Mississippi has earned well-deserved plaudits for its outsized literacy gains in recent years, ranking first in the nation in fourth grade reading and near the top in eighth grade, when adjusted for poverty and demographics. Its advances reflect a commitment to the science of reading and strong accountability systems—delivered at a fraction of the cost of many states. But school choice is confined to just ten charter schools and a handful of targeted private programs. That paradox—strong results alongside sparse alternatives—lands at a moment when private school choice is ascendant, even as accountability struggles to keep pace, illustrating the widening view among Republicans today that choice alone drives improvement.
Into this mix comes House Bill 2, a 446-page omnibus measure that narrowly passed Mississippi’s House before stalling in the Senate. Much of the attention has focused on its expansive school choice provisions, but also buried within are directives with far-reaching implications for accountability. The bill instructs the state department of education to seek a federal waiver that would eliminate statewide assessments in grades 3–8 while consolidating multiple federal funding streams into a single block grant. U.S. education secretary Linda McMahon’s team already forced Iowa to walk back a similarly ambitious attempt to merge funds, suggesting that Mississippi’s block grant ambitions would face steep federal headwinds—leaving the push to escape annual assessments as the bill’s more salient feature.
On the surface, that provision may seem harmless and largely symbolic, since federal approval is required—and unlikely. But it puts some state leaders on record as wanting to weaken key elements of what made Mississippi’s literacy gains possible. State assessments aren’t just bureaucratic checkboxes. They provide critical data on student progress and anchor the state’s A–F accountability system. Bypassing those exams risks eroding transparency, leaving policymakers and parents with less actionable information, and signaling that results-driven accountability is optional rather than central. In a state that has seen sustained success without broad-based choice, the push to expand parental options while trimming oversight makes clear that freedom is asserting itself over evidence in education policy and politics.
It’s no secret that today’s private school choice advocates argue that parental satisfaction is the best proxy for accountability. Many private school leaders reject state testing outright, seeing it as incompatible with the flexibility and distinctiveness that define private education—a stance that underscores both the promise and trade-offs of choice. Evidence from some private choice programs suggests that, while students may fall behind on standardized exams, they can still benefit in ways that matter for long-term outcomes like college attendance and completion.
On the other hand, test-based accountability during the Bush-Obama era underpinned a period of steady gains, particularly in math, even if it brought its own set of challenges. Part of what made this approach effective was the comparability of data across schools and districts. Without standardized testing, it is far more difficult for parents to evaluate schools across sectors. This is why, while I was in Indiana, we set a high bar for quality assurance by holding all schools receiving public dollars accountable to the same yardstick. Test scores are not the end all and be all, but they provide a consistent, objective measure that allows parents, policymakers, and educators to evaluate schools and track progress over time.
The drive for unfettered choice in Mississippi carries broader implications, too. If private schools funded with public dollars are ultimately held accountable only to the families who choose them, it becomes difficult to justify expecting a fundamentally different standard for public schools—which are, increasingly, schools of choice themselves. This logic is already emerging in other states. In Texas, lawmakers recently flirted with proposals to weaken statewide assessments even as they expanded choice options, reflecting the argument that public accountability should bend in step with private autonomy. And in Idaho, state leaders are signaling a desire to scale back state testing in favor of alternate measures that are less tightly aligned to state standards, citing flexibility and easing compliance burdens on districts and schools.
Magnolia State lawmakers may not realize the consequences of directing the state education agency to seek a testing waiver. They may see state assessments as an obstacle to private school operators or a barrier to expanding choice, but in pursuing what seems like a simple solution, they risk weakening the very system that has underwritten Mississippi’s recent gains. Without statewide assessments, the state’s A–F grades might technically remain in place, but they would convey far less reliable information about student achievement.
With the legislative session still underway in Jackson, Mississippi’s senate education chair has raised concerns about the bill arising from the state’s Blaine Amendment and the measure’s cost, as well as its lack of accountability. The state senate has also been reluctant to expand charter schools, citing weak performance in existing charters. Taken together, they underscore the tension between expanding choice and preserving accountability: The House risks weakening the system that drives student success, while the Senate, though defending accountability, may be overly cautious in expanding options.
Mississippi is trying to find a sweet spot between test-based accountability and accountability entrusted to the parental marketplace. There’s surely room to expand parent power, but more options won’t help if families don’t have reliable information on school quality. Put simply, allowing parental choice to replace systematic assessment erodes the very data that enables comparisons, weakens incentives for schools of all types to focus on measurable outcomes, and risks widening information gaps that already disadvantage historically underserved populations. Choice is a means, not the end.
