Chalkbeat

Illinois education advocates grow more divided on Pritzker’s impending federal tax-credit program choice

2026-08-27T20:12:37+00:00

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An increasingly vocal contingent of Illinois education advocates, including a Chicago school board member, are calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to opt into the Trump administration’s federal tax-credit scholarship program.

Pritzker has about four months to decide whether he plans for Illinois to join the federal program, which offers tax credits to individuals who make donations toward private and public schools. The looming decision has created a growing schism between school advocacy groups, as some see the program as an opportunity to better fund Illinois schools while others worry it will just funnel more money into private schools.

One of the most prominent declarations against Illinois joining the Trump administration’s initiative was from the Chicago Board of Education itself. Earlier this year, it decisively passed a non-binding resolution urging the state not to opt in. However, in a noteworthy break from most of the school board, Angel Gutierrez — the only member who was absent from the vote — came out in support of Illinois’ program participation at a Thursday news conference outside South Loop Elementary School.

“I think it was politically driven,” Gutierrez told reporters, referencing the board’s resolution. “But I think that, in the space and place that we’re in now, we have to be really cognizant of any type of potential dollars that may help and directly benefit the students.”

Republican lawmakers included the creation of the federal tax-credit scholarship program in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” last year. The initiative, called the “Education Freedom Tax Credit,” is meant to promote school choice nationwide. Taxpayers can choose to contribute up to $1,700 originally owed in federal income taxes to an education-related scholarship organization.

But the major caveat to the program that has fueled debate is the critical role of governors in choosing to opt into the program. If a governor — or whatever government entity has authority to make the choice — doesn’t decide to join, students in that state won’t be eligible to receive money generated from the program.

In Illinois, a Democratic stronghold, many advocacy groups approached the program with skepticism. Those who have come out against participating point to the intentions behind the initiative — creating an environment that drives more families toward private schools — as evidence that it will not provide equitable outcomes for public schools. It could also exacerbate existing disparities in funding, as wealthier school districts are more likely to get contributions from their families than poorer districts.

Some Illinoisans may be familiar with previous efforts this year to sway Pritzker to join, most notably a ballot measure campaign in more than 20 counties from Illinois Policy Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank. Other education officials at Gutierrez’ news conference argued that the program will roll out with or without Illinois’ participation, meaning donations for education organizations would wind up out-of-state.

“It indeed is a set, settled, and passed law at this point. We’re not interacting with it in terms of advocating for or against it, “ said Joshua Stafford, superintendent of Vienna High School in southern Illinois. “Instead, each state now gets to make a determination, and that determination really boils down to whether boys and girls and schools are going to be able to participate in this opportunity.”

Joshua Stafford, superintendent of Vienna High School in southern Illinois, speaks at a press conference in support of Illinois’ participation in the tax-credit program at a Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, news conference outside South Loop Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois.

Statewide education advocacy organizations are also backing Illinois’ participation in the program, including Stand for Children Illinois, a group that aims to improve children’s access to public schools.

Jessica Handy, Stand for Children’s executive director, acknowledged in a virtual news conference earlier this month that the federal initiative was not made with educational equity in mind. Instead, Handy suggested Illinois avoid using the program as designed and implement “creative and innovative approaches” to prioritize equitable access for all students. Illinois school districts will need to make sure they establish a scholarship granting organization to receive tax credit money, which Handy emphasized as a key reason to opt in sooner rather than later.

Further guidelines and regulations for the program’s implementation are expected to be released this fall. The governor’s office said earlier in this summer that it is waiting to see what the federal rules look like before deciding whether to join.

So far, it has been a slow trickle of Democratic governors who enrolled their states in the program. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis led the pack to opt in, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has indicated that she plans to, as well. There have also been flat-out rejections from some Democratic governors, including in Hawaii, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Oregon, according to the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit resource website.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

Arizona court kills voucher ballot measure, leaving a national school choice debate unresolved

2026-08-18T23:19:16+00:00

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The Arizona Supreme Court effectively killed a ballot measure that would have brought significant oversight and an income cap to the state’s school voucher-like program in a ruling Tuesday.

The battle over the measure brought high drama to the desert — and exposed cracks forming between conservatives over oversight of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which families can use like vouchers on homeschooling, private school, and other expenses.

Those divisions are still in play: In the state superintendent’s race, Arizona voters will choose between two candidates who disagree sharply about whether the ESAs need more regulations. Yet the ballot measure’s failure demonstrates that enacting new rules for longstanding universal school choice programs can be a difficult task in the current climate — even if some voucher supporters express qualified support for those limits.

Arizona has long been a proving ground for the school choice movement. ESAs became open to all families four years ago. Some say the program represents a huge victory for families and triggered a much-needed explosion in new education models. To others, the accounts have become a boondoggle ripe for abuse.

Voucher opponents had hoped to tap those concerns about misspending and ask voters directly whether to impose new regulations. Conservative school choice supporters treated the proposal like an existential threat to educational freedom, and used every tool from competing ballot measures to signature petition challenges to thwart the effort.

The signature challenge ultimately carried the day. The state Supreme Court invalidated enough signatures that it appears impossible for the measure, known as the Protect Education Act, to make the ballot. The state teachers union, one of the measure’s key supporters, conceded defeat Tuesday.

While a large contingent of notable Republicans, including former Gov. Doug Ducey, cheered the demise of the Protect Education Act, officials behind it wrote that the court’s ruling “does not reflect what Arizona voters want” in a statement to The Arizona Republic.

Polling from late last year indicated that voters had an appetite for better management of the ESA program. What to do with that public sentiment divided school choice supporters.

The American Federation for Children — a staunchly conservative organization once chaired by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — backed a compromise measure intended to defang the Protect Education Act. It accused other pro-voucher groups of “playing Russian roulette” with Arizona children’s futures. Critics of the federation shot back that the group “burned a lot of bridges locally and nationally” through its efforts in Arizona.

Brian Jodice, a spokesperson for the organization, said in a statement after the state Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling that the American Federation for Children would “continue working for real solutions.”

“It is wrong and reckless to risk 100,000 scholarships, every year, to keep this program unchanged and out of step with all other similar programs across the country,” he wrote.

But with the Supreme Court ruling, that gamble appears to have paid off, at least for now.

Robert Enlow, the president and CEO of EdChoice, said Arizona has led the way in “true parental autonomy.” Imposing any guardrails risks reversing that progress for the school choice movement, he said.

“Arizona is way out in front of everyone else,” he said. “That’s where it has the real national impact.”

The court’s ruling comes just weeks after the question of whether and how much to regulate ESAs emerged as a key issue in the election for the top education job in the state.

Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne, a strong school choice supporter, lost his reelection bid in the July Republican primary to state Treasurer Kimberly Yee.

Yee accused Horne of overstepping his authority because his office rejected some Empowerment Scholarship Account purchases by parents because it deemed them not educational expenses. Such decisions should be up to state lawmakers, she said. Horne shot back that Yee’s logic would allow people to use the accounts for suspect items, like Rolex watches.

Republican primary voters favored Yee in a race that became the most expensive election to date for state superintendent, according to The Beam, an investigative news outlet.

In an email to Chalkbeat, Yee wrote that she’d protect taxpayer dollars “with transparency and accountability.” She did not answer questions about whether she feels the program needs more oversight or specific new guardrails.

Yee will now face Democrat Teresa Ruiz — a former community college president — in November.

Ruiz, who wants to build up oversight of the program if elected, told Chalkbeat that management of the ESA program is the “number one” topic that’s come up when talking to prospective constituents.

“While there are, I’m sure, some appropriate educational expenses, we also know that the un-educational things have gone through,” she said.

With the ballot measure essentially dead, the superintendents’ race could become the next test for how voters feel about regulating school choice.

Passing such regulations through Republican-dominated legislatures has proved challenging. And at least one recent election suggests GOP politicians could pay a price for indicating interest in them.

In 2025, Florida Republicans considered legislation that would address financial mismanagement of the state’s voucher program, after an audit flagged millions of dollars that weren’t accounted for. They ultimately abandoned the effort. This year, lawmakers in West Virginia considered but did not advance legislation to try to contain the costs of vouchers.

In this year’s Iowa GOP gubernatorial race, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra expressed concerns about private schools not accepting all students using the state’s education savings accounts — only for fellow Republicans to accuse him of betrayal. He lost his June primary election, despite getting President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee in that election, Rob Sand, believes that calling for more regulations for vouchers is a winning issue.

He has conceded, however, that there’s “no chance” Iowa will repeal the program, since Republicans have firm control of the legislature.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Here’s how far an Indiana Choice Scholarship voucher gets you at Indianapolis private schools

2026-07-24T11:00:00+00:00

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Some Indianapolis families that use private school vouchers could still get a bill upwards of one thousand dollars to cover the remaining cost of their tuition.

The median gap between tuition for private schools within Indianapolis Public Schools borders this upcoming school year and the voucher amount is $1,694, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of tuition rates. The analysis uses the estimated $7,455 each student living within IPS boundaries will receive from the Indiana Choice Scholarship program, and includes five virtual schools.

Families could get the remaining cost covered through other means, such as discounts and scholarships. But the gap underscores that even as more voucher programs nationwide become universal, they don’t necessarily cover all the costs for families that use them. For the first time, Indiana’s vouchers will be available to all families in the upcoming school year, regardless of income.

Critics of the voucher program, which Indiana launched in 2011, argue that it’s deviated from its original purpose of helping low-income families leave struggling schools for a better education. Supporters argue the program helps give families more options and the freedom to choose a school that best fits their child.

The gap between the cost of tuition and the voucher amount does have an effect on educational opportunity, said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, whose research has found that vouchers or voucher-like programs disproportionately benefit wealthier families in Indiana and other states.

“These programs often times don’t provide enough money for low-income families to afford the types of private education they might want,” Valant said. “For a lot of families, even a couple thousand dollars is a lot to cover in a year to actually bridge that gap.”

Private schools in the area said they bridge the gap for many families through scholarships or other structures that ease the tuition burden.

Chalkbeat’s analysis covers 21 of the 31 voucher-accepting schools in IPS borders that published their latest tuition rates or provided them to Chalkbeat. The remaining 10 schools did not respond to requests for that information. Not all private schools in the area accept vouchers.

Many Catholic schools also offer lower tuition rates for parishioners or families that are part of the archdiocese. Chalkbeat’s analysis used rates for non-church members.

It’s unclear whether the gap between vouchers and tuition for those Indianapolis-area schools has grown recently. But as Indiana’s nominal spending on vouchers increased from $15.5 million in 2011 to $497 million in 2024-25, the gap between per-student Choice Scholarship funding and average private school tuition per pupil also grew.

In 2016-17, the state reported that almost half of all voucher students had their full tuition and fee amounts covered by the voucher. By 2024-25, that figure had dropped to 28%.

For many schools, Chalkbeat’s analysis excludes additional fees — such as those for field trips or technology — which vouchers can also cover. It also excludes other financial aid that families can receive, such as scholarships offered by the school or discounts for enrolling more than one child.

Indiana Choice Scholarship funding is limited to up to 90% of the amount the public school district in which the student resides will receive that year in state tuition support per pupil. That means the voucher amount varies based on where a student lives.

Indiana’s voucher program was initially reserved for students in a household making no more than 150% of the amount needed to qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program (in addition to other requirements). In 2011, that was about $60,000 for a family of four, Education Week reported at the time.

Over the next 15 years, lawmakers gradually expanded eligibility for vouchers. Beginning in 2023, for example, families earning up to 400% of the threshold to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch were eligible — meaning that in 2025-26, a family of four could earn up to $237,910 and still receive vouchers.

By 2024-25, over 76,000 students received Choice Scholarships, compared with just over 3,900 in 2011-12.

Within IPS borders, some private schools tap other financial resources so that families don’t pay the full remaining tuition amount, or offer sliding scales to reduce the tuition burden.

Providence Cristo Rey only admits families making up to 250% of the federal poverty guidelines — or a maximum of $80,375 for a family of four. The school is part of the Cristo Rey network, which offers private, Catholic education for underserved families.

The school’s tuition for 2026-27 is $27,900 — meaning the gap between tuition and the Choice Scholarship award for IPS students is over $20,000, the largest such figure in Chalkbeat’s analysis. But the school estimates family contributions will range from only $365 to $2,100. The rest is covered through various scholarships and corporate work-study funding for students.

The Oaks Academy, a network of schools founded in 1998 by a coalition of churches to provide a racially and socioeconomically diverse education, also has a sliding-scale tuition rate based on household size and local median income.

The network relies on funding from Indiana’s tax-credit program — in which individuals make donations to scholarship-granting organizations for private school tuition, in exchange for a tax credit — to fill in some of the gap left between the voucher and tuition cost, said Oaks Academy CEO Andrew Hart.

The voucher program has allowed the network to serve about 800 more students than it would have served otherwise, he said. When Oaks Academy began, the only tuition subsidies available for lower-income families were from philanthropy.

Only about 15% of families pay full tuition, Hart said, while 50% pay a “very small fraction” — some as low as $100 a month.

“Our families have benefited significantly [from] the voucher program,” Hart said. “And now of course starting this year, all of our families will benefit.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Why a new federal school choice program may require a massive marketing budget

2026-06-30T20:48:41+00:00

Chalkbeat Ideas is a section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.

A new federal tax credit is designed to unleash a spigot of funding for school choice, particularly private schools. But getting those dollars may, ironically, require spending a great deal of money. That’s because individual taxpayers must be convinced, one by one, to redirect a portion of their tax bill toward this effort.

Staff at American Federation for Children, a school choice group, have said that it could cost $300 or more in marketing to persuade each taxpayer to donate, according to three school choice supporters who described this estimate to me.

If accurate at a national scale, these figures suggest that billions of dollars could be required to get a large swath of Americans to participate. In other words, it could be harder and pricier to grow the program than many realize.

This new tax provision, adopted in the Trump-backed tax-and-spending bill passed last year, serves as a complicated way to subsidize school choice.

Starting next year, the federal government will reimburse taxpayers who donate to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs, which issue educational stipends for students. Both private and public schools can receive these grants, although the uses in public schools are more limited since they don’t typically charge tuition.

States must opt in for SGOs within their boundaries to receive the tax-credit subsidy. Virtually all Republican-led states have done so, while most Democratic governors have not made a decision either way.

“Donations” of up to $1,700 — for people who owe at least that amount in income taxes — cost nothing on net to the taxpayer. The federal government effectively foots the whole bill.

But most Americans don’t know much about this obscure new tax provision. And even if they learn about it, some will be wary of handing an SGO what amounts to an interest-free loan. That’s why SGOs and their allies are preparing marketing efforts to educate people about the program and persuade them to participate.

The American Federation for Children, which was co-founded by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, was an advocate for the tax credit and recently started its own SGO. The group said it has already raised over $10 million for an “ambitious national awareness campaign.”

Brian Jodice, a spokesperson for AFC, declined to comment on the organization’s internal estimate of $300-plus per donor. But he said that AFC is aiming to match “industry standards” of $1 in spending to generate $5 in donations. For a $1,700 donation that would be $340. Jodice emphasized that “it’s too early to pinpoint donor acquisition costs.”

Estimates vary widely on how much money will be raised via the tax credit. The Trump administration recently pegged the figure at $24 billion, based on the assumption that 30% of eligible taxpayers, about 14 million people, will donate. If each donor requires $300 in marketing, then it would cost over $4.2 billion to reach that benchmark — roughly twice what the state of Wyoming spends on its public schools.

Marketing costs may come down over time as awareness grows about the program.

By law, SGOs are limited to spending 10% of the money they raise through the tax credit — or $170 on a $1,700 donation — on expenses outside of scholarships. This indicates that the AFC figure of $300 or more could not be supported through tax credit money alone. Organizations may be able to raise separate dollars for marketing.

Some in the school choice community believe that will be necessary. “Ten percent is not a lot to do what people would imagine it would take to scale the program up a ton quickly,” said Derrell Bradford, president of 50CAN and an advocate of school choice.

Some public school districts and their allies are also considering raising money through the tax credit to support after-school and tutoring programs, among other things. They may also find that this requires a significant up-front investment.

Darla Romfo, president of the Children’s Scholarship Fund, an SGO, said she’s looking at a variety of approaches to share information about the tax credit without a large marketing budget. She wants to keep overhead low to ensure as much money goes to scholarships as possible.

Jim Blew, an adviser to a coalition working to implement the tax credit, thinks it may cost more like $100 in marketing per donor.

Blew and Romfo have heard the AFC acquisition cost estimate. So did a third school choice advocate who did not want to be named to share a private conversation.

An obvious concern is that SGOs’ marketing efforts will amount to time and resources that detract from the main purpose of the scholarship program and drive up overhead costs.

Blew doesn’t see it that way. In his mind, a marketing campaign is a way to cultivate political support for school choice and the tax credit. “I don’t think we look at it as wasted money,” he said. “This is part of a larger effort to change the culture around education in this country.”

The marketing cost is also the price of trying to avoid government regulation.

That’s why school choice supporters and Congressional allies favored the more convoluted tax-credit over a voucher program in which the federal government issues grants to parents and schools.

Schools that receive direct federal funding must comply with various rules including civil rights laws. School choice supporters say this shouldn’t apply to private schools that receive tax credit scholarships, even though they are 100% subsidized by the federal government.

This argument may prevail. But the upside of direct government funding is that money doesn’t need to be spent persuading individual taxpayers to participate.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Treasury Department preview of tax credit scholarship rules suggests limited role for states

2026-06-11T23:51:45+00:00

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States most likely will not be able to place additional requirements or guardrails on scholarship groups funded through the new federal tax credit, according to a preview of the rules provided by the U.S. Treasury Department this week.

This position contradicts comments Education Secretary Linda McMahon made to Congress last month and at a Michigan school choice event in March in which she said states would be able to shape their own programs.

The U.S. Department of Education has declined to clarify those remarks, but it is ultimately the Treasury Department that will set the rules for the program.

And in remarks made Tuesday at a closed-door meeting and later released by the Treasury Department, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Kevin Salinger said that states may not impose “substantive” rules on scholarship groups that are more restrictive than federal law.

That’s welcome news for school choice groups who want more flexibility and limited rules for scholarship groups.

It may present a dilemma for Democratic governors who have said they are waiting to see these rules before deciding whether to opt in.

One of the key questions for this group has been whether they’ll be able to shape the program by putting additional rules on scholarship groups, requiring, for example, that they serve low-income families and students with disabilities or meet certain academic standards. Some Democrats have indicated they want the money only to go to public schools.

“I am never going to leave money on the table when it comes to supporting our kids in public schools,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said last week at the Education Writers Association conference in Baltimore when asked about the tax credit. But Moore said he was waiting on the regulations to decide whether to participate. “I do not believe that we should be taking public dollars and putting them towards private education.”

Salinger’s remarks indicate states will not be able to shape the program as they see fit, contradicting the administration’s promise to “return education to the states.”

Set to launch in 2027, the federal tax credit scholarship allows individuals to donate up to $1,700 to eligible nonprofits and get fully reimbursed through a federal income tax credit. The scholarship groups can provide vouchers to families earning up to 300% of the area median income to spend on educational expenses. Those expenses could be private school tuition, tutoring for a public school student, or specialized equipment or therapies.

Governors can decide whether their states participate, and those who do must submit lists of eligible scholarship organizations each year. Federal law imposes only minimal requirements, for example that scholarship groups operate as federally recognized nonprofits and provide money to students who attend more than one school.

The closed-door event at which Salinger spoke included a panel on ways public school students could also benefit.

Speaking at a separate Chalkbeat Ideas event Thursday, Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green said Democratic states should be open to possibilities, such as scholarships funding afterschool tutoring through approved vendors.

“This is not money that we would have,” she said. “This is money that, instead of going to the federal government, could come to our state.”

Another question has been whether homeschool families can benefit. That’s likely to be determined by whether state law considers a home school to be a school in a legal sense.

Sailnger laid out other aspects of the rules that school choice groups have been watching carefully, clarifying that they can operate in multiple states and that caps on administrative costs won’t apply to their entire budgets, only to money they raise for scholarships.

The rules will be finalized by the end of September, Salinger said.

Large national scholarship groups hoped for this flexibility so they can expand and serve more families.

“We have gotten our clearest signs from Treasury yet that this tax credit is going to benefit all students across all sectors,” said Ashling Preston, director of federal affairs for the American Federation for Children. “Every governor has the information they need to opt in right now. There are hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars at stake in every state.”

But Augustus Mays, vice president for partnerships and engagement at the progressive advocacy group EdTrust, said the preview of the rules only reinforces his belief that Democratic governors should opt out.

“If you’re a governor and you think you’ll be able to have the authority to shape this program to align to your public school priorities,” he said, “the answer is no, you’re not going to have that authority.”

Ideas Editor Matt Barnum contributed.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

The red-state Democrat upending the politics of school vouchers

2026-06-02T14:11:10+00:00

Chalkbeat Ideas is a section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.

Over the last several years, Republicans have offered a fairly unified message on education. They want to expand school choice, eliminate certain liberal ideas from school curriculum, and close the U.S. Education Department.

Democrats, on the other hand, have been casting about for an educational vision. A vocal contingent within the party has said they need to embrace school choice, perhaps even vouchers for private schools. This perspective has received much ink in major publications.

In Iowa, however, State Auditor Rob Sand is taking a different tack in his run for governor. A Democrat in an increasingly red state, Sand is aggressively campaigning against the state’s education savings account, or ESA, program, which passed in 2023. The state now provides publicly funded vouchers for families to pay for private-school tuition and expenses.

“We’re talking about this everywhere we go,” Sand said at an event in April hosted by the Iowa state teachers union. “This is just basically a siphon of hundreds of millions of dollars away from public schools.”

Co-opting the language of conservatives, Sand is fashioning himself as a fiscal hawk — “the taxpayers’ watchdog” — who will rein in wasteful spending, including in the state’s ESA program. Republican candidates for governor are arguing with each other about the program, which suggests Sand has landed on an effective wedge issue.

Sand’s campaign is hardly quixotic: He’s leading in some early polling. Nationally, his strategy is significant because it shows the different ways that various Democrats are approaching K-12 education — and the divide within the party on how to do so.

I spoke with Sand via Zoom. I wanted to hear why he’s putting the ESA program at the center of his campaign. Beyond that, I was interested in what ideas he had for improving public schools in the state.

Heather Doe, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Education, declined to make anyone available for an interview but said Sand’s critique of ESAs is partisan and without merit. “It is regrettable that the Auditor has used his official capacity to waste time and taxpayer money in an effort to run for governor by targeting a program that is helping Iowa families exercise their statutory right to school choice,” Doe said in a statement.

My conversation with Sand has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is the ESA program an important part of your campaign?

I believe that the vast majority of Iowans think that oversight is important, and we should want public oversight of public money.

We should have income limits on the program. It shouldn’t be going to the wealthiest Iowans. We shouldn’t be allowing private schools to take 7,500 bucks from the state and then just jack up tuition by $7,500, leaving it equally unaffordable. We ought to be able to audit the program.

[Earlier this year, Sand’s office released an audit of the ESA program that did not identify any significant problems. He said then that the governor’s office failed to provide sufficient time for a thorough audit. Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican and ESA champion, countered that Sand’s comments were “just another manufactured opportunity for the auditor to use his official office to advance his political agenda in his run for governor.” Doe said in her statement that the department provided Sand’s office with extensive information. “The politicization of what’s meant to be the Department’s independent, unbiased annual audit is deeply concerning,” she said.]

What would you say to Iowa parents who are using this program and appreciate it?

Everything that I have proposed is reasonable, and I hear from parents literally every week who say, ‘Yeah, I’m glad we have the program, but geez, I want to make sure this money is spent responsibly.’

Do you ultimately want to repeal the ESA program?

[shrugs] There’s no chance of that happening. I mean, we’re talking about a legislature where it’s near supermajorities of Republicans.

Well, I’m asking what you would want in your ideal world.

I hear you asking me, and I’m answering you. I don’t deal with hypotheticals. If we can work really hard and get it to a better place, we’ll see where we are.

Some will hear the various rules you’re proposing and say that’s a stealth way of making it so private schools won’t participate.

If you’re telling me you don’t want tax dollars unless you can have them without oversight, that’s your problem, not mine.

What is your positive vision for Iowa’s public schools?

When I was growing up in Decorah, way up in Northeast Iowa, we were always in the top for public education. I want our schools to be at the top again, and I’m open-minded about how we get there. I’m not ideological about that.

We’ve got to have competitive teacher pay, not just for beginning teachers but also for teachers who have three, four, or five years’ experience, when studies show they are beginning to get very good at their craft. I think that we could be using AI one-on-one tutors right now to help kids learn to read more effectively. I’m a believer in phonics. Iowa did a requirement for phonics, so I think that that’s a good change. I was never bought into the whole language idea.

But the vast majority of our conversations around education are about how that ESA program works. What’s so interesting to me is the people who are advocates for it, say, ‘Oh, we want school choice.’ Well, I want public oversight of public money, and when you allow private schools to take public money but reject students, then you actually haven’t promoted school choice because the school is the one that gets to make the choice.

There are a number of national Democrats who are pushing your party to embrace school choice, even vouchers, and to distance itself from teachers unions. What do you think of that advice?

I know there are people out there like that. I haven’t been paying much attention to it. Specifics matter. Each program is different. I will continue to talk about the ways in which I think Iowa’s program is an invitation to fraud and doesn’t actually promote school choice. [Doe, the Iowa education spokesperson, said Sand’s office’s audit “identified zero financial discrepancies, once again affirming the Department’s responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds.”]

I’m proud to have the [Iowa teachers union’s] endorsement. But I’d say what I say to every other group: I’m independent-minded. You’re not going to get 100% of what you want from me, because there’s nobody that I agree with 100% of the time.

What do you disagree with teachers unions on?

That’s a better question for a different time. I’d have to go through what their wish list would be here in the state. I’m just making a point in general.

If you were governor, would you participate in the federal tax-credit school scholarship program?

I don’t think I have been following that one.

Do you consider yourself a fiscal conservative?

Yeah, I mean to me the phrase that’s more important is fiscal responsibility. But I’m open-minded to the importance of making investments that are going to pay off. Oh — you asked about what else we want to do for public education. I want universal early childhood education. If you just did income restrictions in the school vouchers program, you could fund early childhood education [for more students]. To me, that’s money that is well invested.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Linda McMahon suggests states could set their own rules for federal tax-credit scholarships

2026-05-14T21:52:25+00:00

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Education Secretary Linda McMahon said states will be able to put conditions on scholarship organizations as part of the federal tax-credit scholarship program, weighing in on one of the biggest questions for governors considering whether to opt into the program.

The Treasury Department, not the Education Department, ultimately is responsible for setting the rules that will govern the federal tax credit, and those have not been finalized. It was not clear whether McMahon’s comments reflect the Trump administration’s position. The Education and Treasury Departments did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.

Allowing states to pick and choose which scholarship groups are included in the program would be at odds with how many conservative school choice advocates believe the program will work. But it would align with the Trump administration’s pledge to return education to the states.

McMahon’s comments came during an exchange with Rep. John Mannion, a New York Democrat and former classroom teacher, at a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on Thursday.

Just last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she intends for her state to participate in the program, which allows taxpayers to donate up to $1,700 to eligible scholarship organizations and get a refund or credit on their federal taxes for the full amount. However, Hochul said through a spokesperson that she’s waiting to see the rules and will review them carefully for any “poison pills.”

“You had mentioned that we need to return education to the states,” Mannion said. “Will the states have the ability to set rules around these scholarship-granting organizations? And some of the questions might be assuring that there will be scholarships for low income families or minority families or public institutions. Will the school boards or the boards of regents or the governors have control over that at the state level?”

“Yes, that’ll be done at the state,” McMahon responded. “Of course, the 501(c)(3) status is granted through the federal government, but those decisions would be made at the state.”

Mannion sought additional clarity: “Gotcha. So they will be able to set rules around scholarship-granting organizations and the scholarships themselves?”

“That is my understanding,” McMahon said.

The federal law that established the tax credits lays out bare-bones requirements for scholarship-granting organizations. They must be federally recognized nonprofits and serve students from more than one school, and scholarships must go to educational expenses. Governors can decide whether their states participate, and those that do must submit lists of eligible scholarship organizations each year.

Some education advocates have called for the Treasury Department to allow governors to set criteria for scholarship groups in their state. Those could include requiring these groups to serve students from low-income families, requiring that schools that receive scholarship students meet certain standards, or perhaps most significantly, that scholarship groups and participating schools abide by non-discrimination rules.

That could pose a problem for some religious schools and scholarship groups. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis warded off an attempt by lawmakers of his own party to place just such requirements on scholarship groups. He said Colorado risked losing out on money and not being able to participate if it imposed non-discrimination requirements.

Many Democratic governors have said they are waiting to see Treasury rules before making a final decision.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, Mannion said he hopes McMahon’s answers to his questions show up in official policy.

“Secretary McMahon is now on the record saying that state governments will be able to set their own rules around scholarship granting organizations,” he said. “She should make that clear to the Treasury Department, and I fully expect to see it reflected in the upcoming guidelines.”

For their part, conservative education choice advocates have insisted the only requirements for scholarship groups should be those already in the law. Governors, however, would be free to use their bully pulpit to promote their preferred causes.

Leslie Hiner, vice president of legal policy for EdChoice, a school choice advocacy organization, said her organization expects initial rules from the Treasury Department in July. Hiner said the federal law appears to limit governors’ role in the program. EdChoice would oppose governors attempting to place any kind of restrictions on the program that the group would view as motivated by politics, she said.

“Yes, we oppose that and we’ll oppose that all day long,” Hiner said. “The ultimate beneficiary is that child who needs some help and that parent who needs some help in taking care of that child.”

National reporter Lily Altavena contributed.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul intends to opt into federal tax-credit scholarship

2026-05-08T15:01:12+00:00

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul intends to opt the state into the federal tax-credit scholarship.

The announcement represents a major win for supporters of private school choice who have been lobbying Democratic governors to participate in the program. However, Hochul’s office said she intends to review the details before making the decision official.

The American Federation for Children, a national school choice advocacy group, said Thursday night that Hochul first made the announcement at a private gathering. The meeting was with Agudath Israel, an organization that supports Jewish religious education, according to an Agudath spokesperson.

Emma Wallner, a spokesperson for the governor, confirmed Hochul’s plans to opt in to the tax credit.

“Governor Hochul is supportive of the federal tax credit scholarship and its potential to help New York students and schools,” Wallner wrote in a statement. “Our office awaits information from the federal government on the program and will thoroughly review the details of the policy for poison pills that could harm New York’s education system.”

The Treasury Department is still in the process of developing guidelines for the program, which will clarify, for example, how donated money might benefit public school students or whether states can prevent scholarship-granting organizations from discriminating against certain students.

The tax credit was approved last year as part of the Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It allows taxpayers to get a dollar-for-dollar credit up to $1,700 on their federal taxes if they donate money to an eligible scholarship-granting organization. These organizations could give students money for private school tuition, tutoring, and other educational expenses.

Governors, however, have to opt into the program for students in their state to benefit.

“Finally, school choice is coming to New York, thanks to the courage of Governor Hochul and the tremendous advocacy of countless families, educators, and supporters who have worked for generations to advance options for kids who need them,” American Federation for Children CEO Tommy Schultz said in a press release.

Some New York Democrats, and the city’s teachers union, criticized Hochul’s decision.

“While this tax credit may appear enticing, there will undoubtedly be long-term damage to the ability of states to provide public education,” said state Sen. John Liu, who chairs the New York City Education Committee. “Many governors and legislatures around the country have recognized this tax credit for the Faustian bargain it is and have already opted out, and I sincerely hope that New York will opt out as well.”

According to a tracker maintained by Ballotpedia, 29 states, nearly all of them led by Republicans, have opted into the tax credit. That list does not include New York.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is the only Democratic governor to have officially opted in. Under pressure from Republican lawmakers, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said last year that he intends to do so after the rules are released.

Some Democratic governors have been strongly opposed. In Wisconsin, which launched one of the nation’s earliest voucher programs, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican-backed legislation that would have opted that state in. In a veto statement, he cited the lack of any accountability measures in the federal program.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also vetoed opt-in legislation, as did Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, but Republican-controlled legislatures overrode vetoes in both states.

Other Democratic governors are taking a wait-and-see approach. Democratic backers of expanding school choice argue that families want more options and that states that don’t opt in risk their own taxpayers donating to scholarship groups in other states. Opponents say the program undermines public education and threatens funding, even if indirectly.

Nationally and in New York, supporters of religious education have lobbied for the tax credit as a way to ease the tuition burden for families.

“This is extraordinary news for Jewish families and for every community across our state,” said Sydney Altfield, the CEO of Teach NYS, an organization that lobbies for public funding for Jewish schools. “Blue states across the country will now be watching closely.”

Hochul has courted the Orthodox Jewish community, an influential voting bloc, as she faces reelection in November. Along with state legislative leaders, she previously pushed to weaken oversight of private schools, a measure that would largely benefit certain yeshivas that do not always provide a basic secular education. The state’s education commissioner, Betty Rosa, called the move a “travesty.”

Hochul has backed other efforts to expand school choice since taking office nearly five years ago, drawing pushback from other New York Democrats. In 2023, she proposed to significantly expand the number of charter schools in New York City, even as the publicly funded yet privately managed schools have fallen out of favor among many left-leaning elected officials. State lawmakers rejected Hochul’s sweeping proposal but ultimately approved a more modest expansion.

Hochul has also touted her commitment to funding traditional public schools and has presided over increases in state spending. State officials indicated Thursday that schools should expect at least a 2% bump in the state’s forthcoming budget, which is more than a month overdue and has yet to be finalized.

“I’m proud of the resources we have put into education,” she told reporters Thursday.

This story has been updated with additional details about the private meeting where Hochul announced her support for the tax credit, as well as additional background about Hochul’s approach to private school oversight.

Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect how many states have opted into the tax-credit program.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how the school choice tax credit could affect public schools

2026-04-23T19:27:35+00:00

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In the last decade, enrollment in California’s public schools has fallen by about half a million students, or 8%. At the same time, funding for the students who have remained in public schools has shot up, as the state implemented a new funding formula. California once lagged behind the national average in education funding per student; now it’s above average.

These seemingly paradoxical trends are worth considering at a moment when many state governors, including California’s Gavin Newsom, are deciding whether to participate in a school choice program subsidized by a new federal tax credit.

Public education associations are urging states to stay away. They say that offering this voucher-like credit will drain students, and thus resources, away from public schools. That could happen, especially if political support for funding education falls.

But the California experience suggests it’s not inevitable. Fewer students in public schools doesn’t necessarily result in less funding. “As enrollments decline, we tend to see total spending at least stay constant and in many cases still increase,” says Bruce Baker, a school funding expert who has tracked school funding patterns for years.

The fiscal impact of the tax credit remains a source of intense debate, confusion — and uncertainty. Here’s how to think about this question.

The federal tax credit is effectively “free” money for states.

The federal school choice tax credit, passed by Congressional Republicans in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” works like this: Americans will soon be able to redirect up to $1,700 of their income tax bill to nonprofits that provide stipends for private school tuition or other educational expenses. This is similar, in many ways, to a government-funded voucher.

But the program includes a loophole. States have the option to participate or not. Nearly every Republican governor has said they will join the program, while most Democrats have not publicly made a decision, according to a tracker from Education Week. The undecided governors are currently facing an intense lobbying campaign from both sides.

A key selling point for advocates: The money comes entirely from federal taxes. States don’t have to put in any funding.

The tax credit could also be used to pay for certain extra programming offered in public schools, like after-school care or tutoring. Observers say it’s unclear how successful public school systems will be at tapping into this money.

Lower enrollment doesn’t necessarily mean less funding.

Even though it doesn’t cost the state money, public school advocates fear that the credit — a new subsidy for private education expenses — will induce some number of students to leave public schools.

It’s not clear this would result in less money for public education, though. Think of school funding as a pie that is divided among students. If there are fewer students, and the size of the pie remains the same, each remaining student could actually get a slightly bigger slice. In recent years, school funding in states like Illinois and Vermont have increased even as enrollment has fallen.

That’s not guaranteed, of course. A state could slash its overall education budget — shrink the pie — in response to declining enrollment. It’s possible that fewer students could weaken political support for public schools, although that may be less likely in the left-leaning states that are still considering whether to participate in the choice program.

In California, there’s an additional backstop: The state Constitution requires a certain amount of state funding to go toward education. “To the extent there actually is any measurable exodus from public schools it would mean more money per kid,” says Julien Lafortune, a school funding expert at the Public Policy Institute of California.

This doesn’t mean every district is financially secure. Even if the overall pie of funding holds steady, districts that lose an especially large swath of students might get a smaller slice. This can lead to layoffs or school closures.

Some critics of the tax credit also say there are other reasons to oppose it beyond its budget implications. “Significant growth of a voucher program could slowly dismantle public education, and I don’t think that’s what most voters want, even if it does save the state some money,” says David Knight, a professor at the University of Washington.

So far Congress hasn’t cut public school budgets either.

The tax credit critics have an additional concern. Every dollar spent on this program is a dollar less in federal tax revenue. The more states opt in, the larger the cost of the program. Estimates vary, but some predict this will amount to several billion dollars.

The money has to come from somewhere. This could leave federal funding for public schools “more vulnerable to cuts,” warns Education Trust’s Augustus Mays, who is urging states not to participate in the program.

But K-12 education is just a tiny fraction of federal spending, and the federal government can, and does, run budget deficits. Recently Congress rejected efforts by the Trump administration to cut school budgets. So while it’s true the tax credit will add a small hole to the federal budget, there’s little reason to assume it will be filled by cuts to public schools.

Correction: April 27, 2026. A prior version of this story misattributed a quote to Denise Forte of Education Trust. The comment was made by Education Trust’s Augustus Mays.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Proposal to relax voucher program’s testing mandate advances in Tennessee House

2026-03-24T23:19:41+00:00

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Tennessee may soon relax state testing requirements for its Education Savings Account voucher program under new legislation that advanced in the House on Tuesday.

Private schools accepting public dollars under the ESA program have been required to administer the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, since the voucher program began in 2022.

Now, some Republicans want to drop that requirement through House Bill 1881, which would allow participating private schools the choice to give the TCAP or a “nationally standardized achievement test.” The move would align the ESA voucher program with the state’s broader Education Freedom Scholarships program, which lawmakers are currently trying to expand.

The bill passed out of the House Education Committee’s K-12 subcommittee on Tuesday on a party line vote. It now heads to the full committee. The legislation has already passed the Senate.

The legislation follows a Tennessee Comptroller report from last winter that found ESA recipients continue to trail their public school peers in academic achievement, with some exceptions in Memphis-Shelby County schools.

Republicans backing the bill argue the change is needed to align a school’s standardized test with its curriculum and textbook choices, which can vary widely in private school settings.

House Education Committee Chairman Mark White, a Republican from Memphis who is also on the K-12 subcommittee, said Tuesday he fought to mandate the state test for the ESA program when it began, and that he “can see both sides of the argument very clearly.” But White ultimately voted on Tuesday to advance the bill relaxing testing requirements.

White said the ESA program has some non-testing accountability measures baked in by only allowing Tier 1, 2, or 3 schools to participate in the program. These schools meet certain accreditation requirements approved by the state.

Democrats in the General Assembly, who lack the legislative power to stop the bill, have sharply criticized relaxing testing requirements.

Rep. Sam McKenzie, a Knoxville Democrat, noted the current ESA requirement is the one data point that provides a “side-by-side comparison” of student achievement for kids receiving a publicly funded education.

“We talk about kids needing a choice, we talk ad nauseum about parents needing a choice. Ok, you’ve been given a choice. Now, let’s test you. Let’s train you up in the private school environment and let’s test you,” Mckenzie said, arguing “being able to read on grade level is not different from a public school to private school.”

However, Rep. William Slater, a Republican from Gallatin who is sponsoring the House legislation, said lawmakers and state officials worked “very hard” to align the TCAP with public school standards and textbooks.

“When students are in a different school, a different system, the standards can be different,” Slater said. “The textbooks can be different. That’s what it means to be in a private school.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee Republicans advance bill to relax voucher testing rules

2026-03-19T00:07:19+00:00

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Tennessee Senate Republicans advanced legislation to relax testing requirements for the state’s older of its two voucher programs on Wednesday.

Under Senate Bill 1585, schools that participate in the Education Scholarships Accounts program could choose to give students in the program a “nationally standardized achievement test” instead of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP. Private schools that accept program funding have been required to administer TCAP to participating students since the program’s implementation in 2022.

The looser academic accountability measures for the program included in the bill come after state testing results showed ESA participants underperformed their peers from traditional public schools.

The effort to relax accountability for private schools accepting public money also comes amid a broader Republican push to expand access to vouchers in the state. Tennessee private schools have for years resisted uniform testing requirements, a position that has stirred controversy as state lawmakers have created more avenues to use public dollars for private school tuition.

Tennessee voucher opponents have argued inconsistent testing metrics will complicate efforts to study the effectiveness of school choice initiatives without an apples-to-apples comparison to measure student success.

Majority Leader Jack Johnson, a Republican senator from Franklin, said the legislation is necessary to prevent confusion among families by aligning the ESA program requirements with the Education Freedom Scholarships program, the state’s newer universal voucher program.

Johnson’s bill comes just months after a state audit of the ESA program found that while overall testing outcomes are improving, most students receiving ESA money performed worse on the state’s standardized tests than students in public schools. ESA students did outperform their peers in Memphis-Shelby County schools — the state’s largest district — last year.

The state audit also found that Tennessee public school students who use the ESA program aren’t leaving low-performing public schools, despite voucher supporters initially arguing that families needed such school choice measures to choose higher-performing schools.

The push to relax ESA accountability measures also comes as Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s administration has increased the stakes for public schools when it comes to testing. The administration implemented a new school grading system with higher emphasis on academic outcomes on state tests than on student academic growth over time.

Now, poor testing outcomes can lead to significant consequences for under-performing public schools. Next week, the Tennessee Board of Education will hold accountability hearings for public schools with repeated D and F grades.

Though private schools participating in the ESA program are currently required to take the TCAP, they are not held to the same school grading system.

And even with the TCAP test requirement, the state audit found the Tennessee Department of Education had few plans in place for measuring private school performance or removing private schools with years of low academic performance.

The Senate Education Committee on Wednesday advanced Johnson’s legislation with limited debate. Its House companion bill has languished in subcommittee for weeks, with another hearing planned for March 24.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

More American students are attending private school. Why do so few take NAEP?

2026-03-13T10:52:00+00:00

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The National Assessment of Educational Progress is known as the nation’s report card. But as more students leave public schools, the test risks becoming less representative of the nation’s students.

Unlike public schools, private schools aren’t required to participate in the test, which is administered every two years to a representative sample of roughly half a million American students. Not enough private school students take the test to report distinct results for that group, even at the national level. Home school students aren’t included at all.

This isn’t a new problem — the last time NAEP reported separate private school results was 2013. But as more students attend private school or home school with public money, the significance of the information gap will only grow, NAEP governing board members and independent researchers told Chalkbeat.

“I see it as the most significant challenge facing the NAEP program in the medium term,” said Martin West, a Harvard University education professor and vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, “because it threatens our ability to speak with confidence about states’ success in supporting student learning.”

A dispute in Florida over the state’s 2024 NAEP results hints at a future where more states question the validity of their scores and where comparisons among states are trickier. When results were released in early 2025, Florida students’ performance had dropped to its lowest point in 20 years. Then-Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that blamed the decline, in part, on excluding private school students.

“This issue only stands to grow, as Florida has chosen a path that puts students and families before teachers unions and provides universal school choice,” Diaz wrote, before concluding with a call to “make NAEP great once again.”

Observers said the increase in Florida’s private school enrollment between 2022 and 2024 simply wasn’t large enough to account for the decline, but state education officials remain concerned.

Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist who frequently works with NAEP data, said “what happened in Florida in 2024 is a harbinger of the future as private school enrollment grows. It will become increasingly plausible for states to say that our public school results aren’t representative of our achievement.”

“If NAEP is the nation’s report card, then questions about private school achievement will become the dog that ate the homework,” added Kane, who is not involved in administering the test. “It will be a source of evasions and spin.”

Low private school NAEP participation leaves information void

NAEP is considered the gold standard in student assessment, a no-stakes test that allows reliable comparisons over time and between states.

The drop in NAEP scores after pandemic disruptions put the test in the public spotlight in a new way, fueling competing calls for greater investment in public schools — or more pathways out of them.

Congress intended for public and private school students to take the test, but federal law only requires public schools to participate in the main NAEP reading and math tests administered to fourth and eighth grade students.

Private schools make up about a quarter of American schools and educate about 9% of K-12 students, according to recent federal data. But a much smaller share of private school students take NAEP. In 2024, they accounted for about 1.3% of students who took the main tests.

Low participation means that NAEP doesn’t have enough data from private school students to report separately on how they perform. State results only reflect public school students in those states.

That lack of information already complicates state-by-state comparisons. The most recent national data shows private school students account for 15% of Wisconsin students and 13% of students in Florida, Louisiana, and New York, but just 2% of students in Utah and Wyoming.

Higher private school participation would allow their NAEP results to be reported separately at the national level and incorporated into state-level results. That could help answer questions about whether changes over time or differences between states are driven by the share of students in private school, West said.

It would take dramatically higher participation to report private school results separately at the state level. That’s not a high priority, West said, because NAEP data isn’t as useful for comparing the effectiveness of public and private schools.

Meanwhile, 1.2 million students participated in some sort of publicly funded school choice program in the 2024-25 school year, according to data from EdChoice, an advocacy group.

That’s still less than 3% of K-12 public school enrollment, but the numbers have surged in the last few years and are expected to continue to grow.

Private school leaders have mixed feelings about NAEP

Catholic schools participate at much higher rates than other private schools, and their NAEP results are reported separately. Catholic school students also showed some declines during the pandemic, but they have continued to post higher average scores than public school students.

“I’m not sure why people wouldn’t do it,” said Steven Cheeseman, president and CEO of the National Catholic Education Association. “The reality for us as Catholic schools is that we’ve always felt like it’s an important accountability measure.”

Michael Schuttloffel, executive director of the Council for American Private Education, said in an email that many private school leaders find the prospect of taking time out of the school day for a test that doesn’t directly benefit them “daunting.”

NAEP tries to minimize the burden on schools by handling all the logistics. Officials hope a Next Gen NAEP initiative can find ways to reduce testing burden further and make results more useful.

Some private schools also may have a “philosophical disposition against the idea of a standardized test — especially one administered by the federal government — being the principal measure of student learning or school success,” Schuttloffel wrote.

Schuttloffel said he shares that perspective, but added: “Nonetheless, knowing whether kids can read and do math is an important piece of the picture when we are trying to get our arms around what, and how well, our kids are learning.”

