Gov. Bill Lee talks with students attending a summer learning program at Battle Academy, a public school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on June 18, 2024. His revised universal private school voucher proposal, which stalled in the state legislature in 2024, will go before lawmakers again in 2025. (Courtesy of the State of Tennessee)
Seven months after Gov. Bill Lee’s first universal school voucher bill died over disagreements within the legislature’s Republican supermajority, GOP leaders were unified as they introduced new legislation Wednesday.
House and Senate majority leaders William Lamberth and Jack Johnson filed identical bills to create Education Freedom Scholarships giving $7,075 each in public funding for a private education for up to 20,000 students, beginning next fall.
Recipients in grades 3-11 would be required to take a national or state standardized achievement test to track the program’s effectiveness.
In an effort to garner support among public school advocates, the proposal calls for giving every public school teacher in Tennessee a one-time $2,000 bonus. It also would direct 80 percent of tax revenues from Tennessee’s new sports betting industry toward local school building costs, especially for emergency needs and for 38 rural counties designated as distressed or at risk.
In a statement, the governor said he looks forward to delivering on his promise for more education choices for parents.
“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.
Both Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton issued statements of support.
The bills were the first legislation introduced for the next General Assembly to consider when it convenes Jan. 14, signaling the governor’s intention to make the issue his top legislative priority for a second straight year.
The proposal arrived one day after pivotal elections in which vouchers were an issue in numerous legislative races across Tennessee, and on the ballot in other states. Republicans retained their grip on both of Tennessee’s legislative chambers, while voters in Colorado,Kentucky, and Nebraska rejected measures that would have steered public dollars toward private schools.
Lee is expected to speak with reporters later Wednesday about his latest plan, including whether he intends to call a special session in January to focus on it exclusively.
The governor successfully pushed for a 2019 law to create a smaller voucher program in Nashville and Memphis, which has since expanded to Chattanooga. The state comptroller’s first report on that “pilot” program’s effectiveness is due Jan. 1, 2026.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Gov. Bill Lee says he is OK with outside groups spending big on Tennessee legislative races featuring candidates who support his universal private school voucher plan.
“We have a really smart electorate, and I believe in the power of people to sort through the information, as long as it’s accurate,” Lee said on Friday after speaking at a workforce development event in rural Perry County, west of Nashville.
But some local officials say money from groups such as American Federation for Children, Americans for Prosperity, and the School Freedom Fund is bringing misinformation into several key races.
“The fact that out-of-state interest groups would spend that much money in a local House seat election should give us all concern,” says a July 23 letter to Williamson County voters from retiring Rep. Sam Whitson and four local city and county mayors.
The outside groups — which are not required to disclose their donors — are paying for mailers, television commercials, and other ads seeking to influence voters who will pick a successor for Whitson, a four-term Republican lawmaker who opposes vouchers. Similar special interest group activities seek to favor pro-voucher candidates in other parts of the state.
The tension comes as voters prepare to pick Republican and Democratic nominees to run for the statehouse on Nov. 5 before a critical legislative session for the future of Tennessee’s education system.
The governor, who wants to give public funding to any family statewide who wants to send their children to private school, says his administration is already crafting a new plan after his 2024 bill stumbled in committees during the recent legislative session.
“It’s a process that takes several months, but we’re working on it right now,” Lee told Chalkbeat in Perry County.
He did not provide details but promised “a commitment to universal school choice.”
Lee also pledged to “fully vet the program’s cost” when asked about recentcomments by Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican voucher ally from Maury County, who called the governor’s education scholarship proposal a “terrible” plan that would have plunged Tennessee into dire financial straits.
“That’s a part of this process,” Lee said of studying the proposal’s financial feasibility.
Lee’s slate of preferred GOP candidates include Lee Reeves, a Williamson County real estate investor and attorney who supports private school vouchers, over fellow Republicans Brian Beathard and Michelle Foreman.
Beathard, who chairs the Williamson County Commission and opposes the governor’s plan, has been endorsed by most top locally elected leaders in the Republican enclave south of Nashville. Mailers and ads funded by outside groups have depicted him as anti-conservative and supportive of higher taxes and labor unions.
But Beathard’s supporters are pushing back.
“All of us are used to some ‘puffing’ and exaggerations when it comes to political mailers, but the negative messages aimed at Brian Beathard cross the line of decency,” says the letter to voters from Whitson, the outgoing Republican legislator, and other local officials.
They say some of the campaign materials include misleading policy statements, innuendo, and outright lies, as well as manipulating photos to distort Beathard’s appearance. The letter did not give specific examples.
