HB 2 voted down unanimously…
- Thread starter L4Dawg
- Start date
- Status
Praise be! I know our Legislators are typically Ivy League grads, but the link is food for thought. And to the State Rep. in North MS who voted for this and send your kids to a district that you don’t represent and likely live in (at least 100% of the time), may a weird holy man use a shop vac on your only sister. You know who you are…
School Choice by Thomas Sowell
There were many in the house that were strong armed into voting on it. Everyone knew it would die in the senate. The whole thing was a dog and pony show.
If you’re a grown man and can be “strong armed,” you have other problems.
I’m just telling you what happened. When you’re told that everything you bring in the form of a bill will be essentially black balled, yeah you get strong armed into voting.
Oh I get it and I’m intimately familiar with the situation. I’ll repeat my earlier sentiment. Weak men succumb to such antics. And they’re a dime a dozen.
May I introduce you to the entire United States Congress?
Theoretically you have a good grasp of how politics should work. In the real world you don’t have a 17ing clue.
I do more than you can possibly imagine. That doesn’t mean I agree with it or respect anyone for it. State politics, in particular, should be part-time and those persons should have other jobs. It’s morphed into this quasi-MAGA movement with zero independent thought and/or autonomy within the parties. Men who can be swayed to violate their conscience for a $24k annual base salary have an ego/self-esteem problem and likely Freudian-esque childhood trauma that no little boys’ club can fix.
You’d have a short career in politics. If any career at all.
Much more than $24k; mileage, per diem, fancy trips (for the whole family if they want), nice steak dinners at Ticos, a super sweet PERS deal, investment opportunities, extra pay for special sessions, opportunities for friends and family members and much more.
And you haven’t even mentioned lobbyists & campaign contributions.
So give me specifics on why you don’t like school choice?
like be specific and to the point
And no I didn’t watch the 71 minute video
Seems like a reasonable policy. State funds follow the child to the school the child’s family believes serves that child best. Limited to only 12500 kids to start. Basically every surrounding state has it but if you chose to live in Mississippi you don’t…typical.
I wouldn't say it's MAGA without independent thought. The Democrats vote in lock step way more than Republicans do.
I'm against public to public transfer.
Nothing makes a community in MS like good public schools. What is a community? A collection of people who for the most part share the same values.
I'm in Flowood, NWR is a very good public school. We are adjacent to Jxn that has terrible public schools. The values in my community are different than the values of people in Jxn, we believe in enforcing laws, harsh punishments for breaking laws, accountability and consequences. Folks in Jxn, believe in being lenient on these issues. I'm not saying that one is better or worse than the other, they are just two different sets of values that don't commingle well.
So more kids from Jxn start attending NWR and bring their own values (not saying those values are better or worse, but they are different). Eventually, and it won't take many, if enough Jxn kids enroll at NWR, NWR goes down and parents pull their kids. That will eventually snowball with fewer middle class families living in and moving to Flowood. The community will eventually decline (see Jxn).
The counter argument is, once NWR is full, then no kids can transfer there. The problem with that is politicians and bureaucrats love two things, power and money, they'll fill green spaces with portables to house students so they can get the $7k per student.
This cycle will be repeated wherever good school districts are adjacent to poor school districts, Gluckstadt, Clinton, Pearl, etc. The exception being Madison, Queen Mary rules with an iron fist, she's not swayed by money, she'll figure out a way to keep them out of Madison. The rest of the politicians will bend to the dollar.
Last edited:
I was under the impression the school district had some discretion on allowing or refusing incoming transfers
but I agree with your point
Oh, I'm sure they do, but in the end that $7k per student will win.
Another thing that concerned me was all the money coming in to support it. It certainly wasn't a home grown effort. I would love to follow the money on this.
Yeah. The whole “your school can choose to accept or not accept transfers” thing was always a red herring. Once that door is open, you will be forced to accept transfers.
Wouldn't the kids transferring from Jackson to Flowood be likely to have those "values" though, while the ones with the "different values" stay in Jackson? Why else would their parents send them to NWR if the JPS schools better reflect their values?
Not sure how it would work in MS, but in my state the requested school can absolutely decline.
They decline due to space and they decline due to student need(IEP). All but the most minor of IEP situations are frequently declined.
Good summary. I’ll also add, I’ve seen this happen in Jefferson County, KY (Louisville). Generally speaking, the western half of the county had horrid public schools while the eastern half was much better. In comes school choice and now they’re all
.As you stated, this will have a disproportionate impact on the areas surrounding Jxn as a larger metro area in the state. There’s a reason an apartment complex already exists just south of NWR. If you know anyone that teaches there, why don’t you ask them if it makes the school system better. Madison will fall once Queen Mary goes to glory. People will simply continue to sprawl out.
