Oak Ridge and Voucher Opposition

Retired teacher speaks out against voucher scam

A retired teacher from Anderson County spoke to the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge about the reasons she opposes Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher scam.

Objections to the new bill that lawmakers must ponder this year were presented in a recent talk by Marsha Livingston, a retired teacher from Anderson County Schools.

Based on valid data comparing the educational outcomes of public and private school students in Tennessee the last two years and in other states with large rural populations, she said, student academic achievement based on test scores in public schools generally surpasses that of students in private schools supported by public money.

 She quoted Andy Spears, publisher of the Tennessee Education Report, who wrote, “With little data showing any significant positive gains, and new data suggesting possible harms, it’s difficult to understand why policymakers would adopt a voucher system in Tennessee.”

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

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Penny Schwinning

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Former Tennessee Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn has been nominated to serve in the Trump Administration as Deputy Secretary of Education. If confirmed, she’ll serve under former WWE CEO Linda McMahon.

Here’s more on Schwinn:

In job after job, Schwinn caused problems and wreaked havoc. Financial mismanagement. Misrepresenting the truth. Carrying the water for a destructive agenda with a smile. Seems she’ll fit right in with the Trump team.


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Lee Calls Special Session to Pass Voucher Scam

Conservatives already speaking out against plan that would raise taxes while providing no real benefits

Today, Gov. Bill Lee called a special legislative session to focus on passage of his school voucher scam.

Today, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced that he will call for the Tennessee General Assembly to convene a special session on Monday, January 27, to pass the Education Freedom Act.

The session will also include a disaster relief package for areas impacted by Hurricane Helene.

Conservative groups are already speaking out against Lee’s voucher scam.

The Tennessee Conservative notes:

• With 10,000 scholarships initially available and expanding by 5,000 each year, the program’s long-term cost could strain Tennessee’s budget, leading to higher taxes for hardworking families.

• Public schools will retain their funding even when students leave, forcing taxpayers to fund both public schools and ESAs simultaneously. This double-dipping could bankrupt our state over time.

The math: TCN says the voucher scheme will cost $268 million in year one – and continue to be a drag on state and local budgets, likely resulting in tax increases:

Another conservative group, Tennessee Stands, says they oppose vouchers because:

Vouchers are wealth distribution. Vouchers are government funds that come with additional regulatory oversight. Vouchers are dangerous for home schools and private education.

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Not A Damn Thing

That’s what’s changed under Bill Lee’s approach to education

When Gov. Bill Lee came into office in 2018, Tennessee school funding system was broken.

The state lagged behind our neighbors in terms of support for schools by all measures. Billions in unfunded infrastructure needs. Teachers paid well below their peers in Southeastern states. Total investment in students ranked in the bottom 5 in the nation.

Bill Lee’s solution to all of this was to propose a school voucher scheme.

While it passed by a single vote in the House, the fallout is still being felt – one House Speaker lost his job over it. Staffers were indicted. And it seems the saga is not over.

Heading into 2025, Lee is now (again) pushing an expansion of his voucher scheme.

The state is still near the bottom when it comes to education investment and support for teachers. Schools still have billions in unmet infrastructure needs.

What’s changed in the education landscape during Bill Lee’s time as Governor?

Not a damn thing.

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Insulting

Trump’s pick to head Dept. of Ed is former CEO of wrestling business

Gov. Bill Lee was quick to indicate his support for Donald Trump’s selection of Linda McMahon to head the U.S. Department of Education.

This is not exactly surprising. Despite Trump calling Lee a “RINO,” Lee trips all over himself to curry favor with Trump.

Plus, Lee and Trump (and McMahon) have the same goal: Privatizing public schools by way of voucher schemes.

Peter Greene notes of McMahon:

Unlike former secretary Betsy DeVos or some of the contenders like Tiffany Justice and Erika Donalds, McMahon has not spent most of her adult life trying to devise and implement ways to dismantle and privatize public education. (And at age 76,  she is a decade older than DeVos–one more aging boomer in this administration). I’m not saying that won’t be part of her policy objectives. It’s just that she won’t enter office with a whole suitcase of explosives already packed.

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Beshear for President?

A public school defender makes a case for the White House

While TN’s Gov. Bill Lee is busy cozying up to incoming President Donald Trump‘s terrible ideas, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is making the rounds and making a strong case for a pro-public school President.

Beshear recently penned a New York Times OpEd proposing a way forward for national Democrats and then appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and made the case that he could be the face and voice of that path.

Central to Beshear’s appeal in Kentucky is his vigorous defense of public education. He’s proposed boosting teacher pay significantly. He’s also been a vocal opponent of school vouchers – and Kentucky voters re-elected him by 5 points in 2023 and then rejected school vouchers by a 65-35 margin in 2024. They also voted for Trump by a 2-1 margin.

