The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) offers some insight into vouchers.
Short version: The don’t work to improve academic outcomes, they eat state budgets, and they provide private school discount coupons to wealthy families.
MORE about the impacts of the bill that expands vouchers to 35,000 seats and is expected to cost taxpayers $262 million:
The amended House bill would have three main effects on public school districts. First, as part of the process to recoup funding due to disenrollment, districts would be required to collect and share the social security numbers of students at the time of public school enrollment. Critics of the bill argue that this is a measure intended to begin tracking the citizenship and immigration status of students by public school districts. Second, while the state’s funding formula factors in regular increases to offset funding losses, the amended House bill’s requirements place a significant administrative burden on districts that has the potential to require districts to spend more money to recoup funding than the money they would recoup in the first place. Third, the amended House bill also significantly increases the household income threshold built into the program, making more vouchers available for higher-income families than previous legislation allowed.