Ron Reynolds, who represents non-public schools on NAEP’s governing board, believes private schools are not only “shirking their responsibility” but also missing “a magnificent opportunity for private schools to tell their story writ large.”

The leaders of private school organizations are generally on board with administering NAEP, Reynolds said, but “the challenge is delivering the message effectively to school site leadership and inducing buy-in at the site level.”

A new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center calls for Congress to charge NAEP’s governing board with increasing participation across all school types. Reynolds said he would support making participation a condition of receiving money from the new federal tax-credit scholarship. While he would prefer not to see a mandate, public money brings with it certain responsibilities.

But parents likely would object strongly to mandates as federal meddling, Schuttloffel said.

Rob Enlow, the president and CEO of EdChoice, has used NAEP data to argue that public schools are failing students, but he sees less value in it for private schools. Parents and the public might learn more, he said, if those schools shared more data they already have.

If policymakers want more private school students to take NAEP, incentives such as automatic accreditation would be more appropriate than mandates, he said.

“Everyone says they want apples-to-apples comparisons, but we’ve had rotten apples for years and done nothing about it,” Enlow said.

Ultimately, the case for participating in NAEP is to contribute to reliable information and good policymaking, West said.

“It’s an appeal to the good of the nation or the quality of data we have for everyone,” he said.

The 2026 test administration is currently underway and expected to wrap up later this month. Results for math and reading are expected in early 2027.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

GOP push to expand Tennessee voucher program to 40K students clears first hurdle

2026-03-10T20:12:10+00:00

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A GOP push to double the number of students in Tennessee’s voucher program cleared its first hurdle in the General Assembly on Tuesday.

Gov. Bill Lee and Republican leadership want lawmakers to sign off on a voucher expansion plan that would grow the program — which is in its first year — to 40,000 students. If Republican lawmakers are successful, the change could direct $303 million in public dollars to private schools in the state next school year.

The K-12 education subcommittee voted Tuesday morning 5-3 to advance House Bill 2352, the first official vote on the expansion leaders have been calling for since last fall. Subcommittee chair Kirk Haston, a Republican from Lobelville, joined two Democrats in voting against the bill.

Another vote is expected Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee.

The push to double the program’s size comes just a year after lawmakers passed the initial Education Freedom Scholarship — or EFS — legislation that included an annual cap on growth of 5,000 new seats, which voucher supporters at the time argued would prevent the program from growing too rapidly.

“This is the first year we’ve had this program, and we’re already doubling it because people applied for it,” said Rep. Sam McKenzie, a Knoxville Democrat who voted against the expansion on Tuesday. “This is not the time to expand a voucher program that’s not proven. We don’t have the data on it.”

In current law, Tennessee can legally expand the program from 20,000 students to 25,000 students for next school year, due to the number of applications it received for the program.

The Tennessee Department of Education last month reported 58,000 students applied for the program next year, including 18,644 students currently enrolled in the program who have applied for a renewal.

Last year, 10,000 vouchers were reserved for first-come, first-served applicants. The other half were limited to families who earned 300% or less of the federal income threshold for students to be eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

“The vast majority of these went to hard-working Tennesseans that are struggling to just pay their bills,” House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a Portland Republican sponsoring the bill, said when answering questions about which Tennesseans are benefiting from the program.

The department has not released household income-related data about voucher recipients.

“They feel like — and I trust these parents to be able to make the best decisions for their child’s education — that their child should be able to take advantage of one of these scholarships,” Lamberth said.

Renewal applications for next school year were prioritized and accepted by the state, but families that applied for the program for the first time this year are now stuck in limbo. Their applications are pending but unable to move forward until lawmakers decide on expansion proposals and determine exactly how many vouchers will be available.

Lee has continually pointed to the high level of demand for the program as the sole reason to expand it. There is no data yet indicating the program leads to better outcomes for Tennessee students.

“As you know, we’ve only had those scholarships available for one year, so there’s no data yet that would be of any value,” Lee said last month.

The program requires participants to take a nationally standardized achievement test or the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program. Private schools accepting vouchers must report the test results in June to the Office of Research and Education Accountability, or OREA, in the Tennessee Comptroller’s office. Lawmakers are also set to be notified about test results annually.

While there are a few bipartisan efforts to enforce some accountability measures on the program, they have been knocked back by the Republican supermajority so far in the 2026 legislative session.

In February, Republicans voted down a proposal from McKenzie that would have required the OREA prepare a public report on student demographics in the EFS program and study how many vouchers went to students already enrolled in private schools.

The state education department has denied requests from the media and state lawmakers for data related to previous school enrollment, arguing it was not required to track students’ previous enrollment and therefore cannot report those numbers.

Lawmakers like Rep. Caleb Hemmer, a Nashville Democrat, have locked heads with the department over the issue. Hemmer is now pushing for a larger data transparency bill that could open the department up to more requests from elected officials.

Meanwhile, a Republican-backed bill would require the department to produce an annual report on the program including information on previous school enrollment, annual household incomes, and third-party contract administrative costs.

That legislation, House Bill 1544, could receive its first hearing this week. It is sponsored by Rep. Jody Barrett, a Dickson Republican who has publicly opposed voucher programs in the state.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

In states where voucher programs have exploded, opponents make their case for limits

2026-03-10T13:40:03+00:00

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Capitalizing on headlines about misspending and concern about ballooning costs, some Arizona public school advocates want voters to do something lawmakers haven’t: add certain guardrails to the state’s education savings account program.

A proposed ballot measure in Arizona is one of several recent efforts nationwide to scale back or add oversight to state voucher programs, which direct public funding to private education expenses.

Together, Democratic and Republican Ohio lawmakers proposed a bill in January that would place a $500,000 income limit for families receiving a type of state voucher. West Virginia lawmakers tried and failed to curb voucher spending by limiting how families could spend the money.

These efforts might signal that opponents are taking a measured approach to battling this form of school choice, rather than coordinating all-or-nothing campaigns to kill vouchers. This may reflect an admission by school choice opponents that these programs are here to stay.

Voucher programs started out as targeted programs to give students in poverty or students with disabilities more options. But after decades of lobbying from some conservatives, at least 18 now states have universal choice programs.

And some programs have grown to cost state taxpayers billions of dollars. Florida’s cost the state an estimated $3.9 billion in the 2024-2025 school year, and Arizona’s had a price tag of over $1 billion last year.

Choice advocates say the spending means there’s an appetite for voucher programs, and families should take full advantage of money the state would be spending anyway if the students were in public school. Critics see the spending as raiding public school budgets — and maybe an opening to argue for more guardrails and limits for these programs.

Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, known as the ESA program, allows families to draw funds from the state for educational expenses such as homeschooling, private school or tutoring.

But families have reportedly used taxpayer money to buy items like diamond rings, lingerie and gaming laptops. That news has become an argument for critics of the ESA program in proposing limits on the program.

Save our Schools Arizona and the Arizona Education Association in February proposed a ballot initiative that would attach an annual income limit of $150,000 on families seeking an ESA. It would also require that private schools and other ESA providers get a basic background check from the state, and subject ESA students to academic oversight. That could mean requiring that private school students receiving ESA money take an assessment or requiring that the private schools themselves receive independent accreditation.

“We have data that shows that this billion dollar program is fraught,” said Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s labor union for public educators. “This is something that every taxpayer should care about.”

To appear on the ballot, the measure needs almost 256,000 signatures and state officials must approve language the group filed with the Arizona Secretary of State.

Opponents of vouchers have had some success at the ballot in Arizona and other states before. In 2024, voters in Kentucky and Nebraska rejected state voucher programs. Arizona voters rejected an expansion of the ESA program in November 2018, after a campaign from Save Our Schools, with 65% voting against the creation of universal ESAs.

However, the state legislature in 2022 passed a major ESA expansion anyway. Save Our Schools tried and failed to get enough signatures for a referendum on the expansion in 2022. This time, the group is focused on placing more rules on the program, a step that Garcia says polling shows voters support.

Garcia said the $1 billion it costs to fund the ESA program from the state budget comes out of the same pot of money that funds the state’s public schools. Another provision of the ballot measure would rollover any unused ESA funds every year to public schools.

With ESAs, she said the state “turned on the water faucet and just let it go.”

But it may be too late to completely erase the program or go back on universal expansion, if proposals to cull spending are any indication.

The ESA program in Arizona has grown massively since 2022, giving rise to a slate of new educational models and empowered homeschoolers.

Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice, a school choice advocacy network, said opponents are “trying to kill programs through a death of 1,000 cuts” with oversight measures that are ultimately not needed.

“These programs are very transparent, and the data that’s coming out is showing how transparent,” he said. “We welcome that data to show how transparent they are, because we would rather have it cleaned up faster than not if there are any problems.”

But others aren’t convinced voucher programs are bastions of transparency. Jessica Levin, an attorney with the Education Law Center, said voucher programs can sound good to some before they pass, but harm state budgets, with transparency issues surfacing after people begin spending taxpayer funding.

While Levin believes such programs should be eliminated entirely, proposals such as the one in Arizona “would still have a big impact on curbing some of that waste, getting some money back in the public schools, getting some basic safety standards for kids that are taking vouchers, some basic academic accountability” and other effects, she said.

Some Republicans appear open to limits. In Ohio, one of the sponsors of the bill to set an income limit on which families can receive vouchers, Republican state Rep. Justin Pizzulli, told a TV news station that the proposal would help sustain the program and ward off concerns about misspending.

“By setting a reasonable income cap, we protect taxpayers, keep the program sustainable, and restore confidence that education dollars are being used fairly,” Pizzulli said. The Ohio bill has been referred to the state’s House Education Committee.

Democratic Lawmakers in West Virginia in February also tried to add guardrails to the state’s Hope Scholarship program after a recommendation to cap spending on the program from policy analysts lawmakers hired to study the program.

State Rep. Sean Hornbuckle, a Democrat, said it would be irresponsible not to put limits on the program, which opened to all West Virginia residents this month. Lawmakers had proposed a ban on using the money for out-of-state schools and tutoring services.

“We are hemorrhaging money and the public education system is failing because of it,” Hornbuckle told the West Virginia Watch.

Instead, West Virginia lawmakers did not cap spending and the effort ultimately failed.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org.

Most Tennessee students don’t use ESA vouchers to exit low-performing public schools: comptroller

2026-01-05T18:43:56+00:00

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Most Tennessee public school students who use Education Savings Account vouchers aren’t leaving low-performing public schools, while ESA students overall are underperforming their public school peers in both academic achievement and growth.

Tennessee Comptroller Jason E. Mumpower’s office released these findings Monday in the first comprehensive review of the program.

The comptroller’s report also found that the Tennessee Department of Education has not yet established parameters for removing private schools with repeated low academic performance, nor could it provide documentation “used to measure schools’ performance or counsel schools that have multiple years of low academic performance.”

Republican lawmakers passed the Education Savings Account program in 2019, though legal challenges delayed implementation until 2022. The program was the precursor to the 2025 universal voucher program, which GOP lawmakers are already looking to expand this year after 20,000 students were enrolled last fall.

The ESA program could be limited to 12,500 enrollees under state law this school year, with a cap of 15,000 set to kick in next year. But the program has never been fully utilized, with just 3,693 students enrolled in the current school year.

The ESA program was designed to benefit public school students: First-time ESA applicants in 2022 had to be moving from a public school, entering kindergarten, or transferring into Tennessee from another state.

In 2022, 66% of ESA students came from a public school, and 33% were entering public school.

By the next school year, lawmakers had made a change to “grandfather” some students into the program who had attended public school at least one year since 2019, the year the law was passed. Those students accounted for 31% of ESA students. Overall, 15% of 2023 ESA students were entering kindergarten, 38% were coming from public schools, and 14% had reenrolled in the program.

In 2024, nearly half of all ESA students had reenrolled in the program, 28% came from public schools and 14% were entering kindergarten.

The program was a signature issue for Gov. Bill Lee, who has supported additional school choice policies as a way for parents to choose higher-achieving schools.

The comptroller’s report indicates this is not necessarily happening. The program was targeted at districts with a relatively high number of Priority schools, a federal designation for schools that underperform in certain categories. In practice, that meant the ESA program could only be implemented in Shelby, Davidson, and Hamilton counties, large districts that often have as many high-ranking, or reward, schools as priority schools.

“Most schools that students are leaving to participate in the ESA program are neither reward nor priority schools, which would indicate their performance is neither among the highest or lowest of public schools in the state,” the comptroller’s report states. “When considering schools that have received state and federal designations, more ESA students are leaving reward schools than priority schools.”

This varies significantly by county, though. In Davidson County, 80% of ESA students who previously attended public schools attended schools with A, B, or C letter grades, and 18% of students came from schools that received a D or F letter grade. In Memphis, 58% of students previously attended A, B or C-graded schools.

In Hamilton County, 50% of ESA students previously attended public schools with D or F grades.

The comptroller’s report also found the state education department did not do enough to advertise the ESA program to low-income students, a requirement in state law.

Overall, students receiving ESA money performed worse on the state’s standardized tests than students in public schools, although ESA students outperformed their peers in Memphis-Shelby County schools last year. The comptroller’s report also notes that scores from students receiving ESAs have increased over time.

Meanwhile, virtual schools participating in the ESA program for the first time last year performed worse than both private schools with ESA students and local public schools. Just 20% of ESA students enrolled in virtual schools were proficient in English language arts, and just 17% were proficient in math.

Parent satisfaction with the program remains above 95%, but the comptroller notes only 15% of participating families actually provided feedback on the program last year.

There could be major changes to ESAs this year. The comptroller report suggests lawmakers reconsider eligibility requirements and where the program is targeting, noting other districts like Knox County Schools could be drawn in.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Cameron Sexton wants to eliminate the income limit and enrollment cap altogether for the program and open it up to all students in the current three counties.

This current income cap is 200% or less of the federal income eligibility to receive free school lunch, which would be $83,590 this year for a family of four. Around 76% of families in ESA-eligible counties are already eligible for the program, according to an EdChoice analysis.

The ESA this year provides around $9,747 per student, which fell below the average tuition cost by about $3,000 for participating private schools, the majority of which were religiously affiliated.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Will federal tax-credit scholarships help public school students?

2025-12-09T00:03:09+00:00

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Could the new federal tax-credit scholarship program pay for summer school or tutoring for public school students? Could it help homeschool families, microschools, and after-school enrichment programs alike?

Or will most of the money mirror voucher programs and flow through large established scholarship groups for private school tuition?

The race is on to shape a program that could become one of the largest federal investments in K-12 education and fuel a dramatic expansion of private school choice. The Treasury Department fired the starter’s pistol right before Thanksgiving when it posted a request for comments on how to implement the new tax credit, which passed this summer as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Requesting comment before developing draft rules is the first step in a process that ultimately will determine how much authority states have to put their own stamp on the program, how attractive it is for nonprofits, and how much flexibility families will have.

Treasury Department rules could influence whether some governors choose to have their states participate at all. The Democratic governors of Colorado and North Carolina already plan to opt their states in. Many others have said they’re waiting on federal guidance before they decide.

But on one of the key questions — can governors put restrictions on scholarship-granting organizations, such as requiring that they serve only low-income families or prohibiting them from discriminating against LGBTQ students? — the answer may already be no.

The request for comment indicates that Treasury expects to require participating states to include all organizations that meet the bare-bones statutory requirements, such as being a federally recognized nonprofit and serving more than 10 students who don’t all attend the same school.

“It’s really a take it or leave it scheme,” said Rachel Canter, director of education policy for the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank.

The law doesn’t define “school,” and the Treasury Department has not explicitly asked for feedback on how it should be defined. That could lead to more questions: Could scholarships be used to cover preschool tuition? What about microschools or students who are homeschooled? School choice advocates want those students to have access to funds raised through the tax credit, but some are wary of creating a federal definition of school through the rule-making process.

People who believe in using private markets to drive educational change and in making public money available to religious schools were the biggest backers of the tax credit, and it’s most suited to serve their needs, said Scott Palmer, co-founder and managing partner of the consulting firm EducationCounsel.

But there is a “real opening,” Palmer said during a recent virtual panel discussion, for supporters of public education to push for what he called an “ecosystem” approach that would make it easy to use the tax credit to raise money for tutoring, arts and music enrichment, and other programming that would benefit public school students.

“When you receive a punch in the martial arts, you can either try to block it or leverage its power to throw the person over your shoulder,” he said. “I think we have an opportunity to think not only about how we might need to block, but how we might need to leverage.”

School choice supporters want flexibility, light regulations

The federal tax-credit scholarship program allows taxpayers to receive a dollar-for-dollar reimbursement for donations of up to $1,700 to eligible scholarship-granting organizations. Those organizations would distribute the money to students from families making up to 300% of local median income, a threshold that makes the majority of American families eligible.

How much money the tax credit generates will depend on how many people participate. Education Reform Now estimated that some 47 million taxpayers owe more than $1,700 in federal taxes each year. If 15% participated — far more than currently participate in most state tax-credit programs — that would generate roughly $12 billion a year. For comparison, the federal government spends about $18 billion a year to support high-poverty schools through the Title I program and about $15 billion a year to help offset the cost of special education services.

The money can go toward any expense allowed under Coverdell education savings accounts, which includes tuition, tutoring, specialized services for children with disabilities, and computers.

The law allows scholarships to go to students in public or private school, but it’s less obvious how the money could be used to benefit public schools and their students. Could a community group raise money to cover the cost of tutoring for public school students? Could that tutoring be provided by the public school itself or only by outside groups?

During the same panel conversation with Palmer, Karen Pittman, a founding partner at the consulting firm Knowledge to Power Catalysts, cited research that parents spend an estimated $232 billion on their children’s education and development. Groups like 4-H Clubs, for example, could use the tax credit to raise money or offer programs that families could pay for with their scholarships.

“We can give the Treasury the facts on how parents are currently spending their private dollars, and say, ‘Why don’t you allow this bill, this tax credit, to cover these things that parents are already covering, that they consider part of their young people’s education?’” Pittman said.

For their part, groups that have long supported vouchers and education savings accounts want minimal regulations that ensure money donated through the tax credit can support microschools and homeschool families, as well as those attending private school.

Supporters said they’re glad to see the rule-making process start early, so that scholarship organizations have more time to plan.

And they’re also particularly relieved that the Treasury Department doesn’t seem inclined to let governors put additional requirements on scholarship groups beyond what the federal law requires.

The tax-credit scholarship “is a tax law,” said Leslie Hiner, vice president for legal policy at EdChoice, an advocacy group. “It’s not an educational program.”

“This was intended to add to what already exists across the country and help that grow, and any action through rule-making that would go in the opposite direction of that cannot happen,” Hiner said.

Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, said in a statement that the program’s goal “is to broaden educational opportunity, especially for low-income families, and the rules should encourage and make it as simple as possible for Governors and all states to opt in – as all should – while ensuring access is maximized and the program is protected from political interference.”

People have until Dec. 26, the day after Christmas, to submit their comments. Then the department will issue draft rules and regulations, and the public will have another chance to comment before they’re finalized.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Polis all in on Trump’s tax-credit scholarship while other Dem governors wait and see

2025-12-06T01:55:30+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis plans to opt Colorado into a federal tax-credit scholarship program, opening the door to private school choice in a Democratic state where lawmakers and voters have rejected previous proposals.

Conservatives, children’s advocates, and supporters of school choice praised the decision for its possibility to raise money for all students’ education. Meanwhile, a coalition of public school advocates sent a letter to Polis this week asking him to reconsider.

The voucher-like program, part of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, has the potential to generate billions of dollars for private school tuition and other educational expenses, such as tutoring, but governors have to decide whether to participate.

Polis appears to be the second Democratic governor to announce his intention to join. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein did so in August under pressure from state Republican lawmakers who have dramatically expanded the state’s voucher system. Polis also is the second governor to opt in from a state where voters rejected a school choice measure at the ballot. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed an order in September declaring that his state would participate, setting the stage for Nebraska’s first private school choice program after voters there overturned voucher legislation in 2024.

School choice supporters had hoped the federal program would expand educational opportunities in states where politics made it difficult or impossible to pass voucher legislation. Polis, meanwhile, said he saw other potential benefits.

Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement Friday that the governor would not have voted for the budget bill, but he is not interested in leaving hundreds of millions in federal money on the table that could provide additional funding for after-school programming, summer school, scholarships, and academic tutoring.

“This tax credit creates an immense opportunity for Coloradans to support students in our state, but only if we opt in,” she said. “He welcomes the opportunity to work with school districts and other education stakeholders to help ensure this credit can benefit the greatest number of students across our state with evidence-based programs that supplement school days. He encourages the administration to ensure these tax credits lead to improved student outcomes.”

The tax-credit program allows taxpayers to reduce their tax liability if they donate to eligible scholarship-granting organizations, which then pay for students’ educational expenses.

The law allows donations to benefit public and private school students alike, but how feasible it might be to harness donations for public school students will depend in part on rules that the Treasury Department has yet to issue.

The Colorado Sun first reported that Polis plans to opt Colorado into the program. He expressed openness to the idea last summer and supported a version of a voucher plan earlier in his career. Polis said in a statement Friday that he doesn’t believe vouchers are a good use of public funds and that this tax credit is not a voucher.

States officially opt in by presenting a list of eligible scholarship-granting organizations to the Treasury Department, a step that must wait until rules are finalized next year.

Polis’ decision doesn’t necessarily mean Colorado will participate in the tax-credit program over the long term. Polis is term-limited, and the winner of the governor’s race next year could make a different decision.

Supporters of Polis’ decision agreed that the tax credits present an opportunity for the state to raise millions for students, including to support them in out-of-school opportunities and to pay for transportation and school supplies. Advocates say the tax-credit scholarship program helps students in underperforming schools attend other school options.

Tony Lewis, executive director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation, which works on education policy, said he hopes the tax credit rules allow scholarship-granting organizations the ability to pay for a wide range of activities, such as sports, after-school programs, theater classes, and summer camps. (The Donnell-Kay Foundation also has provided funding to Chalkbeat. Read more about our supporters and our ethics policy here.)

“If we pass up this opportunity to opt in now, we close any possibility of doing good work for public school kids,” he said. “Why not keep your options open?”

The Colorado Children’s Campaign, an advocacy organization, also expressed optimism about the potential to benefit public school students.

And Ready Colorado Executive Director Brenda Dickhoner said the decision means more opportunities for kids, especially those wanting to participate in enrichment programs. The conservative organization focuses on school choice and education reform.

“It’s a way for us to solve this problem of closing this opportunity gap, and making it more equitable for kids to access after school enrichment, whether it’s band or sports or any type of tutoring,” she said in an interview.

The program doesn’t require state investment. Instead, it allows states to decide whether taxpayers can donate funds to scholarship-granting organizations and receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit. Individual taxpayers can claim a credit of up to $1,700 starting in 2027.

Those organizations would give the money to parents to pay for education expenses, such as a students’ private school tuition, books, transportation, and uniforms. Families earning up to 300% of area median income would qualify. That threshold includes well-off families in expensive urban areas but might exclude middle-class families in some rural communities.

Colorado voters in 2024 rejected Amendment 80, which would have enshrined the right to school choice in the state’s Constitution. In 2021, they rejected a measure that would have used marijuana tax dollars to support after-school programs and tutoring.

Polis reiterated his decision to opt in despite pleas from a coalition led by Great Education Colorado that delivered a letter to Polis on Wednesday saying the state should not participate.

The letter said the state should focus on providing more resources to schools and respect voters’ wishes to keep vouchers out of the state.

The group added that the state can and must do better when it comes to public education. “But publicly funded school vouchers are not the way to achieve this,” the letter says.

The letter says studies have shown vouchers provide mixed results in improving student achievement. It also says the program lacks public accountability and allows discrimination against children with disabilities or who identify as LGBTQ+.

“Unlike the private or religious schools that vouchers support, our public schools are obligated to teach all students, holding fast to the American ideal of public education as a springboard to success and as necessary to a well-functioning democracy,” the letter says.

The list of organizations calling on Polis to reject the plan include the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Fiscal Institute, Colorado PTA, Movimiento Poder, and The Bell Policy Center.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: School choice’s progressive roots get the spotlight in Joseph Viteritti’s ‘Radical Dreamers’

2025-12-04T20:17:37+00:00

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The modern school choice movement has complicated roots.

It connects to the free-market theories of economist Milton Friedman; Catholic activists’ efforts to put their schools on equal footing; white parents’ efforts to circumvent federally mandated school integration; and the Black Power movement that fought for community control of education.

Friedman’s vision appears to be winning. A growing number of Republican-led states are adopting universal vouchers or education savings accounts that give public money to families, regardless of their economic status or access to high-performing public schools.

In “Radical Dreamers: Race, Choice, and the Failure of American Education,” political scientist Joseph Viteritti turns the focus back to the most progressive thread of the school choice story, chronicling the contributions of education researchers, lawyers, theorists, and activists — many of them Black men and women — who believed that all children could learn and that what happens in schools matters.

Joseph Viteritti is a professor of public policy at Hunter College in New York.

Viteritti, a professor at Hunter College in New York, describes his front row seat to fitful efforts to improve public schools, his evolution into a supporter of school choice, and the uneasy alliance between conservatives and Black activists that shaped early school choice policy.

After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, disillusion with integration efforts drove support for community control of schools, historically Black independent schools, and school choice policies targeted at the most disadvantaged students. In that context, Viteritti challenges the notion that it is “conservative” to support school choice, or “progressive” to oppose it.

Viteritti has had close personal and professional relationships with many of the people profiled in his book.

There is Ron Edmonds, a researcher on effective schools who sought to disprove the idea that demographics determined students’ destinies. There is Derrick Bell, the father of critical race theory, who argued that white power structures only support Black interests when they converge with white interests.

Howard Fuller, the civil rights activist, former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent, and fierce champion for school choice, gets two chapters. So does Diane Ravitch, an education historian who helped persuade Viteritti of the merits of school choice, only to become one of the most vocal critics of that movement.

Viteritti still believes in school choice as a critical tool for educational justice. He dismisses the idea that modern school choice traces back to the South’s whites-only “segregation academies,” — “segregation began in the public schools,” he notes. But he acknowledges that critics like Ravitch have proved prescient as more states expand vouchers without any accountability measures or limits on who participates.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What prompted you to write this after being less involved with education policy for a good while?

Someone asked me how I arrived at my positions, and I realized that I had an opportunity to work very closely with some major movers and shakers in education policy: Ron Edmonds, Jack Coons, Diane Ravitch, Howard Fuller. They all interacted with each other, looking through the history of school reform, going back to the days of desegregation and bussing, battles over fiscal equity, the frustration of Black families demanding community control, where they said, “If you’re not going to educate our kids, let us do it.”

And when community control didn’t work, they said, “We need access to good schools.”

And what do the people you feature tell us about the evolution of choice and the education moment that we’re in now?

Ron Edmonds was a researcher at Harvard when he came to work in New York as deputy chancellor for instruction. And I was on the chancellor staff. He was kind of a mentor. Ron was very much against segregation, but he said there was so much of an obsession with desegregation among white civil rights attorneys that they really left out the importance of students getting access to good schools. He said you cannot have equity in education if kids aren’t learning.

In "Radical Dreamers" Joseph Viteritti disputes the claim that it is conservative to support school choice and progressive to oppose it.

Jack Coons argued the first case in California court [Serrano v. Priest] to demonstrate that rich school districts spend more than poor districts and that was inequitable. He developed a model of progressive choice, an alternative to the Milton Friedman market model.

Diane is the one who convinced me [of the merits of school choice], and she finally turned around and said, “well, it doesn’t work.” I would say we haven’t done enough to make it work. She makes some very important points that we agree on about where the choice movement has gone, and what the consequences are.

Howard Fuller is the real deal. He’s the one who helped realize the vision of the progressive school choice model. One distinct lesson I got from him, as a political scientist, is that choice is not just about opportunity. It’s about power.

Derrick Bell really explains it when he talks about systemic racism, about racism as a perpetual feature of American life. It sounds provocative, but when you look at it, when you look at the whole story of interest convergence, it makes sense.

You wonder why people are angry and frustrated? Look at the numbers today. The schools are segregated, and kids are not performing. Race and class are still the best predictors, the most reliable predictors of educational achievement in this country.

Today’s school choice policies have moved away from a focus on low-income students or students in low-performing schools. What is the ability of these policies to fulfill the school choice vision that some of the folks that you write about advocated for?

If you look at the beginning of the [modern] choice movement, we were basically trying to meet the needs of underserved, underprivileged Black and brown kids, for the most part. And the biggest opponents to that were people who identified with liberal causes, for example most Democrats, the teachers unions, civil rights organizations like the ACLU, and First Amendment advocates like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

What you have now is a conservative movement that’s really taken over the momentum and they’re spending with abandon, and it’s not clear what kind of checks there will be and how much spending will result from all of this.

One thing [liberal and conservative approaches] both have in common is who gets hurt. It’s Black and brown and disadvantaged kids. Derek Bell had a theory called the interest-convergence dilemma, and what he said was that white people will support Black people only so long as their interests converge. School choice history is a perfect illustration.

Charter schools have a lot more accountability for their outcomes than private schools. What does this suggest to you about the regulatory structure we might want to have?

I think if you’re accepting public money, then you should be susceptible to public scrutiny. And that’s not where it’s going. We have a lot of schools opening up because of money. It’s going to get worse when the federal [tax-credit scholarship] law hits. Who’s opening the microschool? The lady or the guy down the block? They might be very nice neighbors. Should they be running schools? I don’t know. This is moving so quickly it concerns me.

There are certain people within the school choice movement who support universal programs because they think that’s what’s politically tenable. Universal programs, Social Security for example, get more political support.

What do you make of that argument for universal programs?

Milton Friedman said if you let the market do its thing and create competition, parents will choose the better schools, poorer schools will close, and all will be fine. And there are people who believe in that. I don’t.

I think we need to be reminded of how this could be designed to work better, because I don’t think it’s sustainable. There’s no understanding of how much money is going to be spent on it.

But I don’t think people who identify as liberal or progressive can continue to pretend that leaving children in underperforming [public] schools generation after generation is an example of educational and political justice.

At some point, reality will hit, and maybe we will have an honest conversation when it becomes unsustainable for conservatives who all of a sudden are spending all this money, and unsustainable for progressives to continue to warehouse children in failing schools.

If there was a world in which white liberals had a different response to these earlier iterations of choice, whether it was charter schools or more targeted voucher programs, where do you think that we would be today?

This started as an alliance between Blacks and conservatives. You look at the case studies of Milwaukee and Cleveland, that’s who got this through. Liberals should have been part of that conversation. Instead, they just kind of closed their eyes, stamped their feet, and said, “No, we’re not doing it.”

We could say that there were Republicans who wanted to do a full Milton Friedman model all along. And that’s true, some of them did. But it would have been a lot better to start off with a cooperative agenda focused on poor kids.

I’m not suggesting at all that choice is going to resolve all the problems. What I did believe and still believe is that, if crafted in the right way, it can move us in the right direction.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee parents sue to stop voucher program

2025-11-21T15:13:24+00:00

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A group of parents are suing Gov. Bill Lee and state education leaders over Tennessee’s new voucher law, alleging the program violates the state constitution by diverting public funds to private schools.

The lawsuit marks the first legal challenge to the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, a signature initiative pushed by Lee that provided $7,295 in public tax dollars to 20,000 students this fall. Lee and other Republican lawmakers hope to expand the program next year.

The lawsuit filed Thursday alleges the voucher program violates the Education Clause of the Tennessee Constitution, which gives the General Assembly a constitutional mandate to support and fund “a system of free public schools.” Diverting public funds away from this system violates the mandate, the lawsuit alleges.

“Tennessee’s Constitution is clear: the state must maintain and support a system of free public schools,” Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee, said in a statement. “This voucher scheme does the opposite. It siphons desperately needed resources away from public schools that serve all students and hands that money to private schools with no accountability, no transparency, and no obligation to serve every child.”

Plaintiffs also argue the public school system is already chronically underfunded. They point to teacher shortages and educator feedback from a 2025 Tennessee Department of Education survey that found the majority of school district leaders say the state’s base funding level is inadequate.

Dustin Park, a Blount County parent whose child has Down syndrome, said the voucher program “fundamentally discriminates” against children with disabilities.

“Private schools can refuse to admit students like my son or fail to provide the accommodations he needs to succeed,” Park said, in contrast to Tennessee public schools that are required to accept all students.

Equitable access for students with disabilities has long been a major issue in the Tennessee voucher debate. The state Department of Education told Chalkbeat last month it was not tracking how many students with disabilities are benefiting from the voucher program, a transparency concern for disability rights advocates.

The lawsuit argues that because the voucher law allows private schools to deny enrollment to high-need students, “it will likely increase the concentration of higher need, more costly-to-educate students in public schools, which are already left with less money available to meet students’ educational needs.”

A Lee spokesperson said the governor is “confident” the court will uphold the program that a “vast majority” of Tennesseans support.

The ten parents who filed the lawsuit in Davidson County Chancery Court are backed by multiple legal and education organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Education Law Center.

The plaintiffs are seeking both permanent and preliminary injunctions against the voucher program. The state has not yet responded in court.

Shortly after the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit, the Department of Education announced it would open applications for next school year’s voucher program in January.

The Department of Education released important dates Thursday for families wanting to apply for the voucher for the 2026-27 school year.

Students currently enrolled in the program can begin the renewal process on Dec. 9, while new applications will open on Jan. 13.

A provision of the voucher law allows lawmakers to quickly expand the program by 5,000 seats during the 2026 legislative session, based on the number of applications the state received last summer. But Lee and other lawmakers want to go even further. House Speaker Cameron Sexton wants to at least double the program, which would cost the state more than $298 million to fund 40,000 seats.

Ahead of what is expected to be a tight budget year, the governor has not yet gone as far as backing Sexton’s proposal. But Lee has repeatedly said it is a top priority for him to expand the program beyond 5,000 new seats.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Universal vouchers have public schools worried about something new: market share

2025-11-06T11:00:00+00:00

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report and is republished with permission. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As principal of Hartsfield Elementary School in the Leon County School District, John Olson is not just the lead educator, but in this era of fast-expanding school choice, also its chief salesperson.

He works to drum up enrollment by speaking to parent and church groups, offering private tours, and giving Hartsfield parents his cell phone number. He fields calls on nights, weekends, and holidays. With the building at just 61% capacity, Olson is frank about the hustle required: “Customer service is key.”

It’s no secret that many public schools are in a battle for students. As school started in Florida this August, large districts, including Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, and Orange, reported thousands fewer students, representing drops of more than 3% year over year. In Leon County, enrollment was down 8% from the end of last year.

Part of the issue is the decline in the number of school-age children, both here and across the country. But there’s also the growing popularity of school choice in Florida and elsewhere — and what that means for school budgets. Leon County’s leaders anticipate cutting about $6 million next year unless the state increases its budget, which could mean reduced services for students and even school closures.

Other Florida school districts are also trimming budgets, and some have closed schools. As districts scramble for students, some are hiring consulting firms to help recruit, and also trying to sell seats in existing classes to homeschoolers. There is also the instability of students frequently switching schools — and of new charter or voucher schools that open and then shut down, or never open at all as promised.

Two years after the Florida Legislature expanded eligibility for school vouchers to all students, regardless of family income, nearly 500,000 kids in the state now receive vouchers worth about $8,000 each to spend on private or home education, according to Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers the bulk of the scholarships.

And Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship, created in 2001, allows corporations to make contributions to private school tuition. It’s the model for the new voucher-like federal tax-credit scholarship program passed this summer as part of Republicans’ “one big, beautiful bill.” The program, which will go into effect in 2027, lets individuals in participating states contribute up to $1,700 per year to help qualifying families pay for private school in exchange for a 1:1 tax credit.

“We are in that next phase of public education,” said Keith Jacobs of Step Up For Students, who recruits public school districts to offer up their services and classes on its educational marketplace. “Gone are the days when a government institution or your zoned neighborhood school had the authority to assign a child to that school.”

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That’s a problem for Leon County Schools, which boasts a solid “B” rating from the state and five high schools in the top 20% of U.S. News’ national rankings. The district, located in the Florida Panhandle, serves a population of around 30,000 students, 44% of whom are Black, 43% white, and 6% Hispanic.

“There’s just not enough money to fund two parallel programs, one for public schools and one for private schools,” said Rocky Hanna, the Leon County Schools superintendent.

Rocky Hanna, the superintendent of Leon County Schools, is convinced that some state leaders “want public schools to fail.”

Losing students, districts market a la carte classes

Over the past few years, the Legislature has increased state and local funding for charter schools and created new rules to encourage more to open. (Charter schools are public schools that are independently operated; the Trump administration recently announced a $60 million increase in charter school funding this year, along with additional competitive grants.)

But vouchers are the big disrupter. The nonprofit Florida Policy Institute projects annual voucher spending in Florida will hit $5 billion this year. In Leon County, money redirected from district school budgets to vouchers has ballooned from $3.2 million in 2020-21 to nearly $38 million this academic year, according to state and district figures. Enrollment in local charter schools has also ticked up, as has state per-pupil money directed to them, from $12 million to $15 million over that time.

Leaders of “Continuously High Performing Schools” receive certificates acknowledging their success at the start of a Leon County School Board meeting in late August 2025.

As a mark of how the landscape is shifting, Step Up For Students is now helping districts market in-person classes to homeschoolers on the group’s Amazon-like marketplace to fill seats and capture some money. Jacobs said Osceola County put its entire K-12 course catalog on the site. A year of math at a Miami elementary school? It’s $1,028.16. And just $514.08 for science, writing, or P.E.

“A student can come take a class for nine weeks, for a semester, for a year,” said Jacobs, adding that 30 districts have signed on. They are thinking, he said, “if we can’t have them full-time, we have them part-time.”

Leon County is considering signing on, said Hanna, “to basically offer our courses a la carte.” It could be a recruitment tool, said Marcus Nicolas, vice chair of the county’s school board: “If we give them an opportunity to sniff the culture of the school and they like it, it could potentially bring that kid back full-time.”

Because of his shrinking budget, Hanna is looking at cuts to IT, athletics, arts, counselors, social workers, and special tutors for struggling students, along with exploring school closings or consolidations.

Superintendent Rocky Hanna graduated from Leon High, as did his grandmother and his father, as memorialized in a photo montage in his Tallahassee office.

Another challenge: With more school options, a growing number of students are leaving charters or private schools and enrolling in the district mid-year. Yet state allocations are based on October and February enrollment counts.

Last year, 2,513 students — about 8% of Leon County’s district enrollment — entered after February. “Those are 2,500 students we don’t receive any money for,” Hanna said at an August school board meeting.

Public schools do a lot well, but have been slow to share that, said Nicolas. “We got lazy, and we got complacent, and we took for granted that people would choose us because we’re the neighborhood school,” he said.

Private schools have limited oversight under state law

Even as more parents choose private voucher schools, it’s not necessarily easy for them to determine if those schools are performing well.

Although Florida State University evaluates the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship program, its report lags by about two years. It includes an appendix with voucher schools’ test scores, but there is no consequence for low performance. And scores cannot be compared, because even though schools must test students in grades 3 to 10, the schools pick which test to give.

The result, said Carolyn Herrington, director of the Education Policy Center at Florida State University, who has written some of the evaluation reports, is that “the only real metric here is parent satisfaction,” which she said “is not sufficient.”

Parents can also find themselves in situations where their children’s school suddenly closes.

That’s what happened last year to Kenia Martinez. Since the fall of 2022, her two sons had attended a charter school run by Charter Schools USA, among the largest for-profit charter operators in the state. Last spring, she learned from a teacher that the school, Renaissance Academy, was shutting down.

Previously named Governor’s Charter Academy, Renaissance recently received a “D” grade, and its enrollment fell from 420 students in 2020-21 to 220 last year. It also ran deficits, with a negative net position of $1.9 million at the end of the 2023-24 school year, according to the most recent state audit report. It closed last May.

The school building was to re-open as Tallahassee Preparatory Academy — a private school — which was advertised on its website as a STEM school for “advanced learners” that would charge a fee, ranging from $1,500 to $3,200, in addition to the money paid through a voucher.

The school was to be run not by Charter Schools USA but by Discovery Science Schools, which operates several STEM charter schools in the state. The deal revealed a possible exit strategy for faltering charters: conversion to a private voucher school that gets state money, but without the requirement of state tests, grades or certified teachers — in other words, without accountability.

Yet as this school year began, the building remained dark. The parking lot was vacant. There was no response to the doorbell, or to emails or phone calls made to the contact information on the new school’s website. Discovery Science Schools’ phone number and email were not in service, and emails to founder Yalcin Akin and board president David Fortna went unanswered.

A Charter Schools USA spokesperson, Colleen Reynolds, wrote in an email that “CUSA is not involved with the building located where the former Renaissance Academy Building stands” and did not provide additional clarification on why state audit reports indicate otherwise.

The Leon County School Board fiercely debated whether to sue Charter Schools USA for access to the building and its contents, which had been funded with taxpayer dollars. But school board members dropped the idea after learning that the building had a large lien, the result of how financing was crafted through Red Apple Development, the real estate arm of Charter Schools USA. Hanna was frustrated that for-profit companies benefited from taxpayer dollars — but still owned the assets.

Families move from charter schools to private schools

When Renaissance announced it was closing, a friend of Martinez’s suggested her family apply for vouchers, which covered the full cost of attendance for her two sons at the Avant Schools of Excellence, a private Christian school with campuses in Tallahassee and Florida City.

Donald Ravenell, co-founder with his wife of Avant Schools of Excellence, a private Christian school that takes vouchers, said enrollment at the Tallahassee campus has more than tripled since it opened three years ago.

The school takes vouchers (along with a school scholarship) as full payment, although its website lists tuition and fees at $22,775 per year. Martinez liked that the school is Christian, and small. None of their friends from Renaissance Academy are there. Martinez drives them 30 minutes each way, every day.

The Tallahassee building that houses Avant was previously home to at least two charter schools. One lasted a month. Since the campus opened three years ago, said Donald Ravenell, who co-founded Avant with his wife, enrollment has jumped from 55 to 175.

Ravenell, who on a recent weekday wore a red and blue tie (school colors are red, white, and blue), attributed the school’s success to a focus on faith — “We talk about God all the time” — and the aim of preparing each student to be “a successful citizen and person.”

Like Olson at Hartsfield, he well understands this is a competitive marketplace. He wants his school to be known for offering a quality product, which he underscored by drawing a comparison to fried chicken.

“I have nothing against Chester’s Chicken,” said Ravenell, referring to the quick-service chain sold in gas stations and rest stops. But he expects Avant to reach for more: “We want to be Chick-fil-A.”

Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.

This story about school vouchers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

Tennessee won’t say how many students are enrolled in new voucher program

2025-09-17T15:34:57+00:00

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Months after Tennessee launched its first statewide voucher program, the Tennessee Department of Education won’t say how many students are using it to attend private school.

The department has declined to release basic information on enrollment, delayed public records requests, and blocked attempts by at least one lawmaker to gather data on the program approved by Republican lawmakers in January.

The lack of information has shrouded the rollout of Gov. Bill Lee’s signature voucher program, which is expected to funnel more than $146 million of taxpayer money to private schools, and makes it difficult to determine whether the quick implementation of the program is working as intended.

It’s also the latest transparency issue for the department, which drew criticism earlier this summer after Chalkbeat Tennessee reporting revealed Tennessee would not explicitly track how many vouchers will go to students already attending private schools.

Tennessee launched the universal voucher program application in May with significant fanfare. Lee, in a joint statement with the department, touted a “remarkable response” to the program, citing more than 33,000 applications submitted within hours of launch.

But since May, the department has refused to release further data. The education department did not respond to multiple Chalkbeat Tennessee requests this summer for specific numbers regarding acceptances, denials, and applications submitted in the “income-limited” category of the program.

Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds told reporters in July that additional data on Education Freedom Scholarships enrollment would be released in August. None was published.

On Tuesday, the department again declined to answer specific Chalkbeat Tennessee questions, including how many students were enrolled in the program as of Sept. 1 and how many are currently waitlisted.

A department spokesperson said additional information would be provided in “the coming days” and again pointed to numbers on applications, rather than data on actual enrollment in the program.

“The department looks forward to sharing data from the Education Freedom Scholarship (EFS) program for the 2025-26 school year in the coming days,” said Maggie Hannan, communications director for the TDOE. “It’s important to note that with more than 42,000 applications, approximately 50 percent were submitted by families with a qualified income. This remarkably strong response demonstrates what Gov. Lee has known all along: Tennessee parents want choices when it comes to their child’s education, regardless of ZIP code or income level.”

The department has delayed fulfilling Chalkbeat Tennessee records requests filed in early August, which are still outstanding. It also knocked down data requests filed by Rep. Caleb Hemmer earlier this summer.

Hemmer, a Nashville Democrat, said last week he is considering filing a lawsuit against the department to push for more transparency.

“It’s a continual theme of not following the law and having to take extreme steps to correct that. It’s so frustrating,” Hemmer said. “Our kids deserve better, Tennesseans deserve better. It overshadows the good work that the department and department employees do for our kids.”

The department has denied Hemmer’s request for residency data of student applicants. Hemmer said he filed a records request after learning the department was not collecting data on whether applicants already attended a private school when applying for the voucher.

“After getting the application and looking at it, I was surprised to learn that they left out this key piece of information,” Hemmer said. “So, I wanted to see for myself what the data looked like. I wanted to see how many of my constituents applied.”

The department has cited student privacy laws, though Hemmer believes the data could be released as “directory” data.

“Our education attorney’s review found that they had a different opinion of what should and shouldn’t be public,” Hemmer said.

Deborah Fisher, executive director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said that while it’s not unheard of for a state lawmaker to “tangle” with a state agency to get information, it is not often that a lawmaker sues for the information.

But Fisher said the months of silence from the education department is “unusual.”

“To get just radio silence on the governor’s signature program is unusual,” Fisher said. “You should be able to get basic government data. This is government money, this is taxpayer money. You should be able to get basic information.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee to give more average per-pupil funding to voucher participants than public school students

2025-08-19T20:47:58+00:00

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Tennessee public school students this school year will receive less state per-pupil funding than private school students using the state’s new voucher program, drawing sharp criticism from public education advocates and Democrats who argue the state is prioritizing voucher participants at the expense of other students.

Tennessee will spend an average of $7,023 per public school student in the state’s education funding formula, compared to the $7,295 given to students participating in the new Education Freedom Scholarship program.

Public school students will still receive more public funds, though, due to local government contributions to the formula and separate federal funds.

The 2025-26 funding formula allocation numbers, presented in a state board of Education meeting last week, have drawn criticism from opponents of Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher plan that launched this summer.

Tennessee Education Association President Tanya Coats said Monday that vouchers “shortchange” public education and the TEA is “deeply concerned” the state is providing more per-pupil funding for vouchers than in per-pupil public education funding.

