Now, as state lawmakers are considering doing the same in Mississippi, they’re looking to our neighbors and talking to experts about what happened in those states.
There has been a nationwide push to expand school-choice programs, most of which give families public money to spend outside of traditional public schools. These options range from charter schools to vouchers that pay for private-school tuition. When these programs are available to all students, regardless of family income, they’re described as “universal.”
Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville and one of the leading school-choice proponents in the House, said he’d like Mississippi to consider a plan with education savings accounts that are at least partially reserved for students of all backgrounds. Education savings accounts, or ESAs, give parents public dollars to pay for their child’s education — that can include tuition to private schools and online education curriculum for homeschooling. Mississippi currently has an ESA program limited to students with disabilities.
Owen also would like to see expanded open enrollment policies, which would allow students to transfer between public school districts. Owen said he believes parents should be able to make the final decision on their child’s education. He also said parents regularly tell him their local districts don’t offer the ideal educational program.
“They’re telling me that they have no options right now,” Owen said.
But school-choice opponents say the pricey programs don’t actually give students more options. Private schools can turn away students, unlike public schools. And national data shows school-choice programs are still out of reach for many low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities because of private-school access, transportation issues and tuition costs.
A Mississippi House committee studying school-choice policies has called on experts from Arkansas and Louisiana, who have lauded school-choice efforts in their states. Owen said he hopes to mimic parts of Tennessee’s plan in Mississippi.
Others from those states often have a different perspective.
Tennessee
Tennessee’s first two education savings account programs were limited to students with special needs and families in Nashville and in Hamilton and Shelby counties who wanted their children to attend private schools instead of their local public school.But a similar program established this year is open to all students in Tennessee.
Half of the program’s 20,000 scholarships are reserved for students who previously qualified for the education savings account program, students with special needs or students in households with income lower than 300% of the federal free- and reduced-lunch guidelines. The other 10,000 scholarships are open to anyone.
The omnibus legislation also gave public school teachers one-time bonuses and included a “hold harmless” clause that reimburses public schools for any state funding lost from students leaving to participate in the voucher program.
The income cap will be removed next year, and the program can grow by 5,000 scholarships each year, as demand requires.
And the demand is there, said Tori Venable, Tennessee director of Americans for Prosperity, a national conservative advocacy group funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. This year, people applied for twice as many vouchers as were available, she said.
“We saw a groundswell of parents demanding this after COVID,” she said. “We saw schools shut down and parents were dissatisfied with online learning.”
It’s not clear who has received vouchers so far, Venable said. The state won’t release details about who’s enrolled in the program. Some Tennessee lawmakers previously predicted a majority of the money would go to students who already attend private schools.
The biggest issue for Jenny Mills McFerron, assistant director for policy and research for EdTrust Tennessee, is student performance at private schools.
There’s little data to show how well students are learning in Tennessee’s voucher program. Private-school students in the smaller initial program generally performed below their public-school peers.
Additionally, the rural nature of Tennessee — similar to Mississippi — presents challenges.
According to a 2025 report from the Partnership for Equity and Education Rights, five counties host over half of the private schools in Tennessee. More than 30 counties have only one or two, some with fewer than 10 students each.
While some school-choice programs allow parents to use the money to cover transportation costs, the voucher funds are limited and averaged about $6,000 during the 2023-24 school year, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank based in Washington.
The conservative policy group Empower Mississippi reports that in-state average private school tuition hovers around the same amount, but some schools in Mississippi have rates higher than $15,000. And after voucher programs were established in other states, private schools raised their tuition.
“The private school-choice programs are not really providing choice to the vast majority of rural families, and they divert funding from public schools, leaving rural students with less,” said Paige Shoemaker DeMio, senior K-12 education policy analyst for Center for American Progress.
While a rural student might be able to utilize a voucher program, losing the student could be harmful to the local public school, she said. Rural areas have lower student population and have to make fewer dollars go further.
“Even when no students from a community use a voucher program, when state-level funding gets cut due to the cost of the practical voucher program, like has been seen in Arizona or in Ohio, rural schools are definitely going to feel it the most because they rely more heavily on state and federal funding,” Shoemaker DeMio said. “We’ve seen this in West Virginia and Indiana, where rural schools are closing or they’re dramatically losing funding as they’re feeling the effects of these programs.”
As federal funding cuts trickle down, McFerron is concerned the program’s costs will continue to increase, putting Tennessee into a tight financial situation.
“Our concern is that the data and accountability are so limited,” she said. “Since we’re in our first year, it’s too early to see large-scale effects.”
Arkansas
The LEARNS Act created an Arkansas education savings account program in 2023.
The program has been slowly scaled up, and as of this school year, all Arkansas students are eligible. Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has committed to funding every student who wants to participate.
The majority of dollars so far have been spent on private-school students. During the 2023-24 school year, 64% of students who received funds through the state’s program were already enrolled in private schools, according to a recent report. Data also show Arkansas private schools raised their tuition in response to the voucher program.
