Sometimes people come up with what they believe to be a good idea and later learn, to their sorrow, that they are mistaken. That happened in Great Britain when politicians convinced the public that withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, was a good idea. Now three years later the British business newspaper, the Economist, says its predicted damage to the British economy makes it “one of the rich world’s greatest economic blunders.”
The idea now being peddled in Mississippi is that the state should put public money into private education. The state constitution says no state money shall be appropriated to any school which “is not a free school,” but it is wrongfully argued that this is just a technicality and money could be given to parents. No matter where you send it, sending the money would be a blunder.
Every time voters in other states have been given a chance, they have rejected proposals to give public money to private schools. Voters in 17 states have voted on whether to put public money into private education and the vote has been zero in favor and 17 against. Just last Tuesday voters in Colorado, Kentucky and Nebraska voted down putting public money into private education. The states that do it did not allow a citizens’ vote. One of the most important lessons a child can be taught today is tolerance for people from different backgrounds and beliefs. That is taught in public schools to which all children in a district are welcome. That is not true in private schools, which are free to select, and that means exclude, some students.
And because of 2022 U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the states that have allowed public money for private education are now going to have their own “Brexit” moment when they have to do something many of their voters never contemplated, which is to share that money with religious schools, no matter how off-beat or sincerely racially prejudiced that religion may be. They can teach that black people were properly condemned to slavery when Noah cursed his son Ham or that white people are the devil according to Elijah Muhammad. Public support should go to schools with a curriculum the public chooses, and not to schools that spout off-beat doctrines as gospel truth.
Giving money for religious schools will also discriminate among religions. Parents who belong to a religion with enough adherents to form a school will get help to educate children in that religion while those who belong to religions with fewer adherents will not. And if it is claimed that there is some way to finance education for minority religions, the problem of funding truly racist religious beliefs becomes even greater.
There is little to commend the argument recently made in these pages by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy that parents should be free to segregate their children into a private school of the parents’ choice because public school test scores, which have gotten significantly better, are not good enough, and private schools are doing “fine.”
In fact, no one knows how well Mississippi private schools are doing because they are not subject to any form of public accountability. Their students do not have to take the tests required of public school students. The state does not require that their teachers be accredited. According to the National Coalition for Public Education, studies of voucher programs in Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio showed that students who received vouchers had academic outcomes that were worse than their peers.
The Center’s argument that private money for public schools will not take money from public schools itself flunks math. Schools are funded in part based on the numbers of students in attendance. Taking students out of public schools reduces attendance, and that means reduced money. At the same time, it does nothing to reduce the overhead costs of running the school, which will then have to be paid for by the remaining students’ allocation. That will either leave less money for their instruction, or require an increase in property taxes to cover the shortfall, as happened in Wisconsin.
The even more troubling statistic is the additional cost to the state to pay for students not currently in public schools. In other states, about 80% of the money has gone to students who were already in private schools. Mississippi already has a large private school population of what is claimed to be 56,000 students. At the proposed $6,000 for each student, that means a cost of $336 million at a time when the state does not even have enough money to save the public employment retirement system from a probable bankruptcy.
Finally, Center has no basis for saying Mississippi’s Parents’ Campaign is “ridiculously misnamed.” It is Mississippi funded and has some 65,000 members who support quality public education for Mississippi students. It is not just “claiming to speak for parents.” It in fact is speaking for parents. Calling it a “Flat Earth Society” is an insult to those Mississippi parents. The Campaign is much more accurately named than the “Mississippi” Public Policy Center, which is led by a British politician and brags of its connection to Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire who in the past has invested in for-profit child care.
Luther Munford is a Northsider.
