Admit it: Tennessee Senate and House are at odds on school vouchers. It's time to move on
In late February, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson dismissed reports that their chambers were at odds on Gov. Bill Lee's school vouchers expansion proposal.
They were addressing the winter convention of the Tennessee Press Association (of which I'm a board member), and I'm the journalist who asked them the question regarding whether reports about the House and Senate's competing interests were true.
It’s nearly two months later and either they downplayed the impending logjam or they failed to see that they would be at an impasse as the end of the 2024 legislative session nears.
If the Republican super majority in the Tennessee General Assembly cannot agree on the governor's signature legislation, that spells trouble.
Given the opposition from municipalities and school boards in urban and rural areas alike, lawmakers are recognizing the reality that their constituents are not enthusiastic about the plan, and that is a sign to put a pause on it for the year.
Counterpoint: School choice expansion helps Tennessee parents who have been waiting for better options
Lee's 'simple' plan has turned into something very complicated
What Lee wanted seemed simple when he formally announced the Education Freedom Scholarship Act last November at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville. He brought in fellow Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders from Arkansas to tout that state's success with school choice.
Here is what was supposed to happen:
The program would grow from 2,400 low-to-middle income students in Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton counties getting $9,000 scholarships to 20,000 students in all 95 counties receiving $7,075 scholarships
The cost would rise from $21.6 million to $141.5 million
Parents could use the money at private, parochial and home school settings
At last fall’s event, Sexton and Senate Speaker Randy McNally all but expressed assurance that the governor's plan would pass.
It's not unusual for a governor's plan to get tweaked by lawmakers, but in SB 503/HB 1183, senators and House members are far apart.
Senators want students who accept the vouchers to take state achievement tests and allow for out-of-county public school enrollment. Lee is not requiring testing.
Meanwhile, the House has proposed a massive education reform bill -- involving testing, educator assessments and teacher benefits -- that just happens to pay for the voucher expansion.
Even Cameron Sexton voted against the first vouchers plan
Governor Lee said funding for his proposal would not come out of the state education budget.
However, critics, including Democratic lawmakers, academics and parent group leaders in Arizona and Florida where expansive school vouchers programs exist already, decry the plan for a number of reasons.
Aside from accusations that this is an attempt to dismantle public education, they raise serious concerns about whether lower-income students who accept vouchers improve academically and that once income requirements go away, the money essentially subsidizes people who already send their child to private school.
Lee's original Education Savings Account proposal for Shelby and Davidson counties barely passed the legislature in 2019, and it required cajoling a Republican Knoxville lawmaker, Rep. Jason Zachary, into changing his vote.
Cameron Sexton was not Speaker of the House at the time, but even he voted against the plan then.
A majority of lawmakers felt good about conducting this experiment on Nashville and Memphis, and later Chattanooga.
Now that it involves every single part of Tennessee, many are now squeamish.
That's clearly a sign this is not the right thing to do at this time. Lawmakers should kill this voucher expansion proposal for this session.
David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters.. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at [email protected] or tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee school voucher expansion should be scrapped