Shay Rafferty, director of social media and marketing for Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students, said her child’s religious private school charged more for tuition when it started accepting vouchers.
“Most of the other local private schools have done that, too,” she said. “These students are supposed to get school choice, but they still can’t afford it.”
Still, Josh McGee of the Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas said the program has improved education options in rural areas. He said micro-schools and cooperatives have sprung up in unexpected places, and more parents are opting for homeschooling, thanks to the vouchers.
According to him, the competition makes everyone work harder to keep students.
“Superintendents would tell you they’re having to think about how to keep parents in their schools for a number of reasons,” McGee said. “The ultimate story is that if folks can leave, you have to deliver the goods.”
It’s a popular free-market idea that’s been embraced by Mississippi conservatives — that more school choices will make public schools better.
While research shows that in some places, charter school presence has slightly improved the performance of public schools, Nicole Carey from Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children isn’t sure the results are worth the growing price tag.
If every student who applied for vouchers this year is funded, that will cost Arkansas $355 million — far more than the $277 million budgeted for the program.
“We’re letting in everyone even if we don’t have the specific amount of money appropriated, with the hope that every student will not use their entire amount,” Carey said.
Map: Devna Bose
Alabama
Since 2013, Alabama has offered tax-credit programs to parents who send their children to private schools.
This year, however, they state has widely expanded school choice after the passage of the CHOOSE Act. Now, families of four that don’t make above $93,600 are eligible for the education savings accounts, and by 2027, all Alabama families can opt in.
The program funds the ESAs through refundable income tax credits, so it’s administered by the Department of Revenue, not the state education agency. Money is never distributed directly to parents. Giving money directly to parents created problems in Arizona, the first state to establish a universal school-choice program. Costs ballooned, and parents reportedly spent money on things such as diamond rings and lingerie.
The tax-credit nature of the program makes it an unlikely option for Mississippi. The state is phasing out in income tax under legislation passed this year.
But Mississippi lawmakers may take note of the accountability measures built into the program, the income caps, the slow rollout and the prioritization of students with disabilities.
Much of the money has been going to students already in private schools, but Alabama Policy Institute’s Stephanie Smith doesn’t see an issue with that.
“Lots of private-school parents pay public-school taxes and don’t utilize the service,” she said.
But Allison King, government relations manager at the Alabama Education Association, said tax dollars go to public education because it’s a public good.
“Public education may not always be perfect for everyone, but we don’t apply this principle to our police or fire departments or any other public service,” she said. “Like if you don’t like your police department, you don’t ask for your tax dollars to hire private security.”
King acknowledged there hasn’t been a mass exodus from public schools due to the tiered rollout of the program, but taxpayers are “certainly” subsidizing students who were already in private school, she said, and the costs are set to grow.
“The sell, when the bill is running through the Legislature, is that we are doing this to help poor kids get out of failing schools,” she said. “When the dust settles, that’s really not the students that are benefitting at all.”
Louisiana
Louisiana has had a number of school choice programs since 2008, but last year, the Legislature approved the LA GATOR program, which creates education savings accounts across various eligibility groups. By the program’s final phase, the money will be available to all students, regardless of income.
But the Legislature allocated far less money to the program last year than what the governor and other school-choice proponents wanted.
It’s resulted in a self-limiting program that hasn’t been able to reach its full potential, said Erin Bendily, senior vice president of the Pelican Institute.
Bendily said there are more than 30,000 families currently waitlisted for the program.
“The timing of this has just been incredibly frustrating and disappointing for families because they got this news in the middle of the summer, after many of them had already put deposits down,” she said. “Many people just were really counting on this. … The only other option is the public school they’re zoned to.”
In context, that’s 30,000 students out of 700,000 in public schools, said Jan Moller, executive director of Invest in Louisiana. He suspects many of those thousands of students are already enrolled in private schools.
Moller disagrees with the idea that there was a “broken promise” on behalf of the state Legislature.
“This is subject to appropriation,” he said. “Everybody understood that. … To Louisiana’s credit, they saw where this was heading and put the brakes on it.”
Louisiana students using vouchers for private schools were more likely to make lower scores in the four tested subject areas than public-school students, according to research. And by the end of the voucher program’s fourth year, voucher students performed “noticeably worse” on state assessments than their counterparts.
While Bendily acknowledged most Louisianans are educated at public schools and the important role those schools serve in their communities, there are parents who want other options for their children.
“There’s a sense of community around your public schools, and you want your public school to be great, but we still have enormous challenges in our public education system,” she said. “We still have needs that are not being met.”
That’s a reality Mississippi lawmakers have grappled with.
While the state’s public education system has seen great improvement in recent years — improvement that’s been nationally recognized — that doesn’t mean every parent is satisfied with the education their child is receiving.
“We believe that we can do both,” Bendily said. “While we’re making public schools better, we need to make sure that we are also giving families the options that they need.”
The math, however, doesn’t always add up.
This story first appeared in Mississippi Today. Read the original here.
