A federal judge will temporarily allow some transgender discrimination in Tennessee and other states, skirting new changes to Title IX.
Those changes came in President Joe Biden’s first day in office with an executive order that added gender identity and sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination law. Biden later extended those protections to educational environments. The rules are set to go into effect on August 1. All of these changes came after the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibited companies from firing a person on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.
In April, Tennessee led a coalition in a lawsuit to block Biden’s new additions to Title IX. The group included Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia, Christian Educators Association International (CEAI), and “A.C.”, a 15-year-old high school girl who lives in West Virginia.
The states argued that the new law would chill free speech and religious freedom because teachers would, under the new rules, have to use a student’s “preferred pronouns,” according to the suit. The law would also mandate schools to open up bathrooms and locker rooms to all genders. The states also argued that the new rules subverted Congressional review and overreached into states’ powers to make such laws.
CEAI opposed the rules on grounds of free speech and shared private facilities. Its members — particularly educators in K-12 public schools — wish to “live and work consistent with their shared belief that God created human beings as male and female and that sex is an immutable trait.”
A.C., the 15-year-old student, said a transgender female was allowed to compete on her middle-school track team. The other student’s biology is an unfair advantage, A.C. said, and she did not feel comfortable dressing in front of the other student.
A federal judge agreed with the plaintiffs in a Tuesday ruling.
“There are two sexes: male and female,” wrote Chief Judge Danny Reeves, United States District Court of Eastern Kentucky. But Reeves said in a footnote that the statement was conceded by U.S. Department of Education officials in oral arguments. “The parties have agreed to little else.”
Reeves ordered a preliminary injunction against the new rules but only in those states who joined in the lawsuit. The stay extends to the Christian educators group and A.C. in those six states.
Tennessee schools and universities would have to let boys into girls’ locker rooms and other private spaces.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti
“If the rule we stopped had been allowed to go into effect on August 1 as scheduled, Tennessee schools and universities would have to let boys into girls’ locker rooms and other private spaces,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement. “If the rule went into effect, our schools would have to punish teachers and students who declined to use someone’s preferred pronouns.
“These are profound changes to the law that the American people never agreed to. This rule was a huge overreach by federal bureaucrats, and the court was right to stop it.”
Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, said, “We have a state government going into battle against trans and non-binary students via their pronouns,” in an opinion piece in The Tennessean Monday.
Government employees should not have more of a right to define a student’s identity than the student does.
Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project
“Students are better served by policies that respect their identities,” Sanders said. “They are at school to get an education without barriers, not to serve as an opportunity for adults to exercise virtue by choice.
“Experiencing an agent of the state using the wrong pronoun in front of one’s peers day after day is something students should not endure. Government employees should not have more of a right to define a student’s identity than the student does.”
While Gov. Bill Lee’s universal school voucher proposal is clearly a key issue this election year, there is less agreement on where Tennessee voters stand on the contentious education policy, incentivizing many state legislative candidates to avoid discussing the matter.
Numerous voter polls have generated wildly different results this year, depending on which organization was behind the survey and how the questions were asked.
As a result, rural Republican candidates, whose legislative votes would be pivotal in deciding the issue, aren’t generally trumpeting their positions on what would amount to a major policy change.
And when they do comment, the candidates are choosing their words carefully by using the language of “school choice” over “vouchers,” even though they’re essentially the same thing when it comes to letting parents use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.
The divergent poll results, based on representative samplings of voters, underscore that vouchers remain a hot-button education issue as Tennesseans try to understand a complex idea that was the most divisive of the recent legislative session.
Supporters say the statewide voucher proposal, which the governor vowed to bring back to lawmakers next year after it failed to reach the Senate and House floors in April, would put parents in charge of their children’s education by giving them more choices. Critics say it would destabilize public education, bust the state’s budget, and further segregate schools by race, income, and students with special needs.
Now in his second term, Lee has characterized GOP support across Tennessee as solidly favoring his proposal, which is especially important in a red state where the winner of the Republican primary typically wins the general election.
The Republican governor, who campaigned on the promise of giving parents more education choices for their children, recently told Fox News that school choice is “a very popular idea among Republican primary voters.” He added that voters support it “by an overwhelming margin.”
“Legislators understand that; they know their voters want this,” Lee said.
