by Nancy Loome, Mississippi Today
June 24, 2025

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Mississippi’s public school teachers and students keep racking up wins for our state.

A few months ago, we received terrific news regarding the latest national test scores. Our fourth-graders earned a ninth-in-the-nation overall ranking in reading and 16^th place in math. Mississippi students did similarly well on state tests, achieving the highest proficiency rates ever logged on those assessments.

The recently released Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT 2025 Data Book now ranks Mississippi 16th in the nation for education — an incredible leap from 30th in 2024 and 32nd in 2023.

National media outlets have proclaimed our students’ remarkable rise in academic proficiency to be the “Mississippi Miracle,” inspiring other states’ education leaders to ask how they can be more like us.

Without a doubt, the progress made in Mississippi’s public schools is a direct result of the tireless efforts of our public school teachers and students. Their impressive work has been bolstered by tens of thousands of parents and community leaders who have been standing in the gap for decades, fighting for better school resources and, importantly, against the billionaire-backed campaign to undermine public education through private school voucher programs.

Other states have fallen victim to the voucher lobby, swayed by the millions of dollars spent pressuring them to adopt so-called “school choice” policies. Mississippi’s legislators, however, have resisted school choice, standing with their constituents and refusing to gamble with our children’s futures, thereby avoiding the financial and academic pitfalls suffered in states that embraced voucher schemes. 

But a piece of legislation moving through Congress poses a significant threat to our state’s education progress.

The sweeping federal budget bill, HR 1 (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), includes a dangerous provision that would impose a nationwide tax-credit voucher program, overriding the will of states like Mississippi and threatening our historic progress. 

These few paragraphs tucked into a massive federal budget bill would jeopardize the gains our students have worked so hard to achieve while adding $5 billion a year to the federal deficit.

Mississippi isn’t alone in opposing school choice schemes. Voters across the country have rejected voucher proposals every single time they’ve appeared on statewide ballots. Unfortunately, some state legislatures have ignored their constituents in favor of voucher lobbyists and donors, legislating voucher programs with devastating consequences: severe state budget shortfalls and flagging student achievement. In fact, every state named by EdChoice as a “Top 10 School Choice State” has seen academic performance decline precipitously while Mississippi’s results keep rising.

If HR 1 were to become law with the voucher provision intact, it would set Mississippi back decades and establish a dangerous precedent: allowing private interests to decide which of the country’s children will be educated with federal dollars.

The bill already has passed the House and now awaits action in the Senate where Mississippi’s own senators —  Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith — could play a critical role in removing the tax-credit voucher language from the legislation. Both senators enjoy significant influence in the U.S. Senate, influence that is heightened in this case by what is expected to be a very close vote. 

We urge them to consider these key points:

1. Mississippians have rejected vouchers time and again and do not want them forced on us by the federal government.
2. The tax-credit voucher plan in HR 1 would reverse years of progress in our public schools.
3. The proposed tax-credit voucher program would add $5 billion to the federal deficit annually — for a program Mississippians don’t want.

Nancy Loome is executive director of The Parents’ Campaign (msparentscampaign.org) and president of The Parents’ Campaign Research & Education Fund (tpcref.org). She and her husband Jim have three grown children, all of whom graduated from Clinton Public Schools.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Advocate: Big federal bill's voucher provision is not beautiful for Mississippi education appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Left-Leaning

This article expresses a clear ideological stance opposing federal school voucher programs, portraying them as harmful to Mississippi’s public education progress. The language praises public schools, teachers, and community efforts while criticizing the influence of “billionaire-backed” voucher campaigns and framing the federal bill’s voucher provision as a threat. It emphasizes voters’ rejection of vouchers and highlights negative consequences in states that adopted such policies, suggesting a preference for public education funding and skepticism of privatization efforts. The tone and framing indicate a left-leaning perspective supportive of public schools and critical of school choice initiatives promoted by conservative interests.

by JPMorgan Chase, Mississippi Today
June 23, 2025

A new school year will be here before we know it, which represents more than just a return to the classroom. It presents an opportunity to instill essential life skills, like financial literacy. This season is an ideal time for parents to introduce their kids to the fundamentals of money management, including saving, budgeting, and responsible spending. 

To help prepare for the year ahead, Chase is hosting a Back-to-School Family Finance event that will feature fun activities, financial health workshops, and more for kids of all ages. 

• When—Saturday, June 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Where—Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (222 North St., #2205, Jackson, MS 39201)
• What—Attendees will enjoy free haircuts, interactive games, and financial health activities designed for all ages to learn the importance of budgeting, smart spending, and the valuable resources available to them. Plus, while supplies last, students will receive a free backpack filled with school supplies.

