunity to attend the public school of their choosing. It also provides families with scholarships to attend private schools, if they so choose. The net effect is that nearly half of all Florida kids attend a school other than the public school where they live.
What hellscape has this wrought? Well, U.S. News and World Report ranks Florida as the best state in the nation on education. On National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) testing, Florida ranked 3rd in reading and 4th in math. The horrors!
Public Schools Stand, State Budgets Intact
Despite robust choice programs, Florida maintains thriving public schools. The public schoolhouse has not disappeared, nor been deprived of the funding necessary to operate. Teachers still have jobs. In fact, programs that afford students more options to find the education setting that works best for them, affordeducators those same options.
As for supposed exploding budgets, a recent analysis of Arizona’s “universal” school choice program in The Wall Street Journal found the program is on track to save the state $244 million annually. This is a result of a lower per student cost for the state’s scholarships. A nationwide analysis of school choice programs in 48 states found they “generated cumulative net fiscal benefits for taxpayers worth between $19.4 billion and $45.6 billion.”
Popular
No, not the song from ‘Wicked.’ School choice is popular. Polling done by Speaker of the House Jason White found that over 70 percent of Mississippians support expanded school choice. This mimics national polling done by Arc Insights, which found nearly 8 out of 10 people agreed with the statement that a parent, instead of government, should be allowed to choose the best school for their child.
The continued popularity of the idea is impressive given persistent dishonest framing in public debates. Opponents of choice often message in terms of “public funds for public schools,” but the talking point misses the mark. There are no “public funds.” Only tax dollars from private citizens.
And the goal of public policy that invests taxpayer resources in education is not to fund a brick building, or a district office. It’s to prepare kids for life. If a child is best prepared for life in their local public school, great. But if not, trapping that child in that school is not only wasteful, it’s immoral.
It’s also wrong to pit public schools against private schools, as if choice is a zero-sum game. Families should have more options. Not because one school setting is inherently “better” than another, but because every child and every family are different. People learn differently.
Education choice expands opportunity. The competition it generates drives excellence. Mississippi already recognizes this with scholarship programs for special needs and dyslexic students. Why not all children?
Legislators should listen to parents who want better for their children. They should embrace the old Jim Barksdale spirit that railed against monopolies in favor of more choice for consumers. And they should join surrounding states like Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama in funding students, not systems.
Russ Latino