But while vouchers have steadily gained support through the years, surveys of voter attitudes don’t necessarily bear out Lee’s claim.
Three pro-voucher groups — The Beacon Center,Americans for Prosperity, and the American Federation for Children — released findings early this year declaring broad support for expanding school vouchers in Tennessee as they sought to build momentum ahead of critical voucher votes in the General Assembly.
During the same period, the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers organization and a voucher opponent, released results of its own poll showing only 30 percent of Republican primary voters supported the governor’s plan.
When asked if they approve of the policy, 45 percent were in favor of vouchers, 46 percent opposed them, and 9 percent said they neither supported nor opposed the idea.
“These results show that vouchers remain a controversial issue,” said John Geer, the Vanderbilt poll’s co-director and a distinguished professor of political science.
“It is a complex and complicated topic,” he added. “That makes the issue difficult to measure in a poll.”
The uneven findings of various polls stem, in part, from how the questions were framed.
For instance, Americans for Prosperity asked voters: “Governor Lee is proposing a school choice program that will enable parents to take back control over $7K of their education tax dollars to educate their child in a private or home school environment if they choose to, giving parents more control over how and where their children are educated. Do you agree with the program Governor Lee is proposing?”
More than 70 percent responded ‘yes.’
By contrast, the TEA’s survey asked a series of questions delving into the structural and financial impacts that universal vouchers would have on the state’s public education system.
Among them: “Other states that have enacted statewide vouchers saw that 95 percent of students who benefitted were from wealthy families who had the resources to send their children to private schools or already attended private schools, mostly in rural areas, instead of providing resources to middle-income families and students from across the state. Does knowing this make you more or less likely to support school vouchers?”
More than 70 percent responded that they were less inclined to support the policy.
On vouchers, Vanderbilt pollsters asked: “Do you support, neither support nor oppose, or oppose Tennessee giving all parents tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their school-age children to attend private or religious schools of their choice, instead of attending local public schools?”
“We don’t have an ax to grind, so we tried to be as straightforward as we could,” said Geer.
About 49 percent of responding voters also said they were likely to use vouchers if they became available, and 50 percent said they would not. By a wide margin, Republicans who support former President Donald Trump were the group most likely to use them, while only 26 percent of Democrats said they would take advantage of the option.
“The outcome of the poll on vouchers was very partisan in nature,” Geer said.
That partisan lens, he added, was more significant than whether the voter lived in a rural, urban, or suburban district, where access to private schools varies significantly.
“I think it’s another statement about our political climate and the polarization of our country. We really weren’t able to get past the partisanship,” he said.
This year’s uneven polling results may help explain why many rural Republican candidates aren’t discussing vouchers or promoting where they stand on the issue when seeking to secure their party’s nomination. In suburban and urban districts, which are home to more private schools, both Republican and Democratic candidates are more likely to weigh in or use vouchers as a campaign issue.
“Rural Republican legislators got some pushback over the governor’s voucher proposal, so I can understand why they would skirt the issue with primary voters,” Geer said. “I can understand why they would just say: ‘I’m for public education because that’s what’s important to my rural district.’”
Debby Gould, president of the League of Women Voters in Tennessee, said legislative candidates can easily cloak their voucher stance by saying they support public education, especially since the House’s 2024 voucher bill bundled the creation of a statewide voucher program with public school reforms.
“That muddied the waters a bit, but voters deserve a clear answer to whether they plan to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on universal vouchers,” Gould said.
“Vouchers aren’t a secondary election issue,” she added. “Gov. Lee has said it’s a priority for his administration, so it will be front and center next legislative session.”
All 99 seats in the state House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Aug. 1 is Tennessee’s primary election day, with early voting July 12-24. The general election will be on Nov. 5.
Gov. Bill Lee made passage of education savings accounts, a type of school voucher, the signature legislative goal of his first year in office and proposed creating a statewide school voucher program in 2024. (TN.gov)
In the end, the gulf between competing school voucher bills in Tennessee’s legislature was just too wide to cross.
Gov. Bill Lee acknowledged Monday that his push to create a universal school voucher program — which had been on the ropes for more than a month — was dead for the year after Republican leaders in the Tennessee House and Senate were unable to break through disagreements about testing and funding.
“While we made tremendous progress, unfortunately it has become clear that there is not a pathway for the bill during this legislative session,” Lee said in a statement Monday.