In addition to joining Chase at the June 28 event, here are a few important lessons parents and kids can learn to help on the first day of school and beyond.

Start With Saving

Whether it’s allowance, gifts, or earnings from a summer job, teaching kids to track and save their money is essential in developing good financial habits. Saving toward specific goals and understanding the time it takes to reach those can help children grasp the true value of money.

Chase provides families with the tools and resources to make saving easy, like Autosave, by setting up automatic monthly transfers from your Chase checking account to your savings account. All managed through the ﷟Chase Mobile® App, parents can help their child set a savings goal to ensure they build a strong financial foundation. 

Next, Begin Budgeting 

As you approach the tween and teen years, financial needs and desires for independence will evolve. They might take on part-time jobs, save up for larger goals (like a car), and begin managing more of their own finances. This is a great opportunity for them to learn the basics of budgeting. 

Chase’s Monthly Budgeting Worksheets help make this process simple. Start by entering monthly income and expenses to help your teen differentiate “needs” and “wants.” This helps them see where their money is going and is important as they begin cashing and spending their first paychecks.

Then, Grow Their Finances 

Transitioning from high school to college or stepping into the real-world post-graduation comes with a new set of responsibilities. Amidst managing studies, jobs, and future planning, young adults need both guidance and practical tools to help.

The Chase Mobile app tracks earnings, savings, and expenses, and makes it easy to send and receive money with Zelle^®.  

Just as kids progress from one grade to the next, they can grow their understanding and management of money too. Opening their first bank account is a great complement to these financial lessons. Check out Chase First Banking^SM, Chase High School Checking^SM, and Chase College Checking^SM, to see which account works best for your student or, learn more at chase.com/StudentBanking.

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to connect, learn, and prepare for the school year. We look forward to seeing you there!

Chase Mobile^® app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply.

Zelle and Zelle related marks are wholly owned by Early Warning Services, LLC and are used herein under license. 

Bank deposit accounts, such as checking and savings, may be subject to approval.

JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Financial Fun in the Sun: Summer Money Lessons for the Whole Family appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a neutral, factual overview of financial literacy initiatives targeted at families and students, without promoting a particular ideological stance. The content is educational and practical, focusing on empowering parents and children with money management skills. It highlights resources from a major financial institution (JPMorgan Chase) and describes community events, tools, and services in a straightforward manner. There is no loaded language or partisan framing, and the article refrains from advocating specific political or economic policies, instead emphasizing universally accepted personal finance principles and community engagement.

by Anita Lee, Sun Herald and Taylor Vance, Mississippi Today
June 23, 2025

Politically connected members of a Mississippi company have fallen out with their Georgia partner in what promised to be a profitable business to snare uninsured motorists with cameras and artificial intelligence. 

A company that the three Mississippians formed, QJR LLC, is suing its partner in the uninsured motorist ticketing venture, Georgia-based Securix LLC. QJR represents the first initials of its members: Quinton Dickerson, Josh Gregory and Robert Wilkinson.

Dickerson and Gregory are Republican political operatives in Jackson who have run numerous state and local campaigns and advise many of the state’s top elected officials. Wilkinson, a Coast attorney, has represented local governments and government agencies.

But Judge Neil Harris has sealed the case, leaving the public in the dark about the specifics. Mississippi Today has filed a motion in the case, arguing that the file should be opened to the public.

An attorney representing the three Mississippians said in a document submitted in federal court, where the case was temporarily moved, “The case involves highly sensitive issues implicating local officials, reputational harm, and ongoing injunctive relief.”

The uninsured motorist program that Securix brought to Mississippi proved contentious from the start. In Ocean Springs, some vehicle owners were angry when they learned artificial intelligence had been used to ticket them for driving without insurance.

The Securix program has resulted in several lawsuits, including one in federal court that accuses Securix of deceiving vehicle owners by essentially posing as a law enforcement agency through its mailed citations in Ocean Springs. By April 2023, the city had canceled its contract with Securix LLC.

And there is the secret Chancery Court file. A January 2025 transcript in federal court hints that politics are involved in the chancery case and also describes what that lawsuit is about.

The transcript says the Mississippians, operating as QJR LLC, are suing Securix in Chancery Court for defamation.

“They (QJR) want to stop the defamation from ruining political careers,” an attorney for Securix said. “That’s their argument.”

The chancery lawsuit, the federal transcript says, also seeks to dissolve Securix Mississippi LLC,  a 50-50 partnership QJR and Securix formed to spread the program to other cities.

Securix attempted to move the Chancery Court case to federal court, but a federal judge ruled in January that he didn’t have jurisdiction and returned it to Chancery Court. 

