Expanding school choice in Mississippi is set to be a top priority among conservative lawmakers in the 2026 legislative session.
School choice refers to giving families more educational options through policies that would provide public funds for students in grades K-12 to pay for services, such as private school tuition or a tutor, or allow students to transfer to another public or private school in a location different from where they reside.
House Speaker Jason White created the Education Freedom Committee to study “transforming the educational landscape” in Mississippi through school choice. Meetings were held in August and September. The public funding would be offered through a voucher program or an education savings account.
School choice, or “educational freedom,” is being promoted by the Trump administration after President Donald Trump’s “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families” executive order in January.
Advocates for school choice say that it offers Mississippi families the freedom to decide what educational environment is best for their children. It also provides an opportunity to low-income families.
“Implementing school choice enhances individual student achievement and fosters healthy competition among schools, driving improvements across the board,” White said in February. “This approach has gained traction in several states, showcasing that when families can direct their children’s education, we see positive outcomes that benefit students, families and communities alike.”
But there are also many opposed to school choice who say it could be detrimental to the state’s public schools, which could lose funds.
According to Mississippi Professional Educators, 81% of its members reported in a survey last fall that they did not support legislation that would allow families to send their children to private schools at taxpayer expense via vouchers.
“Vouchers would allow public funds to go to private schools with little or no accountability for such funds. Private schools, not parents, determine who is admitted to the school, and private schools are not required to accept students with special needs or other challenges,” MPE said in August.
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To some degree, Leflore County already has school choice. The county is home to two public school options — the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District and a charter school, Leflore Legacy Academy, which serves students from grades 6 to 8.
There are also three private schools — Pillow Academy, which is the largest; Leflore Christian School, offering programs for children with learning disabilities or special needs; and Delta Streets Academy, an all-boys school from grades 3-12. Another private school is located in neighboring Carroll County, Carroll Academy. All four private schools are members of the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools.
The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board’s attorney, Derrick Simmons, who is also a state senator, said he hopes the school choice bill is not passed in Mississippi. He voiced his concerns during Wednesday’s school board meeting. “Our traditional public schools are under attack at the federal level. The state of Mississippi is no different,” he told the board.
If passed, Simmons said, a school choice bill would harm the already underfunded public schools across the state.
“Our traditional public schools, since 2009, have been underfunded by the Mississippi Legislature by $3.5 billion,” he said. “Any expansion of school choice would only impair our traditional public schools’ ability to not only be funded properly but also to make up for the underfunding of our schools.”
After 16 consecutive years of underfunding, legislators fully funded education in the 2024 and 2025 sessions.
A new approach to funding public schools was passed during the 2024 regular legislative session. The Mississippi Student Funding Formula (MSFF) replaced the previous funding formula, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP).
MAEP, which was introduced in 1997, used average daily attendance to calculate funding for schools. The new formula uses average net enrollment, which is the average of the total student enrollment.
As state lawmakers consider school choice, some cities have started to respond in opposition. Municipal boards in Clinton, Pearl, Florence and Jackson have adopted anti-school-choice resolutions.
“A lot of the senators come from really, really good traditional public schools,” said Simmons. “They have communities like the ones that have already spoken out in the month of September. ... It’s hard to get the votes on the Senate side to support that legislation.
“The House districts are smaller, and it’s easier to get legislation against traditional public schools out of the House,” he said.
The superintendent of the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District, Dr. Kenneth Pulley, said the best way to combat a potential school choice bill is to strengthen the school district internally.
“We are working to improve our school district in all aspects, so that our school district becomes the best option to educate the boys and girls of our community,” Pulley said, “so that if something like this or any other piece of legislation comes, we can minimize the impact to our school district.”
Pulley said improving the district’s academic standing is a key focus. The Greenwood Leflore district dropped from a C grade in both 2023 and 2024 to its current grade of D.
Among the district’s schools, Greenwood High School’s C is the highest. The other schools each earned either a D or an F.
The consolidation of the district’s three high schools into a “state-of-the-art high school that our community will be proud of” will help with retaining and recruiting students, Pulley said.
Regarding a potential cut in funding due to the school choice bill, he said that the district will continue to evaluate its budget to limit any impact.
“Since Aug. 1, when I was selected superintendent, we have been assessing all of our programs, all of our expenses, and we are continuing to work to optimize our resources to improve our financial status as well,” he said. “So that in the event that we take a cut, we will be able to offset that with some cost savings.”