Chalkbeat did not immediately receive responses from leaders with several organizations behind the ads. A spokesman for the School Freedom Fund, a pro-voucher group tied to Club for Growth and New York-based investment billionaire Jeff Yass, asked for specific examples but did not respond directly to the claims.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Five years after a bruising legislative battle opened the door to private school vouchers in parts of Tennessee, lawmakers are preparing to take up a controversial bill to create a similar program statewide.
Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher proposal, which eventually would make all K-12 students eligible to use public funding to attend a private or home school, is expected to dominate debate after the 113th General Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday.
But other issues affecting students and educators are sure to emerge in a state where education reform has been front and center since 2010, when Tennessee won $500 million in the federal Race to the Top competition to jumpstart changes.
With the GOP supermajority setting the agenda again this year, here’s a look at some big issues to watch as the opening gavel falls.
School vouchers: Lee’s expansion plan renews long-running debate
In November, the governor said he’ll introduce a new Education Freedom Scholarship Act to offer $7,075 in taxpayer money for each of up to 20,000 students statewide next school year to attend a private or home school, with eligibility restrictions for half of them. In 2025, eligibility would open up to all students, regardless of their family’s income.
The proposal would mark a massive expansion of Tennessee’s voucher program, which is now limited to three urban counties and still under-enrolled. But more than a month after Lee’s announcement, few details have been released.
“I have yet to understand where the financing is coming from,” said Sen. Page Walley, a Republican whose district includes eight rural counties in West Tennessee.
“If we jump to statewide vouchers, I don’t see how we fund it without robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he added.
Other big questions:
Would students accepting the new voucher scholarships have to take the same state tests as public school students in order to measure outcomes?
Would private schools accepting vouchers have to be state-approved or accredited, and would their teachers have to be licensed as public school educators are?
Would the state place stipulations on tuition costs at participating private schools, so they don’t raise their rates as many did in Arizona after the rollout of a universal voucher program?
Speaking with reporters last week, Lee promised accountability measures but declined to give specifics. He expects Republican leaders to file the bill on his behalf in the next few weeks, after his administration gets more feedback from lawmakers and stakeholders.
“Getting that input’s important for us to finalize the language that we think is the most agreeable to the most folks,” he said.
Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville, who chairs the House Democratic caucus, called that approach “backwards.”
“They’re trying to craft something to get enough votes, instead of looking at the data and research on whether vouchers are good public policy,” Clemmons said.
Meanwhile, the pro-voucher Beacon Center released a poll last week finding broad support from Tennesseans for expanding such programs statewide. However, the group did not use the word “voucher,” which tends to poll worse, in its question to Tennesseans.
School safety: Renewed discussion, but no gun laws (it’s an election year)
Tennesseans were unnerved when an armed intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27, in the middle of last year’s legislative session. And the growing impact of gun violence on kids across the state is undeniable.
But Republican lawmakers’ response last year was to further harden schools rather than entertain any proposals to restrict gun access — not even for people who are deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, as the Nashville shooter had been.
Some of them have organized news conferences and rallies at the Capitol this week for students, educators, and others to voice their concerns. Meanwhile, a group of parents from The Covenant School in Nashville, where the tragedy took place, say they’ll continue to advocate for changes to “ensure responsible firearm ownership, safe schools, and accessible adequate mental health care for all individuals across Tennessee.”
They include several measures to let certain citizens or school employees carry handguns in schools, and a bill to require all public and private schools to create alarm policies that differentiate emergencies for fire, weather, or an active shooter.
A new bill, from Republican Sen. Mark Pody of Lebanon and Rep. Susan Lynn of Mount Juliet, would let schools purchase lanyards equipped with emergency alert buttons for school staff to wear around their necks.
But don’t expect the legislature to look seriously at bills to restrict gun access in an election year, according to several key Republicans.
“I do not believe there’s an appetite or pathway to success for any legislation that might be introduced that is going to infringe on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, of Franklin.
With the latest State of the Child report ranking Tennessee near the bottom nationally for access to mental health resources, Johnson sees more room for discussion on that topic.
“I think a big conversation in the coming session will be how we strengthen our mental health safety net,” Johnson said, “as well as general access to mental health treatment in Tennessee.”
Third-grade reading law: Lawmakers may revisit retention provision — again
Now under the same law, the state may have to retain thousands of fourth graders who test poorly this spring.
“I think we have to look into it,” said Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who chairs a House education committee. “We’ve probably got a lot of fourth graders who have already done summer school and tutoring but still won’t pass that test. It’s never a bad thing to have off-ramps and waivers.”
He added: “I want us to continue looking closer at Kindergarten, first, and second grades so we’re not waiting until the third and fourth grades to address these challenges.”
But Sen. Jon Lundberg, who chairs his chamber’s education panel, is less inclined to make more changes in the 2021 law.
“We’ve set the standard for proficiency and for showing adequate growth, and I don’t want to move those,” he said.