The federal transcript says Securix Mississippi pulled in $1.3 million in a year through uninsured motorist citations but, at the time of the hearing, had less than $75,000 in assets. The judge also noted that “revenue has fallen off a cliff since August of 2024 for Securix Mississippi LLC.”

August 2024 also happens to be when the Department of Public Safety pulled the plug on the program, DPS records show.

DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell, whose agency oversees uninsured motorist enforcement, had reservations from the start about a private company ticketing motorists. Complaints about how the program was being operated, he said, prompted him to cut off Securix’s access to the data it needed to determine whether a vehicle was insured.

While QJR was successful in getting the chancery case sealed, the company had no such luck when it tried to have the federal transcript closed from public view.

A federal magistrate judge ruled on QJR’s motion to seal the transcript, citing federal court cases that said: “The public’s right of access to judicial proceedings is fundamental,” and, “Judicial records belong to the American people; they are public, not private, documents.”

Uninsured motorist program launches in MS

Securix LLC was incorporated in Delaware in 2018 and signed its first Mississippi contract in May 2021 with Shea Dobson, then the mayor of Ocean Springs, after approval by the Board of Aldermen.

Securix, based in Georgia, uses automatic license plate readers, usually mounted on traffic signals, to capture images of license plates. With the help of artificial intelligence, Securix can extract license plate numbers from the images. 

Jonathan Miller, an owner of Securix LLC, initially came to Mississippi and talked to Ocean Springs Police Chief Mark Dunston about the program, said Dunston, who has since retired. Dunston presented the program to the Board of Aldermen, he said, and was later paid by Securix to present the program in other cities during off hours and after his retirement.

It is unclear when Miller met Josh Gregory and Quinton Dickerson, who did not want to comment for the story because the Chancery Court case is sealed. Miller, the chairman of Securix LLC, is also a named defendant in QJR’s lawsuit. He also declined to comment about matters involving the litigation. 

Gregory and Dickerson both worked on former Gov. Haley Barbour’s 2003 political campaign, then formed Ridgeland-based Frontier Strategies. Gregory was a top political adviser to former Gov. Phil Bryant. 

Billed as a full-service advertising agency, Frontier landed a lucrative state contract shortly after Barbour took office in 2004, within six months of the company’s formation. The company has gone on to contract with other state agencies and work on state and local political campaigns.

The third member of QJR, Robert Wilkinson, was serving as city attorney for Ocean Springs when Dobson signed its Securix contract. Wilkinson said he met Miller at that time but they did not have a business relationship until six to 10 months after Ocean Springs signed on with Miller’s company.

Wilkinson said he was impressed with the Securix program because it added cameras in the city that could also alert law enforcement officers to crimes, such as kidnappings or wanted suspects on the loose.

“That’s why everyone was fired up,” he said.

Another reason some welcomed the program is because Mississippi has a high rate of uninsured drivers, according to the nonprofit Insurance Research Council. In 2023, the latest year for which statistics were available, the institute reported that Mississippi had the highest rate of uninsured drivers in the nation at 28.2%.

“Unisured motorists in Mississippi is a big problem and I think we need to do more to solve that issue,” DPS Commissioner Tindell said.

“It does create a situation where everybody has to pay more for insurance because there are so many people without it.”

Vehicle owners sue Securix

Securix used its program to identify and ticket the owners of uninsured vehicles, federal court records show. Data on insured motorists was essential to the program.

Under state law, Tindell’s office maintains the Mississippi Vehicle Insurance Verification System — bulk data on the state’s insured motorists that is regularly updated. DPS operates and maintains the system through third-party vendor HDI Solutions Inc.

Law enforcement officers use the system all the time. When they run a license plate, the system lets an officer know if the vehicle is insured. But agencies generally do not have access to HDI’s bulk data.

Initially, Commissioner Tindell was unwilling to commit his agency — and its HDI data — to the Securix program. 

“I don’t know that it’s necessarily the best policy to privatize our court system with diversion programs,” Tindell said. “I think those are government functions.”

Tindell also questioned whether a camera could be used to issue a ticket to an uninsured driver. State law says law enforcement agencies can access the system only during traffic stops and accident investigations. And state law forbids using the system’s insurance information as the only reason for a traffic stop.

He also was unsure whether a city could set up a diversion program through a private company.

For its initial foray into Mississippi with the city of Ocean Springs, Securix reached a data-sharing agreement directly with HDI, a letter from an HDI attorney shows.

“We basically said we’re not going to object to it,” Tindell said, “but that’s something y’all need to work out yourselves.”

With access to insured driver data, Securix began sending out citations from its Ocean Springs cameras.

