Tennessee’s public education system is under siege by wealthy conservative oligarchs, including former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who are bankrolling Republican leaders to push school vouchers. Ultra-wealthy conservatives have made dismantling public education their mission, even descending upon Washington ready to disband the U.S. Department of Education.
Professor Josh Cowen of Michigan State University spoke at a forum hosted by Sen. Heidi Campbell and Rep. Caleb Hemmer. In his presentation, Cowen discussed his research into voucher programs across the country. Cowen said his findings suggest policymakers should be wary of school vouchers as a policy solution.
“These voucher schemes devastate student learning. The bigger and more recent the voucher system, the worse the results are for kids,” Cowen said. “Over the last decade, we see some of the largest test score drops for kids who transfer from public to private school using a voucher that we’ve seen on any question in the history of education research.”
Objections to the new bill that lawmakers must ponder this year were presented in a recent talk by Marsha Livingston, a retired teacher from Anderson County Schools.
Based on valid data comparing the educational outcomes of public and private school students in Tennessee the last two years and in other states with large rural populations, she said, student academic achievement based on test scores in public schools generally surpasses that of students in private schools supported by public money.
She quoted Andy Spears, publisher of the Tennessee Education Report, who wrote, “With little data showing any significant positive gains, and new data suggesting possible harms, it’s difficult to understand why policymakers would adopt a voucher system in Tennessee.”
Today, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced that he will call for the Tennessee General Assembly to convene a special session on Monday, January 27, to pass the Education Freedom Act.
The session will also include a disaster relief package for areas impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Conservative groups are already speaking out against Lee’s voucher scam.
• With 10,000 scholarships initially available and expanding by 5,000 each year, the program’s long-term cost could strain Tennessee’s budget, leading to higher taxes for hardworking families.
• Public schools will retain their funding even when students leave, forcing taxpayers to fund both public schools and ESAs simultaneously. This double-dipping could bankrupt our state over time.
The math: TCN says the voucher scheme will cost $268 million in year one – and continue to be a drag on state and local budgets, likely resulting in tax increases:
Another conservative group, Tennessee Stands, says they oppose vouchers because:
Vouchers are wealth distribution. Vouchers are government funds that come with additional regulatory oversight. Vouchers are dangerous for home schools and private education.
Divided School Board votes against adding Lee’s voucher scam to legislative agenda
The Knox County School Board will not ask lawmakers to support Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher push, despite an attempt by the Board’s GOP majority to adopt the issue.
All Republicans except District 5 representative Lauren Morgan and District 9 representative Kristi Kristy voted Jan. 9 in favor of asking lawmakers to expand Tennessee’s private school voucher program. Kristy took a “pass” vote and Morgan voted “no.”
Morgan explained her “no” vote:
I don’t believe it’s in this board’s realm of duties to make vouchers a legislative priority as we don’t have control over what the legislator does. I think it’s our job here on this board to make Knox County Schools the best that they can possibly be and be the place where our students and our families want to get an education and choose to go to school.”
Once again, this new version is jam-packed with all kinds of seemingly nice things tacked on to try and distract people from the fact that this is all a scam designed to defund public education. Lee and his voucher scammers want you to pay attention to the long overdue teacher raises and the newly-dedicated funding source for school construction projects promised in the bill.
But let’s face it − if they were really serious about the proposals, they would have already done them. They wouldn’t have to tie them to a bait-and-switch scheme to designed to undermine public education and make out-of-state billionaire voucher backers happy.
The new money for teachers in Lee’s latest voucher proposal is a one-time bonus, not a long-term commitment to better pay.
While Lee claims to support investment in school infrastructure, schools are still waiting for funds while the Tennessee Titans have $500 million in state money for their new (smaller) stadium.
Today, Mayes announced yet another fraud case in which a couple has been charged with 60 counts of fraud, having put in applications for 50 students, 43 of whom do not actually exist. The couple– Johnny Lee Bowers and Ashley Meredith Hewitt– apparently did not even live in Arizona at the time. They grabbed around $100K, which they used for “personal living expenses,” so this was like their job, what they did for a living.
Here’s the deal: The voucher scheme in Arizona is busting the budget – and it is rife with fraud.
As TN lawmakers consider vouchers (again), they should look at the results in Arizona – lots of fraud, little ROI in terms of student outcomes.
Vouchers lost big on Election Day, but voucher supporters keep insisting they should get their way
Even though voucher supporters thought they could win by putting vouchers to a vote in three states (Kentucky, Colorado, and Nebraska), and even though they were soundly defeated in all three cases, and even though vouchers have never won when put to a vote of the people, voucher supporters are still trying.
They know best, after all. And even though the votes weren’t close, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do vouchers anyway.
So perhaps the more complete version of the argument is this– nobody should be able to make me do things I don’t want to do, but I should be able to make them do things they don’t want to do. And if I want their money to help me do the things I want to do, they should be made to give it to me. Or maybe it’s “if I’m going to be forced to so something I don’t want to do, then other people should be forced to do something I do want to do.” Or maybe just “Other people shouldn’t be able to make rules that bind me.”
And then, Greene gets to the heart of the reality of vouchers:
Private schools are a way for those with might and money to escape the democratically-operated system. Vouchers are a way to funnel public tax dollars into that system while pretending that we’ll open great private school doors to one and all. But that pretense is just that– a pretense. Voucher laws deliberately protect the ability of private schools to discriminate while also protecting their right to avoid any accountability to the taxpayers.
In 2018, Arizona voters overwhelmingly rejected school vouchers. On the ballot that year was a measure that would have allowed all parents — even the wealthiest ones — to receive taxpayer money to send their kids to private, typically religious schools.
Arizonans voted no, and it wasn’t close. Even in a right-leaning state, with powerful Republican leaders supporting the initiative, the vote against it was 65% to 35%.
This year, voters in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kentucky rejected vouchers. In Kentucky, the margin was 2-1 against vouchers – and all 120 counties in Kentucky opposed a ballot initiative that would have allowed vouchers.
While the results of last week’s election indicate a closely divided nation on many issues, support for public schools is a consistent winner. And, when asked – in blue states and red states and in rural and urban areas – voters reject school vouchers.