The Republican governor vowed to return with another plan next year and added that he’s disappointed for families “who will have to wait yet another year for the freedom to choose the right education for their child.”
The proposal’s failure this year hands Lee one of the biggest defeats of his administration, now in its second term.
It also signals that for all the momentum vouchers have in Tennessee — including a string of victories in the courts and legislature — Lee’s statewide proposal remains a divisive policy because of its potential to destabilize urban, suburban, and rural public school districts, and add a new burden on state finances.
For now, Tennessee only has its targeted voucher program in three urban counties, which provides taxpayer funding to 2,095 students to pay toward private school tuition, plus a smaller voucher program for students with certain disabilities.
As part of his broader school-choice agenda, the governor wanted his new voucher program to eventually become available to every K-12 student across Tennessee, regardless of their family income, and lawmakers took up two vastly different bills from the House and Senate.
But the chambers deadlocked on two issues, according to Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, the Bristol Republican who worked with House Republican leaders for weeks to try to reach a compromise.
First, in addition to creating a new private school voucher program, the more expansive and expensive House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students.
“We had worked really hard to get those measures into place,” Lundberg said, “and believe it would be a step backward for our state.”
Second, the House version proposed increasing the state’s contribution toward public school teachers’ medical insurance coverage from 45 percent to 60 percent — and paying for it with funding earmarked for teacher raises.
That funding pathway closed last week when the legislature approved a 2024-25 budget that retained the $125 million that Lee had set aside to increase the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, as promised last year by the governor.
“Ultimately, the House and the Senate had looked at education freedom scholarships through two different lenses,” Lundberg told Chalkbeat on Monday. “We looked at it as school-choice legislation. The House looked at it as a way to achieve both school choice and education reform.
“Our perspectives were just so different that we could not come together at the end,” he said.
Timing and cost were factors
As the legislature entered what’s expected to be its final week of the 2024 session, lawmakers worried about the timing of creating an expensive new program in the midst of flattening revenues and during an election year in which most of their names will be on the ballot.
The voucher program would have been expected to grow over time, likely subsidizing tuition for families who would have chosen private schools anyway. In the program’s second year, according to financial analysts, the Senate version’s projected cost was $287 million, while the House version was projected to cost $384 million.
The hurdles were especially problematic in the House, where voucher proposals have historically been harder to pass. To win more votes in that chamber, GOP leaders added enticements aimed at public school supporters to reduce testing time for students, require fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and give districts extra money to help with their building costs, as well as more funding for teachers’ medical insurance costs.
On Monday, House Speaker Cameron Sexton framed the debate as helpful for future talks even though it didn’t produce a consensus this year.
“Universal school choice came closer to a full vote than it had ever been in the past,” Sexton said in a statement. “We will continue working until all parents have the same opportunity to use their tax dollars to choose the best school for their child.”
Democrats, who were united in their opposition to vouchers, said the governor’s proposal ultimately crumbled because many Tennesseans pushed back on a plan that generated more questions than answers.
“From the start, the governor’s proposal was heavy on talking points and light on the substance of how it would work and how much it actually would cost,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville. “The funding and the accountability pieces were always going to be the sticking points,” he added, “because voucher proponents really want the funding without the accountability.”
Even as voucher supporters quickly promised to try again next year, groups representing the state’s teachers hailed the governor’s loss as a win for Tennesseans.
“Governor Lee’s proposal was poorly written, arriving late in session, and had zero accountability in the plan,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.
The leaders of Arlington Community Schools near Memphis, who issued a fiery statement in December denouncing Lee’s voucher plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, said they were exhilarated by the legislation’s defeat — and troubled that the governor is already talking about next year.
“He hasn’t even taken a day to understand why his signature bill failed,” said Superintendent Jeff Mayo. “That tells me he doesn’t care to listen to our concerns. The end-game is to ultimately usher vouchers into Tennessee to fund private schools, despite the lackluster evidence that it will actually help students.”
Voucher policies have advanced under Lee
For years, school voucher advocates had watched their policy dream come up short in Tennessee before racking up a string of victories after Lee took office in 2019 amid significant turnover in the GOP-controlled legislature.
Lawmakers passed a bill on a narrow, controversial vote in the House of Representatives during Lee’s first year in office to help create an education savings account program.