If a vehicle was not listed as being insured, a ticket went to the owner. The system did not identify the person driving the vehicle.

On their face, the citations claimed to be uniform traffic tickets that, at first glance, appeared to be from the police department. 

Soon enough, Securix faced a federal lawsuit filed by three Mississippi residents ticketed as uninsured motorists. 

They are seeking class-action status to represent thousands of individuals who they believe received citations from Securix. In just a few months, the lawsuit says, 6,000 people were ticketed in Ocean Springs alone.

“Pretending to be law enforcement,” the lawsuit says,”defendant (Securix LLC) has made millions of dollars collecting fees from individuals who allegedly violated state uninsured vehicle laws.”

In a response filed in federal court, Securix denies any wrongdoing, saying the company “at all times acted in good faith” and followed state law.

The Ocean Springs citation offered three options: Call a toll-free number and provide proof of insurance, enter a diversion program that charges a $300 fee and includes a short online course and requires agreement that the vehicle will not be driven uninsured on public roadways, or contest the ticket in court and risk $510 in fines and fees, plus the potential of a one-year driver’s license suspension.

Court fight over uninsured motorist data

After signing the contract in Ocean Springs, Securix LLC began working with Josh Gregory and Robert Wilkinson to sign up other cities.

Company leaders convinced Pearl, Biloxi and Senatobia to join the program.  

Josh Gregory and Robert Wilkinson pitched the program in Senatobia, March 2022 minutes from the Board of Aldermen’s meeting show. Gregory told aldermen that 70% of the public response to the program was positive in Ocean Springs.

Senatobia even took the Department of Public Safety to Circuit Court, filing a lawsuit in Tate County that demanded access to the state agency’s insured driver data.

By the time the city and DPS reached a settlement agreement in August of 2023, HDI had cut off Securix’s access to insured driver data. 

An HDI attorney sent Securix LLC a default notice in December 2022. An HDI review showed Securix personnel issued citations in Ocean Springs without first having a police officer run the license plate information through the insurance verification system, a contract requirement, the notice said. 

The notice required Securix LLC to submit a corrective action plan and document the company’s future contract compliance.

In March 2023, HDI terminated its agreement with Securix LLC. The termination letter said Securix had failed to respond to the notice of termination or submit a corrective action plan. Securix, through chairman Jonathan Miller, later maintained that an Ocean Springs police officer, not the company, authorized each citation.

Months later, the Securix settlement agreement with DPS stipulated that HDI would be authorized to once again provide Securix access to the insurance verification system.

Senatobia came to count on the revenue, board meeting minutes show. But the program would not last — in Senatobia or any other Mississippi city.

Securix program falls apart

In early August 2024, Tindell received a letter from Jonathan Miller of Securix LLC that raised questions about the way the program was operating, Tindell said.

“Based upon his letter, we had concerns that there wasn’t a proper law enforcement control system in place,” he said.

Tindell sent HDI a letter at the end of the same month that mentioned questions had been raised about the Securix program. Tindell asked HDI to “immediately discontinue sharing or providing data relating to any programs involving Securix or QJR.”

QJR filed its lawsuit to dissolve the company less than a month later. In the civil litigation, QJR is also alleging Miller has defamed the Mississippi business partners, which Miller has denied.

Although the chancery case is sealed, Securix and Securix Mississippi have been unable to avoid publicity.  E. Brian Rose, managing editor of the website GCWire and a former congressional candidate, has written numerous pieces about Securix’s business deals. 

But access to the Chancery Court file could give the public more information about the automatic license plate reading business.

In its motion to unseal the file, Mississippi Today attorney Henry Laird asks Harris to hold a hearing that gives the news outlet a chance to argue the file should be opened, as case law has established.

At the hearing, Harris would also need to consider alternatives to closing the file.

“Even if the on-the record-evidence would be so compelling so as to allow the court to redact specific documents or place them under seal,” Laird argues in his motion, quoting a pertinent case, that ‘does not warrant sealing the entire case  from public view’.”

This article was produced in partnership between the Sun Herald and Mississippi Today.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Private business ticketed uninsured Mississippi vehicle owners. Then the program blew up. appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

This article reports on a complex business and legal dispute involving politically connected Republican operatives and a private company running an uninsured motorist ticketing program in Mississippi. The tone is largely factual and investigative, focusing on the controversy without overt editorializing. However, by highlighting the political ties of QJR LLC’s founders and the legal conflicts surrounding the privatization of traffic enforcement, it subtly underscores tensions between private enterprise and public oversight, reflecting concerns often raised in center-right discourse about government functions versus private-sector roles. Overall, it maintains a primarily neutral stance with slight center-right contextual framing.