Study the history of Desoto County schools. There’s a reason Desoto Central and now Lewisburg High School exist. It ain’t because the top performers out of Memphis are bringing their superior value system to Southaven High. Like it or not, it’s fact.
The added bonus, aside from wasting more taxpayer dollars on vouchers? People with children very often live where they do simply because of school districts. Once that district goes tits up, my property values face plant. Yet another positive outcome.*
Write it down. Pisgah will be NWR circa 2007 in less than 10 years. A top performing school with a swarm of like-minded individuals (and tax base) to support it. NWR will fall further. Flowood becomes Ridgeland. Old Fannin becomes County Line Road East. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Perhaps it’s inevitable? This program only fast tracks it. The idea that districts will refuse dollars is ludicrous.
Point being, we’ve lost or given up some basic tenants of Federalism.
Trump is doing some great work in some areas. I could give two flying 17s what he supports when it comes to my local public school system. I’m not sure why Tater, Jason White, and others are choosing to die on this hill.
If that’s the case, the family would already live in Flowood. Mom would have scrimped, saved worked several jobs skipped on expenses that don’t line up with the goal of moving, etc. Don’t give me, “the family can’t afford it,” throughout history folks have overcome much greater challenges to improve the future outcomes for their family. We all ready have school choice.
We are (mostly) all Mississippians and we all understand this phenomena. It’s not rocket science or even advanced mathematics.Good summary. I’ll also add, I’ve seen this happen in Jefferson County, KY (Louisville). Generally speaking, the western half of the county had horrid public schools while the eastern half was much better. In comes school choice and now they’re all
As you stated, this will have a disproportionate impact on the areas surrounding Jxn as a larger metro area in the state. There’s a reason an apartment complex already exists just south of NWR. If you know anyone that teaches there, why don’t you ask them if it makes the school system better. Madison will fall once Queen Mary goes to glory. People will simply continue to sprawl out.
Study the history of Desoto County schools. There’s a reason Desoto Central and now Lewisburg High School exist. It ain’t because the top performers out of Memphis are bringing their superior value system to Southaven High. Like it or not, it’s fact.
The added bonus, aside from wasting more taxpayer dollars on vouchers? People with children very often live where they do simply because of school districts. Once that district goes tits up, my property values face plant. Yet another positive outcome.*
Write it down. Pisgah will be NWR circa 2007 in less than 10 years. A top performing school with a swarm of like-minded individuals (and tax base) to support it. NWR will fall further. Flowood becomes Ridgeland. Old Fannin becomes County Line Road East. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Perhaps it’s inevitable? This program only fast tracks it. The idea that districts will refuse dollars is ludicrous.
The question is how do you stabilize it. Chasing school districts alone has never been a good strategy for building property value.
Many young people have rejected the whole system and chose to move closer in to city centers, in strategically desirable areas, and are just accepting private and homeschool as reality, vs getting caught in a rat race of school districts.
MS is difficult because there’s really no area with a big enough core of money to permanently keep value high. So in that way I don’t disagree with the general angst against school choice. But it’s funny to me that you post that link which essentially disagrees with you. The issue here may just be the idea that the public school system as a whole sucks and people are just mad that they are losing their ‘free’ private schools. If you refuse to do that, the answer to move out of MS (likely the entire South) to an area where you won’t have to chase that rat race.
I’ve never understood the self importance and posturing we see in our legislature. From my perspective it’s a case study on big fish/small pond behavior…
It’s more money for people who already have money. Poor people can’t make use of it and simply get left behind at struggling schools that devolve further because their funding evaporates. It’s great if you have money and will now get some from the state to offset what you are already spending on private school. Might allow a 5th trip to 30A this year.
Private schools would have. Public schools would not have if they had room. This was a private school welfare bill disguised as school choice.
As referenced by their desire to shut down the government over DHS funding despite polling that suggests 70% of the country is against that.
This checks out. IEP introduces a lot of extra work for teachers. Get enough of those and you have to increase your cost center (teachers) and may not profit from the student.
They have a winning issue over DHS/ICE tactics. The recent special election in Texas should be sparking waves of change through the GOP.
No they don't. I hope they keep beating this drum all the way to the midterms. It's a winning issue in Minnesota and California but it's poison in the states that matter. And polling supports this.
I'm all about 1) Enforcing current laws; 2) Doing it with an eye toward the true threats (where are all these MS13 people I was promised instead of working people or students who got their paperwork behind/confused/whatever?) 3) fixing the immigration laws.
Cowards running around like masked terrorists with no accountability ain't it. Make them take the masks off and wear body cams as they enforce the laws. That would help a lot.
Just look at SPS. Most the people on here who sometimes devolve into name calling and generally being unkind would never do that in person. I'm sure there are a few outliers who are a$$holes IRL...
Last edited:
It’s year 2 for your state. See what it looks like in year 10.
- Status