Category Archives: Vouchers

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Sometimes Led to Declines

School vouchers don’t help kids but Gov. Lee wants them anyway

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has long been a staunch supporter of using public money to support private schools.

SHOCKING!

It seems this legislative session, he may be on the verge of achieving his ultimate goal: privatizing public education in the Volunteer State by way of a school voucher scheme.

Chalkbeat has a timeline of the march toward vouchers, and the details are quite interesting.

Here’s the key takeaway:

Also, the research hasn’t supported the case for vouchers as a way to improve academic outcomes. Recent studies find little evidence that vouchers improve test scores. In fact, they’ve sometimes led to declines.

Even now, big questions loom about the cost, impact, and legal merits of a program that threatens to destabilize Tennessee’s public education system.

A program that’s very expensive, doesn’t improve academic outcomes, and has “sometimes led to declines” is Gov. Bill Lee’s signature policy initiative.

MORE TENNESSEE NEWS

School Board Candidates Unite Against Vouchers

Behn, Oliver Push Free Pre-K for All

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United in Opposition to Vouchers

Williamson County Democratic school board candidates oppose school voucher scheme

All four Democratic candidates for Williamson County School Board oppose expansion of the state’s school voucher scheme.

The move to expand vouchers is being pushed by Williamson County’s State Senator, Jack Johnson, and Gov. Bill Lee, a Williamson County native.

In a joint statement announcing their opposition, the candidates said:

We are united in opposing vouchers because we’re listening to our neighbors, members of our communities and parents of students in Williamson County who are overwhelmingly against using taxpayer dollars to fund private schools. 

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Pushing Free Pre-K for All Kids

Making Childcare Affordable

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A Rally for Public Education

Coalition of groups asks lawmakers to reject Lee’s voucher scam

As Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal to expand the state’s failing voucher program to all 95 counties moves forward in legislative committees, a group of public education advocates is speaking out against the bill.

Nashville’s WSMV:

Teachers from across Tennessee will flock to the Tennessee State Capitol on Tuesday for a rally against Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher expansion plans.

The teachers will arrive at the Capitol at 9 a.m. for a day of action before the rally begins at 1 p.m.

They said the voucher plan is a scam and it will further defund Tennessee’s public schools, which are already ranked sixth to last in education investment.

The teachers will be joined by parents and others advocating for full funding of the state’s public schools. The group is coming together under the banner of Tennessee For All.

MORE TENNESSEE NEWS

Free Pre-K for All?

Questions Arise Over Lee’s Tax Break Plan

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Phil’s Got the Tapes

Pro-voucher group exposed

NewsChannel5’s Phil Williams has a recording of a prominent school voucher lobbyist calling for political punishment for Republican lawmakers who refuse to support Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher scheme.

“I don’t think anybody is going to get unseated without some substantial independent expenditures coming in there,” Gill says, acknowledging that wealthy special interests would need to spend a lot of money to knock off lawmakers who did not vote their way.

The point seems to be that privatizers (like Gill, affiliated with the Tennessee Federation for Children), are willing to spend what it takes to secure pro-voucher votes from lawmakers.

This is a familiar tactic. Tennesseans for Student Success employed similar methods when some GOP lawmakers refused to support a different privatization scheme.

That Hurt(s)
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Another Warning from Arizona

Bill Lee has a longstanding affinity for privatization Arizona-style

Back in 2017, I warned that plans to voucherize Tennessee’s public schools sounded eerily like the voucher scam in Arizona.

Vouchers: A Warning from Arizona

That scheme led Arizona to a huge budget hole created by vouchers. It only took seven years to get there.

A few years later, I noted that Lee’s charter commission plans also mimicked a scheme taking shape in Arizona.

Bill Lee’s Arizona Dream

Now, news out of Arizona regarding fraud in that state’s voucher program should give Tennessee policymakers pause.

