Oxford superintendent: Education is a public good, not a consumer product 

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Few topics in education stir as much passion as school choice.

On the surface, the idea sounds simple and appealing: Give families state dollars and let them decide where to send their children to school. But beneath that slogan are serious consequences for Mississippi’s children, communities and future—consequences we cannot afford to ignore.

As Mississippi’s public education system experiences its most impressive gains in decades, we must ask an important question: Why now? Why introduce a policy that would destabilize a system that is clearly working?

Over the past decade