Federal education funding: Talk about rejecting it looks like just talk, for now
House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, surprised many in his own party last year when he floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting more than a billion dollars in federal funding for students, which he said could be offset with state tax revenues.
Legislative leaders polled by Chalkbeat last week said they haven’t heard of any legislation coming out of the hearings.
“It doesn’t hurt to know where our funding is coming from and how it’s being spent,” said White, the House’s education leader, said of the task force’s discussions, “but I don’t see that conversation going anywhere in the short term.”
Teacher shortages: Vacancies could lead to creative thinking
With Sexton declaring that Tennessee has enough state revenues to cover more than $1 billion in federal funding, plenty of public school advocates asked why the state wouldn’t use that excess instead to accelerate the governor’s plan to raise the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000 by 2027. (This year, the base is $42,000.)
Districts struggled to fill nearly 4,000 vacancies statewide last school year, especially in the middle grades, English as a second language, world languages, and special education, according to one report. And shortages of school bus drivers are a nationwide problem.
Lee told reporters that, while state revenues have flattened in recent months, Tennessee’s economy remains strong.
“We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.
Currently, the state covers less than half of health insurance premiums for its teachers, while state employees get 100 percent of their premiums covered. Moving teachers to the state employee plan could be a boost to both teachers and the local districts that employ them.
Professional Educators of Tennessee (PET) has also called on the legislature to develop policies to address child care access and affordability for teachers, more than 80 percent of whom are female.
“If you want to keep good teachers,” said PET executive director JC Bowman, “ease their burdens so they can focus on their work in school to educate and nurture our future generation.”
To follow this year’s legislative business, visit the General Assembly’s website for calendars, committees, legislation, and livestreams.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Nashville and Shelby County governments have pulled out of their more than 3-year-old legal dispute with the state over a 2019 private school voucher law.
The paperwork to withdraw their latest appeal was filed quietly on Aug. 25 with the Tennessee Court of Appeals, according to court documents.
The pullout by Tennessee’s two largest counties is the latest setback for efforts to overturn the controversial education savings account law, the signature legislation of Gov. Bill Lee’s first year in office.
The law, which allows the state to give taxpayer money to eligible families to pay toward the cost of private school tuition, was declared unconstitutional by a Nashville judge in 2020 because, at the time, it affected students only in Nashville and Memphis, where local officials have consistently opposed vouchers. But after several appeals, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state in 2022 and resurrected the law, allowing the program to launch last year in the two counties. This fall, the state rolled out the program in Hamilton County after lawmakers voted earlier this year for expansion.
On Friday, Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz declined to comment about the decision to pull out of the suit, as did E. Lee Whitwell, chief litigation attorney for Shelby County government.
But Dietz, whose office has been leading the charge on the Nashville-Shelby lawsuit, noted that the legal challenge remains alive through a second lawsuit filed in 2020 by the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of 11 public school parents and community members in Memphis and Nashville. Their appeal is pending before the state’s appellate court.
The state Supreme Court’s ruling in May 2022 rejected Metro Nashville and Shelby County’s argument that the voucher law violated a “home rule” provision in the Tennessee Constitution. The latest court battle has been over whether plaintiffs in both lawsuits have legal standing to pursue the case based on other legal claims, such as a constitutional clause that requires the state to maintain a system of “free public schools,” with no mention of private schools.
In a split vote in late 2022, a three-judge panel of Davidson County Chancery Court dismissed those claims. Soon after, attorneys behind both lawsuits appealed that ruling to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Chris Wood, a Nashville lawyer helping to litigate the remaining lawsuit, said the pullout by Metro Nashville and Shelby County has no bearing on his case filed jointly with the Education Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU.
“We’re still here,” Wood said Friday. “Our case has always been our case. And while it’s good to have other folks working with you, this really doesn’t have an impact on what we’re doing.”
A spokesperson for the Tennessee attorney general’s office did not immediately respond when asked Friday about the development.
Currently, Tennessee’s education savings account program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in 75 state-approved private schools in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap.
Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs a House Education Committee, has said he expects to file legislation next year to take the program statewide.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
A judicial panel sided with the state on last week and dismissed remaining legal claims raised in two lawsuits challenging Tennessee’s private school voucher law.
The judges ruled that Metropolitan Nashville and Shelby County governments, along with a group of parents who oppose vouchers, have no legal standing to challenge Tennessee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law, which provides taxpayer money to pay toward private school tuition.
Voucher advocates quickly hailed the decision by the three-judge panel of Davidson County Chancery Court as a victory for parents wanting more education choices for their children.
“Today is a great day for educational freedom in Tennessee,” said Justin Owen, president of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, one of several groups involved in the case.
But the ruling also could position the nearly 3-year-old legal dispute for a hearing before a higher court.