Beshear wins in a Trump +30 state because he defends local public schools. As he notes, he’s also a strong supporter of reproductive freedom and a defender of LGBT+ rights. By focusing on a “we’re all in this together” attitude, Beshear showing how Democrats can both advance a progressive agenda and win elections.

Support for public schools is a key element of that playbook.

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Bill Lee Backs Bad Ideas

He wants the cash without the accountability

It’s not really surprising that Bill Lee is supporting incoming President Donald Trump’s bad ideas. That said, the impact on students in Tennessee schools could be devastating.

To be clear: The leader of a state that earns an “F” grade in investment in students, is near the bottom in the nation (and the Southeast) for teacher compensation, and consistently fails its most vulnerable students wants to remove all guardrails and just be trusted to “do what’s best?”

While it is not yet clear if Trump will actually dissolve the Department of Education, powering the agency down as he’s suggested could remove key protections for students with disabilities. It could also drastically alter how funding for low-income students is distributed.

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Voters Don’t Like Vouchers

But Bill Lee does

The top priority of Gov. Lee and his legislative allies in the 2025 General Assembly is passing a universal school voucher scheme.

It was the first bill filed for the upcoming session.

For the entirety of his time in office – since 2018 – Lee has been pushing to privatize the state’s public schools. And, it seems he just won’t stop.

Interestingly, anytime vouchers are put to a public vote, they fail. It happened in Kentucky, a state that voted 65-35 for Trump – and 65-35 against school vouchers.

In 2018, Arizona voters overwhelmingly rejected school vouchers. On the ballot that year was a measure that would have allowed all parents — even the wealthiest ones — to receive taxpayer money to send their kids to private, typically religious schools.

Arizonans voted no, and it wasn’t close. Even in a right-leaning state, with powerful Republican leaders supporting the initiative, the vote against it was 65% to 35%.

This year, voters in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kentucky rejected vouchers. In Kentucky, the margin was 2-1 against vouchers – and all 120 counties in Kentucky opposed a ballot initiative that would have allowed vouchers.

While the results of last week’s election indicate a closely divided nation on many issues, support for public schools is a consistent winner. And, when asked – in blue states and red states and in rural and urban areas – voters reject school vouchers.

Still, Bill Lee persists.

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

Zombie Vouchers

They just won’t go away

Within hours of the recent election’s conclusion in Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee’s top legislative allies filed their top priority legislation for 2025: School Vouchers.

Again.

They won’t stop.

This despite vouchers being overwhelmingly rejected by voters in states like Kentucky, Colorado, and Nebraska.

Yes, while Kentucky voted about 2-1 for Donald Trump, they also voted 2-1 AGAINST a ballot initiative that would have allowed public funds to be spent on private schools by way of vouchers.

Vouchers were rejected in all 120 of Kentucky’s counties.

And still, Gov. Lee and his associates continue to push for a universal voucher scheme in our state.

Legislative Democrats were quick to speak out against Lee’s insistence on bringing vouchers back from the dead:

“Once again, Tennessee Republicans are pushing an expansion of their failed private school voucher scheme. This isn’t about improving education; it’s about diverting public dollars away from underfunded public schools to private institutions that are unaccountable to taxpayers and don’t serve every student. Vouchers are a scam — they aren’t working to improve student outcomes here in Tennessee, nor have they succeeded at this scale anywhere else in the country.”

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When School Choice Isn’t About Choice at All

The people pushing “school choice” actually want only one choice

The same people banning books from schools and seeking to ban Pride flags are the ones pushing “school choice.”

Thing is, they don’t want actual choices. They want all schools to conform to their narrow vision.

Peter Greene offers some insight:

This is not about choice. It’s about capturing the education system so that young humans can be taught the correct way to behave and think. It’s about trying to eradicate a way of thinking and being that folks on the right disapprove of. 

He adds:

And there’s an absolutely ridiculous piece of “scholarship” from the Heritage Foundation trying to discredit charter schools for being woker than public schools, because choice is supposed to provide a variety of educational viewpoints, except not Those Viewpoints.

When someone like Ron DeSantis or Ryan Walters tells you that he favors school choice and he also favors making illegal all references to certain “divisive topics” and gender stuff, he is telling you that all his talk about school choice is bullshit. 

See also: Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee:

Lee made clear his preference for Christian Nationalism as the driving force for education “reform” in Tennessee in his 2022 State of the State Address.

Since then, he’s tried to force Hillsdale College-affiliated charter schools on Tennessee communities – and thanks to his hand-picked Charter School Commission, he’s succeeded in some cases.

The challenge here is not just the transfer of public money to private school operators. It’s also the use of public money for one very specific worldview – to the exclusion of all others.

Lee and his Christian Nationalist allies – some of whom have called for violent revolution in order to impose their vision on public schools – have decided they know best.

As Greene puts it:

This is not fond hopes for the day when dozens of different sorts of schools bloom and everyone can pick the one that best suits them. 

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