“This disparity makes clear that Tennessee’s leaders are prioritizing private school subsidies over strengthening the public schools that serve the overwhelming majority of children in every community,” Coats said. “Rather than closing resource gaps, the state is growing disparities by sending more money to private schools while public schools continue to struggle with overcrowded classrooms, outdated materials, and educator shortages.”

Tennessee law requires that public school students are funded at a higher amount than the voucher program.

The governor’s office and Tennessee Department of Education this week noted state and local governments must contribute to the formula, known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA).

With local contributions, the average per-pupil TISA allocation is $9,810, more than $2,000 higher than the voucher amount. TISA funding increased by about 3% this year.

“The EFS scholarship amount is $7,295 and is fully state funded, requiring no contribution from local governments,” said Maggie Hannan, communications director at TDOE. “Moreover, the state has made unprecedented investments in public education during the Lee administration, totaling over $2 billion since 2019.”

The financial responsibility of local governments vary, with economic drivers like Nashville funding proportionally more of their local formula while the state shoulders more of the burden for smaller, rural counties.

Public school enrollment still dwarfs voucher participation in Tennessee. Tennessee estimates more than 966,000 children will be enrolled in Tennessee public schools this year, amounting to nearly $6.8 billion in funding from the state and nearly $2.7 billion from local governments.

The education department has blocked data requests and declined to answer questions about how many and which students have been accepted into the voucher program, but the program is limited to 20,000 participants this year.

Still, mechanisms in the law mean Tennessee will likely expand the program every year going forward by up to 5,000 new students, a move an EdTrust analysis found could cost the state more than $892 million in the first five years alone.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons on Tuesday criticized historic education funding levels in recent years and warned local governments would have to raise taxes to keep up with their local share.

“Bill Lee’s legacy will be destroying public education and undermining opportunity for every child in the state of Tennessee,” said Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat. “They have proven, time and again, to bend and stretch the law to fit their false narrative in support of these voucher scams to the detriment of public education across the state of Tennessee.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Are federal tax-credit scholarships ‘free money’ for Democratic governors, or a poison apple?

2025-08-13T22:23:22+00:00

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North Carolina’s Josh Stein recently became the first Democratic governor to embrace a new federal school choice tax credit — right after vetoing a bill in support of it.

Stein’s veto statement rebuffing Republican lawmakers’ effort to enroll North Carolina in the program described the tax credit, which Congress included in a budget bill backed by President Donald Trump, as bad policy that would funnel “billions in tax giveaways to wealthy parents” whose children already attend private school.

But the program could also help public school students, he said. And the law gives governors the final say over whether their states participate.

“I see opportunities for the federal scholarship donation tax-credit program to benefit North Carolina’s public school kids,” Stein wrote on Aug. 6. “Once the federal government issues sound guidance, I intend to opt North Carolina in so we can invest in the public school students most in need of after school programs, tutoring, and other resources.”

Many Democratic governors have opposed vouchers as diverting public money to private schools. But the tax-credit program doesn’t touch state budgets — instead the federal government reimburses taxpayers for donations to scholarship-granting organizations. And the law allows donations to pay for tutoring and other educational expenses for both private and public school students, not just private school tuition, at a time of growing budget uncertainty.

Chalkbeat asked all 23 Democratic governors whether they plan to opt into the federal tax-credit scholarship. Only two said no, saying it would hurt public schools. Stein’s veto statement represents the first tentative yes. Another indicated he’s “excited” about the program’s potential to help kids from low-income backgrounds. Others declined to comment or said they were waiting to learn more about the program while reiterating their support for public schools.

The hesitation of so many governors underscores the challenges facing the Democratic Party in defining its own education agenda and reconnecting with key constituencies. The gap leaves room for lobbying and political realignments.

Among the groups trying to sway the conversation is Democrats for Education Reform, which for nearly two decades opposed vouchers. CEO Jorge Elorza this year called on Democrats to embrace private school choice as a progressive value.

“What we are trying to do is get Democratic governors to see the possibilities in this,” Elorza said. “A lot of Democrats are choice-curious. Part of the work we’re doing is providing political cover, but we’re also trying to help them see how this advances their own priorities.”

Whether the tax-credit scholarship does, in fact, advance Democratic priorities could depend on rules the Trump administration still needs to develop. They could end up limiting governors’ ability to steer money to the neediest students.

In that scenario, given Democrats’ argument that the budget bill mostly helps the wealthy, “why would they then support a tuition tax program that essentially does the same thing, that gives money disproportionately to wealthy families who already have their kids in private schools?” said Thomas Toch, director of the think tank FutureEd. “Is that an argument that a Democrat wants to run on?”

Tax-credit program gives school choice supporters a foothold

Starting in 2027, the tax-credit scholarship program will offer taxpayers a dollar-for-dollar credit on their federal income tax for donations up to $1,700 to eligible scholarship-granting organizations. The money can go toward any expense allowed under Coverdell education savings accounts, which includes tuition, tutoring, specialized services for children with disabilities, and computers.

Families earning up to 300% of area median income qualify. That threshold includes well-off families in expensive urban areas but might exclude middle-class families in some rural communities.

Because of how the bill evolved in Congress, scholarship groups will need to raise a lot of money from small donors to generate significant revenue, and they’ll need to fight state-by-state battles to expand the program’s reach.

“The original goal was to bring school choice to all 50 states,” said Rob Enlow of the advocacy group EdChoice. “This does not do that. It brings the potential for school choice to all 50 states. It gives the advocates in those states something to grab onto.”

Vouchers are booming, but lack of rural private schools that accept them means students miss out

Norton Rainey, CEO of ACE Scholarships, is happy to grab on. Over 25 years, ACE has given out some 110,000 scholarships to students from low-income backgrounds worth a collective $333 million. He’s prepared to make the case to donors and governors that these scholarships transform lives and deserve their support.

“It’s a game changer for our parents, our kids, our communities, our country,” he said. “I think this is opening up the flood gates.”

Greta Alexander sent four boys to Fort Worth public schools where they struggled to learn in crowded classrooms and where they “sometimes had to fight.” Her youngest son got caught up in drugs. She wanted something different for her daughter Miracle — and an ACE scholarship provided it.

Miracle got one-on-one attention, a safe learning environment, and advanced academics at Temple Christian School, Alexander said.

“That she had the opportunity to be in an environment where she could thrive meant the world to us,” said Alexander, who testified in support of Texas’ voucher expansion and hopes the federal program helps even more students. “I’m so excited that other children will have the opportunity for that.”

Federal rules could sour Democrats on tax credits

Stories like Alexander’s highlight the crux of the school choice debate, said Elorza of Democrats for Education Reform, which is that “across the country, too many schools are just not getting it done for kids.”

School choice also polls well among working class parents of color, a key Democratic constituency where Republicans have made inroads. The tax credits represent “literally free money” to help these families, he said.

But governors like Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, who once supported vouchers, are waiting on federal regulations that won’t be finalized by the Treasury Department for some time. They could dictate the extent to which Democratic governors can steer money towards certain student groups, or put conditions on private schools that ultimately benefit from the tax credits.

Education advocates also wonder whether these rules will let a scholarship-granting organization raise money for public-school tutoring programs, or only for private services. Or could states find a way under the regulations to turn the money into a public school enrichment fund?

“The Shapiro Administration is reviewing potential impacts of the new federal school tax credit provision, which does not go into effect until 2027, and awaiting additional federal guidance,” spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement.

It's not yet clear how much authority governors would have to steer money from federal tax-credit scholarships toward some groups and away from others.

While the law requires participating governors to submit a list of eligible scholarship-granting organizations each year, federal rules are unlikely to grant governors the ability to pick and choose among them, said Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative think tank.

Governors could encourage the formation of groups that align with their values and help them raise money, Blew said — but the price will be accepting organizations they disagree with.

In Illinois, where lawmakers let a state tax-credit scholarship program expire a few years ago, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he’s concerned about enabling discrimination. But he didn’t rule out Illinois participating.

In response to a reporter’s question last month, Pritzker said the program would have to be inclusive, and “not just a program that’s about private schools, sometimes religious schools, and sometimes schools that would reject having an LGBTQ member as a teacher.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who supported versions of a state voucher proposal early in his political career, “is excited by the possibility of unlocking new federal tax credits for donations to help low-income kids achieve,” spokesperson Eric Maruyama said. “He encourages the administration to ensure these tax credits lead to improved student outcomes and maintain maximum flexibility for states who choose to participate in this program.”

Other governor’s offices did not respond to Chalkbeat, said they had no comment at this time, or said they were reviewing the federal legislation to understand it better.

So far, only Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said they would not opt in.

Michael Coleman, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham, said she is concerned students with disabilities might be shut out of the program because private schools aren’t required to admit them; that public schools could lose more students; and that there is no guarantee schools receiving vouchers would provide a high-quality education.

Critics also fear the tax credits could be used to justify cutting federal education spending in the future.

Voters have yet to support vouchers at the ballot box. But Blew believes the opt-in decision could become a potent issue in 2026 gubernatorial races and force a conversation about school choice that puts foes of the tax credits at a political disadvantage.

“You’ll have the education freedom candidates,” he said, “and they will be both Democrats and Republicans.”

Purple states could see power struggles over participation

Education politics can be particularly complicated in states with divided government, such as North Carolina.

Voters there backed Donald Trump in the last three presidential contests and at the same time elected Democratic governors. Republicans lawmakers overrode the veto of the previous Democratic governor to launch a major voucher expansion in 2024. Some Democrats have broken ranks to join Republicans on school choice bills.

Partners/Parents for Educational Freedom said in a statement that Stein’s veto “protects the status quo, deflects from real solutions, delays greater opportunity for students, and signals to every parent that their child’s educational opportunity depends on their zip code, their parents’ income, and political games.”

The advocacy group wants lawmakers to override Stein’s veto.

Heather Koons, communications and research director for the advocacy group Public Schools First NC, sees the federal tax-credit scholarship as “just another voucher program” and fears that any money for public school students will amount to “crumbs.”

“Gov. Stein has been a great friend to public education, and I don’t want to second guess him,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll do everything he can to make lemonade out of lemons, if lemons are going to be shoved down our throat anyway. Ultimately I wish this never existed.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

A third of Indiana counties lack voucher-accepting private schools, complicating choice expansion

2025-08-07T16:01:12+00:00

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Sitting on the Kentucky border, the Christian Academy of Indiana draws students from 56 different ZIP codes in southern Indiana. Some come from as far as 30 miles away and live in counties without private schools.

Families in those distant communities make the drive every day — sometimes carpooling — because they’re drawn to the school’s environment and extracurriculars, and especially its Christian teaching, said Lorrie Baechtel, director of admissions for the school, which is part of a three-school network in Indiana and Kentucky.

“There are lots of good public school options in Indiana. Families come to our Indiana campus more for that mission,” Baechtel said.

The school’s enrollment has boomed in the last four years, driven in part by the expansion of the Choice Scholarship, Indiana’s signature voucher program. That’s made tuition more affordable, Baechtel said. More than 1,200 students attended in 2024-2025, up from around 700 in 2021-22.

That reflects a statewide trend: Voucher use has surged in recent years as Indiana lawmakers loosened eligibility requirements. In 2026, the program will open to all families, regardless of income.

But the Christian Academy’s ability to attract students from far away tells another story too. Even as vouchers have become more accessible, Indiana’s rural students aren’t using them at the same rate as their urban and suburban peers. That’s in part because one-third of counties don’t have a private school that accepts vouchers within their borders, and distance is a factor in parents’ decisions on school choice.

The result is that students who live closer to an urban center — which typically have one or more voucher-accepting private schools — may use vouchers at rates up to 30 percentage points higher than those for students who live in a neighboring district.

That also means rural families may be at a significant disadvantage when the state opens the Choice Scholarship to all, and when private school scholarships funded by new federal tax credits also begin to roll out in 2027.

“If there are no schools there for you to attend it’s unlikely it’s going to be all that useful for you,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

More than that, public education advocates say splitting state school funding with vouchers leaves less for the rural public schools these students do attend.

“We’re making the policy choice to fund a lot more choices than we used to,” said Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association, which represents public schools. “We’re inviting more and more folks to Sunday dinner. It’s a little bit of a bigger meal, but a lot more guests.”

But the state’s Republican lawmakers have dismissed the fears of a hit to public rural schools as a result of vouchers, saying that rural voters support choice and parents want educational options — whether that’s private, charter, or traditional public schools.

Meanwhile, school choice advocates say the latest expansion of the Choice Scholarship, along with a growing preference for smaller learning environments and the rise of voucher-accepting online schools, could mean more private school access for rural areas in the near future.

“I think we’re best when we have a robust ecosystem of private and public options,” said Eric Oglesbee of the Drexel Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy organization that funds new private schools in Indiana and throughout the U.S.

Location matters in accessing a private school

Across the state, around 76,000 students received vouchers for the 2024-25 school year — an increase of about 6,000 students from the year before. The program cost the state $497 million last year, and the average voucher recipient came from a household with just over $100,000 in income.

But around one-third of Indiana counties don’t have voucher-accepting private schools within their borders, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state data, which also shows that voucher use is lower in rural areas than urban ones.

Voucher use can shift dramatically even between nearby areas. For example, around 16% of students who reside in the Madison school district in southern Indiana use vouchers, but that rate drops to as low as 1% in nearby districts that are more rural. Similar trends hold in other areas of the state, like Indianapolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne, and South Bend.

Location matters because driving distance has been shown to be a factor in how parents choose a school.

In a 2024 survey of parent preferences by EdChoice, an Indianapolis-based group that supports vouchers, around half of parents said they would drive a max of 15 minutes for their children “to attend a better school.” Just over a quarter said they would drive no more than 20 minutes, and the final quarter said 30 minutes would be their max.

Concerns about this issue have persisted in the state for years. Alli Aldis of the advocacy group EdChoice pointed to a 2018 report from her organization that called areas of rural Indiana as “schooling deserts.” It estimated that in the 2017-18 school year, around 3% of Indiana students, many in rural counties, lived more than 30 minutes from a charter, magnet, or voucher-accepting private school.

Starting a new school anywhere, but particularly in a rural area, comes with challenges like finding a building, said Oglesbee of the Drexel Fund.

A 2023 Drexel Fund report found that facilities in the state are “inadequate to meet the needs of new entrants to the market.” Though the report notes that real estate is both affordable and available, there are no public sources of facilities funding, and surplus facilities are not available to private schools.

But new laws in Indiana have the potential to change that. House Enrolled Act 1515 established voluntary school facility pilot programs open to both public and private schools to “allow for additional flexibility and creativity in terms of what is considered a school facility,” like colocating with schools, government entities, and community organizations.

Oglesbee said the organization is fielding an explosion of interest from potential new private schools in Indiana, possibly as a latent result of the 2023 expansion to voucher eligibility, which made the program nearly universal.

School succeeds ‘if the community asks for it’

Other challenges to opening a private school include hiring staff and recruiting students, which can be a particular issue in rural areas with both fewer children and licensed teachers, advocates said.

Opening a school also requires a team of people with both education and business experience, Oglesbee said. And they’re more likely to succeed if they have roots in the community they hope to serve.

“I see less of the ‘if you build it, they will come’ idea,” Oglesbee said. “A school is successful if the community asks for it.”

At a recent conservative policy conference, Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston said rural Indiana communities were “super excited” for school choice, and noted that no Republican lawmaker had been beaten in a primary for supporting the policy.

But Indiana voters haven’t voted on school vouchers, and don’t have a legal avenue to overturn the policy, said Chris Lubienski of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Last year, voters in Kentucky and Colorado rejected ballot measures in favor of school choice, while Nebraska voters partially repealed a state-funded scholarship program.

“There’s resistance: ‘Why do I want to have my taxes fund a program I can’t use?’” Lubienski said.

In rural areas, support for school choice may actually mean support for transfers between public school districts, said Lagoni.

Ultimately, the Rural Schools Association believes any school receiving state dollars should be subject to the same expectations of transparency and accountability, Lagoni said.

Asked about concerns that rural students often have difficulty using vouchers, Huston said he expects voucher usage to continue to grow once the program becomes universal in 2026-27.

“We want to make sure our policies align with what works best for families,” Huston said.

Vouchers add to financial stress for rural schools

With more school options in Indiana, downward pressure on local tax revenue, and declining population, rural public schools feel pressure to compete. Sometimes that means closing and consolidating schools.

Vigo County schools recently announced plans to close two rural elementary schools as part of a plan to renovate facilities and offer more programming. The school corporation’s enrollment has declined slightly, due in part to an overall decline in the county’s total population, said spokesperson Katie Shane.

More students who reside in the district are using vouchers, although they’re not the biggest reason for the district’s falling enrollment. While 429 students used vouchers to attend private schools last school year, an increase from 252 the year before, around 870 Vigo students transferred to another public school district in the fall of the 2024-25 school year. That reflects a statewide trend.

Without their nearest public elementary schools, students may have to travel by bus for half an hour or more to the nearest school, according to community members who have started a petition to save one of the two schools marked for closure, Hoosier Prairie Elementary School.

“Hoosier Prairie isn’t just about going to school,” said Shyann Koziatek, an educational assistant at the school who also signed the petition to stop its closure. “Kids love to learn and love the routine we have.”

Rural schools also often function as large area employers and drivers of the economy.

“Schools are often the center and identity of the community, how people view who they are,” Lubienski said. “You go and cheer on your football team, it’s where you put on your school play.”

But private schools can serve the same role, choice advocates say.

“If people have stronger educational options, more choices, that only strengthens the community,” said Aldis of EdChoice.

Correction: This map has been updated to reflect the correct locations of Tri-Creek, Tri-County, Tri-Central and Tri-Township schools.

Reporters from the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University Jon Eckert, Charlie Herman, Char Jones, Mitchell Lierman, Mackenzie Lionberger, Eva Remijan-Toba, Maddie Slepski and Jasmine Wright contributed to this story.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Congress usually snubs private school choice expansion. Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ embraces it.

2025-05-16T22:54:03+00:00

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A big Republican budget bill in Congress would establish a nationwide, federal school choice program — a potential political breakthrough that conservative lawmakers and advocates have discussed for years but which has consistently stalled.

The $5 billion, 50-state school choice expansion would bring taxpayer-subsidized private school scholarships to dozens of states that have resisted the voucher movement.

The tax-credit scholarship proposal would establish a one-for-one annual tax credit worth up to 10% of adjusted gross income for taxpayers who donate to eligible scholarship-granting groups. That makes the donation essentially free to the taxpayer, with the federal government paying them back.

Longtime proponents of private school choice, who see their movement as expanding educational opportunity, are ecstatic that a federal tax-credit scholarship program has a viable path to become law.

“What it will do is help thousands and thousands and thousands of families with opportunities they never had before,” said Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice, an advocacy group.

The proposal comes as private school choice has expanded dramatically at the state level in recent years. Texas and Tennessee are among the states that passed universal or near-universal programs this year. Pro-voucher governors tapped outside money to oust anti-voucher rural Republicans from their state legislatures, reshaping the political landscape in favor of private school choice.

At the same time, the increasing polarization of education politics coupled with the questionable track record of voucher programs in improving student outcomes have made private school choice a tougher sell in Democrat-led states. Illinois let its tax-credit scholarship program expire in 2023. And Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who previously expressed support for vouchers, has not backed recent efforts to expand existing tax-credit scholarships in that state.

Although the federal government supports vouchers for District of Columbia students, previous attempts to provide broader backing for school choice have run aground on Capitol Hill. Backers say the rise of the parental rights movement in the aftermath of COVID and growing momentum at the state level have created a political moment where a new federal program is possible.

But supporters like Enlow aren’t popping champagne corks just yet. He said that “we’ve got to see the final version before we say, ‘hey, this is something we really support.’”

Already the bill has been modified to require that schools accept students with disabilities, while still allowing them to maintain their own admission policies. Enlow and other voucher proponents say such requirements would interfere with schools’ independence and deter schools from participating.

Voucher skeptics fear a major change to education policy is side-stepping the normal legislative process, where it would face more debate and scrutiny and where it would be unlikely to earn sufficient votes.

The House budget reconciliation bill includes a host of higher-profile changes to tax policy and major federal programs like Medicaid that have divided Republicans. President Donald Trump and others have said the legislation represents a chance to pass a “big, beautiful bill.”

If enacted, opponents worry it would enable discrimination and further erode the idea of public education as a common good.

“It ends up being a very quiet and sneaky way to fund a voucher program and impose it on states because it’s just wrapped up in this gargantuan and confusing tax bill,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

The budget legislation incorporates the tax-credit scholarship program described in the Educational Choice for Children Act, a bill authored by Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican who leads the Senate education committee, and other GOP senators.

That bill would require 60 votes to pass the Senate on its own, a near impossibility. A similar proposal in Trump’s first administration failed to get much traction even with Republicans. Including the proposal in the House reconciliation bill as a tax policy means it only needs 51 votes to pass.

How the tax-credit scholarship program would work

For some potential donors to the proposed scholarship program, the tax credit would be quite generous. Taxpayers could donate stock to avoid paying capital gains on investments, saving even more than the face-value of the donation.

While most of the revenue reduction would be borne by the federal government, an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that states that tax capital gains would also lose out on millions of dollars.

“This is a tax shelter-voucher hybrid,” said Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University professor who has studied voucher programs and is the author of “The Privateers,” a book about the voucher movement.

Tax credits would be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis, up to $5 billion a year. Each state would be guaranteed at least $20 million.

Scholarship-granting organizations would distribute the money to eligible students, who could use scholarships not just for tuition but also for books, homeschooling supplies, fees, and educational therapies. These organizations might support certain types of schools, for example Catholic or Jewish religious schools, or serve certain student groups.

Families earning more than 300% of their region’s gross median income would not be eligible. That excludes the most well-to-do families. But an analysis from the Brookings Institution found that threshold would mean wealthy families in areas with high median income would still qualify, while middle-class families in poorer areas might be excluded.

Rural families would be particularly affected because median incomes in rural areas tend to be lower than in urban areas. Rural families also have less access to private schools.

The original tax-credit scholarship proposal from Cassidy called for a $10 billion program, which would have made it one of the larger federal education programs. Title I, which provides extra money to schools serving lots of students in poverty, provides about $18 billion a year, while the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides about $15 billion.

Even the $5 billion version included in the House reconciliation bill would be larger than federal spending on charter schools, English language learners, teacher training, and civil rights enforcement combined.

Opponents question why the federal government would throw that much support behind programs that have not consistently improved the test scores of students from low-income backgrounds. (Some studies have found that such students who received vouchers earned a college degree at higher rates than similar peers who stayed in public school, but those studies couldn’t fully account for the fact that voucher students might be different in other ways that benefitted them.)

They fear there won’t be any accountability for whether schools do a good job educating students and that both schools and scholarship-granting organizations would be able to exclude LGBTQ students, those who are not religious, or students with disabilities.

The proposal doesn’t include any requirements that students take tests or that schools meet certain quality standards. It also allows schools to maintain their own admissions policy. For proponents like Enlow, that light regulatory touch is a good thing. Parents need flexibility to find the best fit for their children, and schools need independence to craft their programming, he said.

“We’ve got to make sure that private schools’ voices are being heard so they’ll be there to participate in the program,” he said. “That’s a real key factor.”

In states with vouchers, some parents of students with disabilities report being turned away from private schools. At the same time, EdChoice found that specialized options for students with disabilities expanded in Arizona, where the state offered substantially more money for students who needed special education services. LGBTQ-friendly private schools have also emerged.

Cowen said he doesn’t blame individual parents for using vouchers, but from a policy standpoint, these programs move away from the idea of public schools as places where people from different backgrounds come together.

Greatest impact expected in states without vouchers

The tax-credit scholarship program would supplement state efforts in places that already have education savings accounts or vouchers. But the greatest impact would likely occur in states that don’t have such programs.

When Illinois let its tax-credit scholarship program expire in 2023, organizations like Big Shoulders, which provides scholarships to help low-income families send their children to Catholic schools, had to scramble to maintain support for as many families as possible.

While some individual donors dug deeper, according to Big Shoulders President and CEO Josh Hale, the group has “a lot less” money and is serving fewer students today than a few years ago.

Hale continues to have conversations with Illinois lawmakers about restoring the program. Private school choice often polls well with Black and Latino voters. But it’s an uphill battle politically in a Democrat-controlled state.

A federal program would make more resources available much more quickly.

“Sometimes it’s shown as, this is wealthy people trying to get a break,” Hale said. “I see it as more resources going to underresourced, underrepresented communities, however that shows up. This is to help the least among us find pathways for their children. If that’s an incentive for people to give more, I think we’re all cheering for it here.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica atemeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

How Greg Abbott took a flailing school voucher movement and turned it into a winning issue

2025-05-02T19:12:40+00:00

This story originally appeared in the Texas Tribune and is republished with permission.

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Four years ago, the push for private school vouchers in Texas was rudderless.

Session after session, Democrats and rural Republicans drove home the point by passing a budget amendment to bar state dollars from being used for private school tuition. The provision never made it into the final budget, but that was beside the point. The amendment from Democratic Rep. Abel Herrero served as the yardstick to measure the House’s voucher resistance, forcing members to take an up-or-down vote that always proved lopsided.

In 2021, only 29 members of the 150-seat chamber registered support for vouchers by voting against the measure.

On paper, those were the odds confronting Gov. Greg Abbott when he grabbed the reins of Texas’ voucher push in 2022. In short order, he flipped the math on its head, ushering a $1 billion package through the Legislature with overwhelming support from Republicans in both chambers. Abbott is poised to sign the measure into law Saturday.

In unraveling the House’s bipartisan voucher blockade, Abbott tapped into a powerful national conservative movement that, paired with his own campaign war chest, turned legislative races into multimillion-dollar affairs. His brutally effective method of engineering the voucher turnaround represents a watershed moment in Texas politics that stands as a blueprint for deep-pocketed donors and interest groups to emulate — and that Abbott and future governors could employ on other priority issues.

But even before it came to that, Abbott unlocked a number of votes simply by lending his name to the movement, according to those at the forefront. Once a supportive yet muted voice, Abbott’s sudden move to adopt vouchers as his signature issue helped galvanize latent support among a number of House Republicans who backed the concept of “school choice” but saw no upside in voting against the Herrero amendment without sufficient political capital invested in the fight.

“That was clearly the biggest part of it, because without that torch bearer, it wasn’t worth — I believe, in their minds — the political energy that was necessary to lead the battle,” said John Colyandro, an Austin lobbyist who represents the voucher advocacy group American Federation for Children.

“The coalition against school choice, as evidenced by the Herrero amendment, was very strong,” added Colyandro, a former top Abbott aide. “So when the governor took up the cause the way he did, it was in some respects by necessity, because only through political action was the dynamic in the House going to turn.”

Rep. James Frank, a Wichita Falls Republican who has long supported the concept of education savings accounts, said it also made a huge difference getting an actual bill in front of members — something that could only happen once there was an organized push. The Herrero amendment “has always been kind of a ‘gotcha,’” Frank argued, “because there’s no policy tied to it.”

“The only thing you stood to do was make people mad over your vote,” said Frank, one of the 29 pro-voucher votes in 2021. “There were certainly more that liked the idea, but until there was policy, it wasn’t going to happen.”

A spokesperson for Abbott declined an interview request for this story.

After largely avoiding the “school choice” battlefield, Abbott threw his full-throated support behind vouchers during his 2022 reelection bid. By then, a growing number of states were offering vouchers in the form of state-funded education savings accounts, inspired by a nationwide wave of parental resentment over school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the perception among conservatives that public schools were a hotbed of liberal indoctrination.

Abbott would make that a core part of his pitch for vouchers on the campaign trail. The following January, as the 2023 legislative session kicked off, the governor started traversing the state to hold “parent empowerment nights” where he would promote education savings accounts before sympathetic crowds at private schools — sometimes in the districts of lawmakers who were resistant or on the fence.

In April, when Herrero’s biennial test vote came, the measure passed 86-52. Just 24 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to ban vouchers, less than half the 49 GOP members who had voted for the Herrero amendment two years earlier. The converts included Rep. Brad Buckley, the Salado Republican and chair of the Public Education Committee who would be the House’s point person on vouchers for the next two years.

Abbott touted the vote as progress and said the fight was unfinished. But to Colyandro, it was already becoming clear that no amount of cajoling and arm-twisting could change things; the battle would need to be settled at the ballot box.

“I strongly believed in 2023, after the first three-ish, four months of the regular session, that no bill was going to pass until the makeup of the House of Representatives changed,” Colyandro said. “The lines were drawn.”

Voucher critics have argued that such programs would funnel money away from Texas public schools, further choking a system that in recent years has faced widespread budget shortfalls from inflation and five years without a boost in per-student state funding. That concern has been especially acute among Republicans representing sparsely populated districts, some of whom view vouchers as an existential threat to local school districts — which often double as the top employers in rural communities.

Critics have also raised concerns that Texas would follow the lead of other states where lawmakers promised to prioritize the neediest children, yet saw much of their voucher program dollars flow to wealthier families whose kids already attended private schools.

Josh Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University and an outspoken critic of school voucher programs, said Texas’ proposals — including the bill on Abbott’s desk — have also failed to recognize the difference between eligibility and access by requiring or encouraging private schools to accept low-income applicants. Under Texas’ program, up to 20% of voucher recipients could be from wealthier families who earn 500% or more of the poverty rate — about $160,000 or more for a family of four.

“It pays a little bit of lip service to trying to spread out dollars more evenly,” Cowen said of Senate Bill 2. “But if you are not willing to go the distance and require the publicly subsidized private schools to at least take more children, or at least incentivize them to do it — there are ways you could try, and they’re not even trying.”

Abbott and other voucher supporters say such concerns are overblown, arguing that Texas can simultaneously implement a voucher program and fund its public schools. They contend that “school choice” — the umbrella term supporters use to describe programs that operate outside the traditional public school system — is needed to provide alternatives for low-income families who are dissatisfied with their local schools yet cannot afford to send their kids elsewhere, and they insist Texas’ eligibility criteria has always focused on sending dollars to lower-income students and those with disabilities.

In 2023, toward the end of the spring regular session, Buckley tried to placate opponents with a pared-down bill that would have offered education savings accounts only to students with disabilities or who attended low-performing schools. But Abbott threatened to veto it, insisting on a program with “universal” eligibility open to every Texas student.

The battle ultimately came to a head during the fourth special session of the year in November. Buckley introduced an all-in-one education package that included vouchers and $7.6 billion in public school funding, the latter of which Abbott said he would only consider after lawmakers approved vouchers.

The House responded by voting 84-63 to strip vouchers from the bill, with 21 Republicans — mostly from rural districts — joining with Democrats to deal the fatal blow. The battle lines were set for the primaries, where Abbott promised to take aim at fellow Republicans who had defied him on vouchers — “the hard way,” as the governor framed it.

It was partly Abbott’s insistence on a universal voucher program that spelled the demise of his effort in 2023. But Colyandro said it made sense to go big because “the political lift was just as heavy for a modest bill as it was for a universal bill.”

“It sounds a bit counterintuitive, but being in the middle of it, that was absolutely true,” Colyandro said. “The more modest bill had as much resistance as the big bill.”

Abbott, the most prolific political fundraiser in Texas history, reported a formidable $38 million war chest heading into the primaries, bolstered by a single $6 million contribution from Jeff Yass, the Pennsylvania-based GOP megadonor and TikTok investor whose priority issues include school vouchers.

The governor had plenty of allies as he plunged into more than a dozen GOP primaries. Among them were the AFC Victory Fund, the super PAC political arm of the American Federation for Children, and the federal Club for Growth political action committee — both of whom were also recipients of Yass’ largesse and spent millions going after anti-voucher GOP incumbents. Some Texas-based groups also joined the fray, such as the Family Empowerment Coalition PAC, a group formed by GOP donors Doug Deason and Leo Linbeck III, and Eddie Lucio Jr., a retired conservative Democratic senator, to specifically promote pro-voucher candidates.

Though voucher advocacy groups have always had a presence in Texas — most notably the high-powered Texas Public Policy Foundation — Colyandro argued they were “never quite galvanized” until now, to provide a formidable counter to the network of public education groups that worked to keep the House’s anti-voucher coalition in place.

“I think too many of the groups were relying on the merits of the policy and were missing the political component, which is what the governor’s actions brought a sharp focus to,” Colyandro said.

Though Abbott and his allies made clear in the primaries they were targeting members based on their voucher opposition, some of the targets grumbled that the attacks against them focused more on border security and other issues unrelated to vouchers.

Cowen said that’s because vouchers typically do not fare well among voters. Last November, he noted, private school choice ballot initiatives were rejected in Colorado, Nebraska and Kentucky. Nearly two-thirds voted against the measure in Kentucky, about the same percentage captured by President Donald Trump in the state.

Many voters in those states, Cowen said, felt little connection to private schools or the voucher movement — and the same can be said for rural Texas, he argued.

“What has Milton Friedman ever done for kids in West Texas?” Cowen said, referring to the free-market economist who was one of the first to champion vouchers and school choice. “I think that’s what a lot of this is really about. And it turns out that if you have enough dollars, you can spend your way out of that problem.”

Mandy Drogin, a voucher advocate with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, saw things differently as she traversed the state with Abbott on his “parent empowerment” tour. She said the power of the movement crystallized during her first stop with the governor at The King’s Academy, a private religious school in Dallas attended mostly by low-income families that covers much of its costs through donations.

“I remember just getting teary-eyed hearing the stories of mothers talking about what this school means to not only their child’s future, but their entire family, to have a hope that they can reach their full potential,” said Drogin, the director of Next Generation Texas, TPPF’s education reform campaign.

In any case, the primary scoreboard showed a resounding win for Abbott. Between the March primaries and the May runoffs, nine GOP voucher holdouts were ousted — eight of them by primary challengers endorsed by the governor. Additionally, four retiring anti-voucher Republicans were succeeded by pro-voucher freshmen. And in November, two Abbott-backed GOP candidates were elected to replace retiring Democrats.

Suddenly, Abbott was touting 79 “hardcore school choice proponents” in the Texas House heading into this year’s session — three more than he needed to usher legislation through the chamber.

Abbott’s success in the primaries was a “seminal moment,” said Frank, a 12-year veteran of the Legislature who said he had “never seen the governor all in on a policy” quite like Abbott on vouchers. The resounding outcome changed the dynamic heading into session, he said.

“While people would say there were other issues, that issue [vouchers] was on the table in all of those races,” Frank said. “So to me, Republican primary voters spoke pretty loud.”

The start of session in January came with a clear shift in tone around vouchers: Questions about whether supporters could muster enough votes became conversations about what would be in the bill. Even so, House Democratic leaders urged their members to stay defiant, arguing that “the devil is in the details” and Republicans would still need to craft a bill they could all agree on.

The Senate sprinted out of the gate, passing its voucher package in early February ahead of all other legislation. Prominent conservative voices soon after began heaping pressure on the House to follow suit, led by Trump, who warned the House he would “be watching them closely.” Trump’s billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, also publicly called on House Speaker Dustin Burrows to pass “school choice.”

Appearing with Abbott at a San Antonio rally, Burrows — who supported vouchers before he claimed the speaker’s gavel — assured the crowd that “the votes are there to do this in the Texas House.” Later the same week, in late February, Buckley filed the chamber’s voucher bill along with its education funding package, touted by Burrows as “the Texas two-step plan.”

“Families deserve options, schools deserve resources,” Burrows told reporters. “One without the other leaves Texas short.”

The House voucher bill got a warm reception from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a longtime school choice supporter who has frequently criticized the House for not following the Senate’s lead in passing voucher programs.

The two chambers diverged on how much money students would receive, which applicants would take priority, and how the program would accommodate students with disabilities. But the differences were slim, especially compared to the gulf between the chambers in 2023.

Soon after the House’s voucher bill dropped, a narrow majority of the chamber signed on as coauthors. It was the clearest sign yet that Abbott’s top priority was on track to reach his desk. And when the House took up the state budget weeks later, Democrats, apparently reading the room, declined to file their usual litmus test amendment on vouchers.

Drogin said Burrows’ outspoken support for vouchers played a pivotal role in the smooth passage of SB 2. She contrasted the Lubbock Republican’s posture to that of his predecessor, Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who stayed neutral on the issue as speaker in 2023, insisting he would leave it to the will of the House.

“He seized the moment,” Drogin said of Burrows. “He stood firm and he helped deliver this historic victory. It is absolutely a completely different story than what we have witnessed in the past.”

With the voucher vote nearing, Democrats made a Hail Mary play to derail the bill: They would try to amend the legislation so that it would only take effect if voters gave it majority support on the statewide November ballot. Democrats hoped to find a Republican member to champion the idea, but when SB 2 hit the floor, it was Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat, who introduced the amendment.

Talarico claimed that there was “growing bipartisan support” for the referendum idea — until Abbott “started calling members into his office, one by one, and threatening to veto all the bills of” anyone who supported the amendment, he alleged. A spokesperson for Abbott denied the charge, but in any case, the proposal attracted just one Republican vote: Phelan, the former speaker.

On the bill itself, Phelan and Rep. Gary VanDeaver, of New Boston, were the only Republican holdouts. The near-party line split on the vote — less than two years after 21 Republicans tanked Abbott’s prior voucher bill — reflected the governor’s focus on making it as unpalatable as possible for any GOP member to consider opposing the bill.

Meeting with House Republicans before Wednesday’s floor fight, Abbott patched in Trump to rally support for SB 2 and remind members of what awaited them next primary season if they fell out of line.

In an interview this week with conservative radio host Chris Salcedo, Abbott drove the point home, arguing that school choice “kind of has been a partisan issue in the United States.”

“If you look at presidents, you have Reagan and Trump who support school choice,” Abbott said. “You have Obama and Biden and Harris who are against school choice. Which team do you want to line up on?”

Rather than settle the differences between the House and Senate bills in a closed-door conference committee, Patrick and the Senate’s lead voucher author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, agreed to accept the version that passed the House. In the final draft, Buckley agreed to several changes sought by anti-voucher Republicans, who agreed to support the bill in exchange.

Those tweaks included removing the expiration date on a provision that would cap how much of the voucher budget could be reserved for wealthy recipients and adding a requirement for private schools to have been accredited for at least two years before joining the program, aimed at deterring so-called pop-up private schools.

The final draft was drawn up with an eye toward getting the Senate to concur with the changes, said Frank, one of the House members who worked closely with Buckley on the bill. The idea was to limit opportunities for last-minute flare-ups or anything else that could derail the bill.

“The Senate sent over a good bill,” Frank said. “And I think the House truly did make it better.”

Jasper Scherer covers politics for the Texas Tribune. Reach Jasper at jasper.scherer@texastribune.org.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Here are the charter operators applying to open or run schools in Tennessee in 2026-27

2025-02-25T23:05:58+00:00

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Charter school operators have applied to open or run 13 schools in five Tennessee school systems beginning in the fall of 2026 amid the state’s rapidly changing school-choice landscape.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools received five applications by this month’s deadline — the most by any school system statewide, according to the state education department.

They include two from IOTA Community Schools asking for new 10-year charters to continue operating schools in its network that are set to exit the state-run Achievement School District next year.

And two aspiring charter operators are interested in opening Tennessee’s first-ever “opportunity” charter schools in Memphis and Nashville under a 2024 state law aimed at creating learning options for youth considered at risk of becoming disconnected from traditional public schools.

School choice options are expanding rapidly under policies pushed by Gov. Bill Lee and panned by critics who say they are destabilizing traditional public schools. Traditional public schools serve most of the state’s nearly 1 million students, including historically underserved groups.

The state is preparing to launch a universal school voucher program this fall to give up to 20,000 students taxpayer funds to pay toward private school tuition.

And a new charter school proposal from Lee would create ways for operators to bypass their local elected school boards and apply directly to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission for authorization to open more of the independently governed but publicly funded schools.

If that bill becomes law, some of its provisions could kick in with this year’s cohort of charter applicants.

The filings kick off application reviews by staff for each receiving school system, which will recommend to their school boards whether to approve or deny them this spring.

Based on that local feedback, rejected applicants can submit revised applications for another school board vote this summer. Applicants that are denied again can appeal that decision to the state commission to vote on this fall.

Last year, nine applicants met the state’s Feb. 1 deadline to submit proposals to open a charter school for 2025-26. Six were ultimately approved, including four on appeal.

In 2023, 14 operators applied, and six were ultimately approved, including four on appeal.

New legislation, new law could impact Tennessee’s charter sector

Under the governor’s new legislative proposal to revise charter school law, beginning this July 1, any school board whose decision to deny a charter application is overturned by the state three times within three years could be bypassed, allowing a charter operator to apply directly to the state charter commission for authorization during the next five years.

Also at play this year is the 2024 opportunity charter school law, pushed by House Speaker Cameron Sexton, to open new charter school campuses for middle or high school students who are considered at risk.

At least 75% of each school’s students would have to be documented as dealing with any of a range of challenges such as juvenile crime, substance abuse, chronic absenteeism, teen pregnancy, getting held back in several grades, dropping out of school, or experiencing abuse or neglect.

Opportunity charter schools would operate under different standards than traditional public schools or other public charter schools.

If their opportunity charter applications are approved, the Still I Rise Academy in Memphis and The Rock Academy in Nashville schools would not receive A-F letter grades in their first year of operation, based on rules approved in December by the state Board of Education.

After that, the state’s calculation to grade opportunity charter middle schools would place slightly more importance on academic growth than on student proficiency. And the state’s grades for opportunity charter high schools would emphasize college and career readiness.

Hillsdale-linked charter group didn’t apply again

Missing for a second straight year from the state’s list of charter applicants is American Classical Education, the group associated with Michigan’s Hillsdale College. Hillsdale made headlines in 2022 with Lee’s endorsement and invitation to its leaders to apply to open at least 50 charter schools across Tennessee that align with the governor’s conservative beliefs regarding civics and history.

American Classical withdrew its first three applications later that year amid public outrage over Hillsdale President Larry Arnn’s comment that teachers are “trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

In 2023, American Classical was approved to open two charter schools in Tennessee, one authorized locally in Rutherford County and the other approved by the state commission on appeal for Madison County.

Asked why the network didn’t seek new charters in 2025, board member Tricia Stickel told Chalkbeat that American Classical is focused on supporting its new Rutherford County school, which opened in La Vergne last August.

The Madison County charter, which in January received its second one-year delay to launch, is now scheduled to open for 2026-27 as American Classical seeks to hire a leader and secure a campus location.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor expects a quick launch after signing universal school voucher law

2025-02-13T01:32:25+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee signed Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill into law Wednesday, officially kicking off the state’s push to roll out the program this year for up to 20,000 students.

With only about six months until the new school year, the state has a lot to do before eligible families can receive taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

The state Board of Education must develop and approve rules for Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Program. For instance, how can families appeal if the state denies them a voucher?

Tennessee’s education department will have to staff up — a projected 11 new positions — to oversee the program.

From bumpy road to fast track: How Tennessee’s universal school voucher law made it to the finish line

And perhaps most pressing, Lee’s administration must decide whether to seek a new vendor to automate application and payment processes for the statewide program, or use its current vendor, Indiana-based Student First Technologies, which manages the state’s two existing smaller school voucher programs.

Because the state’s 2023 contract with Student First requires the company to accommodate at least 20,000 users, the legislature’s financial analysts assumed the state would use Student First for the statewide program too.

But Lee said Wednesday that no decision has been made about a vendor, and he wouldn’t commit to ensuring that the state education department seeks competitive bids if it decides to pursue a new company.

“I’ll defer to the department on the procurement process,” he told reporters after signing the bill.

Last month, after the voucher bill passed during a special legislative session, the governor’s spokeswoman said the state was exploring its options.

“While we have had success with Student First Technologies, … our team has met with a number of experienced vendors to learn how other states have implemented universal school choice programs successfully,” said Elizabeth L. Johnson, Lee’s press secretary.

Tennessee bypassed the market leader when choosing its first voucher vendor

In 2023, Tennessee raised eyebrows by signing a $3.675 million, five-year contract with Student First, a young company with a small staff, modest cash flow, and no state-level experience managing education savings accounts.

The contract was signed after a competitive bid process, and after the state failed to reach terms with Florida-based ClassWallet, Tennessee’s first choice to run its education savings account program for Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby counties, as well as a smaller voucher program for students with disabilities. Within a year, Student First launched its electronic platforms in Tennessee.

But several other states using Student First say the company has not kept up with demand as private school voucher programs have expanded nationally.

Last fall, Arkansas terminated its Student First contract after the company failed to meet deadlines and created faulty platforms, according to that state’s education department.

In West Virginia, which awarded Student First a $10 million contract to manage purchases and payments for its education savings accounts, the system struggled to keep up as enrollment climbed.

Tennessee’s education department has not fulfilled Chalkbeat’s public records request, submitted last June, to inspect correspondence and other documents that would show how Student First platforms have performed, including the thousands of transactions that the company manages on behalf of the state with ESA participants.

Mark Duran, the company’s founder and chief executive officer, did not respond Wednesday to Chalkbeat’s request for comment.

Meanwhile, other companies in the school-choice marketplace are interested in pursuing a new contract for Tennessee’s statewide program, including ClassWallet, which scored highest in the 2023 competitive bid process and currently has voucher contracts with 12 states.

“ClassWallet would welcome the opportunity to bring our mission to Tennessee and maximize the impact of school choice for families and students there,” Jamie Rosenberg, the company’s founder and CEO, told Chalkbeat.

He added that ClassWallet has experience and capacity to launch a state-level education savings account program in a matter of weeks.

“Families tell states that our software is straightforward and easy to use,” he said Wednesday.

Governor is confident of a 2025 launch

Voucher opponents criticized Lee for including his proposal in a special legislative session in late January that also addressed disaster aid and immigration policies. But Lee argued that passage in early 2025 would be necessary to launch the voucher program in time for the upcoming school year.

Gov. Bill Lee is surrounded by students as he signs the Education Freedom Scholarship Act on Wednesday.

After signing the bill Wednesday, Lee said he told Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds to “get started on implementation.”

He wouldn’t speak about the details of a rollout, but said he’s confident of a 2025 launch.

“You’ve got to remember, we already have an education savings account plan in place in this state for our three largest school districts, so we have some expertise within the department in how to implement this plan,” Lee told reporters.

While no timeline was immediately available, the department will have to open the application window soon to determine which private schools will participate. Then comes the application window for families who want access to the vouchers, which provide about $7,200 toward the cost of private education services.

“We will partner with the State Board of Education as they promulgate rules and are collaborating with the state’s Central Procurement Office to explore all options to implement the program in compliance with state procurement laws and rules,” said department spokesman Brian Blackley.

Also at issue: How will the state confirm legal residency for participating students?

While the initiative is touted as a “universal” program for anyone in Tennessee — the family income limits disappear after the first year — Republican leaders included a provision in the law saying the state education department “shall deny” any school voucher application from families that “cannot establish the eligible student’s lawful presence in the United States.”

The provision appears to conflict with a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires states to offer public education programs to all children, regardless of their immigration status. The Tennessee program pays for private-school education, but it uses public funds.