“We are reviewing the opinion and will discuss a possible appeal when we return to work next week,” said Wally Dietz, Metro Nashville’s law director.
The judges dismissed the argument that both governments face financial injury in funding their local public schools when students choose to withdraw and enroll in private schools — taking their funding with them.
In a 26-page decision, they cited a provision of the law that — subject to appropriation by the legislature — replaces any funding lost through vouchers through a school improvement grant program for the first three years.
Thus, the judges wrote, the “Plaintiffs’ claims are not yet ripe because the ESA replaces the diverted funding for at least three years.”
But their decision does not necessarily put the case to rest.
“We are disappointed by the court’s order and disagree with its conclusions,” said Chris Wood, a Nashville attorney representing parents and taxpayers in a second lawsuit opposing the law. “We are reviewing our options, which include appealing the court’s decision.”
The ruling came from Chancellor Anne Martin, Judge Tammy Harrington, and Judge Valerie Smith under a new state law requiring that constitutional matters be heard by three judges representing each of the state’s three grand divisions instead of by a single judge based in Nashville.
But Martin, the Nashville judge who initially declared the law unconstitutional in 2020, wrote that, while she concurred about the issue of standing, she dissented over other issues, including the plaintiffs’ arguments that vouchers will create unequal education systems. The state constitution says Tennessee is obligated to maintain a system of free public schools that provides for equal educational opportunities for its residents.
Wednesday’s ruling is the latest in the legal dispute after the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the embattled voucher law in May.
Less than a week after judges allowed Tennessee to resume work on its long-stalled private school voucher program, the program’s website roared back to life, and forms are available online for families and private schools in Memphis and Nashville interested in participating.
By Wednesday, Gov. Bill Lee announced, some 600 families had completed the form, and 40-plus private schools in the two cities had committed to making seats available for them when the school year begins — just three weeks from now.
The July 13 court order lifted an earlier order that blocked the program from launching as originally planned in 2020. Within hours, Lee directed his administration to speed ahead to roll out the program, despite the tight schedule and looming legal efforts by voucher opponents seeking to block the start again.
“There was an urgent need for school choice in 2019, and finally, parents in Memphis and Nashville won’t have to wait another day to choose the best educational fit for their children,” Lee said in a statement.
Lee, who met with private school leaders in Memphis on Wednesday, surprised even his own education department by announcing last week that work would resume immediately “to help eligible parents enroll this school year.”
The flurry of activity shows Lee’s determination to swiftly enroll as many students as possible — up to the 5,000 allowed in the first year — after two years of delays and fierce legal battles over the state’s voucher law. Tennessee lawmakers had debated vouchers for more than a decade before a GOP-controlled legislature passed Lee’s 2019 education savings account proposal with a dramatic, razor-thin, and controversial House vote.
Tennessee has been a battleground in the national fight between those who want to use taxpayer money to give parents more education choices and others who say that approach diverts money from already underfunded public schools.
Leaders of the pro-voucher American Federation for Children have been key allies of the Republican governor in lobbying for the state’s voucher law and promoting the program, including organizing Wednesday’s meeting between Lee and about 45 private school leaders from the Memphis area.
The gathering was at St. Benedict at Auburndale High School, a Catholic campus located in the mostly white and affluent suburb of Cordova, east of Memphis, and where tuition costs over $13,000 a year. The average taxpayer-funded voucher would provide about $8,000 this year to help families pay expenses including tuition, fees, textbooks, computers, exams, and tutoring services at approved private schools.
Asked later by reporters how families might fill the gap, Lee said that “every school has a different strategy” for financial aid and that many already provide scholarships to students needing help.
The governor added that his education department was still working through a lot of the details.
In an interview earlier Wednesday with Chalkbeat, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn acknowledged that her department faces a heavy lift with the expedited launch, starting with getting students and private schools to sign up, then making sure participants meet the state’s eligibility standards. The state also has to set up systems and processes for redirecting public education spending in Memphis and Nashville, the only two cities where the program is operating, to private schools and vendors.
“We’re really trying to catch up and meet the governor’s office’s expectations on this,” Schwinn said, “and to do so with a very clear focus that we will roll out when we feel like we can meet our commitments to families.”
State officials hoped to roll out the full program at the start of a new school year. But the timing got tricky when the state Supreme Court upheld the voucher law in May, and a lower court cleared the way for work to resume on the program just weeks before the Aug. 8 start of classes.
Lee’s administration settled for a rolling launch that gives families and private schools that want to participate three possible start dates to choose from.
“I think the timeline in July is very challenging for us,” Schwinn said, “and so right now, we just want to know how many parents are out there that might want to participate, and do they want to do it this August, this January, or next August?”
