In this analysis of the potential long-term impacts of a universal school voucher scheme, the argument is made that vouchers amount to a transfer of wealth to the already wealthy.
The long game, then, is to dismantle public education, hand the profits to privateers, and restrict education resources such that the haves have more and the have-nots have never.
The privatization of Tennessee’s public schools has long been a goal of Gov. Lee:
As Gov. Bill Lee unveils an expensive expansion of his school voucher scam, opposition is quickly mounting.
The Tennessee PTA has joined the many voices expressing opposition to school vouchers.
In order to ensure that taxes support every child’s education, we must maintain our commitment to a free educational system while also ensuring those in charge of managing the funds are responsible and transparent in their actions.
The group adopted an official position opposing vouchers in 2022. That position reads in part:
The Tennessee PTA advocates that funds raised by general taxation for educational purposes should be administered by public officials and should not be used to support privately operated schools . . .
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Gov. Bill Lee announced a massive expansion of a voucher scheme yesterday and faith leaders immediately spoke out in opposition.
Advocates with the Southern Christian Coalition noted that Lee’s plan would harm the state’s public school system and leave students behind. Representatives of the group said the plan is out of alignment with Lee’s proclaimed Christian faith.
Rev. Brandon Berg, Pastor of Norris and Sinking Springs United Methodist Churches in the Knoxville area, said:
“If Governor Lee claims the Christian faith, and we know he does, then he must change course and start to prioritize the education of every Tennessee child by fully funding our public schools and end this voucher scheme that would create even more inequity in Tennessee schools.”
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Despite mounting evidence suggesting that universal school voucher programs are both expensive and ineffective, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee seems determined to deliver on a promise from his 2018 campaign. That promise? Privatizing public schools.
Gov. Bill Lee is preparing to announce a plan to dramatically expand Tennessee’s controversial school voucher program, allowing K-12 students to receive taxpayer funding for private school regardless of need, according to talking points obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
Lee has long been an advocate of using tax dollars to fund unaccountable private schools.
Even though as early as 2016, Bill Lee was extolling the virtues of school voucher schemes and even though he’s a long-time supporter of Betsy DeVos’s pro-voucher Tennessee Federation for Children and even though he has appointed not one, but two voucher vultures to high level posts in his Administration, it is somehow treated as “news” that Bill Lee plans to move forward with a voucher scheme agenda in 2019.
Lee has continued his steady march toward full privatization of schools since 2019. Securing passage of his voucher scheme, advancing legislation that created a charter school commission, inviting Hillsdale to hijack our schools.
He even made a successful push to change the state’s school funding formula to make it more appealing for private schools to accept vouchers.
Now, he’s going for the final blow: A universal school voucher plan.
This plan will be expensive and is not likely to have a positive impact on academic achievement.
In the above article, written in 2017, I noted:
Nearly 15,000 students who never attended public school suddenly receiving vouchers would mean a state cost of $98 million. That’s $98 million in new money. Of course, those funds would either be new money (which is not currently contemplated) or would take from the state’s BEP allocations in the districts where the students receive the vouchers.
Since then, two things have happened.
Lee’s plan envisions 20,000 students AND the guaranteed minimum voucher amount has increased.
The cost now would be $141 million. That doesn’t include any local offset for lost local funding (estimated to be about $8 million in Davidson County alone back in 2017).
If the state absorbs the cost, rather than passing it on to local taxpayers, there would need to be a fund of at least $100 million to cover those costs.
So, at minimum, Lee’s plan creates a voucher school district costing an additional $250 million a year.
All while our state remains in the bottom 10 in school funding.
Oh, and if the state does not create an offset fund, local taxpayers would be footing the bill – which would mean either local property tax increases (as happened in Indiana) OR a decrease in services offered in traditional public schools.
Lee is delivering on his promise, even though it’s expensive and even though data from other states and early data from Tennessee suggests it won’t improve student achievement.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Adam Friedman of The Tennessee Lookout has a fascinating story out about political spending in Tennessee.
The story includes notes on top donors, top lobbying spenders, and top spenders on campaigns by way of independent expenditures.
Turns out, support for privatizing public schools wins big when it comes to earning political money from Tennesseans for Student Success.
Here’s more on Tennesseans for Student Success and their agenda of shifting public money to private schools:
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Gov. Bill Lee’s new Education Commissioner, Lizette Gonzalez Reynolds, has been on the job since July 1st and says her priority will be implementing a raft of policies supported by Gov. Lee and passed by the General Assembly.
