School vouchers are big in Arizona and Florida, but Tennessee should not follow suit

Dear Tennessee Voters:

Hi from sunny Arizona and Florida!

As parents and educators, we wish the message we had for you were brighter, but unfortunately, our states provide gloomy cautionary tales of what not to do when it comes to education.

As your lawmakers face a massive push for vouchers at your state Capitol, we want to alert you to the devastating impacts vouchers have had on our states.

Arizona and Florida are considered “No. 1 in school choice” by the dark money special interests that have spent millions to push vouchers onto our states.

This means public schools are underfunded in service of private school vouchers. Rural students and low-income families have fewer quality choices, while richer suburban families use vouchers as a coupon for the private education they were already paying for. And it means billion-dollar price tags for taxpayers, with no accountability, no transparency, and no return on investment.

Counterpoint: When I was a student, school choice benefited me and it will help Tennessee children too

Vouchers will affect all of Tennessee, not just Nashville and Memphis

We hear lawmakers in Nashville are trying to say they’ll “do it better” in your great state. But voucher lobbyists are solely interested in forcing through publicly funded vouchers in order to privatize the school system and dismantle public schools.

They like to start small, with targeted programs for low-income students, but once the voucher door is opened in your state, it’s almost impossible to close, and millions will be spent to inch it ever wider each year.

For your state, this could cost over $700 million. Their goal is universal vouchers, and low-income students, children of color and students with disabilities are deprioritized. To be clear, vouchers do not facilitate “parent choice”; private schools are the ones choosing which students they let in and which they reject. This will accelerate taxpayer funded segregation.

Voucher lobbyists like to say it’s a Memphis or Nashville issue — but that’s a downright lie. State education funding all comes from the same pot, and more funding for elite private schools means less funding for rural and low-income schools.

Here’s our school vouchers experience in Arizona

Arizona is now reeling from the impacts of universal vouchers, which are siphoning nearly $1 billion out of our local public schools this year.

School districts are forced to make horrific decisions between shutting down schools, laying off hundreds of teachers, slashing bus routes, or firing counselors or social workers.

Our class sizes are growing exponentially, while our buildings and buses fall into disrepair.

Our Attorney General has also announced major cases of fraud in the past month that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the voucher program.

This is our school vouchers experience in Florida

Florida spends over $4 billion of taxpayer money a year on private schools, over 65% are not accredited, requiring parents to check with their students’ prospective colleges to ensure their diploma will even be accepted.

Homeschool families who receive vouchers are free to purchase large-screen TVs, paddle boards, vacations, and other extravagant items while public schools don’t have basic school supplies such as paper and pencils.

Our traditional public schools are forced to maximize class sizes, cut enrichment programs, and limit access to accelerated courses just to reduce costs.

Keep the promise of public education in Tennessee

Tennesseans don’t want school vouchers – 44 school boards have already passed resolutions opposing the legislature’s proposal.

Fight back against the voucher scheme. Invest richly in local public schools as the most important economic driver for your state. Innovate from within.

Pay your teachers and administrators like the professionals they are.  Keep the promise of public education — we promise your state will be better off.

Beth Lewis is a mom, educator, K-12 policy expert, and director of Save Our Schools Arizona, which fights for fully and equitably funded public schools for every Arizona child.

Damaris Allen is executive director of Families for Strong Public Schools in Florida.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Beware, Tennessee: School vouchers are failing in Arizona and Florida