“What’s most important to know,” Lee told reporters, “is that this language doesn’t change anything about the state’s obligation as it currently stands to educate children.

“But for this scholarship,” he added, “it’s only available to Tennessee citizens.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s annual address highlights civics education, jobs of tomorrow

2025-02-11T01:49:19+00:00

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Praising the Trump administration as leading a “revival of our nation’s founding principles,” Gov. Bill Lee called on Tennessee schools Monday to step up K-12 civics education with an emphasis on the principles of American exceptionalism.

To accomplish that, the Republican governor wants assistance from the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, which the legislature created with bipartisan support in 2022 to strengthen civic education and participation.

“This year, I am proposing funding to expand the institute’s reach and make sure Tennessee children — from kindergarten to 12th grade — learn about the founding principles that make America the greatest country on Earth,” Lee said near the close of his 2025 address to a joint session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Lee didn’t give specifics about how much he wants the institute to get or how the money would be spent.

Under Lee’s administration, the state has been roiled in political culture wars over what teachers can and can’t teach their students, and state law has come down on the side of restricting lessons on topics that lawmakers consider divisive, including enduring patterns of racism in America.

Tennessee was one of the first states to enact a law restricting instruction about race, gender, and bias. Numerous school boards also have banned hundreds of library books on those topics based on several state laws passed by the Republican-controlled legislature.

State budget proposal would raise minimum pay for teachers

This week’s address coincided with the release of Lee’s $59.5 billion proposed budget for state government for the year beginning July 1, including $7 billion for K-12 public education, an increase of nearly 3% over last year, and a $1 billion new investment in Tennessee roads.

Fresh from pushing through a costly universal school-voucher plan during a special legislative session, Lee called for another bump in pay for public school teachers, plus recurring funding to continue summer learning programs.

The minimum annual teacher salary would increase to $47,000 for the 2025-26 school year, up from $44,500 currently. Lee pledged in 2023 to gradually get teachers’ base pay to $50,000 by the fall of 2027, his last full year in office.

Still, Tennessee teachers are earning less than they were a decade ago, adjusted for inflation, and the state continues to trail most of the nation in student funding, according to the latest data from the National Education Association.

Lee’s spending blueprint includes extra money to support school systems that are experiencing high growth in enrollment, as well as those that are considered high performing based on more than half their schools receiving an A grade under the state’s 2-year-old evaluation formula, which emphasizes proficiency.

Lee calls for expanding career training, childcare

The governor’s address highlighted the importance of connecting today’s students with the jobs of tomorrow.

Lee wants to expand the state’s youth employment program and create a new “Tennessee Works” scholarship to cover all of the costs of attending one of the state’s 24 colleges of applied technology.

The governor said he also wants to find ways to make childcare more accessible and affordable in Tennessee, where infant care costs about the same as in-state tuition at a four-year public college. He promised “tens of thousands of new daycare spots” to help create a family-friendly workforce, but only specified an $11 million investment in the Boys & Girls Clubs, one of the state’s top childcare providers.

The address followed the end of a special legislative session in which Lee saw his full agenda pass for private school vouchers, disaster relief, and a crackdown on immigration.

Those items alone will add nearly $1 billion to next year’s state budget, during a time when state tax collections have slowed.

Democrats slammed Lee’s administration as building an economy for corporate and special interests instead of for working families who want more funding for public schools, among other things.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

How Tennessee’s expansive, expensive school voucher law made it to the finish line

2025-01-31T21:15:03+00:00

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and fellow school voucher proponents have finally claimed their ultimate prize: a state law that will ultimately allow for families all over the state, rich and poor, to use taxpayer funds to send their children to private schools.

The Education Freedom Scholarship Act, approved by the legislature in a special session of the legislature Thursday, will launch this fall with up to 20,000 students statewide, and continue to grow each year, with income limits disappearing after the first year.

In the special session, the bill sailed through committees stacked with voucher supporters, and cleared the House and Senate with comfortable margins. Lawmakers batted away amendments seeking to strengthen the bill’s accountability provisions and protections for disabled people.

But Tennessee’s embrace of school vouchers for all was never a foregone conclusion. Slimmed-down versions of the idea died many times in the legislature before one finally squeaked through on a controversial vote in 2019. A group of parents and local governments sued to block it, and the courts initially declared the plan unconstitutional.

The detractors and skeptics continued to push back on the plan when Lee proposed the expansive program in 2024, with more than 50 school boards on record opposing it. That bill stalled last year in the Senate finance committee.

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. Polls show that public support for vouchers in Tennessee is generally split.

Even now, after its passage, big questions loom about the cost of the statewide program, and whether it meaningfully advances the cause of school choice. The Education Freedom Scholarship Act is projected to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion over the next five years. And because of the high income thresholds, 65% of the vouchers will end up going to students who already attend private schools, the state projects.

Meanwhile, students of color, kids from low-income families, and those with disabilities are often left out of school choice programs due to the locations and supply of private schools, transportation challenges, and the high cost of tuition, national data shows.

So how did vouchers take on an air of inevitability in Tennessee, just a few years after they were staring down defeat?

It was a combination of political swings, judicial shakeups that led to a string of court victories, and a pandemic that ignited culture wars and shook faith in public schools. Also, credit behind-the-scenes lobbying and political maneuvers and heavy influence from out-of-state groups with deep pockets.

In 2019, for example, a questionable parliamentary move led to the passage of the limited program, prompting several calls for a federal investigation. Two years later, the death of a Tennessee Supreme Court justice, just months after hearing arguments in the case, tipped the high court’s balance of power, likely contributing to the ruling that upheld the law.

At the center of the effort was Lee himself, who was determined to get universal vouchers across the finish line before the end of his second term in 2027. The governor used hardball tactics and welcomed spending from deep-pocketed out-of-state groups seeking to influence the outcome. He also loaded the bill with more spending to mollify public school advocates, and bundled funding for his plan with money for disaster relief and immigration in the wake of Hurricane Helene and President Donald Trump’s election.

Below is a closer look at where the march to universal vouchers began, and how it arrived at its destination in Tennessee:

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Thomas Wilburn is the senior data editor for Chalkbeat. Contact him at twilburn@chalkbeat.org.

Project credits:

Photography and illustrations: Elaine Cromie
Editing: Krishnan M. Anantharaman, Tonyaa Weathersbee

Editor’s note: This project has been updated with developments from the 2025 legislative session.

Universal school voucher plan passes in Tennessee legislature

2025-01-30T19:41:18+00:00

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Tennessee lawmakers on Thursday approved Gov. Bill Lee’s universal private school voucher bill, creating a new funding track for educating K-12 students statewide.

The 54-44 vote in the House, where Democrats and some rural Republicans joined to oppose the program, came after four hours of debate, including dozens of failed attempts to add amendments aimed at strengthening accountability and protections for students with disabilities, among other things.

The Senate later voted 20-13 to pass Lee’s Education Freedom Act.

The Republican governor called the bill’s passage “a milestone in advancing education in Tennessee.” He is expected to quickly sign his signature education plan into law.

“I’ve long believed we can have the best public schools and give parents a choice in their child’s education, regardless of income or ZIP code,” Lee said in a statement.

His victory culminates the drive from voucher advocates who for decades watched their policy dreams come up short in the battleground state of Tennessee.

Under Lee’s administration, they’ve racked up a string of remarkable victories. But voucher critics blame intimidation tactics, political maneuvering, and heavy influence from out-of-state pro-voucher groups with deep pockets.

“It’s the best scam that money can buy,” said House Minority Leader John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat, after the historic votes.

Americans for Prosperity credited grassroots campaigns by pro-voucher groups that have reached hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans.

“We’ve been entrenched in the fight for educational freedom here for many, many years,” said Tori Venable, the group’s state director. “Tennessee families won today.”

Tennessee now joins a dozen states that have adopted similar programs allowing families, regardless of their income, to use public tax dollars to pay for alternatives to public education for their children.

President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order that frees up federal funding and prioritizes spending on school choice programs.

Lee said he hasn’t analyzed the executive order to see how it might affect Tennessee’s new program, financially or otherwise.

“But I think there’s opportunity there,” Lee told reporters during a news conference after the bill’s passage.

“The president wants to support states like ours who are advocating for school choice,” he said.

The new voucher program is scheduled to launch in the upcoming school year with 20,000 “scholarships” of $7,075 each to aid families toward the cost of a private education. Half of them will be for students whose family income is below a certain threshold — $173,000 for a family of four. Those income restrictions will be removed during the program’s second year.

About 65% of the vouchers are expected to be awarded to students who already attend private schools, with 35% going to students switching out of public schools, according to the legislature’s analysis of the proposal.

Democrats slammed the plan as “government welfare for the wealthy,” especially since private schools ultimately decide who they enroll.

“The students and the parents don’t have choice; it’s the school’s choice,” said Rep. Sam McKenzie, of Knoxville.

Already, students of color, kids from low-income families, and those with disabilities are often left out of school choice programs due to the locations and supply of private schools, transportation challenges, confusing admission policies, and the high cost of tuition, national data shows.

But one Republican lawmaker from Memphis cited high leadership turnover in the state’s largest school district, which serves a high concentration of minority and disadvantaged students and recently fired its superintendent after nine months on the job, as an example of why Tennessee needs to expand voucher access.

“If (Memphis-Shelby County Schools) had competition, they would do a better job of hiring superintendents, and they would focus more on educating the kids than they are on the raw politics and the power play that’s played out,” Sen. Brent Taylor said during debate in his chamber.

The votes came on the final day of a four-day special legislative session called by the governor to take up school vouchers, disaster relief, and immigration.

GOP leaders, who are firmly in control of the General Assembly, fast-tracked all three legislative packages.

The packages will cost almost $1 billion this year in a state that has seen its revenues drop because of tax breaks for corporations and businesses enacted in 2024 under another initiative from the governor.

The Education Freedom Act itself will cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion during its first five years, state analysts say. One provision allows the program to grow by 5,000 students annually.

In addition to providing some families with vouchers, the legislation will give one-time bonuses of $2,000 each to the state’s public school teachers; establish a public school infrastructure fund using tax revenues from the sports betting industry that currently contribute to college scholarships; and reimburse public school systems for any state funding lost if a student dis-enrolls to accept the new voucher.

But Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, said the initiative can’t be sustained without public education taking a hit. The legislature’s latest fiscal analysis projects a $45 million decrease next year.

“They said that they can run this brand-new program without any school system in the state losing any of its funding. We need to hold them to that promise,” Yarbro said. “But right now, there’s not enough money in the budget to do that.”

Results released this week of a major national test show that Tennessee students held their ground in math and reading in a year when average student test scores declined nationwide.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Trump executive order seeks to steer federal funds to private school vouchers

2025-01-30T01:44:54+00:00

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that aims to steer large amounts of federal money away from public schools and toward private-school vouchers and other “educational alternatives.”

The executive order cites disheartening national test scores released Wednesday as one justification, saying families need options outside the public system. Securing federal funding has been a longtime goal of supporters of vouchers and educational savings accounts, which families can tap to pay for private education.

Until now, with the exception of a voucher program in Washington, D.C., the use of taxpayer dollars for private education largely has expanded through state policy. A proposal to use federal tax credits to fund private school scholarships has not advanced in Congress — though new versions were recently introduced.

The executive order sidesteps Congress and directs the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to find ways to take existing money that goes to public schools, child care providers, and nonprofits and give it to families to use at private schools or for homeschooling expenses.

The order was one of several education-related actions Trump took Wednesday. Another executive order would defund schools that teach “discriminatory equity ideology” or “gender ideology.”

Like other executive orders, Trump’s school choice order is sure to face legal and political pushback. It’s not clear how much leeway the Trump administration has to redirect money without Congressional approval.

Within 60 days, the education secretary is to provide guidance “regarding how States can use Federal formula funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives,” the order says. Formula funds include programs such as Title I, which send billions of dollars each year to high-poverty schools based on population formulas.

Similarly, within 90 days, the HHS secretary must provide guidance on whether and how states can use Child Care and Development Block Grants to support families who want “educational alternatives to governmental entities.” These block grants go to states to help low-income families afford child care. In many cases, families already get vouchers that they can use at public preschools and at private providers, but states also use the money to improve the quality of child care.

Project 2025, a playbook for the second Trump administration written by the conservative Heritage Foundation, also calls for block grants to be converted into vouchers that go directly to families rather than being used to support programs that benefit a larger population.

The order also directs the Department of Education to prioritize school choice programs in its discretionary grants.

Unlike formula grants such as Title I, which are awarded based on states’ and districts’ student populations, discretionary grants generally are awarded by criteria set by the department. The Biden administration made pandemic recovery, equity, and systemic change priorities for awarding discretionary grants.

The Trump order also directs the Department of Defense and Department of the Interior to make vouchers available to military and Native American families whose children attend schools those agencies oversee.

Schools run by the Department of Defense have long outperformed national averages, and the 2024 results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were no exception. Bureau of Indian Education schools have a troubled track record but have also suffered from poor management and underfunding.

The order claims that “a growing body of rigorous research” supports the idea that school choice improves academic outcomes. However, most recent research on voucher programs has found little improvement in test scores — and sometimes students did worse.

Less research exists on programs that make vouchers available to all or nearly all students because those initiatives are so new and because many programs don’t require voucher recipients to take the same standardized tests as public school students. Many families that use the vouchers already had children in private school.

Programs that give families taxpayer money to spend at private schools or homeschooling expenses have expanded dramatically in states in recent years. Republican leaders in states such as Texas and Tennessee that don’t yet have universal voucher programs have made enacting them a top priority.

In a statement, Robert Enlow, president and CEO of private school choice advocacy group EdChoice, said the proposal reflects ideas that both his organization and the Heritage Foundation have championed.

“This initiative reflects a commitment to funding students not systems and to ensuring the proper role of the federal government in education,” he said. “Empowering families to choose the right fit for their children is key to ensuring every child’s success.”

Norton Rainey, CEO of ACE Scholarships, which manages publicly funded education savings accounts and advocates for private school choice policies, said the executive order represents “a significant advancement” for private school choice.

But EdTrust, an organization that advocates for school improvement and equity in education, decried the proposal as well as the effort to use poor NAEP scores to reduce funding for public schools.

“Let’s call Trump’s proposed plan what it really is: ending public education by diverting taxpayer dollars to private schools,” the group said in a statement. “This plan will cut essential funding and destabilize the public schools that serve the vast majority of students.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s school voucher bill barrels toward final votes in special legislative session

2025-01-30T00:32:15+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee’s private school voucher bill on Wednesday cleared the committee level in a special legislative session, setting the stage for votes this week by the full House and Senate.

As expected, the bill sailed Tuesday through education panels stacked with lawmakers who support policies that provide taxpayer funding to families to pay toward private education services.

The bigger test came later in finance committees, where a similar voucher bill bogged down last spring over disagreements within the Republican supermajority. It passed easily there too, with only a few GOP members from rural areas in opposition.

Lee’s Education Freedom Act, his signature education proposal, is scheduled to be debated Thursday by both full chambers, where the votes are expected to be tighter.

If it passes, the initiative would mark a major change in K-12 education in Tennessee. It would create a new statewide schooling track, starting with 20,000 “scholarships” of $7,075 each.

To draw support from lawmakers worried about the impact to their public schools, the measure also would give one-time bonuses of $2,000 to the state’s public school teachers; establish a public school infrastructure fund using tax revenues from the sports betting industry that currently contribute to college scholarships; and reimburse public school systems for any state funding lost if a student dis-enrolls to accept the new voucher.

Only 15 of the state’s 144 districts are expected to receive such reimbursements, according to the legislature’s latest fiscal analysis of the bill.

An amendment added on Tuesday requires that, for public school teachers to receive the bonus, their school boards must adopt a resolution saying that they want to participate in the bonus plan. Sponsors said the change was intended to give local boards more autonomy over the funds.

The action on Lee’s proposal came as President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that frees up federal funding and prioritizes spending on school choice programs.

A day earlier, Trump applauded Tennessee’s Education Freedom Act.

“Congratulations to Tennessee Legislators who are working hard to pass School Choice this week, which I totally support,” the president said in his post.

Gov. Bill Lee and his wife, Maria, join Donald Trump to tour tornado damage in Middle Tennessee on March 6, 2020, during Trump's first term as president.

A subsidy or a civil right: Senators debate the bill’s purpose

The governor, who has framed school choice as “the civil rights issue of our time,” called lawmakers into the special session to take up vouchers, disaster relief, and immigration.

Republican leaders who control the General Assembly have signaled that they intend to wrap up that business in one week and pass three different legislative packages, as well as about $1 billion to pay for them.

The statewide voucher bill is the session’s most contentious issue, prompting philosophical debates Wednesday among members of the Senate Finance Committee about whom the proposed program is intended to help.

According to the state’s own analysis, about 65% of the new voucher recipients are expected to be students who are already in private schools, with the rest coming from public schools.

That projection may be low. In Arkansas, which approved universal vouchers in 2023 under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, more than 80% of last year’s enrollees had not attended public schools the previous year.

Tennessee’s bill would remove any family income restrictions for eligibility in the program’s second year. For the upcoming 2025-26 academic year, half of the vouchers would be available to students whose family income is no more than three times the federal threshold for receiving a reduced-price lunch, or about $175,000 annually for a family of four.

“It’s essentially giving a scholarship to people who can already afford to go to private school anyway,” said Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat.

By contrast, the state’s smaller existing school voucher program, approved by the legislature in 2019, restricts eligibility to public school students living in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, and whose families have significantly lower incomes.

Defending the governor’s universal voucher plan, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson challenged the suggestion that the measure amounts to a government-funded subsidy for affluent families.

Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican from Franklin, is his chamber's majority leader and sponsor of Gov. Bill Lee's Education Freedom Act.

“We’re not going to penalize people who’ve been successful,” said Johnson, the bill’s Senate sponsor. “We’re not going to penalize people who work hard and might do a little better than someone else. We want these to be universal, and that’s the ultimate goal.”

Johnson added that he “has a problem with deciding who’s rich and who’s not.” It depends, he said, on their family’s location and circumstances.

“This program is going to help families across Tennessee — 20,000 kids — get into a school that their parents think is a better option,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be based on income. It should be universal.”

Early research shows that small voucher programs limited to low-income students are more likely to have positive outcomes, while recent national studies indicate that vouchers have mostly negative or insignificant impacts on academic outcomes.

Long-term costs worry critics

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, sought to pin down the proposed program’s cost as it grows, especially since the 74,000 students who attend private schools in Tennessee would be eligible to apply for a state-funded scholarship.

State analysts expect all 20,000 vouchers will be awarded in the first year, allowing the state to expand the program by 5,000 participants each year, potentially doubling the program’s size by the 2029-30 school year. In the first five years, the program could cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion, the state’s analysts say.

“This is a long-term program, and we should think about the long-term costs,” Yarbro said.

He called out the explosive growth of Arizona’s voucher program, which became available to all students in 2022. The initiative has contributed to a $400 million shortfall in the state’s current budget.

Johnson said Yarbro’s concerns amounted to “scare tactics.”

Any growth in the program is “subject to appropriation” by the legislature, he said. “We’ll be back next year, and we’ll have a conversation about it.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee universal school vouchers would cost at least $1.1 billion in first 5 years, state projects

2025-01-27T19:50:26+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee’s universal private school voucher plan, if approved by Tennessee lawmakers in a special session that begins Monday, would cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion during the first five years, according to a state analysis.

During the program’s first year in 2025-26, the cost would be about $350 million, based on the analysis released ahead of the session by the legislature’s independent fiscal review staff.

Those costs would include:

Nearly $146 million to provide vouchers of $7,075 each for 20,000 recipients to use toward their private education costs;
$198 million to pay public-school teachers one-time bonuses of $2,000 each;
$3.3 million to reimburse public school systems for funding they are projected to lose if students disenroll to use a voucher; and
$2.7 million to administer and staff the program.

After the first year, the program would cost more than $191 million annually, the analysis says.

However, the governor and the legislature’s GOP leaders are seeking even more funding for the program’s first year than the legislative analysis identifies, even as state revenues are down due to corporate tax breaks enacted last year by Lee’s administration.

Appropriation bills filed ahead of the session by Sen. Jack Johnson and Rep. William Lamberth, the majority leaders in their respective chambers, seek $447 million to launch the Education Freedom Act, including $226 million in recurring funds and $198 million in nonrecurring funds. The recurring funds figure includes the $144 million in unused voucher funds that the legislature set aside for the program last year before the bill bogged down in finance committees.

Disaster relief and enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are also on the agenda for the special session. Lee proposes to spend another $470 million on flood relief for northeast Tennessee, including $20 million to rebuild a high school in Carter County. Information released thus far does not specify funding for supporting the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Here are other notable assumptions and projections about the statewide voucher plan based on the analysis released by legislature’s fiscal review staff:

Student eligibility: Income limits would end after first year

Each voucher would pay $7,075 during the first year to up to 20,000 eligible students. (That’s $4,597 less than the average annual cost of private schools in Tennessee, which is $11,672 annually, according to tuition information gathered by Private School Review.)

It’s expected that all vouchers will be awarded, allowing the state to expand the program by 5,000 participants each year, potentially doubling the program’s size by the 2029-30 school year.

During the first year, half of the vouchers would be reserved for students whose families fall below an income limit that is set at 300% of the amount required to qualify for free or reduced-price meals, or $173,160 for a family of four. The other half would have no income restrictions.

Because of the high income thresholds, it’s assumed that 65% of the vouchers would be awarded to students who already attend private schools, with 35% going to students switching out of public schools. The 65-35 split is expected to continue in subsequent years.

It’s assumed that no student who is currently receiving a voucher through the state’s smaller education savings account and individualized education account programs will opt to participate in the new statewide voucher program, since their current benefits are higher.

Accountability: A choice of tests

While private schools accepting the new vouchers would have to give voucher recipients national or state tests annually, those schools are likely to opt for using national tests that they currently use instead of using the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, which is based on state academic standards.

Test results would be incorporated into an annual state report that the state comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability would deliver to the legislature’s education committees.

Incentives for public schools: Teacher bonuses, district reimbursement

An estimated 86,000 public school teachers would be eligible to receive the one-time bonuses during the current school year.

A proposed school building improvement fund for public schools would receive over $77 million annually, or 80% of tax collections from the sports betting industry, which currently go to lottery-funded college scholarships.

In the first year, 12 public school systems are expected to meet the state’s criteria to receive reimbursements from the state for funding lost when students disenroll to participate in the voucher program. In the second year, 15 districts are expected to qualify for the reimbursements.

The reimbursements would be completely paid for by the state, not from local governments.

Program administration: Current vendor likely to continue

Student First Technologies, the current vendor for the state’s smaller voucher programs known as education savings accounts and individualized education accounts, likely would serve the statewide program, too. The Indiana-based company’s contract runs through May 2028 and requires it to be able to accommodate at least 20,000 users.

In addition, the state expects to hire 11 people to administer the statewide program. The current ESA program has 22 employees providing oversight.

You can read the bill and track its movement on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor to call special legislative session on school vouchers, immigration policy

2025-01-15T16:01:43+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee announced Wednesday that he’ll call Tennessee lawmakers into a special session this month to take up his statewide school voucher proposal, as well as “public safety measures” to prepare for immigration policies under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

He also wants the legislature to approve a $450 million disaster relief package for Hurricane Helene flooding last fall in northeast Tennessee, including $20 million to rebuild Hampton High School in Carter County.

The session will begin on Jan. 27.

Lee said he will issue his official call and provide more details in the coming days.

The announcement comes just days before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, and one day after the 114th General Assembly convened a new session headlined by Lee’s Education Freedom Act.

Lee hinted last week that he might use a special session to fast-track the voucher legislation: He told reporters that he wants the universal voucher bill approved in early 2025 in hopes of starting a statewide program this fall to let more Tennessee families use taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

Disaster relief was expected to be part of a potential special session. Lee’s office said Wednesday that he’ll propose “immediate and budgetary action to support ongoing recovery efforts and allow for proactive preparation for future emergencies.”

Inclusion of immigration policy was somewhat of a surprise, however, even as Trump has pledged to order mass deportation of immigrants who are not in the country legally. Reports indicate Trump may do away with the federal government’s sensitive-locations policy that limited immigration enforcement in schools, hospitals, and churches, leaving those institutions to plan for ways to protect students and families.

In December, the governor tweeted that he had directed key state agencies to be ready on Day One of the Trump administration.

This will be the sixth special session called by Lee since he took office in 2019.

The most recent one, in August 2023, spotlighted public safety after an intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at Nashville’s private Covenant School earlier in the year. In their six days of work, lawmakers approved three bills designed to speed up background checks for gun buyers, provide free gun locks to Tennessee residents, and require an annual state report on human trafficking, but none to restrict access to guns.

Just as the public safety session drew protests over the state’s lax gun laws, the upcoming special session is expected to draw demonstrators to the state Capitol, especially over the governor’s voucher plan.

Lee proposes to offer 20,000 private school vouchers of $7,075 each in the first year. Half of them would be for families whose income is below a certain threshold — $173,000 for a family of four. The rest would be for any student, regardless of family income. Most of the restrictions would be lifted in the program’s second year, with plans to expand the program by 5,000 students annually.

Three big issues that could determine if Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gets his way on universal school vouchers

A similar plan collapsed in finance committees last spring over disagreements within the GOP supermajority, but this time, all of the legislature’s top Republicans are unified behind the governor’s plan.

“The majority of Tennesseans, regardless of political affiliation, have made it clear that they support empowering parents with school choice, and the best thing we can do for Tennessee students is deliver choices and public school resources without delay,” the governor said Wednesday in a joint statement with Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and majority leaders Sen. Jack Johnson and Rep. William Lamberth.

They also supported a spotlight on public safety measures, calling Trump’s election a “mandate to enforce immigration laws.”

Democrats said the governor’s call for disaster relief is long overdue for helping flood-ravaged counties in the rural, mountainous counties of northeast Tennessee. However, they reiterated their opposition to a truncated debate on expanding vouchers statewide, especially when such programs in Arizona, Arkansas, and Indiana are putting a financial strain on state budgets without improving academic outcomes.

“When we open up this can, when we put this into law, it’s not something we can go back from,” Sen. Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis, said at an impromptu news conference at the Capitol.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville, said school vouchers are a complex idea that should be thoroughly debated with public input.

“To try and rush this substantive and highly controversial policy through in a 3-day session, along with disaster relief and immigration policies, is an unconscionable attempt to keep the general public in the dark and prevent sunlight from shining on our legislative process,” Clemmons said.

The president of the state’s largest teachers organization agreed.

“While the General Assembly considers measures to support those recovering from a natural disaster, they should refrain from creating a man-made disaster,” said Tanya T. Coats, a Knox County educator who leads the Tennessee Education Association.

“Governor Lee should focus on helping our neighbors, not pushing his statewide voucher scheme backed by out-of-state special interests.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Vouchers, cellphones, recess: Education issues will dominate again as Tennessee lawmakers return

2025-01-15T00:29:38+00:00

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Tennessee’s 114th General Assembly gaveled in Tuesday with another GOP supermajority and an expectation from Republican Gov. Bill Lee to pass his universal school voucher proposal early in the session.

Lee’s statewide plan is expected to dominate legislative business for a second straight year, and the governor has hinted he may call a special session late this month to focus on it, as well as to discuss emergency aid for flood-damaged parts of northeast Tennessee.

But other proposals this year could affect public school students and families, too, even as sluggish tax collections will make it harder to launch and sustain expensive new programs.

Bills to require restrictions on student cellphone use in schools, improve school safety, and encourage wider access to child care have been filed, or are expected to be filed.

Legislation rejected by lawmakers in 2024, and back again this year, would establish programs to provide students with free breakfast and lunch, as well as free menstrual hygiene products for adolescent girls.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, of Culleoka, wants to significantly expand the amount of physical activity for elementary and middle school kids. The state currently mandates 15 minutes of daily recess for elementary schoolers, but no recess time for middle schoolers. His bill would require two daily 30-minute, unstructured, screen-free recess periods for elementary students — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — and at least one 30-minute recess period a day in middle school.

Concern about decreasing physical activity and rising childhood obesity rates is behind a legislative proposal to expand recess time in most Tennessee public schools.

A bill by Rep. Kirk Haston, of Lobelville, aims to end required end-of-course state testing for high school students. Instead, the state would rely on the results of ACT, SAT, or other college entrance tests for school accountability purposes.

There also may be proposals to try to bolster reading instruction in kindergarten and first and second grades — part of the state’s continuing effort to raise reading proficiency among third-graders. Currently, 39% of third-grade students are considered proficient readers, based on annual state tests.

With turmoil in Tennessee’s largest school system, as some Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members seek to oust the superintendent after less than a year on the job, Rep. G.A. Hardaway filed a bill Tuesday that would create a process for recalling school board members.

And several legislative leaders believe the Achievement School District, the state’s most intensive school turnaround program, will likely be phased out through legislation after more than a decade of mostly disappointing results. Meanwhile, a smaller pilot school turnaround program that is showing some success could be expanded.

Culture war issues likely will play prominently in debates again in a state that has led the nation in banning school library books in recent years and was among the first to enact a law restricting what teachers can teach about topics such as racism, gender, and bias.

Already, Rep. Michael Hale, of Smithville, has a bill to allow and encourage public schools to display the Ten Commandments, along with certain historical texts such as the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution that are already allowed. Another measure, by Rep. Gino Bulso of Franklin, would require the parent, guardian, or legal custodian of a student who is not a lawful U.S. resident to pay tuition if the student attends public school. Such a measure would violate federal law preventing public schools from denying a free public education to children who were not legally admitted to the United States.

Republicans continue to maintain their stronghold on legislative politics, maintaining their supermajority status in the House with 75 out of the 99 seats, the same number the GOP held before last year’s elections. In the Senate, Republicans have 27 members while Democrats continue to have just six.

Nearly all members of the supermajority represent districts located outside of Memphis and Nashville, the state’s largest two cities.

Democrats will try for a second straight year to fend off Lee’s plan for universal private school vouchers and have issued a call to action to pass legislation that strengthens public schools — from salary increases for teachers to establishing a grant fund to pay for afterschool programs, mental health services, teacher training, and facility upgrades.

“Education is not a partisan issue; it’s a Tennessee issue,” said House Democratic Leader Karen Camper, of Memphis, in a statement.

Bills won’t be debated for several weeks in a session that’s expected to last through at least April. With a new General Assembly, organizational business comes first.

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton likely will announce committee assignments and chairs of those panels later this week, including pivotal education committees. Those appointments are important because committee leaders and members serve as the gatekeepers of legislation, deciding which bills advance and which ones don’t.

Closely watched will be a successor to former Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, of Bristol, who lost his Republican primary election last year.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Three big issues that could determine if Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gets his way on universal school vouchers

2025-01-10T23:23:48+00:00

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After the collapse of his statewide private school voucher proposal last year, Gov. Bill Lee is back with a similar plan to try to convince lawmakers that Tennessee students need another taxpayer-funded alternative to traditional public schools.

But while his new Education Freedom Act enjoys unified support among Republican leaders in both legislative chambers — a major difference from this time last year — it’s also generating many of the same concerns that contributed to the 2024 bill’s demise.

Complicating matters further are sagging tax collections that will make it harder to launch and sustain expensive new initiatives. Also, an existing smaller “pilot” voucher program remains under-enrolled in its third year, and the students in it are generally performing below their public school counterparts.

Lee, who is term-limited, has made the voucher policy one of his top objectives since taking office in 2019, and recently hinted that he may call a special legislative session to prioritize his proposal before lawmakers take up other business. The legislature would need to pass his bill in early 2025 to give his administration enough time to launch a universal program this summer, before the upcoming school year.

A recent poll conducted by Vanderbilt University shows Tennessee voters are mostly split over school vouchers.

Lee is trying to build public support, though, through statewide TV ads featuring him and paid for by the pro-voucher American Federation for Children, as well as radio ads paid for by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers of Kansas.

Standing between the governor and the realization of his universal voucher program in Tennessee are three big issues:

Long-term funding uncertainty for public schools

State officials have estimated that about half of voucher recipients in the program’s first year would come from public schools, with the rest already enrolled in private schools or new students entering kindergarten.

To quell anxiety about the financial impact on public schools, Lee’s legislation includes a “hold harmless” provision that essentially would reimburse school districts for any funding they stand to lose when a student leaves to take a voucher and go to a private school.

Also, voucher money would not come out of the state’s existing funding formula for public schools, but rather from a separate line item in the budget that already has $144 million in untapped funds appropriated by the legislature last year.

But laws — and budgets — can change from year to year, and put those pledges at risk.

Flanked by the General Assembly's Republican leaders, Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters at the close of the 2024 legislative session on April 25.

Under the legislation, it’s unclear how Lee intends to pay for reimbursements to public schools for the first year, and in future years, especially since participation is expected to grow.

A future governor and legislature could take away the reimbursements, particularly if overall tax collections continue to decline under Lee’s 2024 initiative to reduce corporate and business taxes in Tennessee.

At the same time, the state would be obligated to fund the new statewide education program for the foreseeable future. With Lee’s plan to add 5,000 vouchers each year, the program could direct up to $862 million in taxpayer funding toward private education costs during the first five years, according to an analysis by Ed Trust of Tennessee.

And because of the bill’s loose restrictions on who could receive the new vouchers, a large number of the program’s recipients are expected to come from families who already send, or plan to send, their children to private schools.

In Arkansas, which approved universal vouchers in 2023 under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, more than 80% of last year’s enrollees had not attended public schools the previous year.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on Nov. 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

In an effort to garner more support for the Education Freedom Act, Tennessee’s bill includes several financial benefits for public schools.

One would redirect 80% of sports wagering tax revenue now going to pay for college scholarships to instead help fund school building and maintenance projects across the state, especially for emergencies and for rural districts in counties designated as distressed or at risk.

But that’s only about $70 million annually and wouldn’t go far toward addressing the state’s $9.8 billion backlog of school facility needs. (Building a single elementary school can cost up to $60 million these days, while a new high school can cost significantly more.)

A second enticement would give every public school teacher a one-time $2,000 bonus. Many teachers who would be eligible to receive the money dismiss that proposal as a diversion tactic and believe the larger goal of Republican leaders is to eventually defund public schools.

Uneven standards for testing and accountability

The bill would require the new voucher recipients in grades 3-11 to take annual state or national standardized achievement tests to track the program’s effectiveness.

That’s a departure from the state’s existing Education Savings Account program that requires recipients to take the same state tests as their public school counterparts in math and English language arts, which provides an apples-to-apples comparison of educational outcomes.

The testing issue creates a quandary for Republicans.

Holding government accountable for how it spends taxpayer money is a conservative principle. But private schools are less likely to participate in a voucher program if they’re required to administer any state tests that are based on state-approved academic standards.

With Lee’s new proposal, supporters now say that national tests are good enough to gauge how students who take voucher money are doing.

In Tennessee, public school students in grades 3-11 are required to take annual state tests in math, English language arts, social studies, and science under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.

Detractors say that sets uneven standards of accountability for different groups of students whose education is being funded with the same taxpayer money.

To some extent, the existing pilot voucher program already has a differing measuring stick. Participating private schools aren’t evaluated like public schools are under the state’s new A-F school grading system to help parents gauge their effectiveness. Moreover, in issuing grades to public schools, Lee’s administration has elevated the importance of academic proficiency based on state test results. But for private schools receiving public funding through education savings accounts, it has mostly touted surveys showing high parental satisfaction in the program.

Lee has repeatedly said his priority is to give parents more choices and control over their children’s education.

Which students would be included, and excluded?

Voucher supporters use the language of “school choice” to promote the policy.

But private schools get to choose the students they enroll, not the other way around — potentially reinforcing discriminatory practices and widening educational disparities between affluent students and historically underserved groups.

Lee’s proposal, for example, includes no guarantees of services and accommodations for students with disabilities.

Unlike with public schools, students who attend private schools are not protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate education. Essentially, the federal law requires public schools to give those students specialized support and services determined collaboratively by school leaders and parents.

Lee’s proposal has no anti-discrimination language that would prevent schools from selectively admitting, or expelling, students based on criteria that may include color, disability, test scores, family income, religious affiliation, national origin, or sexual orientation.

State laws typically include anti-discrimination language regarding eligibility for education programs. Even Lee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law, which created vouchers for some students in Memphis and Nashville, and later in Chattanooga, requires participating private schools to certify that they will “not discriminate against participating students or applicants on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

The newest legislation isn’t so broad in its protections.

To satisfy far-right conservatives, for example, it specifically bars students who can’t show that they’re in the United States legally from participating in the proposed program. That would violate federal law and could set the stage for another protracted and expensive legal challenge to Tennessee voucher law.

Without the non-discrimination language, Lee’s voucher policy as proposed raises the risk not only that Tennessee’s schools will become more racially and economically segregated, but also that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars could flow to so-called segregation academies that were established in the 1960s and 1970s for white children during the desegregation movement.

Some of those schools still exist, although Chalkbeat has not analyzed which private schools in Tennessee fit that definition.

North Carolina built its school voucher program the same way that Lee has advocated for Tennessee. When it launched in 2014, the program was only for low-income families, but in 2023, state lawmakers expanded eligibility to students of all income levels and those already attending private school.

According to reporting by ProPublica, 39 schools that it identified as likely segregation academies have received taxpayer money from North Carolina’s voucher program.

You can read Tennessee’s voucher bill here and track its movement in the legislature here.

Correction: A previous version of this story said Americans for Prosperity paid for TV and radio ads promoting Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Act. The radio ads were paid for by Americans for Prosperity, while the TV ad was paid for by American Federation for Children, another pro-voucher group.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor hints at special legislative session on school vouchers, flood relief

2025-01-08T23:04:44+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee wants state lawmakers to take up his universal school voucher bill quickly in hopes of starting a statewide program this fall to let more Tennessee families use taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

And he may call a special legislative session this month to deal exclusively with his Education Freedom Act, plus emergency relief for flood-ravaged counties in northeast Tennessee.

“There’s nothing off the table,” Lee told reporters Wednesday in Nashville when asked about the likelihood of a special session.

The term-limited Republican governor said the two matters need to be addressed early this year and added that he is “finalizing a strategy and a plan.”

Lee is seeking to avoid a prolonged legislative battle like the one that led to the collapse of his 2024 universal voucher proposal in finance committees.

But he’ll need to act quickly.

The regular session of the 114th General Assembly is set to convene Jan. 14, with committee assignments and other organizational business first on the agenda. The legislature plans to pause its work for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, which Lee and many members of Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature plan to attend.

The week of Jan. 27 is a possibility for a special session, according to several sources.

In a clause that implies a sense of urgency or emergency, the Tennessee Constitution says the governor may convene a special legislative session “on extraordinary occasions” to address specific matters.

There’s no disagreement that northeast Tennessee urgently needs more state assistance after Hurricane Helene caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to public infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and schools, in late September.

But Lee’s critics say his voucher proposal isn’t the kind of priority that warrants an urgent special session.

“Using storm relief as a pretext to promote a voucher scheme is a disservice to our families and undermines the real challenges we face,” said Sen. London Lamar, of Memphis, who chairs her chamber’s Democratic caucus.

Rep. John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville, said Lee should have called a special session months ago to help Tennessee’s inland mountain communities battered by Helene’s storms, which killed 18 people in the state.

Instead, he “clearly and purposefully waited almost four months until he thought he had enough votes to pass his voucher scam,” said Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic caucus.

If Lee does call a special session, it’s likely that he believes he has the votes to pass a voucher policy that has been one of his top objectives since he took office in 2019.

Since recent legislative races delivered the governor a mix of wins and losses on the issues, his administration has been working to galvanize support for a revised plan.

The governor is touting his Education Freedom Act in 30-second ads paid for by the pro-voucher American Federation for Children and running in the state’s four largest TV markets before the legislature convenes.

Another group, Americans for Prosperity, which is affiliated with Kansas billionaire Charles Koch’s conservative advocacy network, announced Wednesday that it’s also starting to run radio ads supporting Lee’s proposal and featuring U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, a likely candidate for governor in 2026.

Meanwhile, a grassroots group of Tennesseans calling itself Public School Strong hosted a virtual town hall on Tuesday evening to rally opposition to the bill. The group plans to hold in-person forums and rallies Jan. 11-14 in Knoxville, Winchester, Memphis, Clarksville, Smyrna, and Chattanooga.

“It’s no surprise that everyday Tennesseans are not the ones asking for Lee’s entitlement program for the wealthy,” the group wrote in an organizational letter. “Instead, it’s out-of-state billionaire groups like Americans for Prosperity leading the charge by pouring millions upon millions of dollars into campaigns in our small towns and threatening our local elected leaders if they dare to side with their constituents.”

Lee’s latest proposal would provide of about $7,100 each to 20,000 students in the first year, half of which would be subject to income limits of three times the threshold to qualify for reduced price school meals, or about $173,000 for a family of four.

In 2019, the legislature passed Lee’s first voucher bill to create a smaller voucher program for students in Memphis and Nashville. At the time, the governor said vouchers were needed to give more educational choices to low-income students attending low-performing schools.

The new plan would eventually eliminate income limits and open up vouchers to students anywhere in the state.

You can read the new bill here and track its movement in the legislature here.

Correction: A previous version of this story said the American Federation for Children paid for radio ads supporting Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Act. Those ads were paid for by Americans for Prosperity, another group, while the AFC paid for a TV ad featuring the governor.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee teachers scoff at proposed bonuses linked to Gov. Lee’s school voucher plan

2024-11-13T11:00:00+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee, who’s trying again to enact his statewide private school voucher plan, is hoping to win over critics and skeptics with a $2,000 bonus for public school teachers. But many educators who would be eligible for the extra cash are dismissing it as a diversion tactic.

Some are calling Lee’s bonus offer an attempted bribe, or “hush money,” as he seeks to expand policies that provide public funding for students to attend private schools. Others say it’s insulting to teaching professionals who have spent their careers advocating for their students, and for more funding to support them.

“It’s a one-time bonus that’s basically asking us to sell out our public schools,” said Liz Marable, a longtime Memphis educator who is currently president of the United Education Association of Shelby County. “But we are not for sale.”

Details of the latest universal voucher proposal, reached during months of negotiations between the governor’s office and legislative leaders, emerged last week after Election Day. House and Senate Republican sponsors filed identical bills in an effort to avoid disagreements between the two chambers that killed their first attempts this spring in committees, even though Republicans held a supermajority in the legislature.

Some concerns that critics raised about the earlier bills apply to the new package, too. Among them: The program could create long-term funding uncertainty for public schools and set uneven standards for accountability through testing. It wouldn’t guarantee accommodations and services for students with disabilities and would bar undocumented students from participating, in violation of federal law.

The one-time bonus for approximately 86,000 public school teachers is new to the mix. It would cost about $172 million, which could itself be a concern during a fiscal year when state economists project declining or stagnant revenues.

The bonuses, and other public school benefits in the legislation, aren’t intended specifically to win over teachers, of course; they won’t get to vote on it. Rather, they’re aimed at winning over Republican lawmakers, mostly in rural Tennessee, who are wary of vouchers’ impact on their public schools.

These lawmakers have to answer to constituents in areas where public schools are often the only educational option, the largest employer, and the hub of their communities. Lee and Republican legislative leaders are betting that the bonus will make a vote for vouchers more politically palatable.

Lee’s Education Freedom Act also proposes new money to help local districts pay for school maintenance and construction. And it includes “hold harmless” language that pledges the state will reimburse school systems for any lost funding tied to students who withdraw from public schools to accept vouchers and attend private schools.

Educators interviewed by Chalkbeat said that they believe the promised reimbursements would be short-lived, and that the funding would be eliminated from future state budgets, ultimately draining resources from their public schools.

“Teachers aren’t fooled by the promise of a small bonus in exchange for a bill that would lead to public schools closing across the state,” said Tanya T. Coats, a Knox County teacher who is president of the state’s largest teacher organization, the Tennessee Education Association.

The one-year bonus would barely address pay disparities between teachers in Tennessee and those in other states. The average teacher in Tennessee made below $58,000, compared with $69,597 nationally, during 2022-23, the latest year for which national data is available, according to an analysis by the National Education Association.

The governor is budgeting next year to increase the state’s minimum salary for teachers from $44,500 to $47,000, in accordance with his plan to get base pay to $50,000 by the time he leaves office in 2027.

But critics say those increases aren’t rewarding experienced teachers, keeping up with inflation, or attracting high-quality candidates to the teaching profession, which is suffering from sagging morale.

Kathryn Vaughn has been a full-time teacher in Tennessee for 20 years and works two other jobs to make ends meet. She’s unimpressed by the idea of a $2,000 bonus, which likely would be closer to $1,400 after taxes.

The underlying goal of Lee’s voucher plan, she believes, is to defund public education.

“If you’re really serious about helping teachers, why not make some sort of systemic change to teacher pay to alleviate the starvation funding we’re operating under?” said Vaughn, an elementary school art teacher in Tipton County, near Memphis.

Linking benefits for teachers to school choice agenda

It’s not the first time the governor has sought to package benefits for teachers with more controversial education proposals.

In 2023, Lee pressed for a bill to guarantee gradual minimum pay boosts for teachers during his second term in office — and also to ban school districts from making payroll deductions for employees’ professional association dues. Teacher groups and many lawmakers objected to the tactic, but the bill eventually passed.

Similarly, Lee’s bonus proposal is tied to the creation of a statewide program to give $7,075 each in public funding toward the cost of a private education for up to 20,000 Tennessee students, beginning next fall.

Lee has pushed for more education choices for families, while also investing hundreds of millions of dollars in public schools, since taking office in 2019. He remains adamant that both policies can complement each other.

“This piece of legislation represents a commitment to education for all children in the state, and that includes public funding, teacher funding, parental choice,” said Lee, when asked by reporters last week why the voucher and teacher bonus measures aren’t decoupled so lawmakers can vote on them separately.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on Nov. 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

Other governors, especially in predominantly Republican states, have used a similar playbook when pressing for vouchers.

In Arkansas, for instance, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a 2023 law to increase beginning public school teacher salaries from $36,000 to $50,000, while also creating a statewide voucher program to cover the costs of private school tuition, homeschooling expenses, and other educational expenses.

Teachers fear that vouchers will hurt their students

Many Tennessee teachers are skeptical about the new proposal to give them a bonus, viewing it as a ploy to push a policy agenda that they say will ultimately hurt their profession, public schools, and students in general.

“Teachers I am hearing from are very insulted that the sponsor of this bill thought any devoted Tennessee teacher would be willing to erode the future of public education for a one-time, taxed bonus of $2,000,” tweeted National Teacher of the Year Missy Testerman, who works for Rogersville City Schools in northeast Tennessee.

Like Testerman, Siema Swartzel teaches students who live mostly below the poverty level. More investments in public education would help, she said.

