What is missing in the current school choice debate raging at the Mississippi Capitol is an answer to this question: What happens to those students left behind?
School choice proponents, led by Republican House Speaker Jason White, speak about wanting to provide an option for students they describe as being trapped in poor-performing or failing school districts – and these proposals include sending public funds to private schools.
Education advocate Angela Bass, the executive director of Mississippi First, wrote in an article for Mississippi Today Ideas that her organization opposes vouchers or sending public funds to private schools, but supports expanding public charter schools. She wrote of how her own parents moved from a low-performing to high-performing district when she entered high school to increase her chances of receiving a quality education. Bass said charter schools would be an option for students whose parents could not move out of low-performing districts.
But what about the students who do not get into a charter school? Again, what happens to those left behind?
Public schools are mandated to educate all students and turn no one away.
House Speaker Jason White speaks during the Stennis Capitol Press Forum at Hal & Mal’s in Jackson on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi TodayPrivate schools can turn away students. While charter schools are defined as public schools and theoretically adhere to the same admissions policies as traditional public schools, parents must take certain actions to enroll their children in a charter school.
It is reasonable to assume that the parents who go to that trouble are most likely more involved in their children’s education. And in most cases, the children of the more involved parents are going to perform better in school – whether it is a charter school, private school or, yes, public school.
Perhaps there are parents who, because of their work schedule or their limitations resulting from their own poor education background, are less likely to be involved in their children’s education. Maybe, the parents are dependent on the school bus to get their children to the public school where they live and know they do not have the means or time to transport their children to another school – charter, private or even another public school – that does not offer transportation for the students trying to leave the failing school. Or maybe the family – even with a voucher – cannot afford the tuition and other expenses associated with a private school.
Sadly, perhaps the parent just does not care about their children obtaining a good education.
Regardless of the reason, those children who are left behind in the poor-performing public school still deserve a good education.
Can we all agree on that?
Yet, with school choice, funds are diverted from the public schools that are mandated to educate those students who are left behind.
In the 2000s, when Republican Gov. Haley Barbour balked at full funding of the formula for public schools, he and legislators agreed to form a commission to study the issue.
Many, perhaps even Barbour, speculated the commission would find the formula was providing too much money to local school districts. What the commission found is that the formula was allocating far too little money to educate low-income students.
Despite the efforts of many, the Legislature for years never found the political will to give to the local school districts the money the commission recommended was needed to provide an adequate education to the at-risk or low-income students.
The dirty little secret that most politicians do not want to talk about is that, in many cases, the worst-performing school districts are also the districts with the most poverty. They need more money than they are getting from the state.
In recent years, there has been a commitment to provide additional funding for low-income students. Speaker White, and others, helped lead that effort.
Is it enough money? Perhaps. Time will tell.
Perhaps another commission should be formed to offer recommendations on what is needed for students in those low-performing districts to ensure that no child is left behind.
To his credit, White seems sincerely concerned about students he describes as trapped in the poor-performing school districts. He said opponents of school choice have not offered an alternative for those who want to escape the failing districts. But what about those left behind?
The only answer is to improve the public schools for all students.
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