State Legislature Passes School Voucher Bill

The highly debated Educated Freedom Scholarship Act (commonly known as the school voucher program) headed to Governor Bill Lee’s desk last week after lawmakers passed it on the fourth day of a special session in Nashville.

Tennessee Senators passed the school voucher bill in a 20-13 vote Thursday afternoon after debate and discussion about its possible impact on the state. Earlier in the day, the House of Representatives passed a version of the proposal that included an amendment requiring local school boards to formally approve the voucher program to access $2,000 bonuses for teachers. Before that amendment, the teacher bonuses included in the bill would have effectively been given to teachers automatically.

Governor Lee, who has frequently voiced his support for the program, was expected to sign the bill quickly. Shortly after it passed the House and Senate, the governor posted to social media that Tennessee had achieved a “milestone in advancing education.”

“For more than a year, I have worked in partnership with the General Assembly to introduce a unified school choice plan that empowers parents when it comes to their child's education and further invests in Tennessee’s public schools and teachers,” Lee said in a statement last week. “Every child deserves an opportunity for success regardless of their income or ZIP code, and I look forward to delivering on this promise with the Education Freedom Act.”

The first year the program goes into effect, 20,000 scholarships (vouchers) will be awarded. Half of those will be income-based; a family of four must make less than $173,000 per year to qualify. The other 10,000 slots will have no income limit.

The program will use public money to fund some private education expenses. It will provide $7,075 – which is the base amount paid per student by the state to public school districts each year - for each student, depending on their individual needs and backgrounds. In effect, public schools will not continue to receive the $7,075 funding per student for those who receive the vouchers to attend a private school.

While a majority of Tennessee lawmakers and Governor Bill Lee supported it as a way to improve school choice in the state, the bill was criticized and opposed by educators across the state. Many described the bill as a way to subsidize the cost of private schools for students who already attend them.

Opponents of the bill said the proposal leaves out rural communities such as Wayne County that do not have private school options and provides scholarships that do not cover the entire cost of attending private school.

Wayne County Director of Schools, Dr. Ricky Inman, voiced his concerns regarding the voucher program at the Wayne County Commission meeting on January 21. Dr. Inman explained a component of the bill to The Wayne County News on the day the bill passed – students may choose to use their voucher for an online accredited private school in the state. This could potentially impact Wayne County schools much more, since no brick-and-mortar private schools are located nearby. Dr. Inman pointed out that Wayne County already offers a virtual school option to students at no cost. The Wayne County public school system receives $7,075 from the state each year for virtual school students, as they do for in-person learning.

Dr. Inman went on to point out that the program is estimated to cost the state $863 million over the first five years. “I’m not at all opposed to students having a school choice,” said Dr. Inman. “I’m just opposed to taxpayers having to pay for it.”

Legislators representing Wayne County split their votes on the bill Thursday, with Senator Page Walley voting against the bill. “Our public schools are going to lose a significant amount of funding from the state as a result of the voucher program,” Senator Walley told The News. “Tennesseans simply can’t afford this expensive program, and it hasn’t been shown to work in improving academic performance or importance anywhere it has been implemented.”

" I believe that government derives its power from the consent of the governed," Sen. Walley continued. "Wayne Countians overwhelmingly told me they were opposed to this voucher plan to use public tax dollars for private school tuition. The idea of risking taxpayer dollars in every county on something not shown to work yet, while jeopardizing public school funding, was not what our citizens wanted."

Representative Kip Capley voted in favor of the bill on Thursday. The News reached out to Representative Capley’s office for comment, but his assistant said Mr. Capley would not be making any comments on his vote at this time. He is expected to issue a statement within a couple of weeks.

The Tennessee Education Association released a statement that said educators were disheartened by the way the proposal passed through the legislature. “Assurances that public schools will not be adversely affected by this program are impossible to keep, as seen in other states who have created similar programs.”