Information on the so-called "School Choice" movement in the United States can be found on the web pages of the Heritage Foundation (see the URLs at the bottom of this page). This information includes a list of organizations who FUND the Movement, who DEVELOP the strategy and plans for the Movement, and who LEAD the Movement. The names of these organizations should be familiar to anyone who has studied the role of the right wing and radical right wing in the recent IMPEACHMENT EFFORT. It should also be familiar to those who are studying the NULLIFICATION EFFORTS of the last decade which has been directed at environmental laws and other social and economic legislation.

The powerful and the privileged in this country claim to be conservatives and libertarians. What they are really concerned with are two things:

1. the DESTRUCTION of democracy and democratic institutions in this country.
2. the DISSOLUTION regulatory measures aimed at controlling THEIR exercise of UNRESTRAINED POWER.

A well-funded and well-organized group, these right wing and radical right wing organizations pose a threat to this country because their goals and their actions are simply not covered by the Mainstream Media. Today, one of the causes they champion is "School Choice," but their interest is not in school choice but in the destruction of public education in this country. At the present time, they are joined by many who are not aware of their true goals.

For example, the "School Choice" movement includes a number of people who are attempting to establish public "charter" schools in the various states to provide an alternative way of public education -- one that would permit us to evaluate and change public education without destroying it.

One of the major fault lines in the "School Choice" movement is between those who are working for chartered public schools and those who wish to create a number of private chartered schools throughout the country which are paid for with public taxes. There is an even greater division between the advocates of chartered public schools and those who are attempting to push school vouchers by which public tax funds would be used to pay the tuition for children attending private secular and sectarian schools. Finally, there is a third division between the parents paying for public schools and at the same time paying the tuition for a private religious school and those who are using "School Choice" as a means to destroy public education in this country by siphoning off larger and larger amounts of public tax dollars into private schools. Quite naturally, most of the people who are paying "twice" for schools would like some tax relief, but would be horrified at the ultimate objectives of those who oppose "socialized education."

In the state of Wisconsin and now in the state of Florida, the "School Choice" movement has adopted a successful strategy which exploits black and other minority parents to pry open the door between church and state and then pours public tax monies through that door to pay to send public school students into private secular and religious schools.

Public schools do not have the option of "cherry-picking" the students that attend public schools. The dys-functional child, the child of parents-who-don't-care, the child with behavior problems -- all of these must be accepted by the public schools. Under-funded schools and school districts, decrepit schools, large classes -- all of these are the characteristics of inner-city schools. The "good" kids going to these schools are penalized along with the "don’t-care" kids and the "bad" kids. What is a parent of a "good" kid to do?

The Los Angeles Times article continues . . . .

If the voters of California were to approve such a program today, there would be an immediate cost of over $2.9 BILLION dollars just to pay for the students in California presently attending private schools. This is BEFORE even one child would leave the public schools for a private school. See:

In Wisconsin and now in Florida, the states are or will be transferring large amounts of public funds to pay for the vouchers providing the tuition of the "good" kids to private secular and religious schools. An effort is presently underway in New Mexico to do the same thing. In Wisconsin, the amount of money in the vouchers is $4,900 per student. This in a state where the tax dollars per pupil is $6,467.

In 1998, there were 2,240,503 public school students in Florida schools. The per student cost was $5,365 dollars, resulting in an annual cost of slightly more than $12 BILLION dollars. With 156,000 students elgible for vouchers in the fall of 2000 and an additional 48,500 possibly elgible a few months later, the costs to the public education budget would be about $818 MILLION dollars.

The latest figures on private school enrollment in Florida are about three and one-half years old (Fall, 1995). At that time, there were 253,831 private school students in the state. By the Fall of 1998, the number is projected to be about 261,243 private school students. With the state providing money to pay $4,000 dollars per student to send public school children to private secular and sectarian schools, how long do you think it will be before the parents of the children presently in private schools to ask for equal treatment under the law. This would mean an additional $1.045 BILLION dollars, making the total cost about $1.863 BILLION DOLLARS.

Within two or three years, the people of the state of Floriday would see almost $2 BILLION dollars taken out of the public education sector.