Managing the program is another challenge, and Schwinn is looking to Eve Carney, her chief of districts and schools, to oversee the application process and financial systems. The commissioner expects to hire an outside vendor to help with that oversight in the 2023-24 school year and said the department will seek bids for that work in the next few months.
The department already oversees a statewide private school voucher program for students with disabilities, but it is small in scope and had more time to launch in the middle of the 2016-17 school year with 36 families. Even so, the program has experienced some glitches responding to participating families as it has grown to 284 students amid staff turnover in the department.
Another challenge is the capacity of private schools to accommodate families who want to participate.
For the original launch planned for the 2020-21 school year, 62 schools had signed on to participate. But the pandemic has created tremendous enrollment shifts, as more students than usual moved from public to private schools, especially in Nashville and Memphis, where districts stuck with remote learning and mask mandates the longest. Students in early grades pivoted the most, essentially filling up those private sector seats.
As private school leaders try to work with Lee’s administration under the expedited timeline, not everybody will get what they want, they say.
“Capacity will vary by individual schools,” said Sarah Wilson, executive director of the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools. “Some schools, particularly in the Nashville area, may only have room in one grade, if at all. Other schools have the capacity to add several students and are interested in doing so.”
Brad Goia, who leads a coalition of independent schools in the Nashville area, said “the likelihood of adding students now is not great.”
“Private schools by and large have benefited from a relatively strong economy and the popularity of Nashville, with lots of people moving in,” said Goia, who is also headmaster of Montgomery Bell Academy. “Most, if not all, private schools are close to capacity. I’m sure some schools would view this as a good opportunity to perhaps enlarge their base of diversity. And a few would look at it as a way to fill some seats.”
His counterpart in Memphis, Bryan Williams, said enrollment is “pretty much set for the year” at the city’s most competitive schools. But a small number of slots could be available at some schools, he said.
“There’s definitely some room for students to come in through ESAs, but that will vary from school to school,” said Williams, head of Christ Methodist Day School and director of the Memphis Association of Independent Schools.
Williams said his school could accommodate between five and 10 students at some grade levels. “If you spread those numbers across 30 schools, it can add up,” he said.
Admissions processes for private schools generally kick off a year before students enter, with most students applying by December and the most competitive schools setting their enrollment for the following school year by mid-March.
“Right now, the ESA program isn’t matching up with how private schools do admissions and enrollment,” Williams said.
Voucher opponents behind two lawsuits against the state are expected this week to seek a court order blocking the program for a second time while they challenge the constitutionality of the law based on several remaining claims.
Both groups asked for an expedited schedule for the judicial panel to consider their motions.
Asked Wednesday about the prospect of another bruising legal fight, the governor suggested that his administration will take matters one at a time.
“There’s been talk that that could possibly happen,” he said, “but we’re just working on the high-quality implementation of the plan right now.”
Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent who covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Tikeila Rucker, then president of the United Education Association of Shelby County, speaks during an anti-voucher rally in front of the state Capitol in Nashville on April 8, 2019. (Photo by Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)
Whether characterized as an assault on public schools or a pathway for more education choices for families, this week’s Tennessee Supreme Court ruling in favor of the state’s embattled school voucher law stirred a torrent of public feedback.
Reactions to the 3-2 decision split largely along partisan lines, bringing cheers from many Republicans, including Gov. Bill Lee, who said that the ruling “puts parents in Memphis and Nashville one step closer to finding the best educational fit for their children.”
Wednesday’s ruling revives Lee’s education savings account program, which lets eligible families use taxpayer dollars toward private school tuition or other private educational services. But it doesn’t guarantee the program’s survival.
The decision overturned lower court rulings in favor of the governments of Shelby County and Metropolitan Nashville, which argued that the 2019 law violated the Tennessee Constitution’s “home rule” provision, because it applied only to districts in Memphis and Nashville without local consent.
But several other legal avenues remain open to challenge the law, including a second lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of 11 public school parents and community members in Memphis and Nashville based on their students’ constitutional rights to adequate and equitable educational opportunities.
The plaintiffs in that case “have asserted these constitutional claims from the beginning of the litigation challenging the voucher law, and intend to vigorously pursue them,” said a joint statement from the Education Law Center, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU, which are collaborating on the litigation.
Local governments in Shelby and Davidson counties also could pursue other legal claims.
Here’s what Tennesseans are saying about this week’s long-awaited ruling:
Memphis-Shelby County Schools: “The recent ruling is an unfortunate roadblock on the path toward progress and makes serving students in the state’s largest urban district even more challenging.”
Adrienne Battle, director, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools: “Private school vouchers undermine our public schools and have failed to support the learning needs of students who have used them in other states where they have been tried. We strongly disagree with the court’s opinion, which undermines the principles of local control and will harm Davidson County taxpayers who will ultimately be on the hook to pay for the state’s voucher scheme.”
Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis: “Our first priority in government is to build strong public schools. But where that is not available, school choice should be an option.”
Kay Johnson, director, Greater Praise Christian Academy, Memphis: “I am overjoyed by the court’s ruling. This program gives students in poor-performing schools the opportunity and support to attend the schools that best suit their needs. That is a win for them, their families, our communities, and our state.”
Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville: “This could not be worse for Tennessee children in tandem with the bill to transition our entire education program into evangelical hedge-fund schools. This is terrible news for our state.”
Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis: “The fact that Davidson and Shelby County taxpayers are singled out as the only counties in the state of Tennessee where the taxpayers are forced to use their tax dollars to fund private school enrollment is absurd and discriminatory. And even more dangerous and disturbing is the precedent this decision sets for the Tennessee General Assembly to continue, with the backing of the highest court in the land, to dump other shit legislation only on the people of these counties.”
John Patton, Tennessee director, American Federation for Children: “The Tennessee Supreme Court made the right decision by declaring that the Education Savings Account program does not violate the HomeRule Amendment. These programs encourage both private and public schools to create new and better options for all students.”
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III: “The Education Savings Account program has always been about helping Tennessee students — giving eligible families a choice in education, an opportunity they currently do not have. It challenged the status quo, a move that is always met with resistance. … While there are further court proceedings that need to take place, this is a major step forward.”
Beth Brown, president, Tennessee Education Association: “This ruling is not the end of the fight against private school vouchers. We’ve seen the privatization industry’s playbook come to life in other states and witnessed the damage caused to students and public schools. They start a small program, then expand it, and then expand it a little more, until public education funding is obliterated.”
Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus: “In this decision, the Supreme Court erased constitutional protections for local control and years of precedent. Not only does this decision usher in a terrible education policy, but it invites more political meddling that surely results in local governments losing freedom and independence from state interference.”
Raymond Pierce, president and CEO, Southern Education Foundation: “There is a long and well-documented history of school voucher programs in the South being used to avoid integration by siphoning public funds out of public schools. … While this law stands for now, the Southern Education Foundation will continue to fight school privatization efforts that would take our nation back to the days of a segregated and inherently unequal education system.”
Justin Owen, president and CEO, Beacon Center of Tennessee: “We are so pleased that the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed what we have always known: the ESA law is not a violation of the Tennessee Constitution’s Home Rule Amendment. We are fully confident after this decision that families in Nashville and Memphis will finally get the choice opportunities that they deserve.”
Victor Evans, executive director, TennesseeCAN: “A student’s ZIP code or neighborhood should never dictate their future, but without the options and resources that those from wealthier areas enjoy, that is too often the case. Tennessee’s Educational Savings Account program will help address this glaring inequality and need.”
TJ Ducklo, spokesman for Nashville Mayor John Cooper: “We’re disappointed by today’s ruling but will continue to vigorously fight this law through all possible avenues.”
JC Bowman, executive director, Professional Educators of Tennessee: “Legal experts will continue to debate this case on its merits for many years, and it may still face additional legal challenges. The Tennessee Education Savings Account will ultimately be defined by the students who participate in the program and their academic success or failure. Public schools will remain the choice of the vast majority of parents in our state who believe their child is receiving a high-quality education.”
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Except for conversations about a woman’s right to control her physical destiny, “choice” is a popular word among Conservative politicians and policy makers. For the businessman, it’s a near synonym for freedom, and something Rhetoric professors might call a “god word,” with high propagandistic value. “Choice,” is the banner word on The Beacon Center of Tennessee‘s page advocating for Educational Savings Accounts, like Governor Bill Lee’s re-branded and Tennessee House of Representatives-approved school voucher program. In a similar vein, fear of losing the ability to “choose healthcare providers” is key to most narratives opposing anything approaching universal healthcare coverage, just as it was when the same Beacon Center took credit for defeating medicaid expansion in Tennessee.
“While stopping the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare was a necessary first step, it is still our responsibility as Tennesseans to find affordable healthcare solutions for our most vulnerable neighbors,” Beacon CEO Justin Owen told media. Instead of Medicaid access, Beacon supported “right-to-try” legislation, allowing terminally ill patients access to choose certain unapproved FDA treatments. A Trump-backed Federal “right to try” bill was signed into law in 2018. As noted in The Atlantic, the catchy name and promise of personal autonomy disguised a decreased ability for people who aren’t medical experts to determine if treatments were effective or safe.
