Mississippi Speaker of the House Jason White wants to work toward private school vouchers
As Mississippi lawmakers look to the 2025 session, House Speaker Jason White is already set on legislation to determine how K-12 education funding is spent and where it goes when children move schools.
White told a room of more than 50 people Tuesday at the River HillS Club that he plans to continue an effort to allow for students in public schools to move from one school district to another without the need for both districts to sign off.
He also wants the money that is spent on that child's education to follow the student from one district to another.
"If you're a public school student, and you want to go to another public school, you can find a public school that will accept you. Your home district can't keep you," White said.
White said those efforts began with the passage of the Mississippi Student Funding Formula, a $2.95 billion funding formula that passed just one week before the end of the session. That formula replaced the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which was fiercely defended by Senate leadership, which killed the House funding model twice before finally coming to a compromise.
That formula included what White called a simple-and-clean-based student cost of $6,995 formulated from criteria such as student enrollment, teacher salaries and other criteria. There are also additional funding, called weights, for schools that meet specific criteria such as having low-income students, career tech programs and others.
read about MSFF passing MS Legislature passes historic education funding model, sends to governor's desk
White said now that they have the base cost to fund a student's education, they can hopefully pass legislation to make that money portable from one district to another.
White said that those steps will also work toward a larger goal he calls "school choice," where parents might even have the chance to use public funds to send students to private schools in areas with great need.
"I am personally for school choice for a robust voucher system, whatever that looks like," White said. "I went to private school for six years. I went to public school for six years. I can tell you all the good things and the bad things about both."
Over the course of the 2024 session, House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, even introduced legislation to create a program for private school vouchers, but the bill died on the House floor after being passed out of two committees.
During his speech, White also said he plans to further study MSFF and come up with a more robust accountability model to ensure public schools are accurately reporting their needs.
Other priorities
White is also looking to rehash several priorities that ultimately died by the time the Legislature gaveled out for the year, including Medicaid expansion, reviving the ballot initiative process and giving up to 50,000 rehabilitated felons back the right to vote.
Read about bills that died Medicaid, voting rights bills die in Mississippi Legislature. See what else failed
All of those efforts had initially passed in the House but either died in the Senate or at the hands of House and Senate negotiators who could not come to a compromise.
Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: MS House Speaker Jason White wants to work on private school vouchers