“I don’t see how creating a voucher program and adding $2,000 to my bank account is going to make sure my kids have all the things they need to be good learners,” said Swartzel, who teaches music at an elementary school in Cleveland, near Chattanooga. “They are our future, and I’m very afraid that vouchers will interfere with that.”

In Clarksville, near the Kentucky border, Karel Lea Biggs doesn’t think vouchers, as they’re proposed, would end up benefiting any of her middle schoolers, many of whom are considered economically disadvantaged.

Under Lee’s proposal, half of the first year’s vouchers would be subject to limits based on family income, but those limits would still be high: three times the threshold to qualify for free and reduced price school meals, or about $173,000 for a family of four. The remaining 10,000 slots would have no income restrictions.

Lee’s administration acknowledges that many enrollees would be the children of parents who intended to send their children to private schools anyway, and already had the resources to do so.

Meanwhile, Biggs says her public school desperately needs more resources to support students experiencing post-pandemic anxiety and other mental health issues.

“A teacher bonus and vouchers,” she said, “just aren’t going to help my kids.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s new universal school voucher plan has GOP leaders on the same page

2024-11-06T23:05:34+00:00

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Seven months after Gov. Bill Lee’s first universal school voucher bill died over disagreements within the legislature’s Republican supermajority, GOP leaders were unified as they introduced new legislation Wednesday.

Senate and House majority leaders filed identical bills to create Education Freedom Scholarships that would give $7,075 each in public funding for a private education for up to 20,000 Tennessee students, beginning next fall. The proposal was the result of months of negotiations with the governor’s office.

Recipients in grades 3-11 would be required to take a national or state standardized achievement test to track the program’s effectiveness.

In an effort to garner support among public school advocates, the proposal calls for giving every public school teacher a one-time $2,000 bonus. It also would redirect 80% of tax revenues from Tennessee’s four-year-old sports betting industry to help pay for a growing backlog of school construction and maintenance needs, especially for emergencies and the state’s 38 rural counties designated as distressed or at risk.

The plan is still likely to face opposition from Republicans in rural areas, which typically don’t have access to private schools and could eventually lose funding for their local public schools. But in a statement, the governor said he looks forward to delivering on his promise for more education choices for parents.

“What we’re doing is taking the next step on a piece of legislation that we worked on last year, didn’t finish, worked on all summer, and now it’s ready,” he told reporters later. “So we’re committed to making sure that parents in this state have choices as it relates to where their child is educated.”

Lee also said he has no plans to call a special legislative session in January to deal exclusively with the voucher proposal before the legislature convenes for regular business on Jan. 14. He added, however, that he will “work with the legislature” on the best path forward for passing his plan.

Both Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton issued statements of support for the new proposal.

The bills were the first legislation introduced for the next General Assembly, signaling the governor’s intention to make the issue his top legislative priority for a second straight year.

The proposal arrived one day after pivotal elections in which vouchers were an issue in numerous legislative races across Tennessee and on the ballot in other states. In Tennessee, Republicans easily retained their grip on both legislative chambers and it appeared unlikely that vouchers were a major factor in the results.

Failed ballot measures in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska showed voters there appear wary of spending public dollars on private schools.

Tennessee Democrats criticized the new proposed legislation as out of touch with what’s happening across the nation.

“Even voters in red states rejected vouchers in every single place it was on the ballot yesterday,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat. “When states have fallen for this con job, like in Arkansas, around 95% of the vouchers go to families who already were paying for private schools.

“This plan would just transfer taxes paid by all Tennesseans to wealthier families in bigger cities,” Yarbro said.

“Same scam, different language,” added Rep. John Ray Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic caucus.

He said the testing provision is weak and gives participating private schools broad leeway about which national tests to use, while public schools continue to administer some of the most stringent annual state assessments in America.

“It’s giving these private schools taxpayer money and the freedom to do whatever they want. I wouldn’t call it real accountability,” said Clemmons, also a Nashville Democrat.

A revised bill was expected from Lee’s administration

Lee had vowed to return with another statewide voucher plan for 2025 when his 2024 proposal sputtered in committees this spring after Senate and House negotiators couldn’t agree on the details.

Contributing to the impasse were disputes about testing requirements for private school voucher recipients and public school students; the House’s desire to add massive funding incentives for public schools including building maintenance and teacher benefits; and the insistence of the Senate’s bill’s sponsor to create a statewide open enrollment program for public schools.

The latest bill ditched the open enrollment provision after Sen. Jon Lundberg of Bristol, the education committee chairman who sponsored the 2024 bill in his chamber, was defeated in his Republican primary race in August.

The state already has $144 million set aside for the program in this year’s budget — a consolation prize to Lee, who said the money showed the legislature’s clear intent to approve a universal voucher bill in 2025.

Last month, the governor declined to dip into that pot of untapped money or the state’s record-high rainy day fund of $2.15 billion to help clean up widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Helene flooding in northeast Tennessee. Instead, he rolled out a loan program to help impacted counties with cleanup costs until federal emergency funding arrives.

Meanwhile, the governor kicked off his annual budget hearings this week to hear from the heads of state agencies as his administration fashions the state’s next spending proposal.

Economists have predicted either declines or near zero growth in Tennessee’s overall tax collections in 2025, leaving fewer resources for new initiatives or existing priorities.

Details are finally unveiled

Specifically, the voucher proposal would offer state-funded scholarships for students attending state-accredited private schools in Categories I-III, which require teachers to hold a bachelor’s degree and be certified to teach certain subjects. Students attending independent or church-related home schools would not be eligible to participate.

The first 10,000 scholarships would be reserved for families at or below 300% of the income limit to qualify for free or reduced price lunch, those who have children with disabilities, or students who are eligible for the state’s current Education Savings Account voucher program.

The public funding they receive would be tax-exempt.

Students with disabilities would not be guaranteed individualized education plans, as they are in public schools.

Sponsors say the bill also guarantees state funding for each school district will not decrease if students leave their public schools to participate in the voucher program.

“After countless hours of conversations with parents, teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders on the best path forward, this bill strikes the right balance,” said House Majority Leader William Lamberth, of Portland.

But Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic caucus, called the proposal an affront.

“It’s offensive to me that we’re tying school construction dollars and teacher pay yet again to a voucher scam,” he said. “We should be doing those things anyway. And our education policies should be designed to benefit student outcomes and ensure our students have an opportunity to succeed in life, not fulfilling promises to special interests.”

EdTrust of Tennessee, an advocacy group that seeks to improve education equity, took issue with any suggestion that the new plan won’t affect public school funding or performance.

“Tennessee’s public education system has made great strides, scoring our highest graduation rates to date, and seeing marked improvement in student achievement after the pandemic,” the group said in a statement. “Diverting funds now risks unraveling this progress, affecting rural and underserved communities most severely, where private school options are limited or nonexistent.”

The governor successfully pushed for a 2019 law to create a smaller voucher program in Nashville and Memphis, which has since expanded to Chattanooga. The program has 3,550 enrollees in its third year, still below the 5,000-student cap, according to data from the state education department.

The state comptroller’s first report to lawmakers on that “pilot” program’s effectiveness is due Jan. 1, 2026.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee is gearing up for another private school voucher debate. Here’s what we know.

2024-10-22T22:02:30+00:00

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A new universal school voucher proposal will be the first bill filed for Tennessee’s upcoming legislative session, signaling that Gov. Bill Lee intends to make the plan his No. 1 education priority for a second straight year.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson said this week that he’ll file his chamber’s legislation on the morning of Nov. 6, the day after Election Day. He expects House Majority Leader William Lamberth will do the same.

The big question is whether House and Senate Republican leaders will be able to agree on the details in 2025. The 114th Tennessee General Assembly convenes on Jan. 14 as Lee begins his last two years in office.

During the 2024 session, the governor’s Education Freedom Scholarship proposal stalled in finance committees over disagreements about testing and funding, despite a GOP supermajority, and even as universal voucher programs sprang up in several other states.

Sponsors in the Tennessee House, where voucher programs have had a harder time getting support from rural Republicans and urban Democrats, attempted to woo votes with an omnibus-style bill that included benefits for public schools, too. But Senate Republican leaders balked at the scope and cost of the House version.

On Monday, Johnson gave a voucher update to school board members in Williamson County, which he represents, on the development of new legislation.

Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson speaks with school board members in Williamson County, which he represents, on Oct. 21, 2024, in Franklin.

Similar to last year’s proposal, the new bill would provide about $7,000 in taxpayer funds to each of up to 20,000 students to attend a private school beginning next fall, with half of the slots going to students who are considered economically disadvantaged. By 2026, all of Tennessee’s K-12 students, regardless of family income, would be eligible for vouchers, though the number of recipients would depend on how much money is budgeted for the program.

“The bill is not finalized, but we’re all working together with the governor’s office to come up with a bill we all can support,” Johnson told Chalkbeat after the presentation.

Testing accountability is among chief issues to settle

Johnson said the Senate’s 2025 bill will again include some type of testing requirement for voucher recipients — either state assessments or state-approved national tests — to gauge whether the program is improving academic outcomes.

However, the Senate bill will eliminate a previous provision that might have allowed public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it. That policy proposal had been included at the insistence of Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, a Bristol Republican who lost his reelection bid in the August primary.

Lamberth, the House leader, did not respond this week to multiple requests for comment about his chamber’s plan, which in 2024 had no testing requirement for voucher recipients. Instead, the House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students, including replacing high school end-of-course assessments with ACT college entrance exams.

The House bill also included numerous financial incentives to try to garner support from public school advocates. One idea was to increase the state’s contribution to pay for public school teachers’ medical insurance by redirecting $125 million the governor had earmarked for teacher salary increases.

Timeline: How private school voucher movement gained momentum in Tennessee before hitting a bump

Johnson told school board members the governor is planning a “substantial” increase for public education funding in 2025 but didn’t specify how much or for what.

“I think we’re going to have some things in there that will be great for all public education,” he said when asked later about including costly incentives such as teacher medical insurance funding. “Whether it’s in that (voucher) bill or if it’s in a separate bill is a great question. We will see. I don’t know the answer.”

Williamson County school board rescinds earlier anti-voucher resolution

Johnson told board members in his home district that he expects “nominal” impact to Williamson County’s two suburban school systems south of Nashville, if the bill passes the legislature in 2025. Most enrollees, he said, would be in urban areas that have more low-performing schools and private school options.

Later Monday, Williamson County’s board, including four newly elected members whose campaigns were supported by a conservative out-of-state political action committee, voted 10-2 to rescind a resolution passed by the previous board opposing Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act.

The governor is from Williamson County and graduated from a public high school there in 1977. So it was significant when his local board voted in March to join more than 50 other school boards across Tennessee on record against his signature education proposal.

But Dennis Diggers, a new board member, argued that it was appropriate to revisit the issue given the recent election, and proposed rescinding the resolution.

“Four of the six candidates who won their election ran publicly for more than six months on this issue, so it was out there,” Diggers said. “I am not going to deny the parents in Williamson County the chance to help their kids.”

Meanwhile, a Tennessee policy organization that supports vouchers released a new poll showing 58% of the state’s voters are more inclined to support a candidate who supports letting parents collect public funding to choose where their child is educated, including public, private, charter, or home schools. The Beacon Center poll did not use the word “vouchers” in its question to voters, which tends to poll worse than language about “school choice.”

School voucher voter polls vary wildly in Tennessee

Universal vouchers would mark a major expansion of vouchers in Tennessee, where lawmakers voted in 2019 to create education savings account options for students in Memphis and Nashville. That targeted program, which has since expanded to the Chattanooga area, has 3,550 enrollees in its third year, still below the 5,000-student cap, according to data provided by the state education department.

A spokeswoman for the governor said his administration continues to work with both legislative chambers on a “unified” universal voucher bill to kick off discussions for the 2025 session. She also noted that $144 million remains in this year’s state budget for the program, even though lawmakers didn’t approve the bill.

“We remain grateful for the General Assembly’s continued commitment to deliver Education Freedom Scholarships to Tennessee families by keeping funding for last year’s proposal in the budget,” said Elizabeth Johnson, the governor’s press secretary.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Governor says Tennessee has money for both Hurricane Helene recovery and universal school vouchers

2024-10-11T19:24:00+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee said Hurricane Helene’s massive destruction in northeast Tennessee, plus a growing backlog of public infrastructure needs statewide, won’t prevent his administration from pursuing a universal private school voucher program during his final two years in office.

He also suggested that there’s no need to tap into the $144 million set aside for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act to beef up the state’s disaster response. That money currently is not being used, because his proposal stalled in the legislature this year.

“We don’t have to choose one or the other,” Lee said Thursday during a media briefing about the state’s emergency response and recovery work.

Ongoing and potential new initiatives like statewide vouchers remain possible, he said, because of strong fiscal management by the state in the last 20 years.

“We have resources. We have an economy. We have the ability to invest in … infrastructure and education both,” Lee added.

The governor sought to quell suggestions from some lawmakers that state leaders rethink Tennessee’s budget priorities, not only to help northeast Tennessee recover from potentially $1 billion-plus in damage to its public infrastructure, but also to address a growing backlog of at least $68 billion needed statewide to improve roads, bridges, water systems, schools, firehouses, and more, according to the state’s latest assessment.

One of his administration’s top priorities is to give public funding to any family across Tennessee who wants to send their children to private school. This summer, Lee said his office was crafting a new bill after his 2024 proposal stumbled in legislative committees this spring due to disagreements among Republicans.

Last week, Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican and voucher supporter who chairs a House education committee, said the state’s new first priority should be “taking care of our neighbors in East Tennessee” and helping them recover from the deadly storm.

“Can we do universal vouchers, too? I don’t know,” White continued. “But East Tennessee has got to be our top focus.”

On Thursday, Lee said his administration is already prioritizing recovery and rebuilding for the region.

He announced a $100 million fund to help 13 hurricane-ravaged counties remove debris and repair water and wastewater systems immediately. Those counties eventually can seek reimbursements from the federal government to repay the fund, but need no-interest loans up front, Lee said.

On Friday, the chairperson of the House Democratic caucus issued a scathing critique of the governor’s plan to loan counties money, instead of providing state funding outright to supplement federal assistance. He also criticized Lee for tapping shared state-federal Medicaid funding to provide the loans.

“Gov. Lee has established a solid reputation for fiscal mismanagement and callous decision-making during his term, but this loan program beats anything I’ve ever seen,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville.

Clemmons said the state should be pulling from its reserves, or the unused $144 million voucher allocation, to provide disaster assistance.

Schools have been closed since the storm flooded the rural, mountainous region in late September, washing out roads and bridges, damaging drinking water and wastewater systems, and battering school campuses.

In addition to overseeing repairs, school officials have been revamping bus routes for the return of students, many of whom already had fall breaks planned for October. Daily bus commutes likely will lengthen to more than an hour for many children. At a Carter County high school that’s expected to be declared a total loss, students will be relocated to a former school building that houses district offices.

Meanwhile, officials with the state education department said they are working with local school leaders to provide flexibility and assistance to school systems affected by Helene.

That may involve granting waivers so schools can provide more instruction remotely than normally allowed, or to reduce the required number of instructional days. The state also will work with districts as needed regarding fall high school and ACT testing, a spokesperson said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a response from House Democrats.

With all of Tennessee’s hurricane damage, will funding priorities change for schools, vouchers?

2024-10-08T20:07:39+00:00

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One high school took in 4 feet of water and is expected to be declared a total loss. Other campuses in northeast Tennessee sustained roof, water system, and other damage — including food that spoiled in refrigerators after the power went down. School bus routes have been thrown into disarray by mangled roads and bridges.

Officials across the region are still assessing Hurricane Helene’s damage to schools and their surrounding communities, but a few things are becoming clear: The already massive repair needs for Tennessee school buildings and other public infrastructure are about to grow. And with a long and costly recovery ahead, state leaders will need to rethink some of their top budget priorities — possibly including Gov. Bill Lee’s desire to extend private school vouchers statewide — to figure out how to pay for them.

“I’m not sure when we’ll be back in school,” said Mischelle Simcox, superintendent of Johnson County Schools.

Late last week, her team was trying to figure out how to revamp transportation in a district where 75% of its 2,000 students rely on buses to get to six rural schools.

“Many of our highways are just gone, and a lot of bridges are out,” she said. “We’ve been through blizzards. We’ve been through COVID. But in my 26 years as an educator, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

There is money available. Tennessee’s current spending plan, for instance, includes $144 million for Lee’s universal school voucher proposal — funding that’s sitting unused since the bill stalled in the legislature in April.

The state’s rainy day fund, now projected to reach a record-high $2.15 billion, is another potential source. That money is set aside in case of economic downturns or emergencies. But lawmakers have historically been protective of the pot because it contributes to Tennessee’s good bond rating, which also helps local governments get lower interest rates when borrowing money.

In addition, there may be unclaimed funding from $1.5 billion the legislature allocated this year to give certain tax refunds to businesses, which have until Nov. 30 to submit their claims.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican and voucher supporter who chairs a House education committee, is ambivalent about which source or sources to tap. But he is adamant that the state should reevaluate its priorities.

“Our first priority now has got to be taking care of our neighbors in East Tennessee and helping them recover from this storm damage,” White said.

“Can we do universal vouchers, too? I don’t know,” he continued. “But East Tennessee has got to be our top focus.”

Eight hard-hit counties due to receive federal aid

The hurricane blew ashore in Florida on Sept. 26, then dumped more than 40 trillion gallons of rain on the Southeast in less than a week, battering inland communities that typically are safe from tropical storms. At least 230 people have died, including 15 Tennesseans, with many people still missing.

Eight mostly rural, mountainous counties suffered the brunt of the record-setting rainfall in East Tennessee — Carter, Cocke, Greene, Hamblen, Hawkins, Johnson, Unicoi, and Washington. They’ve already been approved to receive federal disaster aid, with philanthropic help promised by entities ranging from nonprofit organizations to entertainer Dolly Parton, an East Tennessee native.

The ultimate cost of recovery to state government could exceed $1 billion.

Transportation officials project it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars just to repair state-owned bridges, and they expect months of road closures. For many students, bus detours could lengthen their daily commute by hours.

In Carter County, where Hampton High School flooded, the school board voted in an emergency meeting last week to relocate its 400 students to the district’s central office building, a former school. But with the abandoned campus located in a flood plain and help from insurance providers unlikely for a rebuild, school leaders were preparing for a long, arduous recovery.

Most schools in the region weathered the storms better, but still sustained damage, including roofs to repair, buckled parking lots, and lots of downed trees, debris, and mud to clean up.

Many campuses where electricity and water have been restored are serving as community resource centers, providing food, shelter, and laundry and showering services to displaced families, especially since some schools were already planning closures for fall break.

The cafeteria of Mountain City Elementary School is serving as a food and supply distribution center for families affected by Hurricane Helene flooding in Johnson County, Tennessee.

A group of education and philanthropic leaders have established the Northeast Tennessee School District Disaster Relief Fund, with 100% of the proceeds going to assist school districts hardest hit by Helene.

Tennessee was already behind on school building needs

Before the hurricane hit, Tennessee already had a statewide backlog of school building needs through 2027, estimated to cost nearly $10 billion. It’s part of a $68 billion inventory of public infrastructure needs that also include roads, bridges, utilities, and firehouses, according to the state’s latest assessment.

For local officials seeking to transform their communities through education, keeping up with school upgrades is especially important. A growing body of evidence asserts higher-quality facilities translate into better academic outcomes for vulnerable children, plus higher property values for communities that surround improved school buildings.

Rep. David Hawk, a Greeneville Republican whose district was affected by the floods, has tried for a decade to direct recurring state funds to brick-and-mortar education needs. Helene’s aftermath, he said, further highlights the challenges faced by city and county governments, which mostly use property and sales tax revenues to pay for school facilities.

“Right now in Upper East Tennessee, we’re focused on immediate needs, but our long-term needs will not be a quick fix,” Hawk said. “We’ll be coupling state and federal dollars to achieve what needs to be done. I hope one day we’ll be able to use recurring state dollars to fund the schools and roads and bridges and water and sewer infrastructures that need to be upgraded.

“The needs are everywhere,” Hawk said.

On Tuesday, Tennessee Democrats launched a previously planned“Rocky Top, Not Rocky Roads” campaign aimed at modernizing the state’s transportation systems and relieving traffic congestion amid climate change that’s fueling natural and environmental disasters.

“We have got to stop being so reactive in our state, “ said Sen. Heidi Campbell, of Nashville, while Rep. Ronnie Glynn, of Clarksville, called for “intelligent, sustainable solutions.”

How the storm could shift the voucher debate

Touring damage in Cocke County last week, the governor said his administration was working on a plan specifically to assist students.

“We’ve got to think outside the box,” Lee said, “not just respond in the way that we know how to respond, but go above and beyond that, recognizing that these kids need to be in school, and they need to be fed, and they need to be educated, and they need all the services that come with that.”

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with first responders in Cocke County on Oct. 3, 2024. The East Tennessee county was one of the state's hardest hit areas with flood damage caused by Hurricane Helene.

Voucher opponents say thinking outside of the box should include reallocating untapped voucher funding from the current state budget to help storm-ravaged schools.

The $144 million allocation was Lee’s consolation prize after Republican disagreements derailed his universal voucher proposal in legislative committees in April. The conflict stemmed partly from worries that offering school vouchers statewide, regardless of family income, could bust the state’s budget, similar to Arizona’s experience after it pioneered one of the nation’s largest school voucher programs in 2022.

But hours after Tennessee lawmakers adjourned this spring, Lee said money they budgeted for his proposed Education Freedom Scholarship Act showed their “clear intent” to pass universal vouchers next year when the General Assembly reconvenes.

JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee and a frequent voucher critic, said “the optics are horrible” to leave such funding in place as Tennesseans toil with a natural disaster. The state’s juvenile justice system, he noted, is also under intense statewide strain this fall because of hundreds of school threats, mostly on social media, with some local officials pleading for more juvenile detention space.

“We don’t have an obligation to fund private schools under our state constitution, but we do have an obligation to fund public schools,” Bowman said. “If the choice is between vouchers and rebuilding our state and keeping our kids safe, there’s no really no choice.”

“We’ve been through blizzards. We’ve been through COVID. But in my 26 years as an educator, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Mischelle Simcox, superintendent, Johnson County Schools.

White, a longtime lawmaker from Memphis, agrees the legislature should revisit its financial priorities, though he’s not ready to identify what should stay and what should go.

His district is on the opposite end of the state from Helene’s destruction but lies along the New Madrid Fault seismic zone, a source of tremors and historic earthquakes affecting seven states.

“If Memphis had an earthquake, I would hope the state’s No. 1 priority would be helping Shelby County and any other counties affected in our region of the state,” he said.

“We’re all Tennesseans.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

National teacher of the year urges teachers to ‘find their voice’ as experts in their profession

2024-08-26T23:24:49+00:00

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The Tennessee educator chosen as the nation’s teacher of the year is calling on America’s 3.5 million teachers to “find their voice” on behalf of students as many states seek to censor teachers, ban books, and push voucher policies that send taxpayer funding to private schools.

Missy Testerman, who just ended her tenure as Tennessee’s teacher of the year, said that bigger educational priorities demand attention: air conditioners are breaking down in aging school buildings as a new academic year begins; federal pandemic relief funding is running out to pay for tutoring and summer learning programs; and school communities are struggling to provide mental health support, especially for their most marginalized students.

“When we find our voices, we find our own way to stand in the gap for kids. It is not enough to just shut our classroom doors and teach,” Testerman said in her video address to the nation, released this month by the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Testerman, who officially began as her profession’s top ambassador in July, is on leave this academic year from her job at Rogersville City School, where she teaches English language learners in her rural Appalachian town of 4,500 people. Her new role includes traveling to more than 150 speaking engagements or appearances before organizations spanning education, business, health, and government.

Among her messages: Teachers are experts in their field.

“Your governor is not an education expert. The legislature is not filled with education experts,” she told Chalkbeat. “If you want an expert on education policy and outcomes and what works for students, ask your teachers, your administrators, your director of schools.”

That message has resonated at her talks, where she’s routinely greeted afterward by a line of educators waiting to thank her.

“It’s hard to do a profession where you are the expert, but you’re often not treated as such,” she said. “Sometimes, we need to be reminded.”

Testerman spoke with Chalkbeat on Friday before ceding her title as Tennessee’s teacher of the year to the 2024-25 honoree, Bryan Kerns, a math and fire management instructor at Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport.

In many ways, Testerman said, Tennessee epitomizes the challenges faced by educators she’s met across the nation, many of whom feel like they’re walking on eggshells just to keep demanding jobs that pay a modest salary.

While she applauded a focus on early literacy and significant investments in vocational and technical education under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, she said other policy changes during the last six years have been more of a burden.

A 2021 state law limits what public school teachers can say about race, gender, and bias in the classroom and interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in the state’s academic standards. A group of Tennessee teachers is challenging that law in federal court.

Tennessee’s 2022 school library law, billed as a way to ensure materials are age-appropriate, quickly expanded so that a state panel can ban certain books statewide, based on local complaints. This year, lawmakers added a definition of “suitable” that makes it easier to remove materials, including many stories about Black people or those identifying as LGBTQ.

Also this year, the legislature passed a law requiring public school employees to out transgender students to their parents and debated a bill designed to ban LGBTQ+ flags in schools. Testerman called the second proposal, which failed to pass, a distraction.

“From my standpoint, there are so many problems facing schools — I’ll give you a list,” she said. “But that’s not one that I think we need to waste a lot of time on. Let that be a local decision.”

Meanwhile, Lee’s administration is pushing for a statewide voucher program that would let any Tennessee family use taxpayer money toward private school tuition, regardless of their family income.

“Tennessee is currently in the bottom tier of states in per-pupil funding for public education, and increasing that should be our focus,” said Testerman.

“Right now, however, there’s a $144 million placeholder in our state budget for a voucher program that didn’t even pass,” she continued. “It’s disheartening for teachers to know this money is sitting there doing nothing while their students have so many needs.”

Testerman said the money could be used instead to fix broken air conditioners in Memphis schools, hire more mental health professionals in her own school system, and replace outdated Chromebook laptops in suburban Williamson County near Nashville, one of the state’s most affluent districts.

“If Williamson County is seeing these kinds of financial problems,” she said, “you can imagine what’s happening in urban and rural districts in East and West Tennessee that don’t have the tax base to raise funds the traditional way.”

While it often feels like her profession is under attack, Testerman said she’s inspired by the educators she’s met across America as she advocates for higher compensation and respect for them.

“This job can feel heavy,” she said. “Teachers are facing student behavioral and mental health issues at a scale they’ve never seen before. We have no idea what kids go home to. But we can make the seven hours that they’re with us happy. We can use those hours to deliver academic content in a way that prepares them to move on and hopefully create a good life.”

“We are hope givers,” she said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

In a town full of segregation academies, one Black family grapples with the best school choice for their daughter

2024-08-22T09:05:00+00:00

This story was originally published by ProPublica and is republished here with permission.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The spry 76-year-old woman finds her spot at the dining room table, prepared to discuss a problem her family has confronted, in one form or another, for half a century. Back when Samaria “Cookie” Mitcham Bailey was a teenager in 1964, she was among the first Black students to desegregate public schools here in Macon, Georgia. She endured the snubs and sacrifices with hope that future generations would know an equality that she had not.

All these years later, that equality remains elusive. Cookie’s hope now centers on the child across the table.

Her 13-year-old great-granddaughter, Zo’e Johnson, doesn’t say much at first. Last year, when she was in sixth grade, Zo’e struggled at the public middle school, which she felt was “chaotic.” Her family canvassed their options for another school in Macon, most of them still largely segregated by race. They chose First Presbyterian Day School, known for its rigorous academics and Christian worldview. It also has a strong tennis program, a draw for a family of tennis standouts.

But FPD isn’t just any private school. It was among the hundreds that opened during desegregation as white children fled the arrival of Black students. Black students like Cookie.

Researchers call these private schools “segregation academies.” Macon was — and is — especially saturated with them. Using archival research and an analysis of federal data, ProPublica identified five that still operate in the city. They include the three largest private schools in town. For generations, they have siphoned off swaths of white families who invested their more plentiful resources in college-sized tuition, fees, and fundraisers. Today, most of Macon’s public schools are nearly all Black — and, because of the city’s persistent wealth gap, they grapple with concentrations of poverty.

At the dining room table on this March day, Zo’e’s family is torn over whether to keep her at FPD for another school year — whether they can afford it and whether the cost makes sense.

All of the schools founded as segregation academies in Macon, a majority-Black city, remain vastly white. FPD, with 11% Black enrollment as of the 2021-22 school year, has the highest proportion of Black students among them. Tuition at these schools can be insurmountable to many Black families. In Macon, the estimated median income of Black households is about half that of white ones.

Zo’e’s family makes it work largely because FPD helped them apply to get almost half of the roughly $17,000 seventh-grade tuition paid through a state voucher-style program — and because Cookie has been able to pay the difference. That’s about $900 a month.

But she isn’t sure she can keep paying. She recently cut her work hours as a medical laboratory supervisor with hopes of retiring in the next few years. At the table, her tone unusually subdued, she notes she’s had COVID-19 twice. Her memory sometimes falters.

“I’m older,” she says. “I’m getting old.”

Zo’e’s mother, Ashley Alexander, is a single parent who works part time and cannot foot the extra bill. She and Zo’e live with Cookie and her husband, a retiree who once worked as an attorney.

Ashley takes a seat between Zo’e and Cookie. “I feel like you get the better opportunity at the Caucasian school. The education is better,” Ashley says. “It’s just so expensive. We’ve been looking for some alternatives.”

But Zo’e doesn’t want to leave FPD. She likes the Christian emphasis. And she appreciates the structure and the calm, both important to a family that’s deeply protective of her.

Zo’e and her great-grandmother, Samaria “Cookie” Mitcham Bailey, after a game of tennis. A love of the sport runs deep in the family.

Zo’e in her bedroom. Among the things that she likes about FPD is its tennis team. Her old school doesn’t have one.

When Zo’e was 6, her father was shot and killed a mile away from this house. A mural of his face stretches across a nearby building, where she sometimes goes to take pictures and to pray. Her father had supported sending his now-adult son, who plays in the NFL, to another private school in town. It’s one reason Zo’e thinks he would be proud of her succeeding at FPD.

She also has made good friends — Black and white. She likes the challenging academics, the orderly classes, and, especially, its tennis team. Her old school doesn’t have one.

At the table, Zo’e speaks up: “I love FPD.”

***

Once sleepy, depressed even, downtown Macon is enjoying a rebirth in this city that is home to almost 157,000 people. Mercer University, Cookie’s alma mater, brings collegiate vibrance. Several grand churches, Catholic schools, and a hospital add to the bustle, along with the gleaming Tubman African American Museum. In a first-floor exhibit, Cookie’s high school graduation photograph hangs on a long wall that pays tribute to students’ work desegregating Macon’s public schools.

Just beyond the downtown streets lined with coffee shops and restaurants, and the circles of poverty that surround them, Cookie’s brick home sits in a mostly white middle-class neighborhood. She has lived in this house for three decades, trodding its handsome wood floors and adorning it with family photographs.

A few weeks before the dining table discussion, she arrives home wearing a green tracksuit from Florida A&M University, where one of her three daughters played tennis. Cookie just left a tennis tournament. In a tight match, Zo’e beat a fellow FPD player who had bested her several times before. The other player smacked her racket on the court, then kicked it. Cookie was thrilled. She and her husband met playing tennis, and they have multiple collegiate tennis players in their family.

Ashley and Zo’e walk in later with diminished enthusiasm. Zo’e lost her final match, and she’s exhausted and grumpy. She heads to her bedroom where a brown teddy bear awaits along with a poster labeled “Vision Board.” She decorated it with words like “Forgive” and “College” and “God Only.”

“She did good!” Cookie calls down the hall.

Zo’e first dabbled in tennis when she was 6, around the time of her father’s murder. On the court, she could live in the moment, thinking only of the match at hand. It provided relief and focus, especially when anxiety crept in.

She keeps with her a newspaper clipping about her father’s death at 39. To some who read news coverage of his killing, he was a gang leader who spent time in prison. But she and many in the community knew the man who wanted his children and others in the neighborhood to dodge the traps of life — traps she’d begun to encounter at the public middle school.

After Zo’e enrolled at FPD, Ashley began driving her each morning in the opposite direction of the public middle school, which sits a mile away past a strip mall anchored by a Family Dollar.

Instead, they cruised for 15 minutes toward the leafy neighborhoods to the city’s north. At a stretch of white ranch fencing, they turned and drove over gentle hills and then veered onto the main drive into FPD’s campus. Red flags emblazoned with its crest hang on street lamps that line the road as it passes brick buildings, an athletic center, expansive ball fields and a tennis complex along its 248-acre campus.

Although she felt strange there at first, Zo’e made good friends and came to like FPD.

Zo’e isn’t the first in her family to attend private school. Her older half-brother on her father’s side who plays football went to Stratford, a similarly elite school in town that also was founded as a segregation academy. And a cousin who coaches her in tennis and is now playing on a scholarship at Tuskegee University went to FPD his junior and senior years. He had a mostly good experience, a big reason Cookie took a chance on the school.

Even so, Zo’e felt strange arriving on campus. At her old school, almost 90% of her classmates were Black. Classes were in one building, all near one another. FPD looked like a small college bustling with white students. She worried about what they would think of her.

Yet, she felt welcomed. Most of the kids seemed nice. And they weren’t all white. About 1 in 10 was Black.

She didn’t know it, but after George Floyd was killed in 2020, the head of school had issued a letter warning: “I will not allow racism or a lack of respect of any kind towards anyone.”

As Zo’e settled in with a diverse new group of friends, academics proved her toughest adjustment. So she focused on learning study skills and discipline — and set out to prove herself on the tennis court, which only made Cookie prouder.

Zo’e has lived with Cookie most of her life. She calls her great-grandmother sweet nicknames like Precious. “You are the cookie to my monster!” Zo’e wrote in Cookie’s birthday card.

Much as she respects Cookie, the history of school segregation wasn’t at the forefront of her daily concerns as she assimilated at FPD. But she did notice that she hadn’t seen a single Black teacher at the school. The only Black staff members she saw worked as janitors or in the cafeteria.

***

Cookie’s own journey into the world of white education began in 1964 with an announcement over the loudspeaker at her all-Black high school. The voice sought volunteers to transfer to a school for white girls. Cookie raised her hand.

Her mother, Annie Mae Mitcham, had grown up in a rural outpost called Cat Ridge. As a child in the 1930s and 1940s, Annie Mae walked from her segregated all-Black school with its hand-me-down books to go clean the white kids’ classrooms. She and her husband, who had a third-grade education, raised their 10 children to focus on school achievement.

Cookie holds a photograph of her nine siblings and parents. Scholastic achievement was at the heart of their upbringing.

By volunteering to enroll at the white school, Cookie wanted to see if she was as smart as everyone said she was. She also wanted to know what advantages the white kids were getting — and that Black students ought to have, too. She enrolled her senior year.

When she arrived at the white high school, Cookie didn’t suffer the violence that many Black children who desegregated schools across the South did. But there was one day in English class that still, 60 years later, hurts.

A white girl turned to ask: “Do you have a tail?”

At her old high school, Cookie was an A student. She’d been in the marching band and the concert band. She’d played piano and was a stellar singer. Yet this white girl was comparing her to a monkey? It cut deeply enough to scar.

Something similar happened to Zo’e a semester into her own experience at a mostly white school. She came home from school one day upset. She told Cookie and her mother that she had found a friend, who is Black, crying in a hallway saying that a white boy had just called her a “monkey.”

A month later at the dining room table, the family revisits the monkey comment. Zo’e says she has since heard the boy who said it was suspended. Her mother points out that one student’s comment doesn’t define a school.

Cookie looks through her 1966-67 yearbook from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She was among the first Black students to graduate from the private university.

“Let’s not make too big an issue of it,” Ashley says. But for Cookie, it rips open the old wound from English class. She grows furious. “They’re still calling Black folks monkeys!”

At the white high school, Cookie’s teachers and most students had treated her well enough. The headmistress did not. The guidance counselor was the worst, with her pursed lips, pearls, and horn-rimmed glasses. When Cookie told the counselor she wanted to apply at Mercer University, the woman replied with a sneer and an insult.

“Go to your own school,” the woman said. In other words, a college for Black students. Cookie stormed from the office and marched to Mercer with a friend. She enrolled on her own and ultimately graduated, among the first Black students to do so from the private university. Yet, even by then, only a smattering of Black students had been admitted to Macon’s white public schools. White Maconites were battling full integration at every turn, especially in the courts.

More quietly, they were also busy forging another kind of resistance: They were organizing new private schools for their white children.

***

Macon sits 90 miles south of Atlanta in Georgia’s stretch of the Black Belt, a sickle-shaped swath of rich soil across the Southeast that once fueled cotton plantation riches. To preserve their control after emancipation, Georgia’s white leaders segregated every facet of life, including the classroom. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court upended that when the justices ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that state-mandated public school segregation is unconstitutional.

White residents responded with staunch resistance.

“Klan Urges State-Wide Private School System,” a Macon Telegraph headline announced in January 1960. Two months later, the newspaper reported that a local attorney was leading the charge to create an alternative to the county school system that served Macon. He planned a closed-door meeting with dozens of “persons interested in establishing a private school in case the public schools of Bibb County are closed by the desegregation crisis.”

That fall, Stratford Academy opened. Its leaders chose the name “because of the association of the name with Robert E. Lee and Shakespeare,” officials said at the time. The school — still among the city’s largest and most prestigious academies — was “besieged with applications.”

As white residents fought integration, Sylvia McGee was growing up in the segregated city. She had started her education at an all-Black public elementary school in Macon just a few years after the Brown ruling. She was about to start middle school in 1963 when Black parents sued the local school board in what became Bibb County’s key desegregation lawsuit. The case slogged on for almost seven years.

Finally, in February 1970, an appeals court forced local schools to desegregate — within days. McGee was a high school senior. Whites had fought integration for so long after the Brown decision that she had gone through her entire public school education during that resistance.

That fall, five private schools, including FPD, opened in Macon, doubling the number in town.

Their leaders rarely said publicly that the schools opened to preserve all-white education. Instead, they nodded to “quality” and “Christian” education.

Yet in fall 1970, leaders of the Southern network of the Presbyterian Church urged members to keep their children in public schools. In a statement, they called enforced racial segregation “contrary to the will of God” and warned against undermining public education by establishing and supporting private academies “whose deliberate purpose or practical effect is to maintain racial isolation.”

And even back then, some Southern newspapers called the new private schools “segregation academies.”

An article from The Macon Telegraph in January 1960. Two months later, the newspaper reported that a local attorney was leading the charge to create an alternative to the county school system that served Macon.

“Only the very gullible could deny that race was a factor,” Andrew Manis, a local resident and history professor, wrote in his book “Macon Black and White.”

But FPD’s current spokesperson denied the school was founded as a segregation academy. She told ProPublica it “was established based on the desire of Macon families to provide their children with a strong education, grounded in biblical principles.” The school has a tuition assistance program and a nondiscrimination policy, she added. She did not answer additional questions.

Indeed, in 1975, several years after it opened, FPD’s headmaster likewise told a newspaper reporter that the school had a nondiscrimination policy. FPD was willing to admit a Black student, he said, “but we’ve never had one to apply.”

To Black residents like McGee, that felt disingenuous. “The climate and the culture of the time said you don’t apply to FPD,” she said. Black parents would have feared for their children’s safety at the academies. Private schools also had to adopt such policies or risk losing their tax-exempt status.

McGee graduated in 1970 with the final class before full desegregation. Because so many white students had fled to private schools, by fall 1973, the Bibb County public school system was predominantly Black for the first time.

McGee, who became a social worker and ultimately acting superintendent until 2011, watched the district’s infrastructure crumble. Gone were many of the white parents who had money to pour into PTA fundraisers and time to fill volunteer needs.

In the early 2000s, decades after they opened, FPD, Stratford, and most of the other academies in Macon reported that about 1% to 2% of their students were Black each year.

Even in recent years, Black children have made up only about 6% of most academies’ students — in a county that is 57% Black.

“It holds everybody back,” McGee said. “I think people miss that point.”

***

One morning in May, with the end of seventh grade approaching, Zo’e arrives on FPD’s campus and heads to a hallway of art classrooms. It stretches quiet, the walls lined with impressive student artwork, classes not yet starting for the day. Several students sit on the hall floor, backs against the wall, engrossed in the papers or cellphones in front of them.

For weeks, Zo’e had been living in a tortuous state of uncertainty about whether she would return to FPD in the fall. She tried hard not to complain. She didn’t want to put extra financial pressure on Cookie, who is about to turn 77, or her mom, who has enough on her plate.

Ashley was doing her best to try to make things work for Zo’e. She was in the running for a full-time job at the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office that would give them more of a financial cushion — and enable her to pay FPD’s tuition.

Now, this morning, Zo’e is about to burst with joy. She spots a friend in the hallway and hurries over, stifling her smile. When they get close enough, she whispers, “You know how I told you if my mom doesn’t get the job, I’m not going to be able to stay?”

Her friend looks pensive. Zo’e wrings her hands in front of her.

“She got the job!”

Zo’e with classmates during lunchtime at FPD. She isn’t the first in her family to attend private school. Her older half-brother on her father’s side went to one in town and a cousin went to FPD his junior and senior years.

Her friend lets out a high-pitched squeal of joy, then glances down the hall.

Zo’e adds, “So I’m gonna be able to stay.”

But as the next few weeks pass, her hope fades. Delays creep in. Ashley’s starting date gets pushed back.

***

The multiple generations of women in Cookie’s family are quick to debate the bigger reasons why public schools struggle, including Miller Fine Arts Magnet Middle School, the one Zo’e went to.

“There’s a reason why the teachers at Miller are stressed out,” Cookie’s youngest daughter, Alyse Bailey, said after joining her family at the dining room table back in March. “There’s a reason why the kids are not acting how they’re supposed to act. What are those reasons? What are the root causes?”

“They’re a product of the environment,” Ashley responded.

“Right, but then, why?” Alyse asked. “It’s like you got to constantly be asking, why?”

Black children lack resources, Alyse argued, because of the wealth gap stemming from slavery and Jim Crow. “The more you go back, the more you see where it is rooted in systemic injustice.”

To many local families, Miller is the best option among public middle schools. While it functions as a regular neighborhood school, Miller also draws students from across the district who attend its fine arts magnet component. It often tops the district’s six middle schools on the state’s standardized tests. Almost three-quarters of its eighth graders read on grade level or above compared with the district average of 62%. (Private schools don’t have to release such data.)

Schools like Miller will soon find it even harder to retain top students, particularly those with more resources.

Starting next year, private schools will skim another layer of students from the public schools. In April, as part of a nationwide Republican push, Georgia adopted a new program that, similar to the existing one, uses taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition. At least 21,000 more students could receive up to $6,500 each. Last year, almost 22,000 students tapped into the current program. The average tuition grant was about $4,600.

While it functions as a regular neighborhood school, Miller also draws students from across the district who attend its fine arts magnet component.

Supporters often tout these programs as means for students to escape low-performing public schools. But the reality is, the tuition grants don’t often cover even half of private school tuition bills, especially for college prep-style schools like FPD.

Families like Cookie’s must come up with the difference — and, if they can, decide if the financial hardship is worth it.

As they wrestle with this question, Zo’e’s family puts her on a waiting list for a charter school that performs well and, like many of the private schools, draws large numbers of white children. But 40 students are ahead of her.

By the time summer break arrives, Zo’e faces reality. Her mom almost certainly won’t start the new job in time to pay looming tuition bills. Zo’e will return to the public school her family felt had fallen short of her needs. And FPD will have one fewer Black student.

In late June, Cookie’s birthday approaches. When her oldest daughter arrives from Florida for a visit, they lay in bed watching tennis together. In dispirited tones, Cookie mentions that she cannot afford Zo’e’s tuition anymore.

But her daughter presses her to think beyond FPD’s benefits to what public school can provide, if Zo’e works hard and stays focused: “It’s nothing she can’t get somewhere else.”

Cookie concedes, “She can get it somewhere else.” Including Miller. She decides that the family must focus on reinforcing the academic and social self-discipline that Zo’e will need to succeed at Miller. They can help train her in tennis.

Zo’e will return to Miller for eighth grade to give her mother time to save money for tuition. After that, when Zo’e begins high school, her family plans to send her back to private school.

In the next room, Zo’e watches Disney Channel cartoons in her bedroom while making a poster for her mom, who shares a birthday with Cookie. She glues photographs onto it along with a message of love in sparkly lime green letters. Then she writes her mother a birthday note. “You’re not only a life-giver but you are a hard worker,” she writes. She thanks Ashley for so much love. “You were the one to step in when my father had to step out. You have been my best friend, a laughing buddy and a role model.”

Zo’e works on the floor below her vision board. It includes a cutout of a tiger’s eyes, intent and fixed. They remind her of focus. As she accepts the likelihood of returning to Miller, she becomes determined to take the discipline she learned at FPD with her. She also remembers that, at this time last year, she had wanted to stay at Miller.

A few weeks later, in mid-July, Ashley gets the formal job offer. She will become a sheriff’s deputy with a start date of July 29. She is overjoyed and relieved.

It comes too late to send Zo’e back to FPD. Public schools are about to begin the new year. So, the family firms up their plan for her. Zo’e will return to Miller for eighth grade to give Ashley time to save money for tuition. After that, when Zo’e begins high school, they plan to send her back to private school.

Zo’e will return to Miller for eighth grade to give her mother time to save money for tuition. After that, when Zo’e begins high school, her family plans to send her back to private school.

Mollie Simon contributed research.

School voucher supporters get wins, losses from Tennessee’s Republican voters

2024-08-02T20:41:13+00:00

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In many ways, Tennessee’s fiercest GOP legislative primary races amounted to a referendum on Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher proposal to provide public funding to any K-12 student toward a private education.

On Thursday, Republican voters delivered the governor a mix of wins and losses on the issue.

And the wins likely were aided by a slew of negative campaign ads targeting anti-voucher candidates and funded by millions of dollars from out-of-state groups supporting the policy.

The money, along with the governor’s endorsements of pro-voucher candidates, appeared to have paid off in two out of three open House seats in Montgomery and Williamson counties. Only in Blount County, near Knoxville, did Lee’s pick lose as retired Maryville teacher and football coach Tom Stinnett defeated attorney Jason Emert.

Numerous legislative incumbents who were considered Lee’s key voucher allies also won their primaries, but there were two big exceptions.

Sen. Jon Lundberg, who sponsored the Senate’s version of a statewide voucher bill this year, was defeated by Bobby Harshbarger, a pharmacist who is the son of U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee. And John Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican and voucher supporter, lost his primary contest to former Clinton Police Chief Rick Scarbrough.