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A school choice law could make a big difference at Delta Streets Academy, says the school’s founder and head of school, T. Mac Howard. (Photo by Ruthie Robison, © 2025, Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
T. Mac Howard, founder and head of school of Delta Streets Academy, said a school choice law could be a game changer for the Mississippi Delta, which tends to have academically low-performing public schools throughout the region.
Delta Streets Academy was founded in 2012. It’s a faith-based private school for boys. The school’s mission is to “equip young men by providing Christ-centered disciplined education.”
Although Delta Streets is a private school, its tuition fee is offered at a fraction of the cost to educate a child — $75 a month.
“It would be instrumental for Delta Streets if each student that went here,” received educational funding, Howard said.
The school’s $1.6 million annual budget is largely funded through donations and fundraising events. Having additional money provided for each of its 120 students would take some pressure off its already tight budget.
“For a school like Delta Streets that’s a donation-driven school, it lightens the load on so many different levels,” Howard said, “and would give us the ability to pay our staff a more livable wage. ... The salaries would be on the low end of what a public school teacher would make.”
Additional funding would also help provide more benefits to its employees, such as health insurance and a better retirement plan.
As of now, Delta Streets would not be prepared to take in a high influx of new students because of classroom space.
DSA serves boys in grades 3-12 and is planning to gradually add grades K-2 — a grade a year. There are 15 to 20 spots per grade.
Howard said the school is at full capacity in its lower grades.
“The seventh through 12th grade, there’s more flexibility for those grades,” he said.
If a school choice bill passes, and after adding those grades, Howard said adding more classroom space that would allow taking more new students is a possibility.
If the school can count on the additional funds, it will open up new opportunities.
“All of a sudden, now we could renovate another building,” said Howard. “That opens up more seats.”
He said the longterm goal of Delta Streets Academy is to begin replicating the school in other Delta towns, such as Clarksdale and Greenville.
“If there’s a voucher program, this becomes much more realistic,” Howard said.
The tricky part in adding new students could come if the students are struggling academically, especially if they are in high school.
“If a student is going to transfer in, they have to be at a place academically to be able to handle the coursework,” he said.
The school can take in any elementary student, even those who are behind academically, because there’s time to catch the student up.
“But if we get an eighth grader that transfers in on a second-grade reading level, it's tough for us to get that student to be able to graduate on time, just because how far behind they are.”
What Delta Streets offers its students is a “conducive environment to learn.”
“We provide a Christian, conducive, safe environment to learn, with high expectations,” Howard said.
With local school districts with D accountability scores, some people choose to move away to better public schools. Howard said school choice might even keep families in the Delta, which is dealing with a decline in population.
“That would be why I think school choice in the Delta would be so important,” he said.
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Lula Moore, director of programs for Parents for Public Schools of Greenwood and Leflore County, an advocacy group for public education, is adamant that expanded school choice in Mississippi would have a further impact on the consolidated district.
Considering the number of “alternative schools” already in the community, from private schools to Leflore Legacy Academy, the charter school, any students withdrawn from the public school district to attend these other institutions already hampers the public schools in that there’s less funding per child.
While total enrollment for the consolidated school district has fluctuated throughout the years since it was formed in 2019, enrollment was 3,849 students for the 2023-2024 school year, the latest year available on the Mississippi Department of Education’s Data Explorer, while 4,717 students were enrolled in the 2019-2020 school year. Leflore County has also suffered a population loss.
Moore, whose children and grandchildren have gone through the public schools throughout Leflore County, said it’s important to protect the public school system, which is a key institution of any community.
“The majority of the children are in public schools. For that reason, when funding is shifted to school choice, and then everybody can take advantage of that, it weakens the equipment, all the services that's provided for children in the public schools are decreased,” she said. “When children are deprived due to the lack of funds and resources, and teachers do not have the resources and materials to execute the instructional aspect of their teaching, everyone is impacted.”
Children who don’t get a solid education — and whose parents may not have the luxury to send them to an alternative school in the area — may not be productive citizens once they exit school, which can then affect the community at large.
In keeping with her mission, Moore said she and others of Parents for Public Schools will continue to lobby state lawmakers in Jackson to advocate on behalf of the public education system.
- This coverage is supported by a grant from Press Forward Mississippi, part of a nationwide philanthropic effort to reinvigorate local news. Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7233 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com. Contact Taylor Thompson at 662-581-7239 or tthompson@gwcommonwealth.com. Gerard Edic is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact him at 662-581-7237 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com. You can support his work with a tax-deductible donation at bit.ly/3G7iXiy.