If you don’t know The Beacon Center of Tennessee, previously called The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, they self-describe as “an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research and educational institute.” They’re the group that “exposed” former Vice President Al Gore’s energy use as part of an effort to counter “climate change alarmism.” They’re also affiliated with a right-wing cut-and-paste legislation web called the State Policy Network. It’s one of those places where movements to preserve and expand “choice” by way of free market insurance and publicly subsidized private schools are born. Tennessee’s decision not to expand medicaid didn’t make anybody more free, it put families at risk. Around 71,000 children were left without coverage. Now that Tennessee has moved a step closer toward embracing Education Savings Accounts (aka vouchers), another “choice”-forward initiative from the sewer of America’s policy factories, it’s important to understand how the word is paradoxical and may not always mean what it seems to mean.
Fred Hirsch, a former professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick, wrote about the limits of choice. In his book The Social Limits of Growth, he showed how choice can’t be made available to everyone, no matter how clever we get with technology. This is particularly true in regard to superlatives; the best doctor, for example, or the best teachers. This sounds elitist at first, but means and privilege only mitigate the effects of scarcity, they can’t erase the fact of it. Hirsch calls these troublesome things “positional goods,” and Barry Schwartz, the Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, expanded on the concept in The Paradox of Choice: How the Culture of Abundance Robs us of Satisfaction.
“We might all agree that everyone would be better off if there were less positional competition,” Hirsch wrote, swimming against conventional wisdom that competition is good in every case. “It’s stressful, it’s wasteful, and it distorts people’s lives.”
“Parents wanting only the best for their child encourage her to study hard so she can get into a good college. But everyone is doing that. So the parents push harder. But so does everybody else. So they send their child to after-school enrichment programs and educational summer camps. And so does everyone else. So now they borrow money to switch to private school. Again others follow.”
Sometimes the supply of positional goods just runs out — There are only so many spots in the best teacher’s classroom. Value also decreases as the result of overcrowding. Schwartz illustrates his point with a metaphor made for sports fans:
“It’s like being in a crowded football stadium, watching the crucial play. A spectator several rows in front stands up to get a better view and a chain reaction follows. Soon everyone is standing just to be able to see as well as before. Everyone is on their feet rather than sitting, but no one’s position has improved.”
Those not standing, by reason of choice or inability, might as well be somewhere else, Schwartz concludes. They aren’t in the game.
Whatever you choose to call them, voucher systems aren’t a new idea. The University of Chicago’s Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman wrote about the role of government in education in 1955, and choice advocates have been inspired by his arguments ever since. He determined that government should fund schooling. It should not run schools. Friedman advocated vouchers as a means of increasing freedom through choice in the marketplace.
Educational policy analyst Diane Ravitch related this history in her data-laden 2010 mea culpa, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. While working on national education policy for President George H. W. Bush, Ravitch had gotten caught up in choice mania, but came to regret it. Advocates of voucher systems and charter schools, “were certain choice would produce higher achievement,” and “reduce the rising tide of mediocrity,” she wrote. The collected data told a conflicting story. After reviewing the 20-year history of a voucher program in Milwaukee, Ravitch determined “there was no evidence of dramatic improvement for the neediest students or the public schools they left behind.” As with the football stadium metaphor, everybody moved, but nobody’s position really improved.
“Business leaders like the idea of turning the schools into a marketplace where the consumer is king,” Ravitch wrote, taking on presumptions that choice and competition are necessarily a public good. “But the problem with the marketplace is that it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers. Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.”
Schwartz concludes that the scramble for positional goods creates what’s commonly called “the rat race.” That’s expressed here as “the burden of locating suitable schools” in a sea of “buyer beware.” That parents cannot “take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program” isn’t a failure of teachers or public school systems or the communities where public schools are located. It’s an enduring expression of political and economic will backed by an unwarranted faith in market-based solutions.
“When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable,” Schwartz wrote in The Paradox of Choice.
“As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point choice no longer liberates, but debilitates.”
That’s the problem with punishing and stigmatizing needy schools and pumping public education money into private markets. Or, as Ravitch put it, “With so much money aligned against the neighborhood public school and against education as a profession, public education itself is placed at risk.”
Local craft beer is one of those rare issues that Memphians, regardless of political affiliation, can come together on. Right now, a David-versus-Goliath fight is brewing in Washington between two competing beer bills. The big guys are pushing the Small Brew Act, which essentially benefits four brewers by redefining the “small brewer” as 6 million barrels. On the other side is H.R. 767, the Fair Brewers Excise and Economic Relief (Fair BEER) Act, which cuts the federal excise tax to zero for brewers who produce less than 7,143 barrels.
The Fair BEER Act will help small craft breweries survive and grow and will make it easier for future entrepreneurs to pursue their craft-beer dreams. If you love local beer, then it is time to support your local breweries and encourage Tennessee’s delegation to co-sponsor and support the Fair BEER Act.