The governor had actively stumped in Upper East Tennessee for Lundberg, who chairs the powerful Senate Education Committee. Lundberg’s voucher bill would have required recipients to take some type of national test to track the program’s academic outcomes. It also would have allowed public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

In addition, Lundberg co-chaired a task force last fall looking into the feasibility of Tennessee rejecting federal education funding. He and other Senate members ultimately issued a report highlighting the risks of such an unprecedented move, effectively shutting down the discussion this year.

Ragan, who served on the House Education Committee, is known for sponsoring socially conservative education legislation, including the 2019 law restricting what teachers can say about race, gender, and bias, as well as numerous anti-LGBTQ bills.

Rep. John Ragan, a Republican from Oak Ridge, listens to Rep. David Hawk, a Republican from Greeneville, during a 2022 House education committee meeting.

This week’s election results come after school choice groups spent at least $4.5 million on primary contests to promote pro-voucher candidates, according to a tally by The Tennessee Lookout. The governor, who has vowed to bring his voucher bill back to the legislature, said he was OK with that infusion of outside cash into Tennessee politics.

Most of the money came from the School Freedom Fund, a super PAC tied to Club for Growth funder and New York-based investment billionaire Jeff Yass. The same group spent $8.8 million this year in Texas to defeat 10 incumbent Republican candidates who opposed Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher plan.

Among Tennessee lawmakers toppled with the aid of negative campaign ads was three-term Republican Sen. Frank Niceley, of Strawberry Plains, who opposed the governor’s voucher plan. Also defeated was state Rep. Bryan Richey, of Maryville, who voted against the bill in committee and was running for the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Art Swann.

On Friday, School Freedom Fund President David McIntosh trumpeted those defeats and the PAC’s $3.6 million investment in five legislative races.

“Make no mistake,” McIntosh said in a statement. “If you call yourself a Republican and oppose school freedom, you should expect to lose your next primary.”

The stage is now set for another round of campaigning, this time for the Nov. 5 general election against Democratic candidates who are unified in their opposition to vouchers but have struggled to be heard since the GOP gained a supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly in 2010.

Half of the legislature’s Senate seats and all 99 in the House will be on the next ballot. While some won’t be contested, Democrats view vouchers as an opportunity to turn several seats.

And every vote matters in the tight battle over vouchers.

The governor’s universal voucher proposal was stymied in the legislature this year, even with a Republican supermajority and Lee making it his No. 1 legislative priority. An unlikely coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans kept the bill from reaching either floor for a vote.

Hoping to change the calculus when the newly elected legislature convenes in January, Lee took the unusual step this summer of endorsing Republican candidates who support vouchers over others who don’t.

Here’s are the outcomes in some of the mostly closely watched legislative primary races related to education:

Senate

District 2: For the open seat vacated by Swann, Tom Hatcher, the Blount County court clerk, defeated Republican Rep. Richey.
District 4: Lundberg, the Senate Education Committee chair, lost to Harshbarger, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Harshbarger has expressed skepticism about Lee’s voucher plan.
District 8: New Tazewell businessman Jessie Seal defeated the incumbent, Niceley, a voucher opponent. He will face Democrat R.E. Ellison.
District 18: Incumbent Ferrell Haile, a Gallatin Republican who sits on the Senate Education Committee and serves as speaker pro tempore, easily defeated conservative activist Chris Spencer in another high-dollar Senate race. He will face Democrat Walter Chandler.

House of Representatives

District 13: Republican incumbent Robert Stevens, of Smyrna, a member of the House Education Committee, defeated Murfreesboro City Council member Jami Averwater. He will face Democrat Jonathan Yancey.
District 15: Democratic incumbent Sam McKenzie, who also serves on the education panel, defeated Knox County Commissioner Dasha Lundy. He will face Republican nominee Justin Hirst.
District 20: In the open Blount County seat vacated by Richey, Stinnett, the retired teacher, defeated Jason Emert, former chair of the Young Republican National Federation, and Nick Bright, a cattle farmer. He will face Democrat Karen Gertz.
District 24: Incumbent Kevin Raper, a retired educator from Cleveland, defeated Troy Weathers, a former Bradley County school board member. Both Republican candidates have spoken out against vouchers. Raper will face Democrat Andrea Chase.
District 33: Ragan, the incumbent, lost to Scarborough, the former Clinton police chief. Scarbrough will face Democrat Anne Backus, a retired project manager at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.
District 60: In the open seat vacated by Democratic Rep. Darren Jernigan of Nashville, Democrat Shaundelle Brooks, who became a gun control activist after her son was killed in Nashville’s 2018 Waffle House shooting, defeated financial consultant Tyler Brasher. She will face pro-voucher Republican candidate Chad Bobo, who was endorsed by the governor and served as an aide to House Speaker Cameron Sexton. Bobo defeated Christopher Huff of Old Hickory.
District 64: Incumbent Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Culleoka Republican and a lead sponsor of this year’s House voucher bill, defeated Maury County Commissioner Ray Jeter, despite calling the governor’s original statewide voucher bill “terrible” during a candidate forum a week before the election. He will face Democrat Eileen Longstreet.
District 65: Candidate Lee Reeves, a real estate attorney and investor, narrowly defeated Williamson County Commissioner Brian Beathard, as well as Michelle Foreman, a former GOP state executive committee member. Reeves will face Democratic candidate LaRhonda Williams.
District 68: Candidate Aron Maberry, a Clarksville pastor and school board member endorsed by Lee, defeated retired Army pilot Greg Gilman, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Smith, and former county Republican Party co-chair Carol Duffin. Maberry will face Democrat Garfield Scott.
District 73: Incumbent Rep. Chris Todd, of Humboldt, defeated former longtime Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris, of Jackson. Todd was endorsed by the governor and favors vouchers, while Harris expressed concern about the policy’s financial impact on local public schools and also refused donations from special interest groups. There is no Democratic contender for the seat.
District 77: Republican incumbent Rusty Grills, of Newbern, defeated Dyer County Commissioner Bubba Cobb, a retired educator who is against vouchers. There is no Democratic contender for the seat.
District 83: Rep. Mark White, the longtime chairman of a House education committee, will face Democrat Noah Nordstrom, a teacher with Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Both ran unopposed in the primaries.
District 96: In the open seat vacated by Democrat Dwayne Thompson, Democrat Gabby Salinas narrowly defeated Telisa Franklin and three other challengers. A researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Salinas faces no Republican opponent in November and will head to the statehouse in January.
District 97: Incumbent Rep. John Gillespie, of Memphis, defeated Christina Oppenhuizen, a small-business owner. He’ll face Democrat Jesse Huseth in what’s expected to be a tight race.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor OK with outside money for pro-voucher candidates

2024-07-30T01:11:20+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee says he is OK with outside groups spending big on Tennessee legislative races featuring candidates who support his universal private school voucher plan.

Last month, the Republican governor took the unusual step of wading into local races and endorsing some Republican candidates in Thursday’s primary election based on their voucher positions.

“We have a really smart electorate, and I believe in the power of people to sort through the information, as long as it’s accurate,” Lee said on Friday after speaking at a workforce development event in rural Perry County, west of Nashville.

But some local officials say money from groups such as American Federation for Children, Americans for Prosperity, and the School Freedom Fund is bringing misinformation into several key races.

“The fact that out-of-state interest groups would spend that much money in a local House seat election should give us all concern,” says a July 23 letter to Williamson County voters from retiring Rep. Sam Whitson and four local city and county mayors.

The outside groups – which are not required to disclose their donors — are paying for mailers, television commercials, and other ads seeking to influence voters who will pick a successor for Whitson, a four-term Republican lawmaker who opposes vouchers. Similar special interest group activities seek to favor pro-voucher candidates in other parts of the state.

The tension comes as voters prepare to pick Republican and Democratic nominees to run for the statehouse on Nov. 5 before a critical legislative session for the future of Tennessee’s education system.

The governor, who wants to give public funding to any family statewide who wants to send their children to private school, says his administration is already crafting a new plan after his 2024 bill stumbled in committees during the recent legislative session.

“It’s a process that takes several months, but we’re working on it right now,” Lee told Chalkbeat in Perry County.

He did not provide details but promised “a commitment to universal school choice.”

Lee also pledged to “fully vet the program’s cost” when asked about recent comments by Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican voucher ally from Maury County, who called the governor’s education scholarship proposal a “terrible” plan that would have plunged Tennessee into dire financial straits.

“That’s a part of this process,” Lee said of studying the proposal’s financial feasibility.

Lee’s slate of preferred GOP candidates include Lee Reeves, a Williamson County real estate investor and attorney who supports private school vouchers, over fellow Republicans Brian Beathard and Michelle Foreman.

Beathard, who chairs the Williamson County Commission and opposes the governor’s plan, has been endorsed by most top locally elected leaders in the Republican enclave south of Nashville. Mailers and ads funded by outside groups have depicted him as anti-conservative and supportive of higher taxes and labor unions.

But Beathard’s supporters are pushing back.

“All of us are used to some ‘puffing’ and exaggerations when it comes to political mailers, but the negative messages aimed at Brian Beathard cross the line of decency,” says the letter to voters from Whitson, the outgoing Republican legislator, and other local officials.

They say some of the campaign materials include misleading policy statements, innuendo, and outright lies, as well as manipulating photos to distort Beathard’s appearance. The letter did not give specific examples.

Chalkbeat did not immediately receive responses from leaders with several organizations behind the ads. A spokesman for the School Freedom Fund, a pro-voucher group tied to Club for Growth and New York-based investment billionaire Jeff Yass, asked for specific examples but did not respond directly to the claims.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s comparison of school choice to civil rights ‘deeply offensive,’ Democrats say

2024-07-17T21:42:42+00:00

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In one of the battleground states of the Civil Rights Movement, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is drawing heat for his description of school choice as “the civil rights issue of our time.”

Lee, who chairs the Republican Governors Association, made the comparison Tuesday during a four-minute speech to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as he attacked the Biden administration’s record on education, border security, inflation, and farm policies.

“They attacked parental rights. Republican governors fought back for a parent’s right to choose their own child’s education,” Lee told delegates. “President Trump was right when he said that school choice is the civil rights issue of our time.”

Back in Tennessee on Wednesday, the state Senate’s Democratic Caucus issued a joint statement calling Lee’s assertion “not only misleading but deeply offensive.”

“Tennessee has a proud history of leading in the fight for civil rights — from the lunch counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides to school integration and labor rights,” the caucus said. “To label a policy that promotes segregation and inequality as a civil rights issue is a grave disservice to the legacy of those who fought for justice in our state.”

The verbal scuffle comes as Lee pushes for a universal school voucher bill, a key school choice policy, in Tennessee. It would provide taxpayer funding to pay toward private school tuition for any student who wants it, anywhere in the state, including those from middle-class and wealthy families.

Lee’s proposal collapsed in committees during the recent legislative session, but he’s vowed to bring it back in 2025. To try to change the outcome, he recently endorsed Republican legislative candidates who support vouchers in their primary races over fellow Republicans who oppose the policy.

With school choice as a pillar of his own campaign platform, Lee easily won two terms in office in a state that went from blue to deep red in recent decades. But the results of various voter polls on vouchers vary wildly in Tennessee, and opponents charge the policy amounts to social welfare for the wealthy.

“The true civil rights issues of our time are those that uplift and support all children, regardless of their background. Private school vouchers do the exact opposite,” the Senate Democratic caucus said.

But Republican voucher supporters say they’re needed to put parents in charge of their children’s education. Expanding parental rights and school choice is part of the Republican Party’s 2024 platform, which delegates approved on Monday.

Tennessee has a long and blemished record on civil rights issues.

In 1920, it became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the landmark 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave millions of women the right to vote.

In 1960, at the height of the movement to abolish legalized racial segregation and discrimination, a group of college students including Diane Nash formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Nashville. The chairman was a young John Lewis, a student at Nashville’s Fisk University, who went on to become a civil rights icon and longtime congressman from Georgia before his death in 2020.

And the Rev. James Lawson Jr., who died last month at age 95, was the apostle of nonviolent protest who trained civil rights activists in Tennessee to withstand brutal responses from white authorities.

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Memphis to march with sanitation workers in their fight for equality, dignity, and respect. Instead, he was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, which today is the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The Tennessee portion of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail spotlights 14 churches, schools and other landmarks that played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century, where many civil rights leaders and supporters were killed or targeted because of their struggle for freedom.

Lee’s office did not respond Wednesday when asked whether his comparison of school choice to civil rights was appropriate.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor bets big on school vouchers with primary endorsements. Will it work?

2024-07-11T11:00:00+00:00

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At the Halfway Market in Franklin, Tennessee, where locals come for a good hamburger and friendly conversation, Republican Brian Beathard works the crowd as a candidate for a high-profile legislative seat ahead of a pivotal session on the future of the state’s education system.

By most standards, Beathard should be a shoo-in to replace departing state Rep. Sam Whitson, a four-term Republican lawmaker who’s retiring this year.

Beathard (pronounced BETH-ard) has served on the Williamson County Commission since 2010 and, as its current chairman, has a record of advocating for government efficiency, competence, and conservatism in a predominantly Republican community.

He’s been endorsed by top local leaders, including Whitson, three mayors, and a retired sheriff.

And he’s the only one of three Republican candidates for the District 65 seat who has continuously lived and worked for more than 25 years in the affluent suburban county south of Nashville.

But when Republican Gov. Bill Lee handed out endorsements in key statehouse primary races last month, Beathard got bypassed because of his stance on a single issue: private school vouchers.

Lee is betting big on a policy in which he’s had major victories during his nearly six years in office, but has still fallen short of his ultimate goal: taxpayer funding for private school tuition for any Tennessee student who wants it — including those from middle-class and wealthy families — all under the banner of “school choice.”

The governor’s universal voucher proposal stalled in the legislature this spring, even with a GOP supermajority. Now, in anticipation of a do-over, Lee is taking the unusual step of using his bully pulpit to endorse certain Republican candidates over others.

A proponent of local control, Beathard — like Whitson — opposes the governor’s plan, especially for Williamson County, home to two of the state’s top-performing public school districts.

“Our schools are our oceanfront property, so we should take a hard pause on anything that could negatively affect our students, our schools, our property values, or our ability to attract business,” Beathard said of Williamson County, where such big companies as Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors, Mars Petcare, and Tractor Supply Co. have their U.S. headquarters.

From left, Brian Beathard, Michelle Foreman, and Lee Reeves appear at a candidate forum in Franklin on June 6, 2024, as they campaign to succeed state Rep. Sam Whitson, a retiring lawmaker who opposes private school vouchers.

The governor, who also is from Williamson County and graduated from a public high school in Franklin, instead is backing real estate investor and attorney Lee Reeves, who moved to Tennessee five years ago from Texas. Reeves, who serves on a local zoning appeals board, supports school vouchers, as does candidate Michelle Foreman, a former member of the state’s Republican executive committee.

Whoever wins the three-way Republican primary on Aug. 1 is likely to succeed Whitson.

And Lee is eager to replace voucher opponents like Whitson with supporters to achieve his top policy priority.

Governor is ‘taking a risk’ by wading into contested primaries

After his universal voucher proposal collapsed in committees over Republican disagreements about the specifics, the governor pledged to vet GOP legislative candidates this election year based on his school choice agenda.

“I’ve said a lot of times I get engaged in elections, and I get engaged in candidates,” he told reporters in May, promising to “understand who I can be most supportive and most helpful to.”

He’s following the playbook of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who successfully used school choice as a litmus test to remove anti-voucher Republican candidates from races, enabling Iowa to pass universal vouchers in 2023 and positioning Texas for a potentially similar outcome next year.

“The governor already put his reputation on the line to get vouchers through this spring and it didn’t work, so now he’s playing hardball. But he’s also taking a risk.”
John Geer, political science professor, Vanderbilt University

But if Lee’s endorsees lose their primary races to candidates like Beathard, the governor may find it even harder to push his education agenda through the legislature in 2025 as he enters his last two years in office, accelerating his lame duck status.

“The governor already put his reputation on the line to get vouchers through this spring and it didn’t work, so now he’s playing hardball,” said John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University.

“But he’s also taking a risk,” Geer continued. “If some of these candidates who didn’t get his endorsement survive, they’ll be even more entrenched” against vouchers.

According to Beathard, Lee and members of his staff didn’t speak personally with him about his position before announcing which candidates he was backing.

A small-business owner who supported Lee’s campaign for governor, Beathard is not completely opposed to vouchers, but wants local officials to be able to make the final call — a deference that wasn’t part of Lee’s 2019 education savings account law that imposed vouchers on Memphis and Nashville over the opposition of most local officials.

“My ears are open if there were a local option so Williamson County can opt out and counties that need that policy can opt in,” Beathard said.

Brian Beathard, center, speaks with citizens following a candidate forum on June 6, 2024.

Pro-voucher interests have the governor’s ear

Lee’s endorsements in his home county, as well as a handful of other state legislative races, generally mirror those announced earlier by Americans for Prosperity, a pro-voucher group affiliated with Kansas billionaire Charles Koch’s conservative advocacy network.

“We plan to put the full weight of our grassroots efforts behind each of our policy champions,” said Tori Venable, the group’s Tennessee leader, when rolling out several slates of endorsements in May.

A large amount of money is also coming into the state from pro-voucher interests.

The American Federation for Children launched a Super PAC for the 2024 elections cycle with at least $10 million to support pro-voucher candidates in state legislative races nationwide.

“If you’re a candidate or lawmaker who opposes school choice and freedom in education, you’re a target. If you’re a champion for parents, we’ll be your shield,” said Tommy Schultz, the group’s national CEO and its former spokesperson in Tennessee.

That’s just one of the concerns of Whitson, the departing state representative.

“The governor’s endorsement in District 65 opens the door for dark money from out of state to get into this campaign, simply so our governor can try to secure one more vote for his voucher program,” Whitson said.

Another voucher vote likely would be close in Tennessee’s House

Lee, who cruised to victory in two elections after campaigning to give parents more education choices for their children, appeared to have enough Senate votes to pass a statewide voucher plan this year, but couldn’t rally the House’s GOP supermajority to do the same.

His 2019 proposal to create a voucher program for Tennessee’s two biggest urban areas squeaked through the legislature after then-House Speaker Glen Casada held the voting board open for 38 minutes to convince Rep. Jason Zachary, of Knoxville, to change from “no” to “yes.” That controversial parliamentary maneuver remains a source of bitterness on both sides of the aisle, according to Whitson.

“There’s still a lot of fallout from that vote,” Whitson said. “But ethically and morally, I consider my ‘no’ vote on that day to be the best vote I ever cast.”

Timeline: How private school voucher movement gained momentum in Tennessee before hitting a bump

Supporters say universal vouchers would put all Tennessee parents in charge of their children’s education by making private schools a more affordable option.

Critics like Whitson say the policy would destabilize public education, bust the state’s budget, and further segregate schools by race, income, and students with disabilities, setting the stage for discrimination lawsuits against the state and various participating private schools.

“A lot of Republicans feel like the governor is putting us in a bad position with his voucher plan,” Whitson said. “And many are also disappointed at his tactic of injecting himself in the primary races.”

With Senate leaders in the background, Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters on April 25, 2024, at the close of the legislative session. He vowed to bring his private school voucher proposal, which stalled in committees, back to the Tennessee General Assembly in 2025.

Scott Golden, who chairs the state Republican Party, said Lee has been talking about his passion for school choice since he first ran for governor eight years ago. Lee also has a right, he said, to campaign for issues that are important to him.

“We see it all the time on the national level. Elected officials are free to make their voices heard during an election cycle, just like anybody else,” Golden said.

Hendrell Remus, who chairs the Tennessee Democratic Party, has a different take.

“The governor is willing to tear his Republican caucus to shreds in order to pass one item on his agenda,” Remus said. “But I think voters will step up and reject the candidates who Gov. Lee is trying to prop up. It’s an opportunity for Democrats.”

It’s unclear how the governor’s endorsements will play out this election year. Results of voter polls on vouchers vary wildly in Tennessee.

But for Lucetta Mannion, a Republican voter in Williamson County, Lee’s backing of a pro-voucher candidate helped to bring the issue to her attention — and steered her toward Beathard’s camp.

“I’ve done my research,” said Mannion, whose five grandchildren have attended local public schools. “Our schools are excellent, and I see no reason to have a voucher system for our children. If Brian wins, it will be one more vote in the legislature against it.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

School voucher voter polls vary wildly in Tennessee as many legislative candidates skirt the issue

2024-06-13T11:00:00+00:00

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While Gov. Bill Lee’s universal school voucher proposal is clearly a key issue this election year, there is less agreement on where Tennessee voters stand on the contentious education policy, incentivizing many state legislative candidates to avoid discussing the matter.

Numerous voter polls have generated wildly different results this year, depending on which organization was behind the survey and how the questions were asked.

As a result, rural Republican candidates, whose legislative votes would be pivotal in deciding the issue, aren’t generally trumpeting their positions on what would amount to a major policy change.

And when they do comment, the candidates are choosing their words carefully by using the language of “school choice” over “vouchers,” even though they’re essentially the same thing when it comes to letting parents use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.

The divergent poll results, based on representative samplings of voters, underscore that vouchers remain a hot-button education issue as Tennesseans try to understand a complex idea that was the most divisive of the recent legislative session.

Supporters say the statewide voucher proposal, which the governor vowed to bring back to lawmakers next year after it failed to reach the Senate and House floors in April, would put parents in charge of their children’s education by giving them more choices. Critics say it would destabilize public education, bust the state’s budget, and further segregate schools by race, income, and students with special needs.

Now in his second term, Lee has characterized GOP support across Tennessee as solidly favoring his proposal, which is especially important in a red state where the winner of the Republican primary typically wins the general election.

The Republican governor, who campaigned on the promise of giving parents more education choices for their children, recently told Fox News that school choice is “a very popular idea among Republican primary voters.” He added that voters support it “by an overwhelming margin.”

“Legislators understand that; they know their voters want this,” Lee said.

But while vouchers have steadily gained support through the years, surveys of voter attitudes don’t necessarily bear out Lee’s claim.

Three pro-voucher groups — The Beacon Center, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Federation for Children — released findings early this year declaring broad support for expanding school vouchers in Tennessee as they sought to build momentum ahead of critical voucher votes in the General Assembly.

During the same period, the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers organization and a voucher opponent, released results of its own poll showing only 30% of Republican primary voters supported the governor’s plan.

Most recently, Vanderbilt University’s poll found Tennessee voters evenly split on the matter.

When asked if they approve of the policy, 45% were in favor of vouchers, 46% opposed them, and 9% said they neither supported nor opposed the idea.

“These results show that vouchers remain a controversial issue,” said John Geer, the Vanderbilt poll’s co-director and a distinguished professor of political science.

“It is a complex and complicated topic,” he added. “That makes the issue difficult to measure in a poll.”

The uneven findings of various polls stem, in part, from how the questions were framed.

For instance, Americans for Prosperity asked voters: “Governor Lee is proposing a school choice program that will enable parents to take back control over $7K of their education tax dollars to educate their child in a private or home school environment if they choose to, giving parents more control over how and where their children are educated. Do you agree with the program Governor Lee is proposing?”

More than 70% responded ‘yes.’

By contrast, the TEA’s survey asked a series of questions delving into the structural and financial impacts that universal vouchers would have on the state’s public education system.

Among them: “Other states that have enacted statewide vouchers saw that 95% of students who benefitted were from wealthy families who had the resources to send their children to private schools or already attended private schools, mostly in rural areas, instead of providing resources to middle-income families and students from across the state. Does knowing this make you more or less likely to support school vouchers?”

More than 70% responded that they were less inclined to support the policy.

The Vanderbilt poll, which also examined issues such as abortion, vaccines, and gun control, was conducted this spring, soon after the legislature adjourned.

On vouchers, Vanderbilt pollsters asked: “Do you support, neither support nor oppose, or oppose Tennessee giving all parents tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their school-age children to attend private or religious schools of their choice, instead of attending local public schools?”

“We don’t have an ax to grind, so we tried to be as straightforward as we could,” said Geer.

John Geer

About 49% of responding voters also said they were likely to use vouchers if they became available, and 50% said they would not. By a wide margin, Republicans who support former President Donald Trump were the group most likely to use them, while only 26% of Democrats said they would take advantage of the option.

“The outcome of the poll on vouchers was very partisan in nature,” Geer said.

That partisan lens, he added, was more significant than whether the voter lived in a rural, urban, or suburban district, where access to private schools varies significantly.

“I think it’s another statement about our political climate and the polarization of our country. We really weren’t able to get past the partisanship,” he said.

This year’s uneven polling results may help explain why many rural Republican candidates aren’t discussing vouchers or promoting where they stand on the issue when seeking to secure their party’s nomination. In suburban and urban districts, which are home to more private schools, both Republican and Democratic candidates are more likely to weigh in or use vouchers as a campaign issue.

“Rural Republican legislators got some pushback over the governor’s voucher proposal, so I can understand why they would skirt the issue with primary voters,” Geer said. “I can understand why they would just say: ‘I’m for public education because that’s what’s important to my rural district.’”

Debby Gould, president of the League of Women Voters in Tennessee, said legislative candidates can easily cloak their voucher stance by saying they support public education, especially since the House’s 2024 voucher bill bundled the creation of a statewide voucher program with public school reforms.

“That muddied the waters a bit, but voters deserve a clear answer to whether they plan to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on universal vouchers,” Gould said.

“Vouchers aren’t a secondary election issue,” she added. “Gov. Lee has said it’s a priority for his administration, so it will be front and center next legislative session.”

All 99 seats in the state House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Aug. 1 is Tennessee’s primary election day, with early voting July 12-24. The general election will be on Nov. 5.

You can find more voter information on the Secretary of State’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Where Tennessee lawmakers landed on vouchers, guns, AI, and other education issues in 2024

2024-04-29T10:00:00+00:00

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Tennessee’s legislature is done for the year after a session marked by political infighting over private school vouchers and emotional debates about whether teachers and staff should be able to carry a gun in public schools.

The statewide voucher proposal fizzled after the Senate and House couldn’t agree on the specifics. Gov. Bill Lee quickly pledged to come back next year with another plan.

The bill to arm some school employees easily passed, defying dramatic protests at the state Capitol, a year after a Nashville school shooting in which three children, three adults, and the intruder were killed.

“This was a session of good, bad, and ugly,” Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari said after the legislature adjourned on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, some really really bad bills ended up passing,” the Memphis Democrat added.

Republican leaders hailed the four-month session as a success.

“We accomplished things that will benefit the people of this state,” the governor told reporters minutes after the gavel fell.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters at the close of the 2024 legislative session on April 25. He's flanked by the General Assembly's Republican leaders.

He cited the passage of a “historically important budget” that includes a consolation prize of $144 million for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act, in case it passes in future years. The failed voucher proposal seeks to give taxpayer money to any family who wants to send their children to private schools, regardless of their income.

“That shows a clear intent that we believe in this concept and that we expect that to get done next year,” Lee said.

By the end of the week, the governor had signed the bill to let some school employees carry guns, which took effect immediately.

The new law marks the biggest expansion of gun access in Tennessee since the killings at The Covenant School. Last year, the legislature appropriated $140 million to help place an armed officer in every public school, but many districts, especially in rural areas, haven’t been able to hire an officer for every campus.

“Districts have the option to choose,” Lee said earlier, arguing that some school systems need to let some employees carry a concealed handgun.

Protesters stage a "die-in" on the rotunda floor at the Tennessee State Capitol outside of the House chambers on April 23, 2024, after state lawmakers passed a bill to let certain teachers and school staff carry handguns in schools.

Legislation at the intersection of schools and guns

Lawmakers sorted through some 230-plus education bills filed in time for this year’s session — about 300 if you count those left over from last year in the two-year General Assembly. They ultimately passed about 70 that directly affect K-12 education.

For the second straight year, they made tweaks to a 2021 reading and retention law to address what many called unintended effects for students in grades three and four. Under a compromise approved on the last day of session, parents and educators of fourth graders will now have input on whether their students get held back because of low reading scores on state tests.

The legislature rejected tighter gun laws sought by Democrats and gun control advocates, and continued instead to pass legislation aimed at fortifying campuses. Among the initiatives: new school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; increased safety training for school bus drivers; and guidelines to digitize school maps so first responders can access school layouts quickly in an emergency.

A rare bipartisan bill increases the penalty for anyone who threatens to commit an act of mass violence on school property or at a school-related activity.

Another measure, which Lee has signed into law, requires public schools to teach children age-appropriate firearms safety concepts as early as pre-kindergarten. The video-based training is to begin in the 2025-26 school year and, among other things, will instruct students who find a firearm that they shouldn’t touch it and should notify an adult immediately. The bill bars parents from opting their children out of the training.

So-called culture war issues played prominently again

One new law requires public school students to watch a video on fetal development produced by an anti-abortion group, or something comparable. Another measure will require public school employees to out transgender students to their parents. But a bill designed to ban LGBTQ+ flags in schools failed in the Senate amid concerns of a legal challenge based on First Amendment rights.

Tennessee’s age-appropriate materials law, championed by Lee in 2022 to cull certain titles from school libraries, now includes a definition of “suitable” materials for certain ages and maturity levels. And if a local school board doesn’t address a book complaint within 60 days, the complainant can now take the issue straight to the state textbook commission.

Another GOP bill that passed seeks to make sure that material related to “sexual activity” is excluded from the state’s mandatory family life curriculum for students in kindergarten through the fifth grade.

Meanwhile, legislation sponsored by Democrats directs the state education department to develop a program that public schools can use to teach students the skills of nonviolent conflict resolution.

Lawmakers exit the House of Representatives at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville on April 25 after adjourning their two-year session.

Social media and technology also were on the minds of lawmakers.

They signed off on legislation requiring minors to have parental consent to create social media accounts.

In addition, school districts, charter schools, and higher-education institutions must develop and implement their own policies on the use of artificial intelligence in the classroom, if they haven’t already done so. Those policies could include restricting or outright prohibiting the use of AI.

Amid that discussion, one bill requires that Tennessee history be taught in fifth grade. Having that issue codified in state law settles, for now, a debate that erupts whenever the state revises its academic standards for social studies.

Memphis was the focus of more legislation

Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brent Taylor, both Memphis Republicans, drafted several proposals aimed at education in their community.

The legislature passed one bill allowing the University of Memphis to create its own K-12 school district and expand its innovative University Schools model beyond campus borders. University officials said they’ll launch the district this fall, even as they’re still in talks with Memphis-Shelby County Schools about their contract that runs through fall 2026.

Another proposal — giving the governor the power to appoint up to six new members to the board of Memphis-Shelby County Schools — was never heard in committees after White agreed to hold off and work with the existing board and the district’s new superintendent, Marie Feagins, on an improvement plan.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson D-Memphis, has sought for years to shut down the Achievement School District.

A Democratic-sponsored proposal to end the Tennessee Achievement School District, the state’s sputtering takeover and turnaround initiative, passed out of the Senate but not the House. Rep. Antonio Parkinson, the sponsor there, pulled the legislation on the last day of session when White sought to amend the bill. Still, the ASD continues to shrink on its own as its 10-year contracts with charter operators end.

An effort to expand a separate pilot school turnaround project — which started in 2021 in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga — failed to clear budget committees.

Lawmakers passed House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s charter school proposal to create new alternative education options for Tennessee’s at-risk youth. The plan opens the door to residential charter schools, a concern of disability advocates who warned against any measure that could lead to the institutionalization of youth or commingling distinct student populations facing varying issues such as substance abuse, juvenile crime, chronic absenteeism, and teen pregnancy.

Sexton trumpeted his and other charter school legislation headed to the governor’s desk. One bill rewrites state law governing vacant and underutilized public school properties to give charter operators the “right of first refusal” to purchase those public assets.

“This session did more than it’s ever done in our history to continue to put (charter schools) on a path to give parents the choice and alternative to traditional schools,” Sexton said.

A tighter budget meant fewer education initiatives

Passing a budget for state government is the legislature’s only required constitutional duty, and the task was more challenging this year as tax revenues flattened and federal COVID relief funding ended.

Still, Republican lawmakers approved a $1.9 billion package of tax cuts and refunds to corporations and businesses.

Representatives on the floor of the Tennessee House in 2022

They ultimately approved a nearly $53 billion spending plan that allocates an additional $126 million to raise the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500. The goal is to get to $50,000 by the 2026-27 school year.

Also included is $8 million to hire more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. Another $15 million in non-recurring funds will help charter school operators pay for school facilities and maintenance.

But the legislature killed efforts to hire more school-based nurses and counselors, reimburse teachers for some of their child care expenses, and provide free feminine hygiene products in high schools, as well as separate proposals by a Democrat and a Republican to make school meals free for all students. It also said no to a bill to use tax revenue from Tennessee’s growing sports betting industry to offer child care scholarships to low- and middle-income families.

When the 114th General Assembly convenes next year, it will look somewhat different after this year’s elections. All seats of the 99-member House of Representatives and half of the Senate’s 33 seats will be on the ballot.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s universal school voucher plan is dead for now, governor acknowledges

2024-04-22T16:34:26+00:00

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In the end, the gulf between competing school voucher bills in Tennessee’s legislature was just too wide to cross.

Gov. Bill Lee acknowledged Monday that his push to create a statewide program — which had been on the ropes for more than a month — was dead for the year after Republican leaders in the Tennessee House and Senate were unable to break through disagreements about testing and funding.

“While we made tremendous progress, unfortunately it has become clear that there is not a pathway for the bill during this legislative session,” Lee said in a statement Monday.

The Republican governor vowed to return with another plan next year and added that he’s disappointed for families “who will have to wait yet another year for the freedom to choose the right education for their child.”

The proposal’s failure hands Lee one of the biggest defeats of his administration, now in its second term.

It also signals that for all the momentum vouchers have in Tennessee — including a string of victories in the courts and legislature — Lee’s statewide proposal remains a divisive policy because of its potential to destabilize urban, suburban, and rural public school districts, and add a new burden on state and local finances.

For now, Tennessee has only its targeted voucher program in three urban counties, which provides taxpayer funding to 2,095 students to pay toward private school tuition, plus a smaller voucher program for students with certain disabilities.

As part of his broader school-choice agenda, the governor wanted his new voucher program to eventually become available to every K-12 student across Tennessee, regardless of their family income, and lawmakers took up two vastly different bills from the House and Senate.

But the chambers deadlocked on two issues, according to Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, the Bristol Republican who worked with House Republican leaders for weeks to try to reach a compromise.

First, in addition to creating a new private school voucher program, the more expansive and expensive House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students.

“We had worked really hard to get those measures into place,” Lundberg said, “and believe it would be a step backward for our state.”

Second, the House version proposed increasing the state’s contribution toward public school teachers’ medical insurance coverage from 45% to 60% — and paying for it with funding earmarked for teacher raises.

That funding pathway closed last week when the legislature approved a 2024-25 budget that retained the $125 million that Lee had set aside to increase the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, as promised last year by the governor.

“Ultimately, the House and the Senate had looked at education freedom scholarships through two different lenses,” Lundberg told Chalkbeat on Monday. “We looked at it as school choice legislation. The House looked at it as a way to achieve both school choice and education reform.

“Our perspectives were just so different that we could not come together at the end,” he said.

Timing and cost were factors

As lawmakers entered what’s likely the final week of the 2024 session, they worried about the timing of creating an expensive new program in the midst of flattening revenues and during an election year in which most of their names will be on the ballot.

The voucher program would have been expected to grow over time, likely subsidizing tuition for families who would have chosen private schools anyway. In the program’s second year, according to financial analysts, the Senate version’s projected cost was $287 million, while the House version was projected to cost $384 million.

In addition, more than 50 Tennessee school boards were on record opposing the plan. And the research shows little recent evidence that vouchers improve test scores.

The hurdles were especially problematic in the House, where voucher proposals have historically been harder to pass. To win more votes in that chamber, GOP leaders added enticements aimed at public school supporters to reduce testing time for students, require fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and give districts extra money to help with their building costs, as well as more funding for teachers’ medical insurance costs.

On Monday, House Speaker Cameron Sexton framed the debate as helpful for future talks even though it didn’t produce a consensus this year.

“Universal school choice came closer to a full vote than it had ever been in the past,” Sexton said in a statement. “We will continue working until all parents have the same opportunity to use their tax dollars to choose the best school for their child.”

Democrats, who were united in their opposition to vouchers, said the governor’s proposal ultimately crumbled because many Tennesseans pushed back on a plan that generated more questions than answers.

“From the start, the governor’s proposal was heavy on talking points and light on the substance of how it would work and how much it actually would cost,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville.

“The funding and the accountability pieces were always going to be the sticking points,” he added, “because voucher proponents really want the funding without the accountability.”

Even as voucher supporters quickly promised to try again next year, groups representing the state’s teachers hailed the governor’s loss as a win for Tennesseans.

“Governor Lee’s proposal was poorly written, arriving late in session, and had zero accountability in the plan,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.

The leaders of Arlington Community Schools near Memphis, who issued a fiery statement in December denouncing Lee’s voucher plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, said they were pleased by the legislation’s defeat — and troubled that the governor is already talking about next year.

“He hasn’t even taken a day to understand why his signature bill failed,” said Superintendent Jeff Mayo. “That tells me he doesn’t care to listen to our concerns. The end game is to ultimately usher vouchers into Tennessee to fund private schools, despite the lackluster evidence that it will actually help students.”

School voucher opponents were among protesters who rallied at the state Capitol in Nashville on April 17, 2024. By Marta W. Aldrich

Voucher policies have advanced under Lee

For years, school voucher advocates had watched their policy dream come up short in Tennessee before racking up a string of victories after Lee took office in 2019 amid significant turnover in the GOP-controlled legislature.

Lawmakers passed a bill on a narrow, controversial vote in the House of Representatives during Lee’s first year in office to help create an education savings account program.

The targeted program rolled out in 2022 in Memphis and Nashville for students from low-income families attending low-performing schools. Voucher opponents challenged the law in court and had some early legal wins, but the Tennessee Supreme Court declared the law constitutional in 2022.

After the program’s accelerated rollout and the addition of Hamilton County during its second year, the governor took another big step: proposing a separate statewide Education Freedom Scholarship program to launch this fall with up to 20,000 students, and eventually to eliminate all the geographic and family-income restrictions.

Dueling bills from the House and Senate easily advanced through education committees, but stalled for four weeks in finance committees before the governor accepted defeat.

In his statement Monday, Lee reiterated his reasons for pressing ahead, adding that he’s “never been more motivated.”

“It’s very simple,” he said. “This is about every Tennessee student having the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their ZIP code or income level, and without question, empowering parents is the best way to make sure that happens.”

Later Monday, he told reporters he will campaign for his voucher plan this year as he speaks with Tennessee voters and Republican lawmakers up for reelection.

“I won’t stop,” he said, “because I believe in kids, and I believe in their future and ... the freedom that families should have to make choices.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis reporter Laura Testino contributed to this report. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee budget keeps $144 million for statewide school voucher program that’s still in limbo

2024-04-19T01:03:18+00:00

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Tennessee lawmakers approved a state budget Thursday that includes $144 million to create a statewide school voucher program that Republican leaders say they’re still working to pass.

The money is in place in case the GOP-controlled House and Senate find a way to reconcile vastly different proposals for the voucher program, which would provide taxpayer funding toward private school tuition for up to 20,000 students. The universal voucher bill, called the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, is Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s top education priority.

But as lawmakers aim to wrap up their 2024 session by next week, the passage of the budget limits options for negotiators seeking to convince House members to compromise on their more expansive — and expensive — voucher bill.

To convince mostly rural representatives who are hesitant about taking funding away from their local school districts for private school vouchers, the House measure also seeks to give public schools $75 per student for building construction and maintenance, as well as money to increase the state’s contribution toward teachers’ medical insurance coverage from 45% to 60%, among other enticements for public school supporters.

Voucher bills stuck in finance committees

Meanwhile, the dueling voucher bills languished in finance committees for a fourth straight week without action, making the proposal’s chances for passage increasingly dim.

Still, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said it was “premature” to declare the bill dead, as several news reports have done.

Until the legislature adjourns, “it’s still alive,” he told reporters.

McNally said the Senate is poised to approve its voucher bill, which unlike the House’s version requires recipients to take some type of annual test to show their academic progress. The measure, which is sponsored by Majority Leader Jack Johnson and has 17 Senate co-sponsors, also calls for open enrollment across public school systems.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, whose chamber is more divided over the voucher plan, was reserved in his enthusiasm but pledged to keep working on a deal.

“At the end of the day, it’s an administration bill,” Sexton told reporters. “Until (Gov. Lee) tells us to stop negotiating and working with the Senate, then we’re going to continue to do that.”

Democratic lawmakers have been united in their opposition to either bill — and are staying vigilant as the legislative session enters its final week.

“I’ve seen legislation pass at 2 in the morning that we thought was dead for the year,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, who has served in the General Assembly since 2013.

“Anything can happen; anything has happened,” she added.

Base teacher pay will rise

State revenues are down, one-time federal COVID relief funding is running out, and money is tighter this year after years of budget surpluses.

Against that backdrop, the House and Senate voted along mostly partisan lines to approve a nearly $53 billion state government budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The spending plan injects an extra $261 million in the state’s K-12 education system, almost half of which will go toward raising the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500.

“It keeps us on track to bring our base salary for our teachers to $50,000 a year by fiscal year ‘26-’27,” said House Finance Committee Chairperson Patsy Hazlewood, a Republican from Signal Mountain.

Nashville Democrats tried to add numerous budget amendments in both the House and Senate.

Rep. Aftyn Behn and Sen. Heidi Campbell sought to double the number of seats in the state’s pre-kindergarten program by reallocating the $144 million in voucher money. Rep. Bo Mitchell proposed scuttling $15 million in non-recurring funds set aside to help public charter school operators pay for school facilities and maintenance. And Rep. John Ray Clemmons proposed doing away with the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission and investing its funding instead in the state’s K-12 education funding formula.

The amendments were easily defeated.

Democrats also criticized a measure that includes up to $1.95 billion in tax breaks and refunds for businesses, but little tax relief for working families or new investments for impoverished Tennesseans.

“Because of the refusal of this body and our government to address poverty to help the poor and the marginalized, we are continuing to deal with a deficit, not only financially but morally in this institution,” said Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat who voted against the budget.

Hazlewood, the House finance chairperson, countered that the state’s poverty rate has gone down over the past decade. She characterized Tennessee as a “middle-class family” that has to spend its dollars carefully and is prioritizing programs that benefit education, families, safety, health, and social services.

House Finance Committee Chairperson Patsy Hazlewood, a Republican from Signal Mountain (center), discusses highlights of the state's 2024-25 spending plan on April 18, 2024, during a question-and-answer session with reporters. She is flanked by House Speaker Cameron Sexton (left) and House Finance Subcommittee Chairman Gary Hicks (right).

Peppered with questions about what would happen to the $144 million for vouchers if the new program isn’t approved, she said the money can’t be reallocated without the legislature’s approval.

“If there’s no bills (approved) that address that, any monies unspent remain in the budget. We may need those other monies when we come back in next year,” Hazlewood said, adding that the voucher funds also can’t be spent by the governor through an executive order.

Tennessee already has several smaller voucher initiatives. A program for students with disabilities launched in 2017, and the state education department rolled out a targeted pilot program for low-income students in Davidson and Shelby counties in the fall of 2022. It has since added Hamilton County and has 2,095 students enrolled in all three counties.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee statewide school voucher plan stalls as legislature enters final weeks

2024-04-12T00:11:45+00:00

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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s push to create a statewide school voucher system is running out of time as Republican lawmakers work to reconcile significantly different proposals and iron out disagreements over student testing requirements.

After sailing through education committees and building early momentum, the bill has stalled for three weeks in finance committees — without public discussion.

GOP leaders hope to complete the 2024 session by April 26. That leaves two weeks to approve a state budget, decide on dozens more bills, and seek consensus on one of the biggest education proposals of Lee’s administration.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg of Bristol and House K-12 Subcommittee Chairman Kirk Haston of Lobelville have been key players during weeks of private negotiations.

“We’re still working on it,” Lundberg said Thursday as he emerged from the Senate chamber. He declined to take questions from reporters.

Privately, several Republican lawmakers have told Chalkbeat the governor’s statewide voucher plan is sputtering and may not have the votes needed to pass in their respective chambers, especially if negotiators tinker too much with the original proposals.

But publicly, the governor and GOP leadership sound hopeful.

“It feels like they’re close,” Lee told reporters after the legislature recessed for the week. “I’m very encouraged.”

Asked about sticking points, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said the Senate wants to make sure voucher recipients take some type of annual state-approved test that can be used to compare and rank students in order to gauge the program’s academic effectiveness. The House version has no state testing requirements for students who accept vouchers.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton said his chamber is “adamant” that any school choice-related package includes a provision to reduce student testing in public schools. He also indicated that the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, an education research and advocacy group known as SCORE and founded by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, is being consulted as negotiations progress.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton and House Majority Leader William Lamberth speak with reporters as the legislative session enters its final weeks.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations this week,” Sexton said about talks between the House and Senate. “So we’re hopeful we can get there.”

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act, projected to cost $144 million in its first year, would provide taxpayer funding to up to 20,000 K-12 students to pay toward private school tuition. The governor has set aside that amount for the program in his proposed budget.

The Senate’s version also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House’s larger and more expensive version includes a long list of enticements aimed at public school supporters, including reducing testing time for students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts extra money to help with their building costs.

Democrats in the legislature oppose school vouchers, even while supporting many of the public school provisions in the House bill.

Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons said he’s glad to see the bill’s progress slow, but added that Democrats are staying vigilant as the two-year session moves toward adjournment.

“Deals get cut late at night,” said the Nashville lawmaker. “I would encourage citizens of Tennessee who truly value public schools to sleep with one eye open.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers are anxious to head home during an election year. All 99 seats in the House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Until the session ends, incumbents can’t begin accepting campaign contributions. And Republican members in both chambers don’t appear interested in taking a stance on the controversial voucher bill during an election year if the measure is unlikely to succeed.

More private talks by Republican leadership are planned for the weekend.

The bill is scheduled to be taken up Monday by the Senate Finance Committee and Tuesday by the House Finance Subcommittee. McNally, the Senate’s leader, said the outcomes there will signal the proposal’s chances.

“One of the keys will be as it moves through the finance committee in both houses,” McNally said. “I think if you see that, you probably know that things are going fairly well.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee universal school voucher bill clears two more legislative hurdles after contentious debate

2024-03-07T03:30:14+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal to create a statewide school voucher program easily cleared its first Senate hurdle Wednesday, but took a split vote and five-plus hours of often contentious debate to pass out of a House committee.

The legislation — the most ambitious and controversial education plan of Lee’s five-plus years in office — passed 7-1 out of the Senate Education Committee, with the panel’s lone Democrat casting the dissenting vote.

In the House Education Administration Committee, the measure advanced 12-7, including four Republicans voting against it in the GOP-controlled legislature. Passage came even as Maryville City Schools Director Mike Winstead, a 2018 finalist for National Superintendent of the Year, called vouchers “a bitter pill, maybe some would say a poison pill” that he believes will destabilize K-12 education across Tennessee in the long run.