Three former Arizona Department of Education employees were indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges in what prosecutors say was a scheme to defraud more than $600,000 from an education voucher program that has drawn criticism for its skyrocketing costs and lax regulation by the state.

The scheme saw employees create fake student profiles and approve the “ghost” students for vouchers – funds that were then paid to DOE employees.

Tennessee’s proposed school voucher scheme has come under fire for its lack of accountability. Without strict tracking of both expenditures and student performance, fraud along the lines of what has happened in Arizona is quite possible.

More Tennessee News

Exposing the Harms of School Vouchers

A Focus on Making Childcare Affordable

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School Voucher Folly

A disaster awaits as voucher vote looms

Peter Greene writes about school voucher legislation on the verge of being debate in the Tennessee General Assembly.

He notes:

Tennessee SB 2787 (also, HB 2468) is one of those odd little legislative tricks beloved by both parties and mysterious to ordinary mortals. It started out as a bill requiring the department of education to study school choice in other states and then make a report. Except by the time it’s done it won’t be about that at all.

This bill will be the vehicle for delivering on Gov. Bill Lee’s promise to create a universal school voucher scheme in Tennessee.

Vouchers on Verge of Expansion in Tennessee

Green goes on to note that based on Tennessee’s education track record, vouchers are likely to be a disaster in the state.

Choice fans talk about the needs of students and families, but Tennessee with its rich history of grift-centered education reformsterism seems poised to once again put the interests of profiteers ahead of protecting the rights of families. Heaven only knows what this bill is going to look like when it finally assumes its final form, but I’m not optimistic.

The Verdict on Vouchers

And Greene has this to say about the lack of accountability measures for the schools accepting vouchers:

It would be nice, in a choice marketplace, to have some basic guardrails in place. We mostly don’t depend on market forces to protect us from markets that sell poisonous food. One would think that the government could provide that basic level of oversight for a school choice system, but voucher fans are far more likely to explicitly forbid government oversight, and true to form, none of the discussion surrounding this bill seems to center on what requirements vendors would have to meet in order to get some of those taxpayer-funded voucher dollars.

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Vouchers: “Ineffective, Inefficient, Inequitable”

Chattanooga Unity Group opposes Lee’s voucher scheme

The Unity Group of Chattanooga is opposed to Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal to expand a school voucher scheme and make vouchers universal in Tennessee.

The group points to Arizona as an example of a state where a once-small voucher program ballooned to create a significant budget shortfall.

After analyzing vouchers in other states in terms of costs and outcome, the Unity Group concluded that vouchers are:

“Ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable.”

Pastors Lament Lee’s Voucher Push
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Pastors Lament Lee’s Voucher Push

Southern Christian Coalition expresses concerns about Lee’s voucher plan

The Southern Christian Coalition is speaking out against Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher expansion plan. Lee gave additional details about the plan in his State of the State address last night. The scheme, as announced, would cost a projected $141 million in the first year of operation.

McIntyre said Gov. Lee’s voucher plan would harm our state’s public schools.

“Instead of trying to make the situation better and choosing to fully fund our public schools, Governor Lee is publicly promoting his voucher scheme, which we only take funds from school districts the state doesn’t already adequately fund, and instead funnel money to his friends and donors in the private school sphere.”

Of Vouchers and Inequality
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Democrats Slam Lee’s Voucher Plan as a “Scam”

Lawmakers speak out ahead of State of the State

In remarks delivered Friday, Senate Democratic Caucus Chair London Lamar challenged Gov. Bill Lee to lead on issues that make a difference for working families.

Among the topics addressed by Lamar was school vouchers. Here’s what she had to say:

Once again, Tennesseans are going to be told they should support a scam that defunds our neighborhood schools to subsidize private school tuition for wealthy families.

Lamar’s description of the impact of vouchers is especially salient in light of mounting evidence that school vouchers not only fail to improve student achievement but also exacerbate inequality.

Of Vouchers and Inequality