The targeted program rolled out in 2022 in Memphis and Nashville for students from low-income families attending low-performing schools. Voucher opponents challenged the law in court and had some early legal wins, but the Tennessee Supreme Court declared the law constitutional in 2022.
After the program’s accelerated rollout and the addition of Hamilton County during its second year, the governor took another big step: proposing a separate statewide Education Freedom Scholarship program to launch this fall with up to 20,000 students, and eventually to eliminate all the geographic and family-income restrictions.
Dueling bills from the House and Senate easily advanced through education committees, but stalled for four weeks in finance committees before the governor accepted defeat.
In his statement Monday, Lee reiterated his reasons for pressing ahead, adding that he’s “never been more motivated.”
“It’s very simple,” he said. “This is about every Tennessee student having the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their ZIP code or income level, and without question, empowering parents is the best way to make sure that happens.”
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Memphis reporter Laura Testino contributed to this report. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Legislation to let some public school teachers carry handguns advanced Tuesday in the Tennessee Senate as the Republican-controlled legislature quashed new attempts to tighten the state’s lax firearm laws following last year’s mass school shooting in Nashville.
The bill, which still faces votes before the full Senate and House, would let a teacher or staff member carry a concealed handgun at school after completing 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, as well as passing a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.
The local district and law enforcement agency would decide whether to let faculty or staff carry a gun under the bill co-sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, both Republicans.
But parents would not be notified if their student’s teacher is armed, which runs counter to the GOP’s emphasis on parental rights and notification on education matters such as curriculum and library materials.
“The director of schools, principal, and the chief of the local law enforcement agency are the only ones notified of those permitted to carry,” Bailey told senators, “and they are not to disclose if someone is or is not permitted to carry on school grounds.”
The 7-1 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee comes as Tennessee’s legislature continues to pass measures aimed at fortifying school campuses rather than restricting gun access in one of the most gun-friendly states in America.
Gov. Bill Lee later called lawmakers back for a special session on public safety. But none of the bills that passed specifically addressed concerns about easy access to guns that were raised by the March 27 shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, where a 28-year-old intruder, who police said was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder,” used legally purchased guns to shoot through the glass doors.
This year, bills moving through the legislature would require age-appropriate gun safety training for school children as young as kindergarten; change school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; create a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; increase safety training for school bus drivers; and set guidelines to digitize school maps so first responders can access school layouts quickly in an emergency, among other things.
Meanwhile, Democratic-sponsored legislation to restrict gun access by broadening background checks and promoting secure firearm storage have met swift defeats. Earlier on Tuesday, one House panel dismissed, without discussion, a bill seeking to ban semi-automatic rifles in Tennessee.
School safety is one of the top three education concerns of Tennessee parents, but significantly fewer parents agree that schools are safer when teachers are armed, according to the latest results in an annual poll from the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.
Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat who voted against the measure, said more guns aren’t the solution to stopping gun violence.
“I do not think that it is the responsibility of teachers in our state, who have taken the oath to educate our children, to now become law enforcement officers,” she said.
Lamar also expressed concern about one provision to shield districts and law enforcement agencies from potential civil lawsuits over how a teacher or school employee uses, or fails to use, a handgun under the proposed law.
Organizations representing Tennessee teachers and school superintendents prefer policies that place an officer in every school over any that could arm faculty.
But Bailey told the Senate panel that nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools still don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them.
Law enforcement groups have struggled to recruit enough candidates because of inadequate pay, occupational stress, and changing public perceptions about the profession.
“Everybody’s got a shortage right now, but it’s been going on for years,” said Lt. Kyle Cheek, president of the Tennessee School Resource Officers Association.
Cheek, who oversees school-based deputies in Maury County, said equipping a teacher for school policing would require extensive training beyond a basic firearms course. And it would raise other concerns too.
“Who takes care of the teacher’s class if they’re going to check out a security issue?” he told Chalkbeat. “It’s a huge responsibility.”
The advancement of Bailey’s Senate bill means the measure likely will face votes this month in the full Senate and House before the legislature adjourns its two-year session.
The House version cleared numerous committees last year, but Williams did not pursue a vote by the full chamber after the Covenant tragedy prompted gun control advocates to stage mass protests at the Capitol.
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.
