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When the Mississippi Legislature was considering school choice earlier this year, the late Representative Price Wallace told me that it would cost the state of Mississippi $350,000,000 per year to provide vouchers to the families of private-schooled students since there are over 50,000 students in Mississippi Private Schools and the State of Mississippi presently funds the public schools at $7,000 per year per student. A quick “Google” search this morning indicates that there are at least an additional 24,000 homeschooled students in Mississippi. So the parents who have chosen to take personal responsibility for their children’s education are saving the State of Mississippi at least $518,000,000 per year! These parents are saving the local districts many more dollars. Here in my home County of Simpson, there are over 600 students enrolled in Simpson Academy. There are probably at least another 400 students being homeschooled or being educated in one of the many Christian Schools or Micro Schools here. The local funding here is over $11,000,000 per year, which works out to over $4,100 per year for each of the 2,680 students enrolled in Simpson County Schools. So the Simpson County parents who are privately educating their children are saving our local Public School District another $4,000,000 per year!
The very least we can do is give a big “THANK YOU” to all the parents who are taking personal responsibility for their children’s education! Some of these parents are working two or three jobs to pay for tuition. Others or investing their own time and energy to teach their children at home. All these parents are making great sacrifices for their children. They are also sacrificing for the rest of us since they are saving the State of Mississippi and the Counties millions of dollars. I want to personally say to each of them “THANK YOU!” The Mississippi Legislature should adopt a Resolution thanking all these parents. The Boards of Supervisors and the local school boards should also pass such resolutions and publicly thank all our parents who are making such a contribution for the good of their neighbours.
We should also do what we can to relieve their load financially. I personally am opposed to public money going to private schools. If I were homeschooling again, I would not accept public money if it were available. When you accept tax money, you invite government control.
One thing we could do is make private school tuition 100% deductible from one’s tax bill. Mississippi is phasing out the income tax, thankfully, but as long as we have an income tax, we should make private school tuition 100% deductible from one’s tax bill. We could also make contributions to private, Christian, micro, and home-schools deductible. We could also eliminate the sales tax on textbooks and other educational materials for these private educators. We should explore other means to ease the burdens of parents who are paying for their own children’s education and paying taxes for their public schools too.
Private initiative helps the whole commonwealth so let us do all we can to encourage it.
Thomas Ray Floyd
601-862-3919
brickfloyd@bellsouth.net
Mr. Floyd’s personal opinion.
MageeNews.com is the online news source for Simpson and surrounding counties as well as the State of Mississippi
