School choice, also being referred to as education freedom, is a top priority for the 2026 legislative session according to Mississippi’s speaker of the House, Jason White. Highly debated and politically charged, the issue raises questions from families, educators, administrators and politicians alike.
In an effort to present many different perspectives on this complex topic, attempts were made to reach each public school district, private school and each House and Senate legislator within Forrest and Lamar counties. Most did not respond, few declined to interview and more than one scheduled an interview only to call back and cancel.
What is school choice?
School choice revolves around the idea of parents choosing the best educational fit for their child. Many systems for school choice involve a voucher system or education scholarship account (ESA), in which a parent can withdraw their student and the funding they receive from the public school system based on their residence, and instead apply it toward private school tuition or other approved educational spending. The amount of funding each student qualifies for varies depending on disabilities, academic performance and other factors, but the average student in Mississippi equates to approximately $8,000 annually in funding for their public school.
Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution states, “No religious or other sect or sects shall ever control any part of the school or other educational funds of this state; nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.”
Mississippi does already have legislation on the books in the form of its ESA program, but the program is limited to students with special needs. Other states with more developed forms of school choice have varying policies- some use household income as a factor for eligibility while others use the student’s public school district performance. Still others have universal voucher programs available to all students.
Proponents for school choice argue that school choice gives parents the freedom to choose the setting that best fits their child, provides more opportunities for low-income families and improves public schools through competition. Proponents further assert that parents should have the right to choose whether or not their child is taught in public schools where the morals and values of teachers may or may not align with those of the parents.
Arguments against expanding school choice are primarily associated with fiscal impact, with opponents arguing that public schools are already under-funded, that public dollars should not be used toward private institutions without public accountability and that school choice only applies to those who can afford to accommodate it. They predict that school choice will have a much greater impact on socio-economic segregation.
How has school choice worked out in other places?
The first country to adopt a school voucher program was Chile in 1981. Over 1,000 private schools entered into the market, private school enrollment increased from 20% to 40% and many urban areas surpassed the 50% enrollment mark.
The National Bureau of Economic Research conducted an assessment on what effect the school voucher system had on approximately 150 municipalities across Chile over the course of the following years. They compared the academic outcomes from rural areas, which did not see as significant of a rise in private schools, to the academic outcomes in cities and wealthier communities, which saw massive increased enrollments in private schools.
“Using this approach with panel data for roughly 150 communities in Chile, we consistently fail to find evidence that school choice improved average academic outcomes. Specifically, we did find that average test scores did not rise any faster in communities where the private sector made greater inroads, and that average repetition and grade-for-age measures worsened in such areas (relative to other communities).”
The data in this study shows that while there was an exodus of many middle-class students from the public school system into the newly expanded private sector, it did not equate to better student performance. The trend within wealthier and more populated areas actually showed the opposite- more students failing and lower scores. The voucher system created even further socio-economic segregation among families with school-age children.
Arkansas, which adopted school choice in 2023, saw 64% of students who received funds through the program were already enrolled in private schools and raised tuitions for private schools in response to the voucher program. Louisiana, which adopted its first school choice program in 2008 and has seen multiple variations of the program since then, approved the LA GATOR program last year. This year, there are 30,000 families on the waitlist. [Click here to read this Mississippi Today Article]
What happens if too many students leave a school?
There is one example that has already taken place right here in the Pine Belt to illustrate the potential effects of school choice- Baxterville School.
Lamar County School Board amended their policy back in 2015 to give parents of students enrolled at Baxterville School the option to transfer to Purvis Middle School [including bus transportation] or Lumberton School [not including transportation] when the student reached the seventh grade. Then, an additional clause was added to the policy, “If student enrollment in any one grade in grades 6-8 at Baxterville drops below 10, all remaining students in that grade will transfer to Purvis." Baxterville’s enrollment in the seventh grade then fell to nine after the death of a student.
The February 2025 Lamar County School Board meeting sparked months of outcry from the community of Baxterville, where the board voted to move all the students from grades 6-8 to Purvis Middle School. The former superintendent of Lamar County Schools, Dr. Steven Hampton, said at the time that with Baxterville’s low enrollment numbers, the district simply could not afford to employ the number of certified teachers required at that level of education and highlighted a wider variety of extracurricular activities.
“Yes, there may be 30 kids in sixth grade now, but the trend has been as soon as those students hit seventh grade, they want to play football- they want to play softball,” said Hampton.
Parents of students enrolled at the school along with citizens from the community of Baxterville formed a coalition- the Concerned Citizens of Baxterville, attended each school board meeting in the following months, requested meetings with school board members and even reached out for media coverage. They simply did not want their children being forced into what they reported as over-crowded classrooms, spending hours each day on the bus and not being able to participate in those extracurriculars due to the competitive level of Purvis being much higher- what they’d seen happening to students that had already made the transfer. They wanted their children in smaller classroom settings with smaller student to teacher ratios.
“We’ll have plenty of numbers for next year,” said Baxterville resident and teacher, Josh Hawthorn, at the March meeting of the Lamar County School Board. “They’ll all be fine, and that meets board requirements for us to keep our students. Not any of those should be ten and under.”
Despite the public outcry from the community and parents, students previously enrolled in grades six through eight at Baxterville School were forced to transfer to Purvis Middle School at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year as Baxterville transitioned from a K-8 school to a K-5 school. According to the 2025 school accountability ratings, of the 26 elementary and middle schools in Forrest and Lamar counties, Baxterville was given an “A” rating and ranked sixth, Purvis Middle School was given a “B” rating and ranked sixteenth and Lumberton was given a “D” rating and ranked twenty fifth.