Credit: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception via Facebook
Immaculate Conception Cathedral School (ICCS) will close at the end of this current school year, officials announced Wednesday morning.
The parish could not overcome financial hurdles nor a “constant struggle with enrollment” at the Midtown school, said Father Robert Szczechura, pastor of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The school will work with parents to direct their students to other Catholic schools in the area.
“We had hoped that our collaboration, promotion, and recruitment efforts for the school, combined with the availability of Tennessee’s Educational Savings Accounts program, would enable our enrollment to grow,” said Kadesha Gordon, ICCS principal “However, it became increasingly clear that our hopes were not sustainable. And, despite everyone’s hard work, the expense of maintaining a school is far beyond what the parish and community were able to support.”
The school operates classes from preschool through eighth grade. ICCS was established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1921, on the corner of Rozelle and Central in the Central Gardens.
“This is a very heartbreaking decision given the rich history of our school,” said Szczechura. “We prayed often, and our school board, parents, and parish leaders met many times to collaborate on all possibilities from several angles to keep the school open. Unfortunately, the ongoing lack of financial stability and our constant struggle with enrollment made it impossible for the parish to continue operating the school.”
From left, Majority Leader William Lamberth, Speaker Cameron Sexton, and Republican Caucus Chairman Jeremy Faison speak with reporters on February 22, 2024, about upcoming voucher legislation from the Tennessee House of Representatives. GOP leaders filed their bill on Monday. (Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)
Three school voucher proposals now before Tennessee lawmakers would create a new statewide program that eventually could open eligibility to all K-12 students, regardless of family income.
But the similarities end there.
The latest version, filed Monday by House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) has no testing requirements for students who accept public funding to attend private schools. Gov. Bill Lee’s version doesn’t either, but Senate leaders say that approach is a non-starter.
The House plan also would make it easier for middle-class families to access the program during its first year than under the two versions filed last week.
Proposals by the governor and the Senate would reserve the first 10,000 slots for families who are at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. But the House version would bump that to 400 percent of the poverty level, which equates to $124,800 for a family of four — a departure from Lee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law aimed at low-income families who attend low-performing schools in three urban areas.
The biggest difference, however, is in the House’s sweeping attempt to address a plethora of long-standing concerns by public school officials in a bill purportedly about school choice.
From complaints about overtesting of students to the cost of health care insurance for public school teachers, the 39-page proposal devotes far more pages to existing public school policies than new ones for vouchers.
Last week, House Speaker Cameron Sexton called the upcoming omnibus-style bill an “all-encompassing approach” that’s based on feedback from public school leaders during recent months.
“It’s not just about choice; it is about K-12 education,” Sexton said.
But Democratic leaders vowed that no members of their outnumbered party will support any of the voucher proposals, even if some include policies that they’ve fought for in the past.
“They’re trying to buy votes,” said Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville). “They’re just throwing in everything they can to try to get enough votes to pass this voucher scam.”
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) who leads the Senate, said he’d “probably rather stick with the issues at hand” instead of expanding the bill’s scope beyond vouchers.
The legislation could be taken up Tuesday by a House subcommittee and Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee. But GOP leaders say it will be weeks before any votes are held.
Non-voucher proposals for public schools under the House bill include:
Reducing testing time and possibly pivoting from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program to a different “statewide standardized assessment.”
Increasing the state’s coverage of the cost of medical insurance for teachers and staff from 45 percent to 60 percent.
Phasing out the Achievement School District, the state’s turnaround district for low-performing schools, on July 1, 2026.
Adding several pathways beyond those outlined in a 2021 literacy law for fourth graders to get promoted if they don’t score proficient on this year’s TCAP in English language arts.
Reducing the number of required evaluations for higher-performing teachers.
Extending to eight years the validity of practitioner and professional teacher licenses.
Allowing high school students to take career readiness assessments instead of retaking the ACT exam.
Increasing the funding weight for small school systems from 5 percent to 8 percent under the state’s new K-12 funding structure known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act.
Reducing the frequency of student screenings through the state’s learning intervention program known as RTI.
Much of the disagreement over universal vouchers centers on the voucher program’s cost and how much private schools should be held accountable for results if they accept taxpayer money.
All three pieces of legislation would offer 20,000 vouchers this fall. But the House legislation stipulates that the program would increase by 20 percent annually if funding is available, while Lee wants to open it up to any student in the second year.
