ALERT: This afternoon, the House Education Committee passed two bills that could threaten the wonderful progress being made in our public schools.
HB 1617 allows homeschool students to participate in public school activities, creating an unlevel playing field for students and an enormous administrative burden for public schools – and incentivizing dropouts. Public school students are required to maintain a 2.0 GPA based on rigorous state standards in order to participate in school activities. HB 1617 says homeschoolers can meet that requirement through a “portfolio” of work, placing the burden on the public school principal to determine whether or not the “portfolio” is actually the student’s work and is of sufficient rigor to meet the public school grade-level standard. HB 1617 flies in the face of the concern about absenteeism expressed recently by elected officials, incentivizing students who are struggling to maintain the required 2.0 to drop out of school, stay at home, purchase a “portfolio”, and still take advantage of the rewarding activities public school students must earn. The bill creates a new class of discrimination (homeschoolers), stating, “In selecting the members of an interscholastic extracurricular team, a public school shall not discriminate against a student being educated in a homeschool…,” giving another unfair advantage to homeschool students over public school students.
HB 1435 provides for public school choice and creates a significant administrative burden on school districts, requiring that they report publicly four times each year the enrollment capacity and space available for each school and each grade, as well as the district’s policy on student transfers. Like other “choice” bills, HB 1435 is designed to serve few students (no transportation is provided), leaving the overwhelming majority of students in schools with shrinking resources. And it lets legislators off the hook, allowing them to believe, erroneously, that they have addressed the issue of struggling schools. Instead, legislators should provide the proven remedies that will help all students in struggling schools and ensure the strong public schools every community deserves.
Also of concern are these two bills being pushed by the House leadership, both of which are awaiting committee action:
- HB 1433, which provides for public and private school “choice”
- HB 1078, a bill removing provisions passed in the 2024 session that tightened up the ESA voucher statute and allowing an unnamed nonprofit to receive state funds to administer the program
Please ask your representative and Speaker White to VOTE NO on HB 1617, HB 1435, HB 1433, and HB 1078.
Capitol Switchboard (opens at 8 a.m.): 601.359.3770
Find additional contact information for legislators
Speaker White: 601.359.3300
Mississippi has made more progress in academic achievement than any other state – while almost all “school choice” states are moving backward. Let’s keep our focus on what has been proven to work – investments in the day-to-day hard work being done in our public school classrooms. Please make those calls right away. Ask your friends and family to call, too. Together, we’ve got this!