What could this mean for public schools?
Proponents for school choice argue that a competitive market will result in improvement of the public school system. They believe that school choice provides the competitive pressure on all schools to attract and retain students. Opponents argue that school choice will result in less funding for public schools and will only make matters worse.
Dr. Christina Liverett, Ph.D. is a veteran teacher from public school systems in the Pine Belt and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Gifted Education at William Carey University.
“Public schools struggle to meet the needs of students,” said Liverett. “They’re chronically under-resourced, so a loss of funds is going to exacerbate that problem… It’s not completely true that [school choice] takes [money] out of the school system, but it does provide less funding for the public institution because fewer students in public school means less funding because public schools are funded based on the number of students in the public school.”
Liverett went on to explain that depending on the legislation, private schools could receive public funding, still retain the right to deny acceptance to students and can raise the cost of tuition beyond what is covered by the voucher system- keeping them inaccessible to lower income families.
“Mississippi saying no to vouchers has seen our national rating scores grow by the equivalent of a full academic year,” said Liverett. “We’ve taken that money that would have gone [toward vouchers], pushed it into reading, and really, reading has improved incredibly across the state… How grateful we teachers are that our lawmakers understood the importance of appropriating funds to support students according to their individual needs. It’s a sensible approach to making sure our students are prepared to reach their personal potential as contributing citizens of the state.”
According to Mississippi’s Department of Education data, Mississippi has seen the highest rankings ever in recent years across the board. In 2025, the KIDS COUNT Data Book ranked the state sixteenth in the nation. In 2013, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores ranked Mississippi 49 in fourth grade reading, 50 in fourth grade math, 50 in eighth grade reading and 49 in eighth grade math. In 2024, NAEP scores ranked Mississippi 9 in fourth grade reading, 16 in fourth grade math, 41 in eighth grade reading and 35 in eighth grade math. Mississippi also exceeded the national rate of graduation of 86% with an 89.2% graduation rate.
Superintendent of the A-rated Hattiesburg Public School District, Dr. Robert Williams, Ph.D., says that HPSD will continue to focus on the quality of education they provide for all students.
“We can only control the controllables, so how do we at Hattiesburg Public School District put forth a quality product for all students?” asked Williams. “In my 20 – 25 years in education, I don’t know if a parent has ever really had a conversation with me about the letter grade of a school. They have met with me about the outcomes of their child. Regardless of the alphabet, we look at the individual student. Are we equipping that student with the knowledge, skills and attitude that they need to be successful?”
Williams fully supports parents being given the opportunity to choose the best educational fit for their child but poses questions regarding standards of accountability for private schools receiving public dollars.
“As it relates to school admission criteria for public schools, it’s clearly defined, and nowhere in that school admission criteria can we reject or accept a student who may not align with our mission statement- whatever that mission statement may be,” said Williams. “In public schools, all students are entitled to a FAPE- a free and appropriate public education. So, with that criteria, we accept all students. My question becomes will all still mean all as we transform across that?”
Williams also voiced transportation concerns within districts- particularly those spanning entire counties, accountability for public dollars spent in private institutions, academic accountability within private schools and the ability for public schools and teachers to prepare for the school year with the uncertainty of enrollment.
“Regardless of who chooses to leave or who chooses to stay, we know one thing for sure and two things for certain: If you graduate from Hattiesburg Public School District, we’re going to make sure that you are life ready, college ready and workforce ready,” said Williams.
What does all of this mean for the Pine Belt?
Given that all the public school districts within Forrest and Lamar counties are A-rated, whether or not school choice will affect the Pine Belt will depend on the legislation. If the qualifying criteria for eligibility includes the limitation of transferring from a failing district as the last bill to die in the Senate did, it simply will not apply. If the legislation includes income below a given level as a qualifier, there is potential for private school tuition to increase and the possibility of private schools accepting only the “best”- academically or otherwise from the public school system.
If universal school choice is adopted, in which parents are free to choose from any public or private institution, there will likely be unintended consequences for athletics, academia and transportation. Lower enrollment numbers within public schools equates to less funding, forcing already thin budgets to go even farther.
What can we expect moving forward?
The 2025 legislative session saw a series of standalone education bills which either did not make it to the House floor for a vote or died in the Senate. White said that the House will instead propose one “comprehensive” education reform package containing all of its key priorities, a strategy that is modeled after the “Big Beautiful Bill” and a sweeping tax reform package that was passed in the last state legislative session.
“I think it’s why you see even in our national Congress now considering that one huge bill,” White told Mississippi Today. “In the political world that we live in, there are things in there that folks- for whatever reason, because of a certain voter base or political ideology, they say they can’t go there, but there are enough good things that they’re able to get there [to vote for the bill].”
“It’s going to be comprehensive,” White said. “It’ll be bold, and it’ll be uncomfortable. It’ll be uncomfortable for me, it’ll be uncomfortable for people in my own caucus and for the people on the other side of the aisle- but it can absolutely alter the landscape [of education].” [click here to read this Mississippi Today article]
While there’s no debating that school choice will alter the landscape of education, the question remains- how?
This coverage is supported by a grant from Press Forward Mississippi, part of a nationwide philanthropic effort to reinvigorate local news.
