House Speaker Jason White on Monday said he supports changing state law to make it easier for K-12 students to transfer to other public schools outside their home districts.
White, a Republican from West who just completed his first year as speaker, told attendees at the Stennis Capitol Press Forum in downtown Jackson that parents should have greater freedom to select which school district their child attends, though the state would not provide them transportation under his proposal.
“We want any public school student to be able to go to another public school without the home district being able to hold them against their will and the state portion of the per-pupil cost to follow that child,” White said.
Mississippi currently has a very limited form of “open enrollment” that allows students to transfer from their home district to a nearby school district. However, the transfer requires both the home school district and the receiving school district to sign off on it.
A senator and a House member filed legislation during the 2024 session to remove the current requirement that the home school district approve a student transferring to another district, but both bills died.
The first-term speaker also said he personally supports a robust school choice or school voucher system but believes the political realities at the Capitol, including within the state GOP, make it extremely difficult for the Legislature to pass such a policy.
“We’ve got to come to acknowledge and understand that there is a place for choice for some kids and some parents,” White said. “And somehow or another, I’ve got to be able some kind of way to earn Mississippians’ trust on that issue as we move in that direction.”
But White, who attended both public and private schools as a child, told attendees that while he supports a significant voucher system, his goal is not to “blow up public education.”
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“The last thing I want to do is go after public education, and while Republicans have gotten a tough rap on some of that, maybe we’ve earned some of it,” White said. “I commit to you we simply want to make it better while acknowledging that our parents in this state have some rights when it comes to their kids and the education that they receive.”
Other priorities the speaker outlined for the 2025 session are:
- Cutting the state income and grocery tax
- Reforming the way Mississippi restores voting rights to disenfranchised felons
- Tweaking the way the state determines whether school districts are successfully educating students
Unless Republican Gov. Tate Reeves calls lawmakers into a special session to consider a specific topic, the Legislature will not reconvene to consider new laws until January 2025. However, lawmakers typically form committees to study particular issues during the summer and the fall.
White announced last month that he was forming three committees that were expected to meet in the fall to explore the state’s tax structure, certificate of need laws and prescription drugs.
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