Testimony Before the Mississippi Senate Education Committee
in Support of HB 2
Tim Benson, Senior Policy Analyst
Heartland Impact
February 3, 2026
Chairman DeBar and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for holding this hearing on HB 2 and allowing me to speak on this bill.
My name is Tim Benson, and I am a senior policy analyst at Heartland Impact. Heartland Impact is the advocacy and outreach arm of The Heartland Institute. Both are independent, national, nonprofit organizations working to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Heartland specializes in providing state lawmakers policy and advocacy resources to advance free-market policies towards broad-based economic prosperity.
Enacting HB 2, which establishes the “Magnolia Student Accounts” (MSA) program and remove’s the waitlist from the Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Program (EOSSNP), would be a great step forward in making sure a quality education, and education freedom, is provided to Mississippi children.
As you know, Magnolia Student Accounts would cover tuition, fees, and curricula for eligible children at private and parochial schools, as well as textbooks, uniforms, private tutoring services, school-provided extracurricular activities, and educational therapies. Funds could also be used to cover the fees required to take national standardized achievement tests, such as the SAT, CLT, ACT, or AP examinations. Any unused funds left over when the student graduates high school could also be used to pay for college tuition or job training programs.
The program would begin in the 2027–28 school year and would be capped at 12,500 participating students. This cap would grow by 2,500 students each successive school year until 2030–31, after which the state will have the option of expanding the program by 2,500 students annually if the MSA program is at 100 percent capacity.
The implementation of MSAs is much needed in the Magnolia State, as Mississippi has fallen behind neighboring states like Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee, which have already enacted their own universal ESA legislation.
While Mississippi does currently provide an education choice program in the aforementioned EOSSNP, the program is very small. Only 345 students made use of the program during the 2024–25 school year. Mississippi also provides two other choice programs, both voucher programs, for disabled students, but like the EOSSNP, they are both very small. The Nate Rogers Scholarship for Students with Disabilities Program, dedicated solely to children with speech therapy needs, serviced only 10 students during the 2023–24 school year, while the Mississippi Dyslexia Therapy Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia Program, serviced just 246 students in the 2024–25 school year.
Altogether, only 7 percent of Mississippi children are eligible for these program, and they only provide families, averaged together, 67 percent of the funding that would have gone to their child in one of the state’s public schools.[i]
Copious empirical research on school choice programs like ESAs makes clear these programs offer families improved access to high-quality schools that meet their children’s unique needs and circumstances. Specifically, these programs improve academic performance and attainment while delivering quality education at lower cost than traditional public schools.[ii]
To cite just two examples, a 2024 analysis by EdChoice found EOSSNP and the Dyslexia Therapy Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia Program, even as small as they are, have cumulatively saved Mississippi taxpayers $31.1 million to $48.1 million through Fiscal Year 2022. This works out to a savings of $7,193 to $11,119 per student participating in the programs.[iii] Another EdChoice fiscal brief, published in December, estimates the long-term economic impact of a universal ESA program along the lines of the Magnolia Scholarship Accounts, through increased educational attainment and higher high school and college graduation rates, would amount to $215 million to $3.2 billion per year.[iv]
Additionally, education choice benefits public school students and taxpayers by increasing competition, decreasing segregation, and improving civic values and practices. Research also shows students at private schools are less likely than their public-school peers to experience problems such as alcohol abuse, bullying, drug use, fighting, gang activity, racial tension, theft, vandalism, and weapon-based threats.[v] There is also a strong causal link suggesting private school choice programs improve the mental health of participating students.[vi]
Education choice programs like ESAs are not only good policy, they are also broadly popular. EdChoice’s Public Opinion Tracker, last updated on January 19, shows 64 percent of all Mississippi adults and 73 percent of Mississippi parents with school-aged children support ESA programs.[vii]These numbers are backed up by a poll conducted by the Tarrance Group, conducted last October, showing three-quarters of Mississippi voters say ESAs should be open to all families, regardless of household income or the rating of their district schools, and 79 percent responding they would be more likely to vote for a legislator who supports that agenda.[viii]
While the serious academic gains[ix] in mathematics and reading from students in Mississippi’s public schools over the past decade are being rightfully[x] celebrated,[xi] it is still objectively true that the state’s public school system is habitually failing most Mississippi children.
