The advocates cited a new report from the Immigration Research Initiative (IRI) that shows:
Verifying the status of all students in the state would entail hiring, training and equipping an estimated 934 school personnel. For context, that is roughly half the number of school nurses in Tennessee public schools.
The cost of hiring these 934 employees would total roughly $55 million statewide.
These are not one-time costs. The expense for each district would be highest in the first year of implementation but would continue to recur every school year.
The leading Democrat running to be Tennessee’s next Governor is calling for an end to the state’s voucher program.
Jerri Green says in a recent Substack post that if elected, she’ll work to end the state’s voucher program and redirect the funds to the state’s public schools.
Every dollar diverted to vouchers is a dollar taken directly from classrooms, teachers, and students across Tennessee.
In an OpEd in the Jackson Post, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerri Green highlights the challenges of school vouchers and calls on the state to use the money – now up to some $300 million – to invest in public schools:
Even more troubling, multiple reports show that students who use vouchers often perform worse academically than their peers who remain in public schools. Lower test scores, disrupted learning, and less accountability are becoming the norm—not the exception.
She outlines how to invest the money:
Imagine what we could do if, instead of draining public schools, we invested in them:
We could pay our teachers what they deserve and finally address the staffing shortages hurting our schools.
We could expand special education services so every child receives the support they need to succeed.
We could build strong career pathways, certifications, and workforce training programs that prepare students for good-paying jobs right here in Tennessee.
In his final State of the State address, Gov. Bill Lee made clear his support for rapid privatization of schools.
Lee called on the legislature to double the number of school vouchers (essentially, discount coupons for private schools), with a total voucher cost of $303 million.
Gov. Bill Lee wants Tennessee lawmakers to invest more than $155 million into the state’s voucher program, which would double the Education Freedom Scholarships pool from 20,000 to 40,000 private school vouchers.
Lee’s proposed budget also would more than double the costs of the program and blow past the expansion cap lawmakers voted on last year, growing the program beyond its original limits despite little data to indicate the program is impacting student achievement.
If Lee achieves his goal, Tennessee would spend more than $303 million in public dollars next fiscal year to help send 40,000 students to private schools across the state.
Lee’s budget move for vouchers follows a trend in other discount coupon states: Rapid expansion that eats more and more of the state budget and also disrupts local school funding.
Indiana, Arizona, and Florida have all seen voucher budgets grow to consumer significant state dollars, leaving crumbs on the table for public schools.
This is Lee’s top legislative achievement – voucherizing Tennessee public schools. It’s been his top priority since 2019, and as he leaves office, his dream (and the state’s nightmare) is on the verge of being realized.
Subsidize private education for the rich. School vouchers, on average, cover just 39% of middle school private school tuition across the sampled states. Even with a private school voucher, tuition prices are often out of reach for working-class families, meaning that the vouchers function as a subsidy to the rich who can already afford to pay for private education.
The coalition representing public school districts says the voucher program violates the state constitution’s equal protection provisions by providing more funds for some students receiving vouchers than their public school peers.
In the 2023-2024 school year, students in Richmond Heights Local School District received $1,530 in state funding. Students in Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District received $2,600. That’s far less than whatEdChoice students in grades K-8 received, $6,166, and high school students got, $8,408.
The districts argue this disparity is unjustified and discriminatory, and that public school students should not have to leave public education to receive equal treatment.
8 more community schools close: Our hearts break for the Kyrene and Scottsdale communities, as their school boards have voted to shutter neighborhood schools. Kyrene voted to close 6 schools, and Scottsdale Unified voted to shut down 2 schools at the end of this school year. These votes come after months of emotional community input and difficult conversations about budget constraints. This brings the total number of schools shut down since universal ESA voucher expansion to 28, with at least 4 more closures expected in Amphi.
It turns out, all that “school choice” talk Gov. Bill Lee used to promote his signature policy issue – private school discount coupons – was just talk.
Kids aren’t leaving failing schools.
Kids aren’t performing better once they are in private schools.
It’s just state-sponsored privatization of a public good.
Most Tennessee public school students who use Education Savings Account vouchers aren’t leaving low-performing public schools, while ESA students overall are underperforming their public school peers in both academic achievement and growth.
Overall, students receiving ESA money performed worse on the state’s standardized tests than students in public schools, although ESA students outperformed their peers in Memphis-Shelby County schools last year. The comptroller’s report also notes that scores from students receiving ESAs have increased over time.
Meanwhile, virtual schools participating in the ESA program for the first time last year performed worse than both private schools with ESA students and local public schools. Just 20% of ESA students enrolled in virtual schools were proficient in English language arts, and just 17% were proficient in math.
And, the kids aren’t leaving behind schools that are “failing:”
“Most schools that students are leaving to participate in the ESA program are neither reward nor priority schools, which would indicate their performance is neither among the highest or lowest of public schools in the state,” the comptroller’s report states. “When considering schools that have received state and federal designations, more ESA students are leaving reward schools than priority schools.”