“You can coat that with a lot of good things and make it go down a little easier,” Winstead testified before the panel. “But in the end, we’re being asked to ingest a poison pill.”

Meanwhile, supporters pounded on the theme of parental choice.

“This is about parents finding the best learning environment for their students,” said Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds.

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act must clear more committees in each chamber before it can be voted on by the full House and Senate. The House bill now heads to that chamber’s government operations committee, while the Senate bill will be heard next by its finance panel.

Both proposals would start a new voucher program this fall with up to 20,000 students who could use taxpayer funding to attend private schools. Lee wants the program opened up eventually for any K-12 student, regardless of their family income.

The pieces of legislation remain vastly different, however, both in cost and scope.

The Senate bill, starting this year at $95 million and jumping to $333 million in the program’s second year, requires voucher recipients to take some type of tests that can be used to compare and rank students, but not the same rigorous standards-based tests that public school students have to take under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, known as TCAP. The legislation also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House version, starting at $398 million and growing to $425 million in the program’s second year, has no testing requirement for voucher recipients. It includes a long list of enticements aimed at public school supporters, including reducing testing time for students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts an extra $75 per student — or about $73 million in all in the first year — to help with building costs.

Rep. Chris Hurt, a Halls Republican who voted against the bill, expressed concern that the public school measures could get “stripped out” of the final legislation if Senate and House negotiators head to a conference committee to work out their differences.

And Rep. Charlie Baum, a Murfreesboro Republican who sits on the House Finance Committee, worried about the proposal’s high cost. He noted that Tennessee’s government faces a $400 million shortfall in its current budget.

Rep. Charlie Baum, a Murfreesboro Republican, flagged the high cost of the House voucher bill during a committee meeting but eventually voted for the measure.

“I understand that we’re adding the additional sections to make the bill more enticing, maybe to sweeten the pot,” said Baum, who later voted for the measure. “But it seems like in order to pass a $140 million freedom accounts [voucher] bill, we’re spending an additional $350 million” for public schools.

Baum asked sponsors to consider separate bills to vote on the private school voucher and public school provisions based on their costs and merits. But Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Maury County Republican who is carrying the bill for House Majority Leader William Lamberth, declined.

The voucher proposal, Cepicky said, was the right “vehicle” to address long-standing challenges for public educators.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson balked at that statement though. The Memphis Democrat said lawmakers have the power any time to create legislation to address matters related to public education.

“For some reason, we’ve chosen to create a lemon,” said Parkinson, seizing on the same automotive analogy. “And that vehicle now has all of these great options that are in it, but is tied to four flat tires.”

The House debate waded into the potential for voucher money going to undocumented students or to private schools teaching atheist, Satanic, or Muslim curriculum.

Questions also were raised about whether federally required services for students with special needs would lead to new federal regulations on private schools that accept vouchers. There was little discussion, however, about whether voucher recipients with special needs would receive adequate services from private schools.

Chairman Mark White, a Republican from Memphis, also received complaints from several people who weren’t allowed to testify.

While two people each spoke for and against vouchers, pro-voucher voices included Robby Starbuck, a video director and conservative political activist, and Walter Blanks Jr., a spokesperson for the American Federation for Children advocacy group. White declined to hear testimony from voucher opponents Eric Welch, an elected school board member from Williamson County, and Matt Steinhauer, a Franklin pastor and parent.

In the other chamber, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat from Memphis, questioned why the Senate bill doesn’t require voucher schools to be held to the same accountability standards as public schools, including TCAP tests, Tennessee’s third grade retention law, and the state’s new A-F designations for schools.

“If the majority of students in that [private] school who are taking these public dollars are performing poorly, will the school face any action based on what’s written in this legislation, where they can no longer accept students who have these vouchers?” Akbari asked.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, who drafted the Senate’s version, responded no.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee contributed to this report.

Tennessee GOP leaders optimistic about universal school voucher prospects after first week of debate

2024-03-01T21:40:10+00:00

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Republican leaders sounded optimistic about the prospect of passing some kind of expanded school voucher program, even as they stared at three markedly different proposals during the first week of public debate in Tennessee’s legislature.

All three pieces of legislation — one from Gov. Bill Lee, one from the Senate, and one from the House — have two things in common.

First, they aim to start a statewide voucher program with 20,000 students and eventually allow any K-12 student to use taxpayer funding to attend a private school.

Second, they’re expensive: Lee’s proposal would cost an estimated $144 million in its first year, while the projected price tag for the Senate’s version is $333 million and the House’s is $425 million, according to the first reports by the legislature’s financial analysts.

Beyond that, there are big differences in scope and approach.

The governor’s seven-page plan, called the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, does not require participating students to take annual tests to measure whether the plan leads to better academic outcomes.

The Senate’s 17-page version, from Majority Leader Jack Johnson, requires voucher recipients to take some type of tests, approved by the state Board of Education, that can be used to compare and rank students. It also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House’s 39-page proposal, filed Monday by Majority Leader William Lamberth, has no testing requirement for voucher recipients. The omnibus-style package also includes a slew of enticements for supporters of public schools, such as reducing testing time for their students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts an extra $75 per student — or about $73 million in all in the first year — to help with building costs.

Even with numerous legislative hurdles to clear before pivotal votes could happen on the House and Senate floors, the leaders of both chambers talked Thursday about the possibility of letting negotiators resolve their differences in a conference committee.

“Most of the time, the conference committee can work things out,” Lt. Gov. Randy McNally told reporters Thursday after the legislature had finished its business for the week.

“I don’t think either side is just locked in stone,” Lamberth added later.

Meanwhile, the governor told reporters he wasn’t worried that the Senate and House were starting out with very different approaches. He characterized his own proposal as simply a “framework” to get the discussion rolling.

“The encouraging part for me is there is an agreement that everyone wants to get school choice done,” Lee said. “The core tenets are the same. That’s how the legislative process works.”

House Republican leaders angered some within their own party by bringing their measure up for its first vote on the day after filing the massive package.

“This bill was dropped in our lap last night at 5 o’clock,” Rep. Todd Warner, a Chapel Hill Republican, said Tuesday as the measure was debated in the K-12 subcommittee. " We have not had the proper time to vet this bill, to go through it. There are lots of unanswered questions.”

But after two-plus hours of discussion, with representatives from the governor’s office in the room and a designee from House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s office available to break a tie vote, if necessary, the bill cleared its first legislative hurdle 6-2. Warner and Rep. Sam McKenzie of Knoxville voted no, and two other members did not vote. Rep. Kirk Haston, a Republican and public school official from Perry County who chairs the subcommittee, voted yes.

Lamberth, the majority leader from Portland who is sponsoring the House bill, said members were given ample time to review and discuss the bill.

“We will also have at least six or seven weeks before it will be on the House floor,” he said. “Nobody’s rushing any of this.”.

The next votes are expected on March 6 in the House and Senate education committees. If the measures clear those panels, they would head to the chambers’ finance committees and face a tougher audience because of their cost, especially in future years as the program grows.

Tennessee already has a nearly $378 million budget shortfall through the first six months of the current fiscal year, and Lee’s proposed budget would slash corporate business property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The state’s largest teacher organization also charged that the House bill aims to use money allocated for teacher raises to pay for other parts of the bill.

“The harm this voucher proposal would cause every district in the state cannot be offset by the other components included in the legislation,” Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said in a statement on Friday.

Another financial concern is that the program would increasingly take on the cost of educating students who would have gone to private schools anyway.

Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, while answering questions this week before the House panel, said more than half of the students enrolled in Tennessee’s current voucher pilot program in Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby counties had never previously attended public schools. That’s because they enrolled as kindergartners, moved in from out of state, or took advantage of a revision in the 2019 law that opened up applications to families who might have been eligible while Lee’s Education Savings Account program was being challenged in court.

You can track the legislation and view a summary of differences in various proposals in an analysis by The Education Trust of Tennessee.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Massive House proposal is third universal school voucher bill before Tennessee lawmakers

2024-02-27T03:18:19+00:00

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Three school voucher proposals now before Tennessee lawmakers would create a new statewide program that eventually could open eligibility to all K-12 students, regardless of family income.

But the similarities end there.

The latest version, filed Monday by House Majority Leader William Lamberth, of Portland, has no testing requirements for students who accept public funding to attend private schools. Gov. Bill Lee’s version doesn’t either, but Senate leaders say that approach is a non-starter.

The House plan also would make it easier for middle-class families to access the program during its first year than under the two versions filed last week.

Proposals by the governor and the Senate would reserve the first 10,000 slots for families who are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level. But the House version would bump that to 400% of the poverty level, which equates to $124,800 for a family of four — a departure from Lee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law aimed at low-income families who attend low-performing schools in three urban areas.

The biggest difference, however, is in the House’s sweeping attempt to address a plethora of long-standing concerns by public school officials in a bill purportedly about school choice.

From complaints about overtesting of students to the cost of health care insurance for public school teachers, the 39-page proposal devotes far more pages to existing public school policies than new ones for vouchers.

Last week, House Speaker Cameron Sexton called the upcoming omnibus-style bill an “all-encompassing approach” that’s based on feedback from public school leaders during recent months.

“It’s not just about choice; it is about K-12 education,” Sexton said.

But Democratic leaders vowed that no members of their outnumbered party will support any of the voucher proposals, even if some include policies that they’ve fought for in the past for public schools.

“They’re trying to buy votes,” said Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville. “They’re just throwing in everything they can to try to get enough votes to pass this voucher scam.”

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who leads the Senate, said he’d “probably rather stick with the issues at hand” instead of expanding the bill’s scope beyond vouchers.

The legislation could be taken up Tuesday by a House subcommittee and Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee. But GOP leaders say it will be weeks before any votes are held.

Non-voucher proposals for public schools under the House bill include:

Reducing testing time and possibly pivoting from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program to a different “statewide standardized assessment.”
Increasing the state’s coverage of the cost of medical insurance for teachers and staff from 45% to 60%.
Phasing out the Achievement School District, the state’s turnaround district for low-performing schools, on July 1, 2026.
Adding several pathways beyond those outlined in a 2021 literacy law for fourth graders to get promoted if they don’t score proficient on this year’s TCAP in English language arts.
Reducing the number of required evaluations for higher-performing teachers.
Extending to eight years the validity of practitioner and professional teacher licenses.
Allowing high school students to take career readiness assessments instead of retaking the ACT exam.
Increasing the funding weight for small school systems from 5% to 8% under the state’s new K-12 funding structure known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act.
Reducing the frequency of student screenings through the state’s learning intervention program known as RTI.

Much of the disagreement over universal vouchers centers on the voucher program’s cost and how much private schools should be held accountable for results if they accept taxpayer money.

All three pieces of legislation would offer 20,000 vouchers this fall. But the House legislation stipulates that the program would increase by 20% annually if funding is available, while Lee wants to open it up to any student in the second year.

The governor proposes to give each recipient $7,075 this fall, which would cover about 62% of the average $11,344 cost of attending a private school in Tennessee, according to Private School Review.

Legislative staff released an initial financial analysis Monday showing the governor’s program would cost $144 million next fiscal year, which Lee has included in his proposed budget; $346 million the following year for an estimated 47,000 participants; and then exceeding that amount in subsequent years when “the liability to the state could significantly grow.”

Fiscal agents said over 1.12 million students would eventually be eligible to participate, including 155,650 students currently attending nonpublic schools.

“Due to the universal nature of the program, it is assumed that students already attending private school will seek the additional funding through the EFS Program,” the analysts wrote.

The analysts also noted that none of the legislative proposals include a plan to help offset an anticipated decrease in local revenue for public schools as students pivot to private schools.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Whether to test private school students is key difference in dueling voucher proposals in Tennessee

2024-02-21T23:41:17+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee and Senate leaders unveiled dueling proposals Wednesday to bring universal school vouchers to Tennessee. House leaders are expected to release a third version later this week.

Testing accountability stands out as a key difference in multiple amendments filed as part of a Republican campaign to eventually give all Tennessee families the option to use public money to pay for private schools for their children. The Senate plan also calls for open enrollment across public school systems.

Lee’s seven-page plan does not require participating students to take annual tests to measure whether his Education Freedom Scholarship Act leads to better academic outcomes. The governor has said that parental choice provides ultimate accountability.

The Senate’s 17-page proposal requires recipients in grades three-11 to take some type of norm-referenced tests approved by the state Board of Education, which could include state tests that public school students take under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

Assessments must include a third-grade test in English language arts and an eighth-grade test in math; the grades are considered benchmark years for learning those skills. Eleventh-grade recipients would also have to take the ACT, SAT, or a similar exam to assess their readiness for continuing their education after high school.

“The testing component is critical,” Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg told Chalkbeat. “We have a responsibility to share with Tennesseans how this is working.”

The developments show divisions at the state Capitol, despite a GOP supermajority, about key details of the biggest education proposal of Lee’s tenure, even before legislative debate begins in public. Lundberg’s committee is scheduled to take up the issue next week.

The governor wants to start with up to 20,000 students statewide this fall and eventually open up the program so any K-12 student can use a $7,075 annual voucher, regardless of family income. His earlier Education Savings Account law, which squeaked through the legislature with a historic and controversial House vote in 2019, targeted students from low-income families in low-performing schools in Memphis and Nashville but remains underenrolled, even with the addition of Hamilton County last fall.

Cost is expected to be a major hurdle for Lee’s voucher expansion plan in a state that prides itself on being fiscally conservative.

Tennessee government has a nearly $378 million budget shortfall through the first six months of its current fiscal year, according to a revenue report released last week.

Even so, Lee’s proposed $52.6 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year includes $144 million annually for vouchers and $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas, all while slashing corporate business property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Over the weekend, Republican Rep. Bryan Richey, of Maryville, told a local town hall that, although he supports statewide vouchers, he expects to vote against this year’s proposal over budget concerns and the lack of accountability provisions.

The Daily Times reported that Richey compared the upcoming legislative process to baking a cake as he urged his constituents to engage early with lawmakers while the proposals are in committees.

“Once the ingredients are in the batter and it’s all mixed up, we’re not going to be able to go in there and pull the egg back out or get the oil out,” he said.

Lee’s proposal did not look markedly different from draft legislation that was inadvertently filed in the Senate in late January due to a miscommunication, then pulled a short time later. Vouchers would be funded through a separate scholarship account, not the funding structure currently in place for public schools.

RELATED: Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out.

But the Senate version aligns funding with the state’s new public school formula known as Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. And it would allow students to enroll in any school system, even if they’re not zoned for it.

“We want open enrollment so you can transfer anywhere,” Lundberg said. “It’s not just for private schools. The funding follows the student.”

House leaders have been huddling for weeks with key stakeholders to get their feedback for an omnibus-style amendment that’s expected to come out on Thursday.

“I look forward to reading the House proposal, but there are obviously already major discrepancies,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, who has been in some of those meetings.

“I really don’t see how these versions can be reconciled this year,” added Bowman, a voucher critic. “If they’re hell-bent on doing this, they need to at least take the time to get it right.”

But a statement from the governor’s office said the various proposals show “an encouraging amount of engagement in this process.”

“The governor has repeatedly emphasized that the Education Freedom Scholarship Act is a framework, built upon the foundation that parents should have choices when it comes to their child’s education, regardless of income or ZIP code,” the statement said.

The bills are sponsored by Senate and House majority leaders Jack Johnson of Franklin and William Lamberth of Portland. You can track the legislation through the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee budgets $144 million for statewide school vouchers

2024-02-06T02:39:16+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee renewed his call for private school vouchers for any student across Tennessee on Monday, and he also set aside $144 million in his proposed state budget to pay for the new program for up to 20,000 students in its first year.

For traditional public schools, the Republican governor asked the legislature to raise the annual base pay for teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, in keeping with his pledge last year to get the profession’s minimum salary to $50,000 by the 2027-28 school year. (Raising the base pay has a domino effect and increases the pay of more experienced teachers, too.)

Lee also wants to invest $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas while simultaneously cutting corporate taxes amid a downturn in state revenues. But he maintained that Tennessee has “a very strong economy” to pay for all the changes.

The governor outlined his list of wants Monday evening during his 2024 address before the General Assembly, which will take up Lee’s voucher proposal and the budget in the months ahead.

He opened his remarks by calling Tennessee a “model for economic prosperity” and reminding lawmakers that state revenues are still 40% higher than three years ago.

However, after years of being flush with cash, the state faces a $610 million budget shortfall this year, and many lawmakers are leery of approving a universal school voucher program that Lee wants to be available to any K-12 student in 2025-26. Currently, Tennessee offers vouchers to about 3,000 low-income families in three urban counties, but his Education Freedom Scholarship Act would open them up to families in all 95 counties, eventually with no family income restrictions.

Gov. Bill Lee

“2024 is the year to make school choice a reality for every Tennessee family,” he said, drawing a standing ovation from many legislators — but not everyone in the GOP-controlled legislature — as well as frequent jeers from some spectators in the gallery.

“There are thousands of parents in this state who know their student would thrive in a different setting, but the financial barrier is simply too high,” Lee continued. “It’s time that we change that. It’s time that parents get to decide — and not the government — where their child goes to school and what they learn.”

Lee, a Williamson County businessman who graduated from public schools in Franklin, near Nashville, touted more than $1.8 billion in new investments in public education since he became governor in 2019.

“We can give parents choice and support public schools at the same time,” he said. “You’ll hear me say that over and over again. These two ideas are not in conflict.”

The governor also released his $52.6 billion state government spending plan to begin July 1. The total was down from Tennessee’s $62.5 billion budget for the current fiscal year because of flattening revenues and expiring federal funds appropriated during the pandemic.

He proposed $8 million to hire 114 more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

Other recurring funding recommendations include $30 million to pay for summer learning programs; $3.2 million to expand access to advanced placement courses for high school students; and $2.5 million to pay for a universal reading screener as part of the state’s literacy initiative, all to offset federal funding that is drying up.

Lee is asking for $15 million in one time funding to help charter schools with facility costs.

The governor also announced that his administration will bring the legislature a bill designed to help parents oversee their child’s social media activity.

“It will require social media companies to get parental consent for minors to create their own accounts in Tennessee,” Lee said.

Such legislation would widen the state’s push against social media giants.

Last fall, Tennessee joined a coalition of states suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is accused of violating consumer protection laws and deceptively marketing its platforms to adolescents to the detriment of their mental health.

And some Tennessee school districts have joined a growing list of school systems nationwide that are suing major social media companies like TikTok and YouTube over a crisis in student mental health.

But in the wake of last year’s shooting at a private Nashville school — where three children, three staff members, and the shooter died — the governor offered no new initiatives aimed at improving school safety or decreasing gun violence, other than funding to hire 60 more state troopers.

Last year, after the March 27 tragedy, the legislature approved $140 million in grants to place an armed law enforcement officer in every Tennessee public school. But the legislature rebuffed the governor’s call for a law to help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Remarks about Lee’s universal voucher plan, announced in November, drew quick responses from the leaders of the state’s two largest teacher organizations.

“The concept of universal vouchers would be costly to the state, and we urge the Tennessee General Assembly to move slowly,” said JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

“In particular, we have concerns over the lack of income-eligibility requirements and accountability,” he continued. “Our state must avoid any program viewed as a tax subsidy for existing private school families or a tax bailout for struggling private schools.”

Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said Lee’s plan shows that vouchers have never been about helping economically disadvantaged families, as the governor first characterized it in 2019.

“The goal has always been to privatize public education and use public dollars to fund private school education, which goes against our Tennessee values,” Coats said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s universal school voucher details are being heavily debated — but not in public

2024-02-02T22:33:45+00:00

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Tennessee Republicans are using a legislative maneuver to meet behind closed doors while crafting a statewide expansion of private school vouchers, putting into question whether the public will get ample time to review the legislation and weigh in.

To meet this week’s deadline to file legislation, Senate and House majority leaders Jack Johnson and William Lamberth submitted so-called caption bills that gave a brief description of the intentions of the full legislation that they’ll file later through amendments.

On Friday, neither legislative leader, nor the governor’ office, would say when they expect to unveil the full detailed proposal that’s been anticipated since November. That’s when Lee announced he would push to create a universal voucher program to offer public funding to families who choose to send their children to private schools or some home schools, regardless of family income or what county they live in.

The policy would mark a major change in Tennessee’s K-12 education structure, affecting students, parents, taxpayers, schools, districts, and communities across the state. Currently, vouchers are offered in three counties — Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby — and only to low-income families.

But the lack of details for the proposed program — ranging from whether participating private schools must be state-accredited to whether participating students have to take the same state tests as public school students — worries some public education advocates. They are concerned the administration is focused on drafting language that will line up the most legislative votes, instead of crafting a research-based policy for release in time to fully study and vet the plan in public forums.

“This debate deserves to be held sooner than later and conducted in the light of day — not in back rooms at the Capitol,” said Gini Pupo-Walker, director of The Education Trust in Tennessee.

When the voucher amendment is introduced, public debate can kick off in legislative committees, and lawmakers can hear directly from their constituents about what parts of the proposal they like and don’t like.

But under House rules, for instance, a vote in a subcommittee can happen the day after an amendment is introduced.

Some voucher critics fear the legislative process could get rushed if the specifics are delayed for weeks, especially since the 2024 session was already expected to be shorter than last year’s session that ended on April 21. That’s because it’s an election year, when the seats of all 99 House members and half the Senate are up for grabs. Legislators can’t accept campaign contributions until they adjourn for the year.

It’s uncertain how much the bill will be amended from draft legislation that Johnson’s office said it accidentally filed earlier in the week, then quickly retracted.

RELATED: Tennessee universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out

In a statement Friday, Johnson, the Senate majority leader from Franklin, said “it is important we get it right.”

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson speaks at a 2021 news conference at the Tennessee State Capitol. Photo courtesy of State of Tennessee.

“The governor has gone to great lengths to meet with stakeholders and experts to ensure the language is solid, reasonable, and consistent with Tennessee’s outstanding record of fiscal responsibility,” he said. “I look forward to presenting the proposal to my colleagues in the Senate soon.”

But House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, whose party opposes vouchers, offered a different explanation.

“They clearly don’t have the votes to pass this voucher scam, and they don’t want to file a bill until they have the votes to get it through the committee process,” said the Nashville lawmaker.

Governor’s proposal generates more questions than answers

Lee has shared his vision in broad terms for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act. The program would start with up to 20,000 students statewide who would get $7,075 next school year for private education services, with eligibility restrictions for half of those. Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, he wants all K-12 students to be eligible, with no eligibility restrictions.

But dozens of unanswered questions remain. Among them:

Will private schools that accept vouchers have to require state licensure for its teachers, in addition to a background screening, to ensure a certain level of professional qualifications and safety?

Will the governor seek to place stipulations on tuition costs and who can use vouchers at participating private schools? (There’s evidence that private schools have exploited similar programs in Arizona and Ohio by raising tuition rates or encouraging students already enrolled in private schools to apply for a government-paid voucher.)

Will the legislation mandate fiscal audits of the program?

Will the program be evaluated to gauge whether it’s leading to better academic outcomes than public schools?

Given the numerous restrictions lawmakers have placed on public school instruction and curriculum in Tennessee over the last decade, will participating private or home schools be allowed to teach anything they want?

Will language be included in the legislation to ensure private schools can’t discriminate against certain applicants, such as students with disabilities, or based on race, religion, or sexual orientation?

Will the legislation attempt to exclude undocumented students from eligibility, as Tennessee’s 2019 education savings account law did?

Caption bills can be helpful, or not

None of those questions are answered in the voucher bills filed on Jan. 31 in the House and Feb. 1 in the Senate.

Broadly written caption bills are an increasingly common tool used by Tennessee lawmakers and lobbyists.

Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said caption bills can be useful — for instance, to address a sudden need such as in the middle of last year’s session, when changes to bolster school safety took on urgency after six people died in a mass school shooting in Nashville.

But caption bills can be abused, by not revealing a bill’s true purpose until it’s too late for the public to notice. They also can become a delaying tactic, allowing legislators to push through legislation in a session’s waning days before constituents can ask questions or opponents can mobilize against it.

In 2019, during Lee’s first year in office, his administration used a caption bill to introduce his education savings account proposal. The amendment that presented the details was filed in mid-March and, in an historic and controversial vote, a further amended version passed the full House less than six weeks later during a season when most school communities are consumed with state testing.

Fisher said there’s adequate time for a full and robust debate on Lee’s newest voucher proposal, “but not if it’s held back too many weeks.”

It takes time for information to filter out to citizens, Fisher added, especially for an issue as contentious and complex as vouchers.

“I think this governor would look better and serve our state better if he showed his hand and let people know the nuts and bolts,” she said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out.

2024-01-30T02:30:50+00:00

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Tennesseans got their first glimpse of Gov. Bill Lee’s plan to create a universal school voucher program that could eventually give all families tax dollars to pay for private school.

Two months after Lee announced his proposal, a draft of the Senate bill was inadvertently filed Monday due to a miscommunication, then removed a short time later from the legislature’s website.

Elizabeth Lane Johnson, the governor’s press secretary, said the draft’s “key pillars” are accurate, but she emphasized the document is a “framework” for ongoing discussions.

Johnson said majority leaders in the Senate and House will file so-called “caption bills” this week to outline the legislation’s intent and to meet filing deadlines. Full legislation, with updated details, will be filed later through amendments.

Here are five things that stand out about the plan, based on a Chalkbeat analysis of the eight-page draft.

No testing accountability

While the governor has repeatedly pledged to build accountability into his proposal, the draft wouldn’t require participating students to take state tests, or other assessments.

There’s no accountability provision — or mention of the word accountability — in the draft. There’s also no reporting requirements to track how students are doing, or evaluate the program.

Public school students are required to take annual TCAP tests in math, English language arts, science, and social studies. Students who participate in Tennessee’s current voucher program — which offers education savings accounts, or ESAs, to students in three counties — have to take state tests every year in math and English language arts.

The ESA program’s first test results, from Memphis and Nashville in the 2022-23 school year, were disappointing. Most of the 452 participating students performed worse than their peers in public schools after the program’s swift rollout earlier that school year, according to data from the state education department.

Lee emphasized accountability through parental choice when promoting his plan during visits last month to private schools in Memphis and Chattanooga.

Asked about the omission of testing requirements in the draft, Lee’s press secretary said the governor looks forward to having those discussions with members of the General Assembly.

No language to prohibit discrimination

The voucher movement has some roots in racist opposition to school desegregation in the mid-20th century, and critics have long charged that private schools pick and choose which students they want when accepting public funding through vouchers.

The draft legislation includes no language to prohibit discrimination based on race, creed, color, national origin, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.

Anti-discrimination language is frequently included in state laws regarding eligibility for education programs.

In fact, Tennessee’s 2019 education savings account law requires participating private schools to certify that they will “not discriminate against participating students or applicants on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

No guarantees for students with disabilities

Private schools would not be required to provide the same level of services as public schools for students with disabilities, according to the draft.

The language says: “Although an eligible student participating in the program does not retain the right to receive special education and related services through an individualized education program, the student may be eligible under the (federal) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act … to receive equitable services through an individualized service plan.”

Essentially, parents in a private school can request some publicly funded special services, but with no guarantee of exactly what their student would receive.

By contrast, public schools are required to provide students with disabilities with specialized support and services determined collaboratively by school leaders and parents.

“In practice, what this means is that students in private schools have a lesser right to disability-related services than those in public schools, and often receive fewer, more generic accommodations and services,” said Jeff Strand, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Disability Coalition.

More private schools could participate, but not from out of state

While Tennessee’s current ESA program is open to state-approved or accredited private, independent, and parochial schools, the draft opens the door to other school categories that have little to no state oversight.

Those include church-related schools or other private schools that the state merely acknowledges are in operation.

The lack of accreditation from schools in those categories may affect a voucher student who wants to transfer back into a public school in the same grade. Public schools may require testing to determine grade level or number of credits.

The language specifies the school must be located in Tennessee, which would prevent out-of-state virtual schools from participating.

But there’s no mention of an application process for a school to participate, as the education savings account program requires.

Nor is there text to support tiny home-run schools, in which the parent must report to their local school district that their child is being home-schooled. However, church-related home schools, which typically have a minimum of 10 students, appear to qualify.

Funding for the new voucher program isn’t a sure thing

As the governor announced earlier, the program would start with up to 20,000 students statewide who would get $7,075 in taxpayer money next school year to attend a private school, or certain home schools.

Half of those students must be considered economically disadvantaged or currently participating in the ESA program. And beginning in 2025, all K-12 students would be eligible to receive vouchers, regardless of their family income.

If 20,000 students participated, it would cost the state $141.5 million a year, which would increase if the program grows in subsequent years. But the draft says any voucher disbursements would be “subject to appropriations and other available funds.”

Tennessee revenues have flattened since the 2023-24 fiscal year began last July, and financial experts have urged lawmakers to rein in spending.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are closely watching developments in Arizona, the first state to offer universal school choice. That state is struggling to cover the costs of the universal school voucher program approved last year by its Republican-controlled legislature.

Below, you can read the draft legislation.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana school funding bill would give money to families to create ‘a la carte’ education

2024-01-18T23:19:24+00:00

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Update: The Indiana legislative session ended on March 8, 2024. Here are the education bills that did and didn’t pass.

A school funding bill heard in Indiana’s legislature Thursday proposes to radically reshape the state’s education system by allowing families to use state money to pay for a wide range of services and effectively customize their children’s education.

The bill, Senate Bill 255, is on hold until next year, when lawmakers take up issues tied to the state budget. But its backers say it’s the start of a conversation about expanding school choice in the state, far beyond the scope of existing voucher programs.

For now, few details are available about how the program would work. But depending on how it takes shape and how many students participate, it could have a major impact on K-12 schools, graduation requirements and postgraduate paths, and give Indiana one of the most relaxed school choice policies in the country. And it would add to the financial pressures on public school systems that already stand to lose funding to voucher programs, while they try to improve low reading scores and college-going rates.

Lawmakers have already made nearly all Indiana children eligible for private school vouchers, on the premise that parents should be empowered to determine how educational dollars are spent.

But critics say these voucher programs aren’t reaching the students they were originally intended to help — those from low-income backgrounds who are attending failing schools.

Families could choose programs a la carte

Indiana’s existing voucher programs allow students to use state funding for private school, or for special education services outside of public school. A new program also allocates funding for career training.

Under the new proposal, those programs would be combined into a new program, with relaxed requirements that allow families to use state funding to purchase classes and services a la carte from schools, tutors, and other approved organizations.

So a student could take a chemistry class at a public school, a math class at a private school, and music lessons with a professional musician, said Indiana State Treasurer Daniel Elliott, who spoke in support of the bill at the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday.

Lawmakers at Thursday’s hearing listened to concerns about the bill from a wide array of groups, including the Indiana School Boards Association, the Indiana Association of School Principals, the Indiana Catholic Conference, and home-schooling advocates.

The bill’s fiscal note estimates that state expenditures would increase by $46 million just for the cost of migrating students from the existing voucher programs to the new funding pool.

Author Sen. Ryan Mishler, a Republican from Mishawaka, said he wanted to begin the conversation about the proposal this year and expects it to continue through the summer.

Mishler notably voiced opposition to last year’s expansion of the school voucher program, citing concerns about a lack of accountability at private schools. In introducing the bill, he said he hoped to offer even more flexibility to Indiana parents.

Elliott agreed.

“If we really want to make a difference, we need to give parents more than two choices,” said Elliott. “We need to give them the option to create their child’s unique educational pathway.”

How the money would move

The grant program in Senate Bill 255 would function like an expanded version of the existing Education Scholarship Account program, which allows families of students with disabilities to use funds on services outside their schools. It would replace the education scholarships, the state voucher program, and the new Career Scholarship Accounts established last year.

Under the bill, students enrolled in a public school could receive 50% of the foundation grant amount — around $3,000 in 2023 — to spend on services outside of their school’s jurisdiction, likely making an impact on their school’s funding. Students enrolled in private school would receive 90% of the foundation grant amount.

They could use the funds to pay for expenses like tuition and fees at a private school, services for a disability, extracurricular activities provided by a school, apprenticeships, and transportation.

While home-schooled students were included in the bill draft, Mishler and Elliott said they would change the bill to exclude them from the funding and the accompanying requirements of state oversight.

Lawmakers raised questions about the additional cost, as well as the increased workload for the treasurer’s office, which would administer the combined program.

Schools may need to price their classes at a credit hour rate, according to Elliott. And parents would be responsible for transporting their children to different schools and classes.

Sen. Shelli Yoder, a Bloomington Democrat, said the transportation issue raised concerns about equity, as parents who can’t drive their children to different schools likely wouldn’t be able to benefit from the program.

Elliott said that it’s likely very few families would take advantage of the program.

Currently around 90,000 students attend private schools in Indiana, compared with over 1 million students who attend public schools. Recent data shows that voucher use grew by 30% over last year, compared with a 5% increase in private school enrollment, suggesting that most of the beneficiaries of vouchers are families whose children are already in private schools.

For the career scholarship accounts, just over 200 students received vouchers in the first year. The program, which offers students state funding to take career training courses outside their schools, is a centerpiece of GOP lawmakers’ plans to “reinvent high school” in 2023.

Senate Bill 255 is not expected to be heard again in the 2024 session.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee private school voucher law hits new obstacle in court

2024-01-11T21:20:49+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Tennessee newsletter to keep up with state education policy and the Shelby County public school system.

A legal challenge to Tennessee’s private school voucher law is back on track after a state appeals court ruled that a lower court erred in dismissing the case.

The three-judge Court of Appeals said Wednesday that a trial-level judicial panel acted prematurely in 2022 when it declared that Davidson and Shelby county governments, along with a group of parents, had no legal standing to challenge the 2019 Education Savings Account law, which provides families with taxpayer money to pay toward private school tuition.

The appellate court, in sending the case back to the trial court, also said the case’s remaining legal claims are “ripe for judicial review.”

The unanimous decision breaks a string of legal victories for voucher backers in Tennessee, where Gov. Bill Lee’s administration is proposing an expansive new program that would ultimately make vouchers accessible to all students in all 95 Tennessee counties, without the family income limits that are part of the current program.

Lee, who has campaigned on a pledge to expand alternatives to traditional public schools, has sought to capitalize on parent anger over pandemic-era school closures and disagreements over what kids are taught.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on November 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

First-year test scores were disappointing

Meanwhile, Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds told lawmakers Wednesday that the first state test scores of students using vouchers to attend private schools in Shelby and Davidson counties were lackluster.

“The results aren’t anything to write home about,” Reynolds told the Senate Education Committee. “But at the end of the day, the parents are happy with this new learning environment for their students.”

The first results came out of Davidson and Shelby counties in 2022-23, before the legislature added Hamilton County to the program this school year. According to data from the state education department, most of those 452 students performed worse than their peers in public schools after the program’s swift rollout early that school year.

Reynolds told lawmakers she’s hopeful for better scores this spring from participants in all three counties.

“We are only technically a year and a half into implementation,” she said.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, the panel’s lone Democrat, said the early results from the Education Savings Account pilot program should give state leaders pause about rapidly expanding access to vouchers.

“It says ‘pilot’ because we want to see how it works,” Akbari said during Wednesday’s hearing. “And we only have a year and a half of data, and we’re already talking about expanding the program.”

The expectation, Akbari added, was that students using vouchers would perform as well as or better than students in public schools.

Legal challenge enters its fifth year

The legal dispute over Tennessee’s voucher law began a year after the legislature narrowly approved Lee’s ESA bill in 2019, via a controversial House vote. A Nashville judge soon declared the law unconstitutional because it affected only the state’s two largest cities, Memphis and Nashville, without giving them a say. That judge said that legislative approach violated the state constitution’s “home rule” provision.

But a split Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2022, clearing the way for the program to launch that fall. Now with three counties participating, the program remains under-enrolled with 2,134 students, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap, according to the state’s latest count.

The case is now being tried on several remaining legal issues, including a constitutional clause that requires the state to maintain a system of “free public schools,” with no mention of private schools.

However, Metro Nashville and Shelby County governments are no longer involved in the case. They withdrew as plaintiffs last year and declined to comment on their retreat.

Plaintiffs behind a second lawsuit, which was filed in 2020 on behalf of 11 public school parents and community members in Memphis and Nashville, are continuing to fight the law in court.

Called McEwen v. Lee, the complaint was filed by the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, collaborators in a national campaign that opposes vouchers and wants public funds used exclusively to support and strengthen public schools. The plaintiffs are also represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and the Nashville law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP.

“We are gratified by this Court of Appeals opinion and look forward to pursuing these claims in chancery court,” Chris Wood, a Nashville lawyer helping to litigate the remaining lawsuit, told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Officials with Nashville’s legal department, which took the lead in litigating the case for Davidson and Shelby counties, said they expected the appellate court’s ruling, but that the favorable opinion does not affect its decision to pull out of the dispute.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said the state is reviewing the appellate decision, while a spokesperson for the governor declined to comment on the court case.

“Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is an entirely separate legislative proposal, and we look forward to working with the General Assembly to ensure Tennessee parents have choices,” said Elizabeth Johnson, Lee’s press secretary.

You can read the 29-page ruling on the state court website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Vouchers, school safety, retention: Key education issues to watch as Tennessee lawmakers return

2024-01-08T11:00:00+00:00

Five years after a bruising legislative battle opened the door to private school vouchers in parts of Tennessee, lawmakers are preparing to take up a controversial bill to create a similar program statewide.

Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher proposal, which eventually would make all K-12 students eligible to use public funding to attend a private or home school, is expected to dominate debate after the 113th General Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday.

But other issues affecting students and educators are sure to emerge in a state where education reform has been front and center since 2010, when Tennessee won $500 million in the federal Race to the Top competition to jumpstart changes.

And if the last few years are any indication, a few surprises may surface in the months ahead. Politics and tragedy have shaken up the education priorities of several recent sessions, from an 11th-hour Republican drive in 2021 to restrict classroom discussions about racism and bias to last year’s deadly Nashville school shooting that led to new investments in campus safety and dramatic protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws.

With the GOP supermajority setting the agenda again this year, here’s a look at some big issues to watch as the opening gavel falls.

School vouchers: Lee’s expansion plan renews long-running debate

In November, the governor said he’ll introduce a new Education Freedom Scholarship Act to offer $7,075 in taxpayer money for each of up to 20,000 students statewide next school year to attend a private or home school, with eligibility restrictions for half of them. In 2025, eligibility would open up to all students, regardless of their family’s income.

The proposal would mark a massive expansion of Tennessee’s voucher program, which is now limited to three urban counties and still under-enrolled. But more than a month after Lee’s announcement, few details have been released.

“I have yet to understand where the financing is coming from,” said Sen. Page Walley, a Republican whose district includes eight rural counties in West Tennessee.

“If we jump to statewide vouchers, I don’t see how we fund it without robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he added.

School safety: Renewed discussion, but no gun laws (it’s an election year)

Tennesseans were unnerved when an armed intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27, in the middle of last year’s legislative session. And the growing impact of gun violence on kids across the state is undeniable.

But Republican lawmakers’ response last year was to further harden schools rather than entertain any proposals to restrict gun access — not even for people who are deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, as the Nashville shooter had been.

“We’ll be back in January,” parents wanting stricter gun laws vowed in August after a special session on public safety yielded little action on guns.

Spectators watch the Tennessee Senate doing business at the State Capitol during a special legislative session on public safety in August 2023. Lawmakers were called back by Gov. Bill Lee after a mass school shooting in Nashville in March.

Some of them have organized news conferences and rallies at the Capitol this week for students, educators, and others to voice their concerns. Meanwhile, a group of parents from The Covenant School in Nashville, where the tragedy took place, say they’ll continue to advocate for changes to “ensure responsible firearm ownership, safe schools, and accessible adequate mental health care for all individuals across Tennessee.”

GOP leaders anticipate the legislature will revisit many of the proposals left on the table.

They include several measures to let certain citizens or school employees carry handguns in schools, and a bill to require all public and private schools to create alarm policies that differentiate emergencies for fire, weather, or an active shooter.

A new bill, from Republican Sen. Mark Pody of Lebanon and Rep. Susan Lynn of Mount Juliet, would let schools purchase lanyards equipped with emergency alert buttons for school staff to wear around their necks.

But don’t expect the legislature to look seriously at bills to restrict gun access in an election year, according to several key Republicans.

“I do not believe there’s an appetite or pathway to success for any legislation that might be introduced that is going to infringe on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, of Franklin.

With the latest State of the Child report ranking Tennessee near the bottom nationally for access to mental health resources, Johnson sees more room for discussion on that topic.

“I think a big conversation in the coming session will be how we strengthen our mental health safety net,” Johnson said, “as well as general access to mental health treatment in Tennessee.”

Third-grade reading law: Lawmakers may revisit retention provision — again

Last year, the legislature widened the criteria, beginning this school year, for determining which third graders are at risk of being held back if they aren’t deemed proficient readers under a 2021 law targeting pandemic learning lag.

Now under the same law, the state may have to retain thousands of fourth graders who test poorly this spring.

“I think we have to look into it,” said Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who chairs a House education committee. “We’ve probably got a lot of fourth graders who have already done summer school and tutoring but still won’t pass that test. It’s never a bad thing to have off-ramps and waivers.”

He added: “I want us to continue looking closer at kindergarten, first, and second grades so we’re not waiting until the third and fourth grades to address these challenges.”

But Sen. Jon Lundberg, who chairs his chamber’s education panel, is less inclined to make more changes in the 2021 law.

“We’ve set the standard for proficiency and for showing adequate growth, and I don’t want to move those,” he said.

Federal education funding: Talk about rejecting it looks like just talk, for now

House Speaker Cameron Sexton surprised many in his own party last year when he floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting more than a billion dollars in federal funding for students, which he said could be offset with state tax revenues.

In November, a task force appointed by Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally held hearings to explore the possibility. But Lundberg, the panel’s co-chairman, told Chalkbeat afterward that he didn’t expect the state to reject federal funds, even if it can find a way.

Legislative leaders polled by Chalkbeat last week said they haven’t heard of any legislation coming out of the hearings.

“It doesn’t hurt to know where our funding is coming from and how it’s being spent,” said White, the House’s education leader, said of the task force’s discussions, “but I don’t see that conversation going anywhere in the short term.”

Teacher shortages: Vacancies could lead to creative thinking

With Sexton declaring that Tennessee has enough state revenues to cover more than $1 billion in federal funding, plenty of public school advocates asked why the state wouldn’t use that excess instead to accelerate the governor’s plan to raise the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000 by 2027. (This year, the base is $42,000.)

Districts struggled to fill nearly 4,000 vacancies statewide last school year, especially in the middle grades, English as a second language, world languages, and special education, according to one report. And shortages of school bus drivers are a nationwide problem.

Lee told reporters that, while state revenues have flattened in recent months, Tennessee’s economy remains strong.

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters on Thursday after a tour of a Nashville ministry. “We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

“We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

But with the teaching profession facing a post-pandemic crisis in Tennessee and nationally, the legislature could also pursue other avenues to elevate the profession.

Currently, the state covers less than half of health insurance premiums for its teachers, while state employees get 100% of their premiums covered. Moving teachers to the state employee plan could be a boost to both teachers and the local districts that employ them.

Professional Educators of Tennessee has also called on the legislature to develop policies to address child care access and affordability for teachers, more than 80% of whom are female.

“If you want to keep good teachers,” said Executive Director JC Bowman, “ease their burdens so they can focus on their work in school to educate and nurture our future generation.”

To follow this year’s legislative business, visit the General Assembly’s website for calendars, committees, legislation, and livestreams.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: Public school leaders sound the alarm about vouchers, Lee’s education agenda

2024-01-04T23:39:40+00:00

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Tennessee state officials finally released their long-delayed letter grades for schools last month, just before the holiday break, using a new formula championed by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration.

But even before they knew their grades, leaders of a high-performing suburban Memphis school district denounced the system as a sham.

“This is all an attempt to paint Tennessee public schools as failing, thus ushering in a new era of vouchers for all,” a statement from Arlington Community Schools said. It was signed by Superintendent Jeff Mayo and school board members, including Dale Viox, president of the Tennessee School Boards Association.

Meanwhile, other suburban Memphis school districts have begun lining up against private-school voucher expansion, too, another key part of Lee’s education agenda. Lee’s voucher program uses taxpayer money to help families fund private school tuition, and the proposed expansion is expected to be a top legislative priority when the General Assembly returns on Jan. 9.

Lee’s proposal would remove income limits and ultimately extend the program statewide. It would be a huge leap forward for a program that was once billed as a pilot project and barely survived challenges in the legislature and the courts.

Viox said the TSBA is already instructing its members to pass formal board resolutions opposing vouchers. And it’s urging school boards to promote the strengths of their public schools and appeal directly to lawmakers.

“I think you’re going to find more and more people want to speak out about it,” Viox told Chalkbeat, “because there’s a lot of people in this area that I know personally and across the state that care a great deal about public education and doing right by students.”

Mayo and Viox talked with Chalkbeat about their opposition to the voucher program, and why they believe Tennessee’s new letter grade system is part of an attack on public schools.

This interview was conducted on Dec. 11 before school letter grades were released on Dec. 21. It has been edited for length and clarity.

What is it about the A-F letter grades and proposed voucher legislation that warrants the kind of statement you made?

Mayo: The best way that I’ve been able to describe the A-to-F grading system is it’s sort of the appetizer to what’s to come with the voucher system. And I think … if the state or the governor, or (the Tennessee Department of Education) — whomever is pushing for this — can paint the picture that school districts that are successful, high-performing, such as ours, are failing, then that sets the tone for support of the voucher expansion program, which, you know, ultimately, takes money away from public education. …

Jeff Mayo, superintendent of Arlington Community Schools, criticized Gov. Bill Lee for his proposal to expand a private-school education voucher program without plans to hold private schools to the same evaluation metrics as public schools.

We are held accountable for every penny that we receive from the state. … Every dime of it we have to say, ‘How is that contributing to students’ growth, or students’ achievement,’ whereas in a private school, that’s not the case. … They’re not held under the same state accountability that we are. There is no teacher evaluation accountability model that I’m aware of. …

And so to say that it’s going to even the playing field is inaccurate. And that’s the whole reason we’re calling this whole thing a sham. … I believe expansion of this has been part of the roadmap since day one.

Viox: It’s a bad idea to take taxpayer money and give it to private entities. … We know that across the nation … voucher programs are just rife with misuse. … And then if you want to talk about inclusivity and diversity: A private school can refuse you for any reason whatsoever. … So as many kids as you may think that you’re going to be able to include, you’re going to exclude twice as many under this program, because private schools are not going to take them, either for their religious beliefs or sexual orientation or whatever. …

You ask why it’s such a strong statement. Because we’re in a strong position. We have high-performance students, we have a very high-performance district, and this is probably not going to trickle down to us for a long time. But what it does do is it affects our educational partners in Shelby County. And if you think you can just forget about public education in Shelby County, and just focus on Arlington, Tennessee, you’re wrong. Because failing Shelby County schools will impact every one of these districts, and everyone in the state. … Across the state of Tennessee, we need to build up public education to what it can be, and not take money away and give it to private companies.

