House Bill 2: What It Does, What It Means, and Where Mississippi First Stands

20 January 2026

McWillie 2024 DOYLE-47 - Mississippi First

Last Thursday, the Mississippi House of Representatives amended and passed the committee substitute for House Bill 2 (HB 2), the Mississippi Educational Freedom Program Act of 2026.

Mississippi First evaluates education policy through the lens of our core values: engagement, results, collaboration, transparency, non-partisanship, accountability, and equity. We support reforms that are grounded in evidence, informed by meaningful stakeholder engagement, and designed to strengthen public education, which serves the vast majority of Mississippi students.

On the whole, Mississippi First does not support HB 2. The bill contains numerous policy changes with far-reaching implications across the education system. While some components of the bill have merit, several provisions raise significant concerns. Taken together, we believe the bill would undermine, rather than strengthen, educational opportunities for Mississippi students.

Mississippi First has prepared two charts below. The first chart indicates our positions on key provisions of the bill. The second chart, included at the end of this page, summarizes each section of HB 2 as it passed the House. Our goal is to evaluate the most consequential components of the bill and how they may affect students and schools.

Mississippi First’s Positions on Key Components of House Bill 2

Support	Oppose
Adolescent Literacy Initiative (Section 15-25) Mississippi’s national gains in literacy are the product of the Mississippi Department of Education’s sustained commitment to evidence-based instruction, data-driven monitoring, student supports, and teacher coaching. This section carries forward that proven K–3 framework and applies it to students in grades 4–8.	Magnolia Student Accounts (Sections 1-6; 8-12) Under this section of the bill, the state would allow 12,500 students to access Magnolia Student Accounts. Half of these accounts (6,250) would be reserved for students in public school the preceding year, and half could go to students who are not currently in our public education system. The latter half represents a new state investment, estimated at approximately $40 million, that may largely support families who are already enrolled in private education. Mississippi has significant unmet needs in its public schools, and we believe scarce state dollars should be targeted to the students with the greatest need. Additionally, these sections would allow public funds to flow to private and unaccredited schools without meaningful accountability, transparency, or demonstrated program effectiveness. We firmly believe that public dollars, whether directed to public or private institutions, must advance the public good and be subject to strong safeguards to ensure responsible use of taxpayer funds. Notably, later sections of this same bill require increased financial transparency from public school districts, creating a contradiction: public entities are held to higher standards than private institutions receiving state dollars. Finally, given the lack of consistent data on student achievement and school performance, and the relative newness of universal choice programs, there is currently insufficient evidence that these approaches improve student outcomes. Mississippi First cannot support a major new investment in a program with so little credible research behind it.
Mississippi Math Act (Sections 26- 38) Mississippi’s national gains in math are the product of the Mississippi Department of Education’s sustained commitment to evidence-based instruction, data-driven monitoring, student supports, and teacher coaching. This section carries forward that proven K–3 framework in literacy and applies it to select school districts in math for grades K-5.	Special Education ESAs (Sections 90-97) Changes to the existing special education ESAs expand eligibility to all children with an IEP or ISP and, beginning in the 2027–2028 school year, add an additional $2,000 per year above the base student amount. Together, these changes raise serious long-term concerns about the program’s financial sustainability. Additionally, HB 2 removes the requirement (37-181-9) that parents demonstrate a student has been accepted into an eligible school qualified to provide services aligned with the student’s disability, special education needs, or IEP. Children with disabilities and special education needs are a particularly vulnerable population and require access to high-quality, evidence-based interventions to succeed. Eliminating this safeguard risks undermining student progress and outcomes.
Salary Increase for Assistant Teachers (Section 77) Raising assistant teachers’ minimum salary from $17,000 to $20,000 would support workforce stability, equity, and retention for an important segment of the education workforce.	Testing Waiver (Section 113) Parents rely on public information about schools, in addition to their children’s personal experiences, to make informed decisions. Waiving the testing requirements for Grades 3-8 would remove valuable information parents need to understand how their children, the schools, and the school districts are performing. Mississippi’s accountability system also depends on consistent assessment data to identify where students are struggling and to target resources, interventions, and support to low-performing schools and districts. This system has been central to the state’s recent academic gains, and weakening it risks limiting our ability to both measure progress and respond effectively when students are not being well served.
Charter School Expansion (Sections 39-57) Charter schools expand public school options for families while holding schools accountable for results. Yet Mississippi’s law only permits charters to open in D- and F-rated districts without local board approval, keeping the sector small. Today, only ten public charter schools operate in the state despite strong performance compared to similar neighborhood schools, leaving many families without access to high-quality public options. The House-passed bill would allow charters to open in any district that has a D- or F-rated school. Research commissioned by Mississippi First found that 52.4% of parents in counties that currently have no charter schools and are home to C, D, or F-rated school districts want additional public school options. Charter schools could meet this demand: they are non-selective in enrollment, receive full per-pupil funding, and operate under strong accountability and transparency requirements. Finally, expanding charter access would help Mississippi grow a stronger charter sector. Research from mature charter sectors shows what is possible: a 2023 national CREDO study found that charter students gained 16 extra days of learning in reading and 6 extra days in math compared to traditional public school peers. Mississippi should continue to build on what works and invest in the charter sector that it began building in 2013.	Unified Allocation Plan (Returning Education to the States Waiver) (Section 142) This section requires MDE to submit a waiver to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to consolidate multiple federal funding streams that serve distinct purposes. For example, Title I, Part A is designed to support students in high-poverty schools, while Title III, Part A, specifically targets English Learners. These targeted funding streams include guardrails intended to promote equity for our most vulnerable student populations. Eliminating those guardrails risks creating inequities across schools and districts. Absent those protections, robust third-party monitoring and evaluation systems would be necessary to ensure funds continue to reach the students they are intended to serve.
Creation of the School Accountability Dashboard Act (Sections 83-87) Requiring school districts to have standardized, public-facing dashboards would strengthen transparency, improve public trust, and support data-informed decision-making.
Retired Teachers Returning to the Classroom (Sections 88-89) We support this with caution. Allowing retired teachers to return to the classroom while collecting their retirement allowance would help districts alleviate staffing challenges. However, more information is needed about the impact on the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi (PERS).
Clarification of Charter Management Organizations’ Operational Flexibilities (Section 39) Allowing charter management organizations (CMOs) to operate their schools as a single local educational agency (LEA) or as multiple LEAs would provide important operational flexibility. CMOs operating as a single LEA would increase efficiency by enabling CMOs to streamline administrative functions, reduce duplicative compliance requirements, and better coordinate services, staffing, data systems, and student supports across campuses. For high-quality providers, this flexibility also makes replication more feasible. Proven operators are more likely to expand when the regulatory environment allows them to manage growth efficiently rather than rebuild full LEA capacity school-by-school. Mississippi should adopt policies to support the expansion of effective schools while maintaining clear accountability. This provision would help the state create conditions for quality charter growth by reducing unnecessary barriers for providers, improving operational efficiency, and more easily allowing successful charter schools to serve more students.
AGENTS of Excellence Program (Sections 98-105) The AGENTS of Excellence Program creates regional, dual-enrollment early-college high schools with a boarding option. These schools would focus on STEM and technical skills. We support public, high-quality, and accountable high schools to increase access to public choice for Mississippi students, particularly those in low-income and remote areas. We recommend these schools are charter schools.
Public School Portability (Section 13) We support portability with caution. Portability can expand public school options for families by allowing students to attend a school in another district, provided the receiving district accepts them. To work well, portability must include a fair and transparent admissions process for receiving districts to ensure equal access and prevent selective enrollment and discrimination. Portability is not a comprehensive school choice solution; families with limited transportation options, including low-income and rural families, may still face barriers. Additionally, receiving districts will need clear guidance and support to implement processes in a way that is efficient and not administratively burdensome.