The governor proposes to give each recipient $7,075 this fall, which would cover about 62 percent of the average $11,344 cost of attending a private school in Tennessee, according to Private School Review.
Legislative staff released a fiscal analysis Monday showing the governor’s program would cost $144 million next fiscal year, which Lee has included in his proposed budget; $346 million the following year for an estimated 47,000 participants; and then exceeding that amount in subsequent years when “the liability to the state could significantly grow.”
Fiscal agents said over 1.12 million students would eventually be eligible to participate, including 155,650 students currently attending nonpublic schools.
“Due to the universal nature of the program, it is assumed that students already attending private school will seek the additional funding through the EFS Program,” the analysts wrote.
The analysts also noted that none of the legislative proposals include a plan to help offset an anticipated decrease in local revenue for public schools as students pivot to private schools.
Gov Bill Lee speaks with voucher supporters at New Hope Christian Academy, a private school in Memphis, during a visit in December, to promote his Education Freedom Scholarship Act. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who is supporting the governor’s proposal, also spoke. (Photo courtesy of State of Tennessee)
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Gov. Bill Lee and Senate leaders unveiled dueling proposals Wednesday to bring universal school vouchers to Tennessee. House leaders are expected to release a third version later this week.
Testing accountability stands out as a key difference in multiple amendments filed as part of a Republican campaign to eventually give all Tennessee families the option to use public money to pay for private schools for their children. The Senate plan also calls for open enrollment across public school systems.
Lee’s seven-page plan does not require participating students to take annual tests to measure whether his Education Freedom Scholarship Act leads to better academic outcomes. The governor has said that parental choice provides ultimate accountability.
The Senate’s 17-page proposal requires recipients in grades 3-11 to take some type of norm-referenced tests approved by the state Board of Education, which could include state tests that public school students take under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.
Assessments must include a third-grade test in English language arts and an eighth-grade test in math; the grades are considered benchmark years for learning those skills. Eleventh-grade recipients would also have to take the ACT, SAT, or a similar exam to assess their readiness for continuing their education after high school.
“The testing component is critical,” Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) told Chalkbeat. “We have a responsibility to share with Tennesseans how this is working.”
The developments show divisions at the state Capitol, despite a GOP supermajority, about key details of the biggest education proposal of Lee’s tenure, even before legislative debate begins in public. Lundberg’s committee is scheduled to take up the issue next week.
The governor wants to start with up to 20,000 students statewide this fall and eventually open up the program so any K-12 student can use a $7,075 annual voucher, regardless of family income. His earlier Education Savings Account law, which squeaked through the legislature with a historic and controversial House vote in 2019, targeted students from low-income families in low-performing schools in Memphis and Nashville but remains under-enrolled, even with the addition of Hamilton County last fall.
Cost is expected to be a major hurdle for Lee’s voucher expansion plan in a state that prides itself on being fiscally conservative.
Tennessee government has a nearly $378 million budget shortfall through the first six months of its current fiscal year, according to a revenue report released last week.
Even so, Lee’s proposed $52.6 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year includes $144 million annually for vouchers and $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas, all while slashing corporate business property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Over the weekend, Rep. Bryan Richey (R-Maryville), told a local town hall that, although he supports statewide vouchers, he expects to vote against this year’s proposal over budget concerns and the lack of accountability provisions.
The Daily Times reported that Richey compared the upcoming legislative process to baking a cake as he urged his constituents to engage early with lawmakers while the proposals are in committees.
“Once the ingredients are in the batter and it’s all mixed up, we’re not going to be able to go in there and pull the egg back out or get the oil out,” he said.
Lee’s proposal did not look markedly different from draft legislation that was inadvertently filed in the Senate in late January due to a miscommunication, then pulled a short time later. Vouchers would be funded through a separate scholarship account, not the funding structure currently in place for public schools.
But the Senate version aligns funding with the state’s new public school formula known as Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. And it would allow students to enroll in any school system, even if they’re not zoned for it.
“We want open enrollment so you can transfer anywhere,” Lundberg said. “It’s not just for private schools. The funding follows the student.”
House leaders have been huddling for weeks with key stakeholders to get their feedback for an omnibus-style amendment that’s expected to come out on Thursday.