So the first step is to provide tuition for minority children in private secular and religious schools. As the public funding for private schools increases, the public funding for the public schools decreases. Fewer and fewer dollars have to be spread around the remaining children -- good, bad, and indifferent. The quality in the public schools continues to go down and the private schools are touted as being highly successful. This should be no surprise -- the parents are motivated and the children are "cherry-picked."

In the second step, the providing of vouchers will be expanded to the students presently in private schools. And the destruction of public education in America will be at hand.

Most of the politicians supporting "School Choice" are Republicans. The present base of Republican support in the United States comes from the South. I therefore thought it appropriate to develop some facts and figures on public and private schools in the state of Mississippi, the home of Trent Lott, the present U.S. Senate Majority Leader.

Data on public, private, and religious education are available on-line from sources like the American School Directory (the ASD). But meaningful information is extremely hard to extract for analysis. Towards the bottom of this page are some numbers on various Mississippi counties I manually extracted from the ASD data base over a period of several days. The information is there but it takes a long time to extract it. And after all that work, I have at best just fragmentary information.

The issue of private versus public education is an important issue. After I prepared the first version of this web page, I learned of an annual compilation of education statistics put out each year by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Educaiton. Tables in the 1998 Edition do provide answers to two of the questions I originally asked:

1. What is the actual percentage of children in private elementary and secondary schools throughout the country? According to Table 2 on page 11 of the the 1998 Edition, the average percentage of private elementary and secondary students for the 1991 to 1998 school years was 11.22 percent.
2. What is the public/private percentage on a state-by-state basis? In the Fall of 1995, the largest percentage of private students in the fifty states and the District of Columbia was in Delaware (23.4%), followed by D.C (21.89%), Pennyslvania (19.4%), Hawaii and Lousiana (both 18.45%). In Mississippi, the percentage for the Fall of 1995 was 9.91% (which is below the national average). The states with the lowest private school populations are mostly the sparsely-populated states of the West.

But other than the American School Directory, there is no national data base one can query with some fairly simple questions and receive quick answers. For example:

1. What about the public/private percentage on a county-by-county basis in particular states? Would this show any pattern in any state?
2. What about the public/private/Catholic percentages on a state-by-state or county-by-county basis? Would this show any patterns?

One of these days it may be possible to query the American School Directory's data base for answers to these questions. Until then, we can only pose some highly conditional answers based upon the Mississippi data.

1. It appears that the Heritage Foundation figure of 14 percent is higher than it should be to provide a good average for the number of private school students across the country (see above).
2. It should be noted however, that out of the limited Mississippi sample, Amite County's (14,000 population) private to public ratio is 24.86%, Carroll County's (10,000 population) private to public ratio is 38.77%, and Wilkinson County's (9,000 population) private to public ratio is 30.45%.
3. On the other hand, Madison County (66,000 population) has a private to public ratio of 14.1% private, which is approximately the same ratio as Yazoo County's (25,000 population) 14.66%. Calhoun County, which is about the same size as Amite has a much lower private to public ratio of 12.16% private, and the ratio of the slightly smaller Claiborne County (12,000 population) is just 9.98% private (the state average).
4. When we include Private and Catholic students together, as in Adams County, the ratio of Private and Catholic students to Public School students goes up from 16.56% (Private only) to 25.7% (Private and Catholic).

In Mississippi, there are 503,967 public school students and about 50,000 students in private secular and religious schools. There are, according to the American School Directory, 38 Catholic Schools and 134 Private Schools in Mississippi. The state has 82 Counties and there are Private Schools in 63 of the 82 Counties. In the selected counties below, P=pre-school, K=kindergarten, ES=elementary school, MS=middle school, HS=high school, JSHS=junior and senior high school.

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Adams County, population of about 35,000 people. Private to public students ratio is 1103/6659=16.56% private.

The ratio of private and Catholic students to public students is (1103+819)/7478 =25.7% private and Catholic.