With the bill’s major provisions outlined above, the question becomes not just what HB 2 does, but whether it does so in a way that meaningfully improves outcomes for Mississippi students. At its core, HB 2 attempts to provide families with more school choice, but it does so without sufficient safeguards and does not consider the long-term impact on students and schools. Mississippi First believes that families deserve meaningful choices and that all children should have access to a school that meets their needs, but school choice legislation must be designed with accountability, equity, and fiscal responsibility to ensure that it moves our state in the right direction. Choice should be a means to better outcomes, not an ideology pursued for its own sake. Its purpose must be aligned with a vision and mechanism that supports better outcomes for ALL Mississippi children.

Further, this bill does not just present ideas—it represents a proposal for the state’s priorities. The legislative process forces policymakers to make decisions under conditions of scarcity: what to fund, what to postpone, and what to cut. Resources are finite, and budgets reveal values. While part of HB 2 would shift around dollars that would otherwise flow to school districts, it also includes a new state investment of approximately $40 million that would largely support students who are already enrolled in private schools. In that context, directing tens of millions of new dollars to subsidize private school tuition raises a fundamental question: whom are we prioritizing, and why? We believe these funds could be utilized to address more urgent needs within our education system, including raising teacher compensation to combat record-high attrition rates or expanding access to high-quality pre-K for four-year-olds.

Finally, Mississippi’s recent academic gains are the result of a sustained commitment to high standards and transparent accountability. Several parts of HB 2 undermine the standard we have built for accountability: it permits private and unaccredited schools to receive significant state support without meaningful accountability requirements, and it directs the Mississippi Department of Education to apply for a waiver to remove all assessment requirements in grades 3-8. Advancing these sweeping policy changes weakens the systems that have helped drive our state’s progress. While we recognize and support efforts to expand opportunity for families, parents can only make informed choices when clear, comparable information about school quality is available. HB 2 falls short of ensuring that such information would be consistently available to families.

We urge lawmakers to pause and carefully examine how HB 2 would operate in practice, how it would be funded over time, and how the state would ensure transparency and equitable access. Mississippi’s education challenges require solutions that are targeted, grounded in evidence, and designed to strengthen the system that serves the vast majority of our children. We welcome a conversation about how to ensure meaningful school choice for families, but it must be done thoughtfully and with a clear commitment to improving outcomes for all Mississippi students.

Mississippi First will continue to monitor HB 2 and share timely, clear updates as new information becomes available. Stay tuned by following us on Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.