https://mississippitoday.org/2025/02/02/national-school-scores-decline/
created by gee-dangit on 03/02/2025 at 14:10 UTC
55 upvotes, 8 top-level comments (showing 8)
“With a relatively low percentage of public funds flowing to private schools, Mississippi scored ninth nationally in fourth grade reading scores and 13th in fourth grade math scores. Mississippi was No. 1 over time (from 2013 to 2024) for fourth grade reading and math improvements. Mississippi’s minority and economically disadvantaged students performed exceptionally well compared to their peers in other states.”
“It should be pointed out that Mississippi’s eighth grade scores were not as impressive.”….
“But eight states, including Florida and four others that spend a much greater percentage of their education budget on private schools than Mississippi, saw declines in eighth grade scores.”
Comment by pkrevbro at 03/02/2025 at 14:46 UTC
17 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Private Schools and Homeschooling are not subject to the same tests as public schools unless that student wants a state accredited high school diploma. So what happens is that the only private school or homeschooled students who take the tests are the same students who would score exceptionally well regardless of environment.
Comment by backwardhatter at 03/02/2025 at 14:20 UTC
21 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Do private and homeschooling students even take the standardized tests? Either way, any metric you use it's never going to be a 1 to 1 comparison of the quality of teaching. Private schools can and do simply kick out any students that are falling behind
Comment by Low-Highlight-9740 at 03/02/2025 at 16:30 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The ones with more resources have a better home learning environment resulting in better performance
Comment by gee-dangit at 03/02/2025 at 14:19 UTC
12 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Legislators should be cautious when considering expansions on school choice. Directing public funds from public schools to private schools negatively impacts lower income households, and Mississippi is disproportionately poor compared to the rest of the US.
Comment by StarryBloomss at 03/02/2025 at 14:11 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
early grade improvements are impressive, but the decline in eighth grade scores elsewhere shows more private school funding doesn't always equal better results. There’s more to it
Comment by wooduck_1 at 03/02/2025 at 17:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
A question about this issue in the larger scale. If this isn’t allowed let me know.
What has been the experience in other states of private schools taking the money? Do these school then have additional requirements placed on them by the state?
My feeling is that struggling and new private schools will take the money and the possible requirements/ mandates that come with but that the more successful private schools. Think your Preps and JA’s have plenty of student already and don’t want to deal with the headache or possible meddling that will come with taking the state money.
Anyone got any insight as to how it’s played out in other states or how the law is written here? Can a school turn down the funds or is it a check written to the parents that the school doesn’t have any input on accepting or not?
Comment by thischaosiskillingme at 03/02/2025 at 20:17 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Funny because all my life I've been told by conservatives we can't "just throw money" at schools to solve the problem, but It's almost like the exact problem with America's schools is really just not having enough goddamn money and if we threw them some it might help
Comment by shellexyz at 03/02/2025 at 21:13 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
One might believe that parents who are paying thousands of dollars for their kids’ education would be more invested in knowing their kids got a quality education. Of course, “quality” at the numerous segregation academies we have here means “they say Jesus a lot and they go to school with the white—err, whi—I mean, right people”.