By Wyatt Emmerich

The Northside Sun

A big education revolution is headed toward Mississippi.

Imagine if you could send your children to any school you wanted to, public or private. The state would give you $9,000 a year per child to do so.

If you liked the public school, you could use your $9,000 to send your child there.If not, you could send them to another school, public or private.

It’s called “education freedom,” or “education vouchers,” or “universal school choice.” 

It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally here. Nine states have already adopted it including Arkansas, Florida, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma, Utah, Montana and Idaho. 

Louisiana is on the cusp of joining the education freedom states. Dozens of other states are actively in the process of passing similar legislation. It’s a landslide.

So what happened? Vouchers and charter schools have been around for decades with dozens of states experimenting with pilot programs.

In a word, Covid 19. 

Public schools and teachers’ unions took a huge hit during Covid 19 when they shut down and refused to open well beyond reasonability. Children fell behind. Parents were infuriated. Meanwhile, private schools stayed open.

The genie is out of the bottle now. This watershed is coming fast. Given Mississippi’s Republican dominated government, expect Mississippi to be right behind Arkansas in adopting universal school choice.

This will be transformative in many ways, spurring economic development in the Delta and Jackson — two areas where public schools have performed poorly.

The Delta once had a strong middle class. But as the schools failed, families migrated to Madison, Rankin, DeSoto counties and other areas that offered better public schools. They had no choice.

But if parents could send their children to a charter school or a private school and not be trapped in a bad school, then the Delta population might stabilize or even recover.

Education freedom could also promote greater racial diversity in our schools. 

Currently, our schools are as segregated as they were back in the 1950s, despite a huge government effort to forcefully integrate our public schools. The only difference now is that a huge number of parents have had to move or pay for private schools out of their own pocket. This is not fair.

It would be one thing if these public schools were excellent with great teachers, high academic standards, strict discipline and safe halls. But this is not the case. It’s hard to call a parent a racist just because they want their children to be safe and properly educated.

The desire for good safe schools is not exclusive to one race or the other. Black and white parents are going to want what’s best for their children. If they were free to do so without financially devastating the family, you would see a lot more integration in private and charter schools.