Brandon Chase Goldsmith
A terrific piece. Thanks, gang. A whole bunch of new reasons to day drink.
Dave Clancy
About the Flyer’s editorial, “No
to Vouchers” …
I hate to keep beating a dead horse here, but people really don’t seem to grasp the point of education in the state of Tennessee. No one is getting properly educated because it costs too much. But that money still has to be spent. Do you really want to give it to all those unionized school teachers so they can teach (destroy the minds of Tennessee youth with) their socialism and evolution theory and feminazi tolerance fascism?
So if you’re not going to actually educate anyone, but you still have to spend the education money, why not give it to your pastor and his private school, or to your friends and retired mayors who are trying to get a piece of that sweet, sweet charter school grift? The money has to be spent. So spend it in the right places, not the wrong places.
That’s the whole point of charter schools and school vouchers. The longer we continue to pretend the voucher proponents and the representatives of charter schools have a legitimate desire to educate the children of Tennessee and that we merely disagree on the best method to accomplish this goal, the quicker they will accomplish their goal of destroying public education altogether. Because that is their goal.
Jeff
I don’t know that you will get much agreement that “no one is getting properly educated.” We are sure that a lot of our suburban children are getting educated pretty well. At least standardized testing says so, and they do seem to succeed when they move on to college.
Teachers are not allowed to unionize in Tennessee, either. They can have educational associations, but without the possibility of striking, these are pretty much advisory rather than adversarial relationships with their school boards.
The legislature is determined to fix the educational system in Tennessee. So far, they have tried the ASD which, let’s face it, has produced mixed and uneven results. Charter schools have been tried, with perhaps more success. We shall see as time passes whether the charter school experiment will pan out.
I think the voucher bills in the legislature are headed for passage, and we shall see what comes of it. Proposing an ulterior motive for all these efforts is just wrong. Ill conceived, foolish, wasteful, (add your adjective of choice here), maybe. But an intentional effort to enrich some at the expense of public education? Nah.
Arlington Pop
About Jackson Baker’s Politics column, “Bobby Jindal Talks Tough on Islam” …
After reading this, I have to wonder if Bobby Jindal has ever been to Louisiana.
Some hint of what Governor Bill Haslam has in mind for the 2014 session of the Tennessee General Assembly was revealed to reporters last Thursday, after the governor had spoken at the ceremonial grand opening of the new Electrolux plant on President’s Island.
In a Q&A session, Haslam briefly addressed several subjects.
On school-voucher legislation: “We’re going to make our recommendation next week. As you know, we favored a more limited approach to school vouchers. I still think that’s the right one, because it’s focused on those lowest-performing schools, which are actually … a lot of which are our responsibility now in the Achievement School District and others.
“So in something like this, we think it makes sense to take a more measured approach as you look at vouchers, and let’s see the impact. There’s a lot of concern as to the effect it has on an existing school system, and how much difference does it make for the student. As the physician operating on ourselves first, we think, makes a lot of sense.”
The governor was asked about a more extensive (and expensive) voucher program proposed last year by state senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), who has said he will offer it again this year. At the end of last year’s session, Haslam asked his legislative sponsor, state Senate majority leader Mark Norris, to pull the more moderate gubernatorial pilot program rather than submit it to the changes desired by Kelsey.
“You know, we obviously last year felt much more comfortable with our position. We want to come up with something that’s the best idea. Last year, we didn’t hear another approach that we thought made sense, given everything else we have going on in education.”
On prospects for minimum wage legislation proposd by Assembly Democrats, Haslam said, “I’d be surprised if that gets much traction.”
On the outlook for the Tennessee Plan, a private-sector alternative to Medicaid expansion under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), Haslam said, “We’ve just had an additional conversation with [Health and Human Services] Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius, and several folks from CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] are coming down to Tennessee, I think, next week to have additional conversations.”
Federal subsidies for Haslam’s plan under the ACA (aka Obamacare) would require a federal waiver, which thus far has not been approved.
“I don’t want to mislead anybody into thinking we have something imminently worked out, but we do think we’re making some progress,” the governor said.
On the rape-kit controversy that has flared up in Memphis and nationwide: “Senator Norris has some legislation on that.” He thinks a statewide approach is in order and acknowledges having had conversations with Mayor
A C Wharton on matters of state responsibility and state funding support for working through backlogs, but he did not elaborate.
• Mark Billingsley, director of the Methodist Hospital Foundation, won election as the newest member of the Shelby County Commission Monday, as anticipated by many observers.
Billingsley was selected on the second ballot, running ahead of four other nominees from an original field of 15 applicants, most of whom were interviewed by commissioners last week. Runners-up were George Chism, Diane George, Dennis Daugherty, and Frank Uhlhorn.
Greg Cravens