Chalkbeat has more:
Three weeks into her job as Tennessee’s education chief, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds says her charge from Gov. Bill Lee is to implement existing major policy changes — from how reading is taught to the continued rollout of private school vouchers — not to craft new initiatives.
Privatizing the state’s public schools has long been a goal of Lee’s, and it seems he’s now chosen a chief implementer of that policy.
Of course, privatization also comes in the form of handing public dollars over to unaccountable charter school operators – like Hillsdale College.
Then, there’s the state’s dangerous new school funding formula, TISA:
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Gov. Bill Lee today signed a law expanding his school voucher scheme to Chattanooga.
Students in these districts (Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga) may receive a voucher in an amount equivalent to the state-generated funding provided to their home district for the student. Under the state’s new school funding formula (TISA), each student generates a specific dollar amount based on a range of factors. The vouchers should range from about $8,000 to around $15,000 depending on where a student lives, family income, and a series of other factors included in the TISA calculation.
Research has consistently shown that vouchers do not improve student outcomes:
In addition to vouchers, Lee is attempting to privatize the state’s public schools through a network of charter schools affiliated with extremist Hillsdale College.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Over at The Education Report, I’ve written about the recently concluded legislative session.
Here are a couple highlights:
As the General Assembly finished its business this week, legislation that would expand the state’s fledgling voucher program (now confined to Memphis and Nashville) to Chattanooga was finally passed.
To be clear, it had been passed in the Senate before.
The House, however, was eager to get vouchers into even more communities – and so added an amendment that would add Knox County to the mix.
Ultimately, Knox County was NOT added – but let’s be clear: The legislature wants full-on privatization of the state’s public schools.
Tennessee now has a third grade retention law – meaning that students who don’t hit a certain benchmark on the state’s 3rd grade TNReady test MUST repeat third grade OR participate in remediation, including a summer reading program. Some estimates suggest more than 60% of students would be subject to the law’s requirements and around half of those may ultimately repeat third grade.
The legislature did so SOME tinkering – but it won’t help this year’s kids.
Unless the full legislature intervenes before adjourning in the next few weeks, this year’s decisions on who gets held back or sent to remedial programs will be based solely on TCAP reading test results. That’s the current criterion under a 2021 law that lawmakers passed in response to pandemic learning losses.
If the proposed revisions are approved as expected, the state would widen criteria beginning with the 2023-24 school year to consider results from a second state-provided benchmark test, too — but only for third graders who score as “approaching” proficiency on their TCAP.
Gov. Bill Lee did ultimately propose the adoption of a Red Flag Law – but no GOP member of the House or Senate rose up to sponsor it in the legislature’s final days.
Now, Lee is calling a special session to focus specifically on gun violence and public safety.
It’s not yet clear whether GOP lawmakers will back this effort pushed by their party’s leader.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Tennessee lawmakers appear determined to expand vouchers to both Chattanooga and Knoxville this year. In fact, the Senate has already passed legislation expanding the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program to Chattanooga at the request of Hamilton County state Senator Todd Gardenhire. Now, the House may add Knox County to the voucher expansion and send the plan back to the Senate.
Meanwhile, Georgia lawmakers recently rejected a voucher plan.
More from The Education Report:
So, it’s encouraging to see Republicans in a Southeastern state say NO to vouchers. Which is what just happened in Georgia.
The legislature there just rejected a voucher expansion plan – with most Democrats and a handful of rural Republicans voting no.
Why would rural lawmakers oppose vouchers? Because local taxpayers don’t want to be stuck with the fiscal impact of supporting TWO school systems.
And that’s exactly what happens when public money supports private schools by way of vouchers – or even charter schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Efforts to privatize Tennessee’s public schools were deferred today in a key House Committee.
The privatization push includes potential expansion of school vouchers into Knoxville and the other would open the doors for charter schools to operate in districts without first being subject to local review.
More from The Education Report:
This bill (HB433), as currently written, would expand the state’s school voucher program (known as Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs) to Chattanooga. Currently, the voucher scheme only applies to students in Memphis and Nashville.
It’s bad enough that some policymakers are ready to expand this privatization program to another Tennessee school district. However, what’s even more alarming is that Education Administration Committee Chair Mark White has filed an amendment to expand the program even further – this time into Knoxville.
As you might recall, I wrote about an amendment to the charter legislation that would:
These new charters would also be able to bypass local school boards and apply directly to Bill Lee’s State Charter Commission for approval.
That would mean zero local input and zero local accountability – even though millions of local tax dollars would be spent supporting these charter schools.
It’s important to look at these pieces of legislation for what they are: A clear agenda.
Gov. Lee and his legislative allies want to privatize our public schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport