What do you most like about your job? For me, it is being invited to speak about the work the Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) is doing to try to improve our state.
Typically, I get a couple of invitations each month to talk at Rotary Clubs, schools or the Kiwanis. Just the other week, I received one such invitation from the North Jackson Rotary Club.
As asked to do, I talked about some of our policy goals, such as school choice, deregulation and tax reform. Ever sensitive to the fact that good folk have different opinions about things, I meticulously avoided saying anything even remotely partisan.
Rotary Club lunches are enjoyable precisely because they are committed to building goodwill and understanding.
As I sat down after speaking, however, up popped Luther Munford, who I had only just met. He made it clear he did not support school choice, under the guise of asking a question.
Fair enough, I thought. Free speech and all that. I thought no more of the incident until I read Mr. Munford’s recent newspaper article in which he appears to have continued the attack he started at the North Jackson Rotary Club.
Curiously, for an article purporting to be about school choice in Mississippi, he launched his article with an attack on Brexit. Aware as he is of my role as one of the founders of the official Brexit campaign back in my native Britain, Mr. Munford perhaps thinks that by attacking the way 45 million Brits voted he is somehow getting at me.
Once Mr. Munford got around to attacking school choice, rather than me, he makes a series of claims that deserve a rebuttal.
Mr. Munford says school choice is unpopular. This is just not true. Polls show that more than 7 in 10 Mississippi voters, including a majority of Democrats, want school choice.
Mr. Munford seems especially vexed by the idea that parents given the choice might want their children to attend a religious school. Assuming I have understood him correctly (his syntax is a little garbled) school choice would mean that “the problem of funding truly racist religious beliefs becomes even greater.”
Any suggestion that Mississippi private schools are full of “racist religious beliefs” will no doubt come as a surprise to anyone that attends or teaches at one.
Mr. Munford attacks private schools on the basis that “no one knows how well Mississippi private schools are doing because they are not subject to any form of public accountability.”
Again, not so. Private schools are hyper accountable to fee paying parents. It is the public school accountability system that is failing, giving A grades to school districts where many kids can’t read properly.
Mr. Munford then proceeds to attack school choice on the basis that it would take money out of the public sector. Allowing each public school student to take their base share of state funds (about $6,600) to a public school of their choice (assuming the public school has capacity) would not impoverish the public sector. It would reallocate the money, forcing failing schools and underperforming districts to raise their game.
Our plan for a Mississippi Parents’ Tax Credit for those that choose not to take their place at a public school, because they prefer to home school or go private, would be capped at $150 million. It is not draining money from public schools but supporting families that are currently paying twice.
How odd that Luther should attack school choice having sent his own children to one of the most expensive private schools in our state, St Andrew’s.
He suggests private religious schools teach “racist religious beliefs.” Presumably there were no such beliefs at St Andrew’s Episcopal School?
He attacks private schools for not being accountable. Was there not sufficient accountability to him as a parent at St Andrew’s?
Sending a child to St Andrew’s today costs about $20,000 a year. We should all support parents 100 percent if they are blessed enough to be able to send their children to such an awesome school.
But we should at the same time help local families that cannot afford that to allocate their $6,600 of state funding to a school they can get into.
Click here to view Carswell's recent talk to the Rotary Club of North Jackson.
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Douglas Carswell, President & CEO, Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
