What is school choice?
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The idea of School Choice has been a subject of much debate and action in the Mississippi Legislature.
And, here in the first two weeks of the 2026 session, 2 bills have already been moved forward, one each from the State Senate and the State House of Representatives.
Representative Rob Roberson breaks down the House bill.
For Rob Roberson, the answer to the question of what school choice is simple: it’s a choice. Roberson calls House Bill Two, better known as the Mississippi Education Freedom Act of 2026, pro-child and pro-family.
“When you boil this all down, this is not about pro-private school or pro-public school; this is pro-parent, pro-child, and it’s not intended to be something that tried to harm public schools. Like I said, we have some good public schools in our area and in your TV listening audience, we’ve got a lot of good parents and teachers and administrations out there that are doing real well,” Roberson says.
He says that in House Bill 2, there are two dynamics — public to public and public to private. In the public-to-public dynamic, Roberson says it takes away the proponent that the district the child is leaving can’t veto the leave. The district receiving the child has the option to say yes or not, and will have criteria put in place to take a child. In the public to private dynamic, the base amount that’s per child would be given to the parent, but it must be spent on education.
“If you’re a hardworking parent who has been working two jobs to make sure you can send your kids to a private school, this would be an opportunity for you to be able to take advantage of that amount. Under this, they would get the base amount, which this year is 6900. So, you’re talking $6,900 would be used specifically for that education. That money will be given to you, but it’s not given to you just to go spend on anything; it has to be spent on education,” Roberson says.
For those worries about the ad valorem, he says it stays where the child’s home is. Roberson says this is not about cherry picking or the “haves and haves nots,”.
He says it’s the state’s way of giving a child a better quality education that works for that child, and there’s no perfect answer for that.
“There’s not a perfect roadmap for that, we’re gonna have to make some mistakes along the way, but in the long run if that child is better at the end of the day, I’m all in.”