In 2024, only 38 percent[xii] of Mississippi’s public school fourth graders and 22 percent[xiii] of eighth graders tested “proficient” in mathematics on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) examination, colloquially known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” Just 32 percent[xiv] of fourth graders and 23 percent[xv] of eighth graders tested “proficient” in reading.
Essentially, and embarrassingly, even with all the improvements of the past 10 years, the state’s public schools are still failing to educate roughly eight in 10 Mississippi children to grade-level proficiency in reading and math by the time they enter high school.
The goal of public education in Mississippi today and in the years to come should be to allow all parents to choose which schools their children attend, require every school to compete for every student who walks through its doors, and make sure every child has the opportunity to attend a quality school that best fits their unique needs and circumstances. There has not been a time when providing these opportunities has been more urgent than right now.
Simply put, states with robust and expansive school choice programs will be more attractive to families who can migrate to the state of their choosing. How many will decide against moving to Mississippi because it doesn’t offer their children the opportunity to attend the school that best suits their educational needs? Enacting Magnolia Student Accounts fixes this problem and allows all current and future Mississippians as many options as possible to get their children the education they need and deserve. HB 2 deserves your vote.
Thank you for your time.
Heartland Impact can send an expert to your state to testify or brief your caucus; host an event in your state; or send you further information on a topic. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can be of assistance! If you have any questions or comments, contact Cameron Sholty, at csholty@heartlandimpact.org or 312/377-4000.
[i] Ben Scafidi & Colyn Ritter, The 2025 EdChoice Friedman Index: All Students, All Options, All Dollars, EdChoice, March 2025, https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Friedman-Index.pdf.
[ii] The 123s of School Choice (2025 Edition), EdChoice, June 2025, https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/123s-of-School-Choice-2025.pdf.
[iii] Martin F. Lueken, Fiscal Effects of School Choice, EdChoice, October 2024, https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fiscal-Effects-2024.pdf.
[iv] Martin F. Lueken & Michael Q. McShane, Estimating the Long-Run Impact of a Universal ESA Program in Mississippi, EdChoice, December 2025, https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/12-25-Mississippi-Brief.pdf.
[v] M. Danish Shakeel & Corey A. DeAngelis, “Can private schools improve school climate? Evidence from a nationally representative sample,” Journal of School Choice, Volume 12, pp. 426-445, August 8, 2018, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2018.1490383?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=wjsc20.
[vi] Corey A. DeAngelis & Angela K. Dills, The Effects of School Choice on Mental Health, SSRN, October 24, 2018, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3272550.
[vii] EdChoice, Public Opinion Tracker – Mississippi, January 19, 2026, https://edchoice.mcdatahub.com/edchoice/pdfreports/state/Mississippi.pdf.
[viii] Scott Foster, “Mississippi Voters Back Education Freedom, Want Lawmakers to Act”, yes. every kid. foundation, November 13, 2025, https://yeseverykidfoundation.org/mississippi-voters-back-education-freedom-want-lawmakers-to-act/.
[ix] Matthew Chingos & Kristin Blagg, States’ Demographically Adjusted Performance on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, Urban Institute, January 29, 2025, https://www.urban.org/research/publication/states-demographically-adjusted-performance-2024-national-assessment.
[x] Tim Daly, “Mississippi Schools Are Better Than Yours”, The Free Press, May 7, 2025, https://www.thefp.com/p/mississippi-cant-possibly-have-good/.
[xi] Kelsey Piper, “Illiteracy is a policy choice”, The Argument, September 25, 2025, https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/illiteracy-is-a-policy-choice.
[xii] National Center For Education Statistics, “2024 Mathematics State Snapshot Report – Mississippi – Grade 4,” accessed January 22, 2026, https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024219MS4.pdf.
[xiii] National Center For Education Statistics, “2024 Mathematics State Snapshot Report – Mississippi – Grade 8,” accessed January 22, 2026, https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024219MS8.pdf.
[xiv] National Center For Education Statistics, “2024 Reading State Snapshot Report – Mississippi – Grade 4,” accessed January 22, 2026, https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220MS4.pdf.
[xv] National Center For Education Statistics, “2024 Reading State Snapshot Report – Mississippi – Grade 8,” accessed January 22, 2026, https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220MS8.pdf.