“I look forward to reading the House proposal, but there are obviously already major discrepancies,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, who has been in some of those meetings.
“I really don’t see how these versions can be reconciled this year,” added Bowman, a voucher critic. “If they’re hell-bent on doing this, they need to at least take the time to get it right.”
But a statement from the governor’s office said the various proposals show “an encouraging amount of engagement in this process.”
“The governor has repeatedly emphasized that the Education Freedom Scholarship Act is a framework, built upon the foundation that parents should have choices when it comes to their child’s education, regardless of income or ZIP code,” the statement said.
The bills are sponsored by Senate and House majority leaders Jack Johnson of Franklin and William Lamberth of Portland. You can track the legislation through the General Assembly’s website.
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.
Gov. Bill Lee delivers his State of the State address Monday evening. Credit: State of Tennessee
Gov. Bill Lee renewed his call for private school vouchers for any student across Tennessee on Monday, and he also set aside $144 million in his proposed state budget to pay for the new program for up to 20,000 students in its first year.
For traditional public schools, the Republican governor asked the legislature to raise the annual base pay for teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, in keeping with his pledge last year to get the profession’s minimum salary to $50,000 by the 2027-28 school year. (Raising the base pay has a domino effect and increases the pay of more experienced teachers, too.)
Lee also wants to invest $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas while simultaneously cutting corporate taxes amid a downturn in state revenues. But he maintained that Tennessee has “a very strong economy” to pay for all the changes.
The governor outlined his list of wants Monday evening during his 2024 address before the General Assembly, which will take up Lee’s voucher proposal and the budget in the months ahead.
He opened his remarks by calling Tennessee a “model for economic prosperity” and reminding lawmakers that state revenues are still 40 percent higher than three years ago.
However, after years of being flush with cash, the state faces a $610 million budget shortfall this year, and many lawmakers are leery of approving a universal school voucher program that Lee wants to be available to any K-12 student in 2025-26. Currently, Tennessee offers vouchers to about 3,000 low-income families in three urban counties, but his Education Freedom Scholarship Act would open them up to families in all 95 counties, eventually with no family income restrictions.
“2024 is the year to make school choice a reality for every Tennessee family,” he said, drawing a standing ovation from many legislators — but not everyone in the GOP-controlled legislature — as well as frequent jeers from some spectators in the gallery.
“There are thousands of parents in this state who know their student would thrive in a different setting, but the financial barrier is simply too high,” Lee continued. “It’s time that we change that. It’s time that parents get to decide — and not the government — where their child goes to school and what they learn.”
Lee, a Williamson County businessman who graduated from public schools in Franklin, near Nashville, touted more than $1.8 billion in new investments in public education since he became governor in 2019.
“We can give parents choice and support public schools at the same time,” he said. “You’ll hear me say that over and over again. These two ideas are not in conflict.”
The governor also released his $52.6 billion state government spending plan to begin July 1. The total was down from Tennessee’s $62.5 billion budget for the current fiscal year because of flattening revenues and expiring federal funds appropriated during the pandemic.
He proposed $8 million to hire 114 more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.
Other recurring funding recommendations include $30 million to pay for summer learning programs; $3.2 million to expand access to advanced placement courses for high school students; and $2.5 million to pay for a universal reading screener as part of the state’s literacy initiative, all to offset federal funding that is drying up.
Lee is asking for $15 million in one time funding to help charter schools with facility costs.
The governor also announced that his administration will bring the legislature a bill designed to help parents oversee their child’s social media activity.
“It will require social media companies to get parental consent for minors to create their own accounts in Tennessee,” Lee said.
Such legislation would widen the state’s push against social media giants.
Last fall, Tennessee joined a coalition of states suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is accused of violating consumer protection laws and deceptively marketing its platforms to adolescents to the detriment of their mental health.
And some Tennessee school districts have joined a growing list of school systems nationwide that are suing major social media companies like TikTok and YouTube over a crisis in student mental health.
But in the wake of last year’s shooting at a private Nashville school — where three children, three staff members, and the shooter died — the governor offered no new initiatives aimed at improving school safety or decreasing gun violence, other than funding to hire 60 more state troopers.
Last year, after the March 27 tragedy, the legislature approved $140 million in grants to place an armed law enforcement officer in every Tennessee public school. But the legislature rebuffed the governor’s call for a law to help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others.