Adams County Christian -Private-700 PK-12

Marantha-Private-3-PK-12

Trinity Episcopal-Private-400-PK-12

PRIVATE=1103

Cathedral Unit School-Catholic-713-K-12

Holy Family Elem - Catholic-106-PK-6

CATHOLIC= 819

Natchez High-Public-1400-9-12

Central Alternative-Public-115-2-10

Natchez Middle-Public-920-7-8

J.L. Frazier Elem. Public-600-PK-1

McLaurin Elem Public-931-2-6

Morgantown Elem Public-1140-2-6

West Primary Public-450-PK-1

PUBLIC=5556

TOTAL=7478

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Amite County- population of about 14,000. Private to public students ratio is 825/3318=24.86% private

Amite Sch Ctr-Private-350-K-12

Pine Hills Academy-Private-225-K-12

Union Academy-Private-250-K-12

PRIVATE= 825

Amite County HS-Public-573-9-12

Amite Vocational Complex-Public-600-10-12

Gloster Elem -Public-570-K-8

Liberty Elem-Public-750-K-8

PUBLIC=2493

TOTAL=3318

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Calhoun County-population of about 15,000. Private to public students ratio is 360/2960=12.16% private.

Calhoun Acad-Priv-360-K-12

PRIVATE=360

Calhoun City ES-Pub-330-K-4

Calhoun City HS-Pub-150-9-12

Calhoun City MS-Pub-305-6-8

Bruce Elem Pub-500-K-4

Bruce HS -Pub-350-9-12

Bruce MS-Pub-450-5-8

Vardaman Elem Pub-380-K-6

Vardaman HS - Pub-135-9-12

PUBLIC=2600

TOTAL=2960

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Carroll County-about 10,000 population. Private to public students ratio is 577/1488= 38.77% private.

Carroll Academy-Priv-552-1-12

Liberty Christian Acad-Priv-25-1-12

PRIVATE=577

Hathorn ES-Pub-250-K-6

JZ George JSHS-Pub-30-7-12

Marshall ES-Pub-381-K-6

Vaiden JSHS-Pub-250-7-12

PUBLIC=911

TOTAL=1488

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Claiborne County-about 12,000 population. Private to public students ratio is 250/2505=9.98%

Chamberlain Hunt Acad.-Priv-160-7-12

Claiborne Edu Found-Priv-90-K-6

PRIVATE=250

A.W. Watson ES-Pub-979-K-5

Port Gibson HS-Pub-704-9-12

Port Gibson MS-Pub-572-6-8

PUBLIC=2255

TOTAL=2505

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Madison County about 66,000 population. Private to public students ratio is 405/2885=14.1% private.

Canton Academy-Priv-405-K-12

PRIVATE=405

Canton Career Ctr-Pub-300-10-12

Canton ES-Pub-1000-2-4

Canton HS-Pub-1180-8-12

PUBLIC=2480

TOTAL=2885

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Wilkinson County about 9,000 population. Private to public students ratio is 835/2742=30.45% private

Centreville Academy-Priv-435-K-12

Wilkinson County Christian-Priv-400-K-12

PRIVATE=835

Finch ES Public-290-K-6

M.Luther King C &T Public-150-9-12

Wilkinson County ES-Public-711-K-6

Wilkinson County HS-Public-756-7-12

PUBLIC=1907

TOTAL=2742

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Yazoo County - about 25,000 population. Private to public students ratio is 957/6527 =14.66% private.

Benton Academy-Priv-475-K-12

Covenant Chris Sch-Priv-165-PK-7

Manchester Academy-Priv-300-PK-12

Thomas Chris. Academy-Priv-17-K-12

PRIVATE=957

Annie Ellis ES Pub-296-K-2

Bentonia Gibbs ES Pub-579-K-8

Holly Bluff ES Pub-95-K-6

Linwood S Pub-530-K-8

Webster St ES Pub-670-K-2

Woolfolk ES-1372-3-6

Yazoo City HS-875-9-12

Yazoo City JHS Pub-520-7-8

Yazoo City Voc Cmplx Pub-198-11-12

Yazoo Cty HS-435-9-12

PUBLIC=5570

TOTAL=6527

Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

American Education Reform Council

American Enterprise Institute

American Legislative Exchange Council

Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education

Cato Institute

Center for Education Reform

CEO America

Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF)

Christian Coalition

Citizens for Educational Freedom

The Claremont Institute

The Edison Project

Education Leaders Council

Education Policy Institute

Empower America

Family Research Council

The Heartland Institute

The Heritage Foundation

The Hudson Institute

Institute for Independent Education

Institute for Justice

Landmark Legal Foundation

Manhattan Institute

Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation

National Center for Policy Analysis

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc

Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy

Reason Public Policy Institute

State Policy Network

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

Toussaint Institute Fund