Both chambers are elevating education as a top priority this year. But House Speaker Jason White and Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann are advancing sharply different visions for how the state should reform the state’s education system and build on recent academic gains.
For White, bringing school choice to Mississippi is the defining goal of the session.
He says the House plans to move a sweeping education bill that bundles multiple K-12 proposals into a single package. The approach follows a piecemeal strategy from last year White says was ineffective.
“Last year, we passed six or eight education reform bills separately,” White said. “None of those even got committee votes in the Senate.”
At the center of the House package is a new school choice program. White has emphasized that the proposal would be limited rather than universal and targeted toward lower-income families.
“We're not talking about opening up universal school choice to any of the 500,000 kids that are in K-12 education in our state,” White said. … “It’s going to be measured. It’s going to be common sense. It’s gonna be our most needy kids first.”
White says the goal is to give parents more control over how state education dollars tied to their children are used, while avoiding the scale and cost issues that have emerged in some states with broader school choice programs.
Beyond school choice, White says the House bill would also include other structural changes to public education. Those include loosening restrictions on charter schools, seeking federal waivers to reduce standardized testing requirements and expanding academic interventions in reading and math.
Across the Capitol, Hosemann is also leading with education, but his priorities reflect a different set of concerns.
“You have to remember that you're sitting in the state that fully funded education twice and now this year will fully fund it again,” Hosemann said.
For the Senate, raising educator pay is central. Hosemann has framed the issue as a long-term retention problem for the state.
While the Legislature approved a teacher pay raise in 2022 that applied only to K-12 educators, Hosemann says this year’s proposal would also include community college instructors and university faculty.
“They're teaching students who go out and make more money than the teacher the first job,” Hosemann said. “So it's upside down. I don't know how we keep them.”
Attendance is another major focus for Hosemann. He has repeatedly pointed to absenteeism as a barrier to sustaining the state’s recent academic progress and has proposed boosting truancy officer pay as part of a broader response. Hosemann also said he wants to place a law enforcement officer in every school to increase safety.
While the two chambers are advancing different approaches on some education issues, there is overlap. Both leaders have pointed to Mississippi’s third-grade reading initiative as a foundation they want to build on. Each has said the state should extend literacy efforts through eighth grade and create a similar, structured initiative for math.
Both are also interested in easing barriers to public-to-public school transfers, allowing students to move between districts more easily while still giving receiving schools discretion based on capacity.
The leaders are also signaling major priorities outside the classroom. White has said the House plans to again take up certificate-of-need reform and renew his push to legalize mobile sports betting, hailing its potential new revenue stream.
Hosemann, meanwhile, is advancing a broader government reorganization effort. He has called for a review of state boards and commissions, licensing processes, and the creation of state agencies dedicated to tourism and cybersecurity.