Remarks about Lee’s universal voucher plan, announced in November, drew quick responses from the leaders of the state’s two largest teacher organizations.
“The concept of universal vouchers would be costly to the state, and we urge the Tennessee General Assembly to move slowly,” said JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.
“In particular, we have concerns over the lack of income-eligibility requirements and accountability,” he continued. “Our state must avoid any program viewed as a tax subsidy for existing private school families or a tax bailout for struggling private schools.”
Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said Lee’s plan shows that vouchers have never been about helping economically disadvantaged families, as the governor first characterized it in 2019.
“The goal has always been to privatize public education and use public dollars to fund private school education, which goes against our Tennessee values,” Coats said.
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.Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
The last week of January is National School Choice Week, a week dedicated to advocating for policies that promote education freedom for families, allowing parents to choose the education best suited for their children. However, the spotlight on support for school choice should extend beyond one week, especially being that it is one of the few nonpartisan issues that is popular throughout the country — and not just with Republican primary voters, but also among 71 percent of all voters, across all demographics and the general electorate.
Tennessee is one of 13 states with an education savings account program, which allows lower-income families to receive approximately $7,000 per year in private school tuition assistance. Growing up in a zip code where poverty ran rampant, I was able to qualify for an education savings account, an opportunity that changed my life path completely.
Joi Taylor (Photo: Priscilla Foreman)
My mom and my grandmother were the matriarchs of the family, and my school choice journey began with them. They were the biggest advocates for my siblings and me, always looking for opportunities to help us get ahead and seeking resources to break down the barriers we faced in accessing a quality education.
Instead of being relegated to the schools that we were zoned for, school choice allowed me to attend New Hope Christian Academy, opening my world up to new possibilities through an exceptional education I would not have otherwise received. New Hope cultivated in me a commitment to hard work and servant leadership, and inspirited the notion that my biggest hopes and dreams could become a reality.
For middle and high school, I continued my journey at independent schools and attended Evangelical Christian School, where I learned academic discipline and outside-of-the-box thinking. Advanced classes and extracurricular activities prepared me for college, challenging my worldview and thought process constantly.
After graduating from Evangelical Christian School, I attended University of Memphis where I graduated magna cum laude with a degree in social work. While achieving something like this is attributed to many different factors, the undeniable reality is that the foundation laid by my private schools was instrumental in my success. I currently work for City Leadership, one of the top nonprofit consulting firms in the city of Memphis, and originally made the connection through my school choice journey.
It would have been impossible for me to realize my full potential without the opportunities and support system that school choice afforded me. I aspire to see more students who are just like me, overcoming their circumstances to rewrite their future. I truly believe that every family deserves the chance to choose their child’s education and have access to any school in their community, no matter their background.
In 2023, 20 states said “yes” to expanding school choice. These states either currently implement or are trying to implement policies that allow students to have a variety of choices when it comes to their education, whether that be traditional public schools, private schools, charter schools, or homeschooling. While this evolution of school choice across the country is remarkable, there are still millions of students stuck in school systems based on their family’s income or zip code that don’t fit their unique learning needs.
School choice is essential for the current and future generations of Tennessee, and our lawmakers should support education freedom here and for students across America through the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), a federal tax credit scholarship bill that would help up to 2 million students access a school or education service of their parents’ choice.
The ECCA would fund scholarships with private donations, not federal money, and donors would receive a federal tax credit. Students could use scholarships for tuition, tutoring to address learning loss, special needs services, education technology, and more. The bill would triple the number of students benefiting from private school choice programs, and it would complement the programs already in effect in 31 states, while creating new opportunities in 19 states that lack the option of school choice. The legislation has more than 100 House co-sponsors and more than two dozen Senate co-sponsors.
My story is proof that there lies power in opportunity, and school choice can give you a chance to blaze a path for generations to come. Education is not “one-size-fits-all” and families deserve the opportunity to choose where their children will learn the best. I urge lawmakers to support school choice by supporting the ECCA so that every child has the opportunity to achieve academic success, despite their background.
Joi Taylor is Choose901 alumni director at City Leadership in Memphis and a graduate of the Tennessee Educational Savings Account Program. She was also recognized in the Memphis Flyer’s 20<30 class of 2020.
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.
