Tag Archives: School Vouchers

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Why Are Tennessee Lawmakers Spending $300 Million on a Failed Program?

At Gov. Bill Lee’s behest, the General Assembly this year expanded the state’s private school discount coupon scheme – now costing $300 million.

As part of that expansion, policymakers also decided that students accepting vouchers would no longer have to take state standardized tests – so, we won’t know in the future whether students using vouchers have “improved” academic outcomes.

We do, however, have numbers from the program so far – a program that has been around since its passage in 2019.

Data analysis shows that Tennessee kids using vouchers score 20 points or more WORSE than their public school peers.

The Tennessean notes that only 17% of kids receiving vouchers scored proficient on the state’s standardized math test and 24% reached proficiency in English.

I mean, that sounds bad – but, how does it compare to public school results?

Public school students scored 43% in math proficiency and 40% in English.

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The Wild World of Vouchers

Some private schools receive public funds for every student in their building – and still aren’t required to meet the transparency and accountability requirements of public schools.

ProPublica digs into some of these “100% schools” and finds both poor performance and questionable financial practices. Yes, both of these may occur in public schools – but, public schools post line-item budgets online and must conduct business in public meetings. There are also rules about awarding contracts to board members – rules that don’t seem to apply to private schools.

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The School Choice Lie

School privatization schemes come in a lot of packages – no matter how they are served, though, the results are the same: The schemes cost a lot, leave lots of kids behind, and reduce funds available for traditional public schools.

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The appeal of “school choice,” in which families are permitted to use state funds that would’ve been otherwise spent on public education on non-traditional programs like charter or private schools, is easy to understand. The promise of options and tailored education sounds reasonable in the abstract. But in practice, choice works best for families with the time, information, and flexibility to navigate it, and whose children the private school is willing to choose. For a family in rural Florida or a child with complex disabilities whose needs most private schools won’t accommodate, the marketplace of options is theoretical. The public school is the only institution legally required to educate every child who walks through the door. When it is weakened through funding cuts, the diversion of students and dollars, or a hollowed-out teaching workforce, the consequences fall hardest on the children least able to find alternatives.

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Another Voucher Warning

As the 2026 legislative session comes to a close, lawmakers are now looking at yet another effort to expand Gov. Bill Lee’s signature scheme: A private school discount coupon plan for wealthy families.

Some call them vouchers.

Realists call it a scam – exclusionary, expensive, and harmful to public schools and Tennessee communities.

A reverse Robinhood scheme that would make Ronald Reagan proud – taking tax dollars from Tennessee’s working class and sending them to the wealthy to fund private school education discounts.

In an email, Metro Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda notes:

After securing an expansion of Governor Lee’s voucher scam, well-funded special interests are now pushing to grow the state’s older and more costly ESA private school voucher system and the legislation is already moving quickly.

Tennessee lawmakers are advancing amended legislation (HB 1881/SB 1585) that would significantly expand the state’s ESA voucher program.

Key concerns with the amended bill:

  • Dramatically expand the income limit for the Education Savings Account (ESA) program and add Knox County, in addition to the Achievement School District, Hamilton County, Metro Nashville, and Memphis-Shelby. The income limit would be so high that almost every Tennessee family would qualify. 
  • Remove the 15,000-student cap on ESA vouchers. School districts affected by the program must reimburse the state for each ESA scholarship awarded from their respective counties. Most of these dollars come from local funds in each of these four counties. Without the cap,  school districts may have to send additional funding to the state to cover the additional ESA recipients, taking resources out of the neighborhood public schools and classrooms. 
  • Allow the ESA program to serve additional students when the statewide voucher program reaches capacity. The four additional counties that would now be included in the ESA program already have the highest number of families participating in the voucher program. This could explode the number of vouchers in Tennessee and cause irreparable fiscal harm to the state’s largest school districts.
  • Remove TCAP testing and annual reporting requirementsfor the ESA program. By removing these requirements, lawmakers reduce transparency and accountability, leaving families and taxpayers without the information they need to see how students in the ESA program are performing compared to their peers in public schools.

Use the buttons below to take action to stop special interests from taking your tax dollars to give private school coupons to Bill Lee’s rich friends.

EMAIL: https://bit.ly/fundourschoolstn
CALL: https://bit.ly/vouchercallscript2026

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

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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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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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Voucher Numbers

TC Weber takes a look at the state’s voucher numbers:

This week, the Tennessee Comptroller released a 163-page analysis of the second program. Reviews are mixed—and appropriately so.

The report shows:

  • Program growth from 452 students to nearly 3,700
  • Participation still far below the 15,000 seats authorized
  • Of 98,000 eligible students, only 7,019 applied (7.2%)

Several findings deserve closer scrutiny:

  • 24–36% of ESA recipients never used their vouchers
  • It’s unclear where unused funds went
  • The majority of ESA students did not attend public school the prior year

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Arizona and Voucher Danger

Runaway school vouchers lead to school closures.

In every state.

Every time.

The evidence out of Arizona is clear:

8 more community schools close: Our hearts break for the Kyrene and Scottsdale communities, as their school boards have voted to shutter neighborhood schools. Kyrene voted to close 6 schools, and Scottsdale Unified voted to shut down 2 schools at the end of this school year. These votes come after months of emotional community input and difficult conversations about budget constraints. This brings the total number of schools shut down since universal ESA voucher expansion to 28, with at least 4 more closures expected in Amphi.

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