An interesting tidbit from The Education Report about Indiana’s voucher program and the possible implications for Tennessee:
Tennessee starts a universal school voucher plan in the 2025-2026 school year. That program is already at capacity in terms of the number of applicants. All 20,000 slots will be taken.
If growth of the program tracks Indiana, that would mean that by 2035, Tennessee will be spending more than $1.4 billion on private school coupons.
Which brings us to the second big takeaway: These vouchers are just creating a discount for wealthy families – they are not a pathway for low- and middle-income families to gain access to private school education.
A pair of stories in The Education Report highlight the unfortunate reality of a federal school voucher scheme brought about by the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Robert Kim, Executive Director of Education Law Center:
“Education has not been spared in this bloodbath. This legislation establishes a federal tax credit school voucher scheme with no spending cap. Study after study shows that vouchers sweep aside civil rights protections, support segregation, decimate public school budgets, and do not improve student outcomes. Vouchers undermine public education, the cornerstone of our democracy, and have no place in federal policy.”
The federal voucher is proposed as a tax credit scholarship, meaning that every dollar taxpayers put into the voucher program is a dollar of revenue the federal government does not collect (and for which each donor gets a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, a deal unlike any available for other donation credits). The House version has a cap on the amount of tax revenue the government will give up; the Senate version has no such cap.
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The State of Tennessee has said it will not keep track of whether recipients of the state’s new, universal school vouchers are currently enrolled in private schools. In other states (like Arizona), as many as 75% of school voucher recipients were already enrolled in private schools BEFORE receiving a state-funded discount coupon.
These numbers would indicate that vouchers are not so much about school choice as they are about subsidizing private schools – and, ultimately, privatizing the delivery of public education.
As Tennessee lawmakers debated a new universal voucher program earlier this year, one financial analysis projected that 65% of vouchers would go to students already enrolled in private schools.
Now, it will be impossible to determine whether that projection was accurate.
Tennessee families do not have to report their previous school enrollment in the new statewide voucher program application, a gap that will leave Tennesseans in the dark about whether the program will significantly expand private school access for public school students or send millions in public funds to students already enrolled in private schools.
The expected cost of the state’s voucher program at full implementation exceeds $1 billion. If fiscal analysts and trends in other states are an accurate predictor, Tennessee will essentially be funding an entirely separate school system – in addition to the woefully underfunded public K-12 system. Tennessee currently ranks last among Southeastern states in investment in public schools.
One Tennessee school district is leaving free money for teacher pay on the table. The Grundy County School Board has decided not to accept the state’s $2000 bonus for teachers that was provided as part of the universal school voucher bill that passed this year.
School privatizers are persistent – they work and work and work to obtain access to public funds. They work to reduce accountability. They work to profit from what should be a public good.
Defeating vouchers is a priority because vouchers provide a direct funding stream to private schools that takes funding away from our public schools. Private schools are not designed to be a public good. They want to be able to select the students that they educate and are not open to all students. Because they have a selective admission process, they can refuse any child for any reason. And they operate outside of the public eye. We don’t know what the standards are that they are purporting to meet. We don’t have any accountability for the quality of education that they are providing.
“This decision protects the integrity of public education, ensuring critical funding remains in schools that serve 90% of Utah’s children and prioritize equitable, inclusive opportunities for every student to succeed,” said the Utah Education Association. “It reinforces the belief that public education is a cornerstone of opportunity for everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances.”
Sumner lawmaker touts plan that would undermine the Sumner County Schools in his district
State Rep. William Slater who represents Trousdale County and part of Sumner County in the General Assembly, is actively promoting a school voucher scheme that could have devastating consequences for the public schools in his area.
Slater voted for the scheme – as did all of the representatives of Sumner County’s legislative delegation.
Now, the former headmaster of Hendersonville Christian Academy is actively seeking applicants to take public money to enrich private schools and their operators. The plan would also essentially provide a discount coupon to families already sending students to private schools.
State Rep. William Slater, R-Gallatin, is encouraging interested families in Trousdale and Sumner counties to apply for Education Freedom Scholarships (EFS) beginning May 15.
All Tennessee students can apply for the program, which provides a $7,295 scholarship to attend a private school that will best fit a child’s needs. Families are encouraged to apply early and have all necessary documents and information readily available.
State budget set to take a hit from rapid private school coupon scam
This blog takes a look at the numbers when it comes to Tennessee’s expanded school voucher scheme – set to go universal in the upcoming academic year.
Applications continue to flow in for Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program. The TDOE has released data showing that the number of scholarships applied for by families with a qualified income was equal to those for by parents with no economic restrictions.
As of the beginning of this week, the department has received a total of 38,160 applications:
18,852 applications for qualified income scholarships.
19,308 applications for universal scholarships.
Applications have been received from more than 300 zip codes across the state.
An average of 2,935 applications per grade level have been submitted for students entering Kindergarten through 12th grade.
Critics of the program continue to fire away even as applications increase. According to Sam Stockard at the Tennessee Lookout, the program is slated to cost about $400 million next year and escalate to $1.1 billion in five years. Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons says, calling Gov. Lee’s program “a scam that will harm students, de-fund public education, and expedite our state’s impending budget crisis.”
This is what vouchers are about–defunding a system that has an obligation to serve all students and giving that money to a system that can discriminate against whoever for whatever reason. Operate that private system if you feel you must, but do not fund it with public tax dollars. I hope Tennessee Christian decides not to accept vouchers. Better for them, and better for the taxpayers of Tennessee.
Bill Lee’s legacy will be the undoing of Tennessee’s public education system. First, through the ill-designed TISA formula and then by way of a universal school voucher scheme.
In submitting her updated budget proposal in March, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs lamented the rising costs of the state’s school vouchers program that directs public dollars to pay private school tuition.
Characterizing vouchers as an “entitlement program,” Hobbs said the state could spend more than $1 billion subsidizing private education in the upcoming fiscal year. The Democratic governor said those expenses could crowd out other budget priorities, including disability programs and pay raises for firefighters and state troopers.
Tennessee’s voucher scheme will cost nearly $150 million in year one – and the cost of the private school coupon plan could balloon quickly.
Of course, by the time the voucher plan eats so many state dollars that other programs are cut, Lee will no longer be governor.
Still, when public education in the state suffocates under the weight of school vouchers, there is one man who should bear the brunt of the blame: Bill Lee.
