Category Archives: Vouchers

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Legislature Passes $260 Million School Voucher Expansion

Despite a growing price tag and the reality that school vouchers so far are essentially providing private school discount coupons to wealthy families, the GOP Supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly has approved a significant expansion of the state’s school voucher scheme.

The plan would increase the number of vouchers available from 20,000 to 35,000 effective in the 2026-27 academic year. The cost of the expanded program is expected to be $262 million.

Chalkbeat reports:

Tennessee will expand its universal voucher program to 35,000 students next school year despite bipartisan opposition to the program over its growing price tag and changes to the funding assurances made to public school districts last year.

A slim majority of Tennessee Senate Republicans signed off on the legislation on Thursday. The bill will go to Gov. Bill Lee to be signed into law.

While the Senate initially sought to expand the program to 40,000 seats, the chamber agreed to move forward with a House version for 35,000 students.

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Sepulveda Speaks Out Against Vouchers

In an email sent by advocacy group TN for All, Nashville Metro Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda issues a call to action against the legislature’s attempt to rapidly expand Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher scheme. If expanded, the plan could cost as much as $300 million next year.

The email reads in part:

Last night, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to pass an expansion of Governor Lee’s voucher scheme.

These vouchers, called “Education Freedom Scholarships,” have so far gone primarily to wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools, with no evidence from the Lee administration to suggest otherwise.

For the upcoming school year, each voucher will be worth $7,530 per student attending a private school, which is more state funding per pupil than Tennessee provides to K 12 public school students. Meanwhile, Tennessee ranks 47th in the nation in per pupil spending for public education.

In short, this means more strain on our public schools and less support for the students who rely on them.

Vouchers are a bad deal for Tennessee families. Our children deserve strong, stable investment in their public schools.

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What’s Up with Vouchers in TN?

TC Weber tracks down the latest in the ongoing fight over expanding school vouchers:

Take the voucher expansion bill.

The House recently amended its version, pushing the program to 35,000 students next year—an increase of 15,000.

The Senate? They want 40,000.

Because of course they do.

The House version also adjusts “hold harmless” funding—meaning districts would only receive funding for students who actually take vouchers, not for overall enrollment losses.

That’s not a small tweak.

That’s a structural shift.

And it has the potential to hit district budgets hard.

The big question now is whether there are enough votes to get anything across the finish line.

Republicans have a supermajority, but even within that, there’s division.

And when divisions show up this late in session, strange things can happen.

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$55 Million

That’s the cost of turning Tennessee public schools into ICE agents:

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.

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Green Calls for Ending School Vouchers

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.

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Green: End Vouchers, Fund Public Schools

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. 
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Voucher Budget Eats $300 Million

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.

Chalkbeat reports:

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.

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

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Trump Voucher Scheme Makes Education Worse

Far from making schools or education great, the Trump private school coupon scheme will, new analysis shows, make things worse.

As an example:

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.

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Feeding Vouchers

A lawsuit over school vouchers in Ohio points to disparities in state funds received, with public schools coming out on the losing end.

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 what EdChoice 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.

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Cold Water

House GOP Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison pours cold water on the idea of expanding Gov. Bill Lee’s private school coupon scheme:

https://twitter.com/thetnholler/status/2011449101163065765?s=46
Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

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