Children's Promise Act dies in MS Senate, thanks in part to Republicans. See why

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21-03-2025

If anyone was wondering where the Mississippi Senate, as a body, stood on expanding school choice, the chamber may have tipped its hand toward any future votes on expanding public funding for private education.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers defeated House Bill 1902, which could be the last legislation standing from a volley of school-choice-related bills that previously passed the House but died in the Senate.
"The only issue that I've heard from other senators, Democrats and Republicans, is that this is a program that allows people to instead of paying their taxes, to donate money to private schools with almost no oversight whatsoever," said Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, who spoke against the bill.
HB 1902 was first voted on by the Senate on Tuesday before a vote to consider Senate leadership's tax reform package, which among other things, would seek to fully eliminate the state income tax.
Some senators who voted against HB 1902 said that was part of the reason for voting against the measure, citing it would be in poor taste to pass one bill raising state spending and another cutting state funding.
The bill was first defeated Tuesday 26-23 but held on a motion to reconsider. On Wednesday, when Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, tried to bring the bill back up, it was defeated by an even larger margin.
"We were just trying to make it more available for people to allow them to donate funds to (certain tax credit programs in the bill) and that was really the effort there," Harkins said. "We will have to work on it next year."
The bill, which featured the Children's Promise Act, has been tied to school choice, a loaded term for legislation seeking to expand education options for students in both the public and private sector.
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This year, that effort has taken the shape of establishing programs to put public money directly into private schools, allowing students to more easily move between school districts, expanding charter schools and via the Children's Promise Act, a tax credit program that already puts some public dollars toward private education. All of those efforts have been killed this year.
The state also already has another school-choice program, an Education Savings Account program for disabled children. There was previously an effort in both the House and Senate to expand that program, but it died by a deadline.
If passed, HB 1902 would have likely gone up for further negotiation with the House, known as conference, where House negotiators would have pushed to increase funding for the Children's Promise Act tax credit program.
That program allows people to donate funds to private schools and have half of it taken off of their property taxes. The program also allows people to receive tax credits for donating to foster care facilities, and the program's funding, $18 million, can only go to certain "charitable organizations" such as those listed above.
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Only half of that funding can go toward private schools, which have to be approved of by the Mississippi Department of Revenue based on criteria such as enrolling students with certain disabilities and having been accredited by a state-recognized firm.
Once that certification is given, schools need not reapply for seven years, and the state has no method to ensure those schools are either spending "donations" on education, or if the school even enrolls those students that make the institution eligible for the program beyond the accreditor's initial findings, which includes an audit.
House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, told the Clarion Ledger his goal was to increase the program's fundings because it is annually maxed out, and he thinks the program, despite political opposition to it, serves to help some of the state's most needy children.
Lamar also accused Jackson-based The Parents Campaign, a nonprofit lead by Nancy Loome, of spreading lies about HB 1902 being a school-choice bill and that it would send public education dollars toward private education.
"I think it has been extremely popular, and that it doesn't hurt public education at all," Lamar said. "There's no reason we can't have great public schools and great independent schools across our state, and the Children's Promise Act recognizes that."
Loome told the Clarion Ledger she never tried to communicate the bill as anything but a tax-credit program that sends public dollars toward private schools with no oversight and little guardrails in place to ensure those tax dollars were being spent appropriately.
"We have never said that the Children's Promise Act is a school-choice bill, because it isn't," Loome said. "It has nothing to do with anybody choosing or enrolling their child in a different school. This is simply money going to private schools. It's not tied to tuition or a child moving from one place to another, but it has the same effect financially as a voucher in that it moves public money into private schools."
Several high-ranking Senate Republicans told the Clarion Ledger they either voted against the measure because constituents called asking them to vote it down, they did not support school-choice-related legislation or thought it was poor timing.
Of the Senate Republicans, at least nine voted against the Children's Promise Act. Two voted "present."
"I had more constituents call me and ask me not to support it," Sen. Chad McMahan, R-Tupelo, said. "We are currently providing public funds to private individuals in terms of ESA for special needs education, and there are some students in the state that have such specialized needs that some public schools are unable to secure the expertise to meet their needs."
Two of them, Sens. Nicole Boyd of Oxford and Sen. Walter Michel of Ridgeland, declined to comment.
Sens. Mike McLendon of Hernando and Daniel Sparks of Belmont both noted that sending public dollars toward private education is unconstitutional in Mississippi. Sparks also said he had other questions related to the running of the program and did not feel comfortable voting on it.
"I think public tax dollars should be spent on public education, and (if) a person has the ability to go to a private school, then so be it," McLendon said. "I just believe that public money should go to public."
Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at [e-mail] or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: School choice-related bill dies in MS Senate