The oft-repeated mantra of the school choice crowd, or those wanting to give public funds to private schools, is that public education needs competition.

They might be right.

There may be nothing better for public education than competition – competition among legislators trying to outdo each other to provide funds for public education.

On the opening day of the 2026 session, the Mississippi Senate passed a bill that would provide public school teachers a $2,000 per year pay bump. Not to be outdone, the House passed its own bill last week that would provide a $5,000 per year raise for public school teachers, plus an additional $3,000 raise for special education teachers.

The House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, would eventually need to agree on a single plan to send to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. At this point, it is hard to fathom that the final pay raise for teachers will be much less, if any less, than $5,000.

Once that carrot is dangled, it will be hard to take back.

And if the Legislature eventually agrees on the House’s $5,000 proposal, coupled with the teacher pay raise passed by the Legislature in 2022, it would indeed be historic.

Two raises approved over a four-year span would come close to rivaling the multi-year teacher salary increase passed by the Legislature more than two decades ago.

In the 2000 session, at the behest of Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved a $338 million pay raise that was fully enacted in 2005. At the time, teacher pay increased from an average of $31,892 per year to $41,445, or a jump of 30%, according to reporting by the New York Times from the 2000s.

The new proposal approved by the House would increase the average teacher salary by little less than 10% .

This year’s $5,000 pay raise would come on top of the 2022 legislation that increased teacher salaries an average of $5,140 a year, or or a little more than this year’s House plan.

The historic 2000 pay raise came after Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck and House Speaker Tim Ford, both Democrats, said the state could not afford it. They spoke in unison, until Tuck (who would become a Republican more than two years later) got cold feet and reversed her position during the 2000 session and called for moving teacher pay to the Southeastern average without telling Ford. The speaker responded by saying he would support moving teacher pay to the national average – an example of legislative competition at work. 

Mississippi has raised teacher pay multiple other times through the years, perhaps most notably in 1988 under Democratic Gov. Ray Mabus when the average salary for teachers was increased 18%, according to The Associated Press.

Despite all these efforts, Mississippi teacher salaries have perpetually remained near or at the bottom nationally. House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, a Starkville Republican, said the additional $5,000 the House is proposing this year would move the state to near the top in pay for starting teachers at $46,500 annually.

“But remember, this is a moving target,” Roberson said, explaining that other states are not standing still. He said legislators must revisit the issue constantly.

It is of note that the House leadership passed the pay raise out of committee on a key deadline day and then quickly passed it on the floor without a dissenting vote.

Before the recent action on the pay raise, the signature effort of House Speaker Jason White and his leadership team during the 2026 session in terms of public education was the thus far unsuccessful efforts to take public funds and direct them to private schools. Many argued that making public schools compete directly with private schools for state funds would force them to improve.

There is little evidence of that in other states. As a matter of fact, some states with strong voucher systems have seen student test scores regressing, while Mississippi has seen academic improvement in public schools even as it provides only limited opportunities for public money to be spent in private schools.

But it does appear that competition among legislative leaders to garner credit for supporting public education is real. 

White’s aggressive effort to pass the public funds to private schools legislation has sparked the ire of many public education advocates.

Whether that was the intent or not, White most likely would say it was not, he and his leadership team needed an action to elicit good will among public education advocates.

The pay raise does that.

As stated earlier, competition can be good – even for the public schools.