What do you hope the statement accomplishes?

Mayo: It’s debacle after debacle that we’re dealing with, with no guidance, no real assistance from TDOE when these new mandates are handed down. … My staff has to stop, they have to decide: ‘How are we going to do this? What are we going to do to help our students get on the other side of this?’ …

We keep piling on more ineffective accountability measures to pulverize public schools.
Jeff Mayo, superintendent of Arlington Community Schools

Even if we get an A, that doesn’t change my stance on this. It’s still, it’s a broken process. And instead of scratching that and rebuilding it, we keep piling on more ineffective accountability measures to pulverize public schools. That’s why this statement from my vantage point needed to be as strong as it is. … TDOE asks for input, but we never see our input in the end product of any of these new laws or mandates … . And so it’s exhausting.

Viox: At this point, it is difficult to ignore what the state is doing to attack public education. … And like he said, they’re tired. And as an advocate for public education, I am as well.

Is there any set of accountability metrics that would move you more in favor of voucher expansion?

Viox: Not me. … These guys can go out and raise money for anything they want in any way they want. And public schools can’t do that. … (TSBA is) going to the state to try and say, ‘Hey, look, at least let our PTAs and people do lotteries, because … we can’t do that now.’ But private schools can raise money however they want. ... And what we see with other voucher expansions throughout the U.S. is the private schools are turning around … and raising their tuition for those public school kids by that same voucher amount. So essentially, they’re double dipping.

Mayo: I think it’s a long range plan to continue to siphon money from public schools. … It’s not uncommon for the … TDOE to deliver down mandates that are unfunded, that districts are expected to scramble around and find the money to, you know, make it happen. So if you’re looking at, you know, already being very low-funded when you compare to the nation, what our state funds for education, and then this continuation of vouchers siphoning money away from that, you know, that’s the whole mantra behind this being a sham.

Viox: If you’re this … bent on getting a voucher program, fund it separately. We would have no problem with that. And I think if you look at across the nation, people that have expanded their voucher programs, it’s come with a really hefty price tag.

Dale Viox, the president of the Tennessee School Boards Association, said the organization is encouraging its members to push back against the governor's proposal to expand eligibility of private-school education vouchers.

Can you talk to me more about what specifically that (separate funding) would look like? … If Arlington loses any students, you are losing funding by a declining enrollment.

Viox: If you come to any of our schools and can’t find something you’re interested in, in the various clubs, and school sponsored sports, and all of the things that we offer — just hundreds and hundreds of activities for students. I feel like we would not necessarily lose students to … private schools. … As long as the funding is there and completely separate, that’s honestly not a concern for me. Now, that’s not to say it won’t be a concern for other school districts that are struggling. … There’s always going to be private schools. Any specific government money to help them expand, I wouldn’t be in favor for. …

When you look at all these other states, I don’t know what their oversight is, but I think Arizona in their first year before they expanded their voucher program, on the surface found almost a million dollars, it was over $700,000 in misappropriated funds. … And never forget, that if they give him a year’s worth of public funding, and they live within your district, and they go to that private school, and either don’t make it or don’t actually use it for those (school) funds, they come back to us, and we are going to educate those kids.

If the voucher expansion were to pass as it’s been proposed ... what challenges could you immediately see for Arlington’s district?

Mayo: It will not be immediately impactful to us. But as I stated earlier, I believe the expansion is to continue. I think that is the long-range plan. So eventually, we could be faced with losing students, which impacts funding, which impacts teacher layoffs, it impacts the diminishing of programs that we’ve invested a lot of money in through our capital improvement projects. …

I’m a long-range planner. And I think those are things that you have to look at.

Viox: I’m also a higher level view guy: If it affects Metro Nashville, and it affects Shelby County, then it will affect us. The greatest impact is going to be on them. They are our brothers and sisters in public education, and we cannot just completely discount how it’s going to affect them. Because as it affects Shelby County, it will trickle out into the municipalities as businesses leave.

Private schools are turning around … and raising their tuition for those public school kids by that same voucher amount. So essentially, they’re double dipping.
Dale Viox, Tennessee School Boards Association leader

Mayo: The A-to-F distinction that I don’t think we’ve really talked a lot about is the impact it has just on our local community. Because let’s face it, Arlington is growing because of our schools. Businesses are coming here. Parents are moving here, you know. And then if all they have to go by is they pull up our website … and they see that Arlington, well, looks like a really good community and everything, but their school district has an F. That’s the only piece of information that parents have, if they’re not familiar with what’s been going on in the state of Tennessee.

Is there anything this conversation is missing?

Mayo: It really takes creativity away sometimes from the school district, because I know we’re in the process of developing our 2025-26 school year calendar. …One of the people in the group said, ‘You know, have we ever thought about a year round school?’ ... If we wanted to do that, how could we ever do that, if we’re having to offer learning camps and all of that as a product of third grade retention? … If we wanted to be innovative and wanted to be creative and experiment with that, how could we do that? We couldn’t.

Correction: Jan. 4, 2024: A previous version of this story said Dale Viox is the president-elect of the Tennessee School Boards Association. Viox is the president of the association.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Bill Lee short on details as he rallies for universal school vouchers in Tennessee

2023-12-14T01:51:50+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee hit the road Wednesday to begin selling his universal school voucher proposal, but offered no new details about how much the program would cost over time, specific ways to hold private schools accountable when receiving taxpayer money, or what the impact could be to public schools.

However, the Republican governor, who announced in late November that he wants to take vouchers statewide, said he expects GOP leaders to file legislation on his behalf before Jan. 9, when the General Assembly reconvenes, answering many of those questions.

Despite skepticism and outright opposition to his plan from many corners of the state, Lee believes the pandemic has changed the calculus so that more Tennesseans — and their elected representatives — are ready to support universal school vouchers. In 2019, Lee’s scaled-down voucher program, using education savings accounts, barely squeaked through the House in a contentious and controversial vote.

“Through the pandemic, parents just became much more engaged with what was actually happening with their children and their education,” said Lee, adding that more parents are demanding more education choices for their children because of disagreements spawned by COVID over school closures and what kids are taught in public schools.

But the voucher proposal also has stoked fierce opposition across the state, especially in the Memphis area.

Last week, Arlington Public Schools released a fiery statement denouncing Lee’s plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, while the director of Germantown Municipal School District recorded a video declaring that any private schools that accept voucher money should be held to the same standards as public schools. Lakeland’s school board passed a resolution this week opposing the plan, and the chairwoman of the board for Memphis-Shelby County Schools issued a statement Tuesday saying the board was “vehemently opposed” to Lee’s initiative.

Research is also mixed about whether vouchers help improve student performance.

On Wednesday, Lee was joined by House Speaker Cameron Sexton in Memphis at a panel discussion at New Hope Christian Academy, one of 80 private schools currently accepting vouchers through the education savings account program that began in 2022 in Davidson and Shelby counties, expanding this fall to Hamilton County.

While short on specifics, some comments by Lee and Sexton gave insights into the behind-the-scenes negotiations happening to garner support for Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act and to pound out a bill to put before the GOP-controlled legislature.

Academic testing requirements for voucher students unclear

Both leaders expressed openness to adding a facility component to the state’s new K-12 funding formula to help local governments pay for new public school construction or improvements to existing public school campuses — a chronic challenge in a state where schools need about $9 billion of infrastructure investments over five years, according to one recent government report.

Lee said he pushed for the formula overhaul in 2022 “to provide for more nuanced funding” and suggested that facility needs are in line with the new approach.

“If there are particular needs that school districts have, then we should look at that formula and how we more appropriately fund public schools going forward,” he said. “Not just more money, but more wisely spent money.”

The governor also said accountability for participating private schools would be part of his voucher bill, but he did not elaborate on what that would look like.

Currently, private schools participating in the ESA program have to administer annual state tests for math and English language arts to voucher students. But it’s hard to attract private schools to participate under that mandate. And results from those tests during the first year of the program indicate that participants performed worse than their public school peers in Davidson and Shelby counties, according to data from the state education department.

The governor’s press secretary, Elizabeth Johnson, previously told several media outlets that no testing requirements were in the draft legislation, though details were still being hammered out. Johnson did not immediately respond when asked Wednesday if any of those positions have changed as the proposal has evolved.

The draft also didn’t include other accountability measures that public schools must abide by such as third- and fourth-grade retention requirements for students who are deemed poor readers, or A-F grades for schools beginning this month, Johnson previously said.

Taking a different tact, Sexton suggested that Tennessee should rethink its accountability systems for public schools as part of any expansion of private school vouchers.

“Why don’t we treat the high-performing school districts the same as private [schools] and give them more autonomy and freedom to do their job?” Sexton told reporters after the panel discussion.

“Why not reward quality instead of trying to treat all school systems the same regardless of where they are?” he said.

Such a change would begin to unravel a fundamental education policy in Tennessee, where GOP officials previously credited the state’s vaunted accountability systems for historic gains on national tests between 2011 and 2013.

Suburban Memphis leaders oppose planned voucher expansion

The governor emphasized accountability through parental choice during his visit to New Hope.

“We do know that parents know best what’s best for their kids,” Lee said. “When parents have choice, the parents and the children are empowered to live a better life and to move in a better direction.”

Lee later traveled to Chattanooga to participate in a similar event at Chattanooga Preparatory School to promote his proposal.

Sexton, who voted against the 2019 voucher bill but now says he supports universal vouchers, stayed in Shelby County to meet with suburban leaders. Public school officials in those suburbs have been among the noisiest critics of Lee’s proposal.

“In my past 10 years as a superintendent, our legislature has passed hundreds of laws that are crushing the way that we run our schools,” Germantown Municipal School District’s Jason Manuel said in his video recording. “None of these laws will apply to the schools accepting this taxpayer money.”

Manuel called for an even playing field. “Either these schools have to follow all of the same laws we do, or our legislators need to take all the restraints off of our schools and let us get back to the way we have always served our children,” he said.

Private school choice programs have grown in recent years, with states such as Florida, Iowa, and Arkansas passing massive expansions of their voucher initiatives.

But do vouchers work?

According to an ongoing Chalkbeat review of the research, there’s little recent evidence that vouchers improve student test scores. In fact, they’ve sometimes led to declines. But older studies are more positive toward vouchers, and some show that vouchers have a neutral or positive impact on student outcomes later in life.

Research also suggests that targeted voucher programs may not be costly, but universal programs probably will be.

Other education advocates worry that that mostly GOP-driven drive to give parents more choices beyond public charter schools, magnet schools, and other optional programs will accelerate resegregation in schooling.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org

Tennessee governor proposes extending school voucher program statewide, eventually to all students

2023-11-29T01:32:04+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee proposed Tuesday to take Tennessee’s education voucher program statewide, starting with up to 20,000 students who would get taxpayer money next school year to attend a private or home school.

The Republican governor also called for all K-12 students to be eligible for vouchers beginning in 2025.

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act, offering $7,075 annually for each participant, would mark a massive expansion of eligibility for a voucher program that was billed as a pilot project and is now in its second year. The state’s education savings account program, which currently is limited to three urban counties, has just under 2,000 enrollees.

During an announcement in Nashville attended mostly by lawmakers and allies, Lee said statewide voucher eligibility was his vision for Tennessee during his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, when he called for more education choices for parents.

“Parents know what’s best for their child as it relates to education,” he said, adding that the vouchers would give all Tennessee families the freedom to choose a good fit, whether it’s in public, private, parochial, or home schools.

His plan would eventually eliminate income requirements and change who could benefit from the vouchers. Rather than giving students from low-income families an opportunity to attend private schools — the original stated purpose of Lee’s education savings account program — the universal vouchers Lee now proposes could also subsidize tuition costs for students from more affluent families who already attend private schools.

It’s uncertain whether the final legislation would hold private or home schools accepting voucher money to the same accountability standards that public schools are subject to, including testing requirements or the A-F letter grades that the state is preparing to give out for the first time in December.

“The final details of this legislation aren’t worked out,” Lee told reporters after his announcement. “This is Day One. This will be a legislative effort.”

But Lee’s proposal will face a battle when the General Assembly reconvenes in January. Even under a GOP supermajority, Tennessee’s voucher law squeaked through the House of Representatives in 2019, after sponsors agreed to limit the program to a few urban areas.

The open-ended cost of universal vouchers will be an issue in a state where financial experts have warned lawmakers recently that Tennessee’s government needs to control spending in coming years. Lee said his voucher proposal would be funded through a separate scholarship account, not the funding structure currently in place for public schools, but he didn’t provide a cost analysis.

Lee is trying to ride the momentum of other states with Republican-controlled legislatures — including Florida, Iowa, and Arkansas — that passed massive expansions of their voucher programs this year amid parent anger over pandemic-era school closures and disagreements over what kids are taught in public schools.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a fellow Republican who signed a law in March creating a school voucher program in her state, appeared on stage with Lee for his announcement. She heralded the work of their states as part of a “conservative education revolution,” with vouchers as a centerpiece.

More important for the legislative battle ahead were pledges Tuesday by Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally to advance Lee’s voucher agenda. Sexton, a charter school advocate and likely candidate for governor in 2026, voted against Lee’s education savings account bill in 2019 and did not say why he now supports Lee’s proposal.

However, the legislature’s Democratic leaders said Lee and GOP leadership are in for a fight — similar to the one in Texas, where a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans beat back Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher bill this month during a special legislative session.

During a morning news conference, Tennessee Democrats charged that statewide vouchers will weaken public schools and lead to cuts in everything from school personnel to arts and athletic programs, plus increased property taxes for residents. And they pledged to work across the aisle with Republican lawmakers who have been skeptical of vouchers from the outset.

“On the House side, we’re already reaching out to local officials to join us in supporting public schools,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat and House caucus chairman, noting that public school districts are typically the largest employers in the state’s rural communities.

From left, Sens. Raumesh Akbari and London Lamar, both of Memphis, listen as Rep. John Ray Clemmons, right, of Nashville, criticizes Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s education voucher expansion proposal during a news conference on November 28, 2023.

Democrats also warned that, under the governor’s plan, private schools will be able to choose the voucher students they want to accept, especially from families that are already bound for a private education.

“What this is is a coupon program for rich families who do not want to pay the full price of tuition,” said Sen. London Lamar of Memphis, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus.

Meanwhile, leaders of groups both for and against vouchers said they were mobilizing for the fight ahead.

Among the pro-voucher contingent is Americans for Prosperity in Tennessee, part of a conservative network backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, and the American Federation for Children, whose founding chairperson was Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos.

Groups opposing Lee’s plan include the state’s two largest professional organizations for educators, the Tennessee Education Association and Professional Educators of Tennessee.

Tennessee has been a battleground state in the school choice movement, with a coalition of conservative political organizations using out-of-state money to campaign against incumbent lawmakers who oppose vouchers.

Lee’s newest proposal, if approved, would put Tennessee on track to become the 10th state to adopt a universal voucher program, joining Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and West Virginia. But the change would happen before state officials have enough data to evaluate the effectiveness of its current education savings account program, which launched last year in Davidson and Shelby counties and this year in Hamilton County.

For the 2024-25 school year, Lee proposes to provide 10,000 “scholarships” for students who are considered economically disadvantaged, have a disability, or are eligible for Tennessee’s current education savings account program. Another 10,000 would go to a universal pool of students across the state.

Beginning in 2025-26, Tennessee would offer vouchers to any K-12 student.

A one-page promotional document circulated by the governor office said Tennessee would prioritize “currently enrolled students, low-income and public school students if demand exceeds available funding.”

For years, Tennessee has been in the bottom tier of states in funding public education and remains in the bottom half nationally, even with a $1 billion increase this year as part of Lee’s overhaul of Tennessee’s education funding formula.

In 2020-21, before the latest investment, national data ranked the state 37th for per-student funding. And in its annual grades for education funding, the Education Law Center gave Tennessee two F’s for funding level and effort, and a D for funding distribution.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Nashville, Shelby County withdraw challenge to Tennessee private school voucher law after long fight

2023-11-17T23:54:28+00:00

Nashville and Shelby County governments have pulled out of their more than 3-year-old legal dispute with the state over a 2019 private school voucher law.

The paperwork to withdraw their latest appeal was filed quietly on Aug. 25 with the Tennessee Court of Appeals, according to court documents.

The pullout by Tennessee’s two largest counties is the latest setback for efforts to overturn the controversial education savings account law, the signature legislation of Gov. Bill Lee’s first year in office.

The law, which allows the state to give taxpayer money to eligible families to pay toward the cost of private school tuition, was declared unconstitutional by a Nashville judge in 2020 because, at the time, it affected students only in Nashville and Memphis, where local officials have consistently opposed vouchers. But after several appeals, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state in 2022 and resurrected the law, allowing the program to launch last year in the two counties. This fall, the state rolled out the program in Hamilton County after lawmakers voted earlier this year for expansion.

On Friday, Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz declined to comment about the decision to pull out of the suit, as did E. Lee Whitwell, chief litigation attorney for Shelby County government.

Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz criticizes a Tennessee Supreme Court ruling upholding the state’s private school voucher law during a news conference on June 1, 2022, soon after the court’s decision.

But Dietz, whose office has been leading the charge on the Nashville-Shelby lawsuit, noted that the legal challenge remains alive through a second lawsuit filed in 2020 by the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of 11 public school parents and community members in Memphis and Nashville. Their appeal is pending before the state’s appellate court.

The state Supreme Court’s ruling in May 2022 rejected Metro Nashville and Shelby County’s argument that the voucher law violated a “home rule” provision in the Tennessee Constitution. The latest court battle has been over whether plaintiffs in both lawsuits have legal standing to pursue the case based on other legal claims, such as a constitutional clause that requires the state to maintain a system of “free public schools,” with no mention of private schools.

In a split vote in late 2022, a three-judge panel of Davidson County Chancery Court dismissed those claims. Soon after, attorneys behind both lawsuits appealed that ruling to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

Chris Wood, a Nashville lawyer helping to litigate the remaining lawsuit, said the pullout by Metro Nashville and Shelby County has no bearing on his case filed jointly with the Education Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU.

“We’re still here,” Wood said Friday. “Our case has always been our case. And while it’s good to have other folks working with you, this really doesn’t have an impact on what we’re doing.”

A spokesperson for the Tennessee attorney general’s office did not immediately respond when asked Friday about the development.

Currently, Tennessee’s education savings account program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in 75 state-approved private schools in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs a House Education Committee, has said he expects to file legislation next year to take the program statewide.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s first A-F letter grades for schools will stress proficiency

2023-11-03T00:01:41+00:00

After months of asking Tennesseans how the state should judge its public schools when giving them their first A-F letter grades, Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds mostly ignored the feedback.

In her first major initiative since taking the helm of the state education department in July, Reynolds chose a school grading system that elevates the importance of proficiency — whether students are meeting certain academic standards on state tests — over the progress that schools make toward meeting those standards over the course of a year.

Her plan, unveiled on Thursday, will mark a sharp change of course for Tennessee, considered a pioneer in emphasizing growth measurements to assess its students, teachers, and schools.

It’s also significantly different from what Tennesseans have asked state officials for since Reynolds announced in August that an overhaul in the state’s grading system was coming. The overwhelming feedback at 10 town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments was for keeping the calculation focused on growth, as it has been the last five years.

Reynolds’ plan is similar to the model backed by ExcelinEd, the education advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and where Reynolds previously served as policy director.

It will still include improvement as a factor, as required by a 2016 Tennessee law, but achievement will get more weight than under the original formula — and there won’t be a way for schools to meet the achievement criteria by meeting certain improvement goals, according to a presentation to the state Board of Education.

“This version is recalibrating that balance point and is going to say more about where the kids are in those schools right now,” said David Laird, assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in the education department. “It is less of a referendum on maybe what the school’s impact has been, but it’s more clearly articulating their challenges right now.”

The department also announced that the grades will be released in mid-December, a month later than previously planned. State officials say they need more time to verify data going into the grades.

This is the first time the state will issue its letter grades since the 2016 law requiring them took effect. Previous attempts were called off because of testing glitches and the pandemic.

There are several other changes to the calculation.

The formula will factor in test scores for science and social studies, although not as much as for math and English language arts, which were the focus of the original model.

Gone is data related to chronic absenteeism. A new factor will be how well schools are helping their lowest-performing quartile of students to improve. For high schools, college and career readiness will be included, based on measures such as ACT scores, postsecondary credits, or industry credentials.

The debate about growth vs. proficiency was the biggest concern for school leaders who have been waiting and planning for grades for five years.

Focusing on proficiency likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.

Beyond the stigma of getting a D or an F, officials representing those schools eventually may face hearings before the state Board of Education or audits of their spending and academic programming.

Several board members worried that teachers could flee schools graded D or F, exacerbating the challenges faced by schools in high-poverty areas, where students face extra challenges before they even walk into a classroom.

“It’s a struggle for me to think about saying everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when some folks have a closet full of boots, and some have none,” said Darrell Cobbins, who represents Memphis on the board.

Many education advocates worried the state could return to an era when schools with many affluent students coasted to the top ratings, while doing little to show they were helping students improve. Meanwhile, schools in high-poverty areas will have little chance to earn an A or B, they told Chalkbeat.

“Measuring only absolute proficiency for 50% of a school’s grade will most certainly disadvantage our highest poverty schools,” said Erin O’Hara Block, a school board member for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, who served on the working group giving input to the state.

“I’m not sure what this system is supposed to motivate for schools, nor how it will truly inform parents on differences in what various schools can offer to their children,” she said.

Reynolds said the letter grades are a tool to provide families and school communities with information they can use to make decisions, not necessarily to incentivize schools to improve.

“We want to tell the truth about whether or not our kids are actually achieving,” she said.

But Gini Pupo-Walker, director of the Education Trust in Tennessee, is hopeful the grades will somehow be tied to extra resources to help struggling schools.

“We look forward to learning more about how the state plans to support schools that receive D’s and F’s,” she said, “and ensure schools are paying attention to the success of all students.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee rushes to revamp its A-F letter grades for schools. Educators cry foul.

2023-10-26T10:00:00+00:00

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It was supposed to make things simpler.

A 2016 Tennessee law required the state to assign each public school a letter grade, A to F, based mostly on student test results. The intent was to give parents and communities an easy way to assess the quality of education at each school.

Nothing about it has been simple, though. Since the law took effect, the state hasn’t issued any grades, mostly because of testing glitches and the pandemic.

And now there’s a new complication: As the state prepares to finally issue its first grades in November, the education department and its new leader are revamping the grading formula. The changes likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.

The rollout will be a jolt to many Tennessee public school leaders, who have been waiting and planning for these grades for five years, thinking they understood what the criteria would be. And beyond the stigma, the grades could have real consequences: Officials representing schools that get D’s or F’s eventually may face hearings or audits of their spending and academic programming.

“It almost seems like we’re trying to change rules after the game’s already been played,” said Brian Curry, a school board member in Germantown, during an August town hall in Memphis to discuss potential changes with state officials.

Why the letter grades for schools matter

Tennessee’s 2016 school report card law didn’t include consequences for schools that get low grades.

That changed last year, when Tennessee passed a new system for funding K-12 education.

Under the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act, or TISA, school districts or charter authorizers can face hearings before the state Board of Education if their schools get D’s or F’s on the state report card, beginning with the 2024-25 school year.

Ultimately, administrators could have to submit a corrective action plan or undergo a state audit of spending and academic programming at the school in question.

State board member Darrell Cobbins, whose district includes Memphis schools, acknowledges that the increased funding that came with TISA warrants additional accountability. But he wonders about the feasibility of what the law asks of the all-volunteer board. Holding hearings for potentially hundreds of schools will be a “major undertaking,” he said.

The board is working with a consultant, Bellwether Education Partners, to develop a review process that Cobbins hopes will be logical, consistent, and explainable.

At the crux of the state’s late change is a long-running debate over proficiency vs. growth — whether students should be judged based more on whether they meet certain academic standards, or on how much progress they make toward those standards. Where the state lands in that debate is especially important for schools where students face extra challenges even before they walk into a classroom.

But many public school leaders believe there’s a larger political motive behind the sudden drive by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration to change the rules: advancing his school choice agenda.

Under a 2019 voucher law pushed by Lee, Tennessee now provides taxpayer money to help some families send their children to private schools. But the program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap. Lee wants to expand enrollment and eventually take the option statewide.

“School choice has got to be part of what’s driving all this,” said Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools and a former Tennessee Superintendent of the Year.

“Think about it,” he continued. “If you have an A or B school in your community, that may not motivate parents to want to pull their kids out of public schools to use a voucher.”

Several other district leaders brought up the same concern to state officials at town halls hosted by the department in August and September to get public feedback about revising the grading formula. But state officials flatly deny there’s a connection between the voucher law and changes to the grading formula.

The grading law “was passed to promote transparency, and families should be able to know and to understand how their students’ schools are performing,” a department spokesman said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said the goal of the new formula is to generate grades that signify meaningful differences in school performance in a way that make sense to Tennesseans, whether they reflect proficiency, growth, or other criteria that are ultimately chosen.

“Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, policymaker, or an interested community member, school letter grades will empower all Tennesseans with the information they need to support K-12 public education and our local schools,” she said.

Tennessee initially adopted growth-focused model

State law requires that Tennessee’s model for grading schools take into account student performance and improvement, as demonstrated on annual state tests, and it allows inclusion of other reliable indicators of student achievement. The statute directed the education department to come up with a formula to turn those results into a single letter grade for each school, to be published online on the State Report Card.

When developing the calculation under former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the department stressed achievement and growth in math and English language arts. And it created two pathways for schools to demonstrate achievement.

One way was based on what the state calls “pure achievement,” meaning that a certain percentage of a school’s students demonstrated a required level of proficiency, skill, or knowledge. By this metric, a school that started the school year with a high proficiency rate was likely to receive an A even if it had not improved student learning during the school year.

The other way rewarded schools that met certain goals to move their students toward proficiency from one year to the next. The idea was that all schools, especially those serving low-income students or that have historically performed poorly, should have an opportunity to get an A as long as they make strong progress toward the state’s achievement goals.

So even the achievement part of the grading formula could be fulfilled with strong growth. In this way, Tennessee was an early adopter of a growth-heavy model when developing its accountability system.

“All means all!” became the mantra of then-Education Commissioner Candice McQueen as she worked with education stakeholders for nearly a year to design a system to incentivize improvement for all students — whether they are considered low, average, or high achievers — as well as for all schools, regardless of their demographic makeup.

Tennessee had modest success with that approach, even though the actual letter grades were never issued. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, students were showing incremental growth in math and reading based on some of the nation’s highest proficiency standards.

But state lawmakers have become increasingly impatient with the pace of improvement, especially in reading. About a third of the state’s students meet grade-level standards on the English language arts test, which requires students to demonstrate the ability to read closely.

“School choice has got to be part of what’s driving all this. Think about it. If you have an A or B school in your community, that may not motivate parents to want to pull their kids out of public schools to use a voucher.” — Mike Winstead, Maryville City Schools director

“At the end of the day, I want to know: Can you add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and can you read, regardless of how much you have grown from one year to the other?” said Rep. Mark Cochran, an Englewood Republican, during one legislative hearing about the state’s emphasis on growth.

Meanwhile, the legislature has sought to provide more options for families dissatisfied with the performance of traditional public schools by introducing private school vouchers and allowing charter schools to open statewide.

Now as Tennessee revamps its school grading system, Lee’s administration is poised to shift weight in the equation from growth to pure achievement. Reynolds wants the state to do that by eliminating the growth pathway for demonstrating achievement. Growth would still be a component of the overall grade, as dictated by state law, but a much smaller part.

“I want to be very clear that when we’re talking about academic achievement, we’re talking about academic achievement,” Reynolds, the new education commissioner, said at an Oct. 12 meeting of education stakeholders.

State hears strong calls for retaining growth focus

Reynolds, who was sworn in to her post in July, launched the reevaluation of the grading system about a month later as her first major initiative. She invited Tennesseans to weigh in on how the state should measure a school’s academic success. At the time, state officials said all options were on the table.

At town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments from Tennesseans, state officials heard a common theme: Keep some kind of growth option as part of the achievement calculation. Measuring student performance with a single letter grade requires nuance, many educators said, and the growth-based model allows that.

“Is having a campus that has only 15% reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” — Lizzette Reynolds, Tennessee education commissioner

A formula that’s weighted too heavily toward pure achievement, they warned, would produce grades that essentially mirror the economic profiles of the schools — with high-income communities getting the A’s and B’s — and families wouldn’t be able to use the grades to differentiate the performance of one high-poverty school from another.

“Given the strong correlation between achievement and poverty, I think it’s really difficult to talk about just achievement in isolation. We really need to balance this with growth,” said Madeline Price, policy director for the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, at an Oct. 5 meeting of the stakeholders group.

“All schools, especially low-income and traditionally low performing schools, should have a very real opportunity to receive an A” if they significantly improve student performance, the leaders of Tennessee’s school superintendent organization wrote in a letter to Reynolds.

Meaghan Turnbow, who coordinates programs for English language learners in fast-growing Rutherford County Schools, south of Nashville, noted pitfalls in a model that emphasizes proficiency over growth.

“We have students come to our district from all over the world with various education levels and English levels,” she wrote in a public comment. “Year to year they grow, but it may be several years before they are considered meeting or exceeding expectations.”

Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds speaks to a gathering of school superintendents in September. Reynolds has signaled that she wants to narrow the way the state judges student performance.

But soon after asking for public feedback, Tennessee’s new education chief signaled that she wanted to narrow the way the state judges student performance.

During an Aug. 29 town hall in Chattanooga, Reynolds acknowledged that the education department, before scuttling plans to issue grades in the fall of 2022 under former Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, had run the numbers but didn’t like what it saw. For instance, she said, a school with 80% of its students reading on grade level might have received a B, but so might a school that had only 15% of students reading on grade level, while also demonstrating high growth.

“Is having a campus that has only 15% reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” Reynolds asked.

“We should celebrate growth,” she continued. “We should also celebrate achievement, because at the end of the day, kids can grow. But if they never get on grade level, they don’t have much of a future, particularly when it comes to reading and math.”

How a single school could get conflicting evaluations

The A-F grading system, as required by the state, was billed as a simple, common-sense tool to help parents understand how their child’s school is doing and compare schools.

But changes the department is making could add a new layer of complexity for school communities.

When Tennessee developed its accountability plan in 2017, it opted for a single system to satisfy both the state law and a 2015 federal accountability law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. That way, “we’re not sending different messages to parents and the general public,” said Winstead, the Maryville schools director who served on the state task force that developed the plan.

ESSA doesn’t require A-F grades, but it directs the state to use its own criteria to identify schools that are academically in the bottom 5%, plus other schools showing low performance or significant disparities across groups of students who are Black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, or English learners, or have learning disabilities. Such schools become eligible for additional federal funding.

Because of the link between the two laws, the schools that would earn the lowest grades under Tennessee’s current formula are the same ones that would get federal support to help them improve. And educators would work with a common set of goals, priorities, and incentives.

Changes that the Tennessee Department of Education is making could create two separate accountability systems, producing conflicting assessments of how a school is doing.

Under Reynolds, the Tennessee education department appears ready to decouple the state’s A-F system from its federal compliance plan. The change would result in Tennessee having two accountability systems, potentially producing conflicting assessments of how a school is doing.

For example, if the new state formula places less emphasis on certain student groups than the federal system does, a school that has big racial or economic disparities in student performance could still earn high grades from Tennessee based on overall proficiency rates. Meanwhile, a school with low proficiency rates would get a D or an F, even though it may serve certain groups of students better than an A or B school.

Mary Batiwalla, former assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in Tennessee, says what’s going on here has parallels in Texas, where Reynolds used to be chief deputy commissioner. Officials there changed their grading criteria this year to apply to schools retroactively. However, after some school districts sued that state over the changes, Texas delayed the release of its grades.

Texas lawmakers are also in the midst of a special session on vouchers to debate whether students should be able to use public dollars to attend private schools. Batiwalla worries that officials in both states are hijacking the grading systems for political aims, not to incentivize school communities to improve.

“If you want to do vouchers, do vouchers,” said Batiwalla, an outspoken critic of Reynolds’ efforts. “Don’t take away this policy tool that has the potential to drive improvement from the rest of the public schools.”

Proficiency focus could shortchange some students

Other tweaks are likely when Tennessee releases its new equation in the days or weeks ahead, just before giving schools their first set of grades.

“If you want to do vouchers, do vouchers. Don’t take away this policy tool that has the potential to drive improvement from the rest of the public schools.” — Mary Batiwalla, former assistant commissioner, Tennessee Department of Education

The department has heard calls to include social studies and science scores in the calculation, as well as data related to third-grade reading, participation in tutoring programs, and postsecondary indicators like dual enrollment and career and technical education offerings, just to name a few. There’s also a growing consensus around ditching student absenteeism data, which is a factor in the current equation.

But most educators have their eye on the growth vs. proficiency debate. They worry that greater emphasis on proficiency will motivate schools to focus on improving “bubble kids” — those scoring just under proficiency — instead of working to improve students at all levels of achievement.

“You’re incentivizing bad choices that serve just a few kids instead of all kids,” Winstead said.

Winstead’s suburban school system should be fine. Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville, is one of the state’s highest-achieving districts and stands to benefit if Tennessee’s revamped grading formula puts more weight on proficiency. But Winstead philosophically disagrees with the approach that the state appears to be taking.

“This is going to demoralize a lot of school communities,” he said, “teachers, kids, and parents — folks who have done incredible things to move kids forward.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

On Philly trip, U.S. education secretary assails vouchers like those backed by Shapiro

2023-10-16T21:29:18+00:00

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said he is “totally against” any private school voucher program, like the kind Pennsylvania’s governor publicly backed this year, until public schools receive the state dollars they are owed.

“The moment public schools are fully funded, we could have that conversation,” Cardona told Chalkbeat at a Monday event in Philadelphia about career and technical education. “Right now, I am totally against any public education dollars going to private school vouchers.”

Cardona’s comments could underscore a political risk for Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. His support for a state-backed school voucher program has boosted his national profile and fueled rumors he may be eyeing higher office. Yet that position also leaves Shapiro out of step with much of the Democratic Party and officials like Cardona, who has argued that vouchers are backed by those seeking to undermine public schools.

This summer, as part of a budget deal he cut with legislators, Shapiro vetoed a $100 million statewide voucher proposal he supported. But he said the so-called Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program, or PASS, is “unfinished business.”

Shapiro has said he believes something like the PASS program could work without siphoning funding away from the public school system. But critics like the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers have called vouchers a “misguided push to divert public dollars into private institutions” and “a distraction that diverts us from our collective responsibility to truly invest in public education.”

In February, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional because it creates unjustifiable disparities between low-wealth and high-wealth districts, and ordered the state General Assembly to revise it. As state attorney general, Shapiro wrote a brief in support of the plaintiffs in the funding lawsuit, and his 2022 gubernatorial campaign said he “would not sign a bill that takes funding away from public schools.”

The state’s Basic Education Funding Commission is currently conducting a series of hearings to begin the process of rewriting the formula.

If Shapiro heeds Cardona’s message, it may mean waiting to resurrect the PASS voucher program until the state reworks its school funding formula.

A spokesperson for Shapiro did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

At the event on Monday — billed as a roundtable discussion about career and technical education with district, workforce, and union leaders — Cardona also said he’s encouraged by the workforce partnerships he’s seeing in the city.

“All the stars are aligning here for an opportunity for the students here in Philadelphia that maybe didn’t exist before,” Cardona said.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are still considering whether to add $120 million in funding — along with new transparency measures — for Pennsylvania’s two statewide private school choice programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Those programs are currently funded at $340 million together.

State law prohibits the collection of information about the academic achievement of students who benefit from these programs, making it difficult to judge their impact.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Is public education dead or just redefined? Author Cara Fitzpatrick on the history of school choice.

2023-09-12T10:00:00+00:00

Journalist Cara Fitzpatrick offers a dramatic thesis in the form of the title of her new book, “The Death of Public School.”

In it, Fitzpatrick chronicles the history of school choice in America — a decades-long political effort that she says has culminated in victory for its advocates. Charter schools have grown rapidly. More states are using public money to help parents pay private school tuition. The pandemic combined with a backlash against school curriculum on race and gender have energized this effort.

Fitzpatrick is agnostic on whether this shift has been a good thing for American education, but she’s convinced that it’s a big deal.

“The war over school choice has been the fiercest of this country’s education battles because it is the most important: it is a struggle over the definition of public education,” she writes. “These thorny questions — about what type of education the government should pay for, whose values are reflected in schooling, and what these issues mean for society and democracy — have been waged since the country’s birth.”

Chalkbeat recently spoke with Fitzpatrick, who as a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times won the Pulitzer Prize for documenting the resegregation of schools in Pinellas County, Florida. Currently, Fitzpatrick is a story editor here at Chalkbeat (and a valued colleague of this reporter). She did not play a role in selecting questions for this interview or editing it.

Chalkbeat asked Fitzpatrick about the early history of school vouchers that started with resistance to desegregation; the more progressive arguments for school choice; choice advocates’ recent focus on culture war issues; and how the title of her book could be true when most students still attend a public school.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Journalist Cara Fitzpatrick, author of “The Death of Public School”

Tell me why you wrote a book about the history of school choice. What interested you in this topic?

I was a reporter in Florida, and I had written a lot about segregation. As part of that, I spent some time following families around who were leaving these segregated, low-income public schools. In Florida, there’s a lot of choice options, so I often encountered families who were moving to a charter school, or they were going to a private school with a voucher, or maybe they were going to a magnet public school. One of the questions that I had was essentially: Were they finding better choices?

Let’s start with the early parts of this history, where you start the book. Can you talk about the role that school choice played in resistance to desegregation starting in the ’50s?

In the few years before Brown v. Board of Education, and then after Brown, there was an effort by segregationists in the South to get around desegregation by using a variety of mechanisms, including school vouchers. It varied in states, but it was basically an effort to abandon the public schools and use state support to prop up entirely white private schools. But it was ultimately unsuccessful, because the courts were united in striking down every attempt that was made, including the voucher programs.

Some school choice critics still use this history to attack the concept of school choice, especially private school choice. Do you think that’s fair?

I don’t know that it’s a reasonable critique of what’s going on now. What I ended up finding, and thought was compelling, was that at the same time that segregationists were using school vouchers to try to exclude Black children from receiving a fair education, there were other voices in there who were viewing school vouchers in a very different way.

Economist Milton Friedman gets credited as the father of school vouchers. He was looking at it as an economic tool. Virgil Blum was a priest in Milwaukee who was interested in vouchers for religious liberty, because he thought that it was discrimination against religious families who had to pay taxes for a public school system and then also pay tuition for private religious education.

It was really striking even in the years that the courts were striking down school voucher programs in the South, progressive voices were also raising this issue of school vouchers as a tool of empowerment. Kenneth Clark, who was involved in Brown v. Board, was one who raised that idea.

So I think understanding that is crucial for having a good sense of whether or not that’s really a fair charge to make against contemporary advocates for school choice.

Can you elaborate on why Kenneth Clark, who was a Black psychologist who testified in Brown v. Board and was cited by the Supreme Court, was interested in school choice and school vouchers?

He was disappointed in the years following Brown with how integrated school systems were working out, not just in the South, but in the North, where many school systems were just as segregated. He was looking for different ways to improve education for Black students. It wasn’t just vouchers. He also made some recommendations that sound a lot like what charter schools are today, which I thought was really interesting to see that far back.

What happened to the idea of private school choice in the decades after desegregation?

So the court struck down the school voucher programs in the South, and then it’s kind of just in the realm of theory for a while — it’s people basically debating it.

Milton Friedman keeps alive his economic argument, which was for every kid regardless of income to have a voucher. Harvard professor Christopher Jenks has an idea of targeted vouchers for low-income children, as a tool of empowerment. There’s a small, sort of failed effort by the federal government in California to try out vouchers.

There was a pretty solid push from a number of quarters in the ’60s and ’70s to provide some kind of government aid to religious schools, especially Catholic schools, because they were struggling during that time period. That didn’t end up going anywhere meaningful.

In the ’80s, President Reagan was an advocate for vouchers. That also didn’t really go anywhere. Then the first modern school voucher program happens in Milwaukee in 1990. That’s when you start to see the beginning of this latest era.

Your book has many characters, but to me if there was a main character, it was Polly Williams. Can you describe her and her role in the school choice movement?

Polly Williams was a Black Democratic legislator in Wisconsin. She was kind of a contrarian. Probably the best explanation for her would be that she was a Black nationalist. She was very interested in education in Milwaukee, and she was very concerned that Black students were not being well served by the Milwaukee school district. She tried legislatively to do a number of different proposals to help Black students in Milwaukee. She was shot down at just about every turn, and so became kind of frustrated with Democrats, with her own party, and willing to look at alternatives.

That’s when she and Tommy Thompson, who was a white Republican governor at the time, became allies on the issue, and were able to successfully push through a small experimental voucher program in Milwaukee.

Walk me through Polly Williams’ evolution on her thinking about school choice.

Polly Williams had a very particular view about vouchers — this progressive model very much for low-income children, Black and Latino children, very much as a form of empowerment. She viewed it as being somewhat small and experimental and intended for a particular group of kids.

She became disillusioned with some of her conservative allies who had different ideas about what choice should be like and who it should be for. She was concerned when religious schools were allowed to participate in the program, because religious schools had more white students. She feared that a program that was largely for Black students might also change to be more of a benefit for white religious families and especially ones who could already afford to pay tuition.

Do you see Polly Williams’ vision for school choice as the opposite of white Southern sector segregationists’, or was it the other side of the same coin?

She viewed it as something that was meant to aid children who were the least well served by the school system, which is different than saying we want all white kids to be separate from all Black kids. That’s not what she was about.

She was, however, very unapologetic about being focused on helping her race, and what she viewed as her people. As a Black nationalist, she thought that integration policies were harming Black kids. She thought that it was taking power out of Black neighborhoods when you had kids bused all over.

Can you talk about when charter schools entered the equation, and why they have been, at least until recently, more politically successful than private school vouchers?

In the ’90s, those ideas were kind of coming up at the same time. Milwaukee’s voucher program passed in 1990, and the first charter school law was in Minnesota in 1991.

I think one of the reasons that charter schools took off was because they were meant to be public schools. It was appealing because it was an alternative to school vouchers, and so it gave Democrats something that they could hold up to say: We are for choice, but we’re for choice within the public school system. Republicans also backed charter schools as maybe not as great as school vouchers would be, but something they also could get behind. So charter schools enjoyed bipartisan support for a long, long time, and that helped the ideas spread all over the place.

It actually seems like the charter school movement was detrimental to the private school choice movement by sucking up some of the political oxygen.

I think that’s mostly right. I think charter schools were just an easier thing to support in some ways, and because there were fewer legal questions, I think that helped propel them.

But in some ways, charter schools are more far-reaching, creating totally new schools, and have been much more disruptive to the traditional public school system than private school choice.

I think that’s true for a period of time — we’ll see how this current wave of choice legislation plays out. But you see that especially in urban areas, and people grappling with what does this mean for the public school system, if suddenly 20%, 30%, 40% of kids are going to charter schools. But it varies so much, because you do have states where they pass a charter school law, but then the law itself was so restrictive that you didn’t have the same explosion of charter schools.

Can you describe how the school choice movement has changed since the start of the pandemic, and why it has been so successful in getting a string of far-reaching private school choice programs passed?

The pandemic gave Republicans a moment politically where there are discussions happening about education. There are parents who maybe are exploring other options for their kids or did for a period of time during the pandemic. It gave Republicans room to seek expansions and pass new programs.

There’s also an argumentative shift happening during the pandemic where we saw advocates go from talking about school choice as a civil rights issue to embracing school vouchers for everyone. This idea that it’s really about parental freedom and about values has taken off. And Republicans are going on the attack against public schools and embracing this idea of using the culture war to win policies for choice.

The cover of Cara Fitzpatrick’s book, “The Death of Public School.”

Let’s talk about your title: “The Death of Public School.” How can public school be dead if the vast majority of students still attend a traditional public school?

I liked that title because I was thinking about, what is this ultimately about? What is the argument that people are having? And why is it such a heated argument? I was thinking about: Can these things coexist? Can you have a robust traditional public school system, and also have state dollars going to private education, especially in greater and greater numbers?

Ultimately, it’s about what happens to the public school system and whether or not it thrives or is diminished in some way by these programs. I felt like the current moment in time was pointing in not a great direction for the public school system.

I also had kind of a wonkier question in mind, which was: What is a public school ultimately? I tried to trace that idea in the book. Republicans really were pushing for a definition of public education that is quite different than the traditional one. Republican governors say right now that any education paid for with tax dollars is public education.

One response to the title would be that the empirical research doesn’t support the idea that the expansion of private school choice kills or even harms public schools.

I don’t know if we know what the effects of this current wave of private school choice are going to be when you’re talking about having every student in a state be eligible, including kids whose families were already paying for private education. We’re seeing numbers of participants balloon in places like Arizona, and the cost projections are so much higher than what they had initially talked about in those places. With the universal programs there’s just a lot that we don’t know about how that’s going to shape up.

Do you think the triumph of school choice has been a good thing for American education?

It’s not for me to say if it’s been a good thing for American education. I very deliberately do not take a viewpoint in the book, partially because I think school choice is a fairly complicated and nuanced thing, which is part of what attracted me to writing about it in the first place.

I had some driving questions in the introduction about what does this mean for community, and what does this mean for democracy, and what does this ultimately mean for the public school system. I very deliberately do not answer, because I think those questions are for the reader to think about by the end of the book.

Matt Barnum is interim national editor, overseeing and contributing to Chalkbeat’s coverage of national education issues. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania budget inches forward, but lawmakers still split on stalled education funding

2023-09-01T18:57:56+00:00

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HARRISBURG — Lawmakers have moved a step closer to finalizing the state budget and freeing up at least some of the stalled $1.1 billion in spending for everything from hospitals to public defense to home repairs, but the Pennsylvania House and Senate remain stubbornly at odds over education and other key costs.

While Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the commonwealth’s budget in early August, the legislation that directs that spending — known as code bills — has remained unfinished after talks deteriorated over a school voucher program that Republicans considered a priority.

On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled state Senate reconvened in Harrisburg for a day to pass some — but not all — of that missing language. These measures will still have to pass the Democratic-controlled state House, and leaders in the lower chamber have indicated they won’t do so without at least some changes.

The first of two bills was designed to include primarily “the uncontroversial things we all agree on,” as state Senate Leader Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) said on the chamber floor. It wasn’t without controversy, though — Democratic lawmakers criticized that the bill didn’t address the bulk of the stalled spending.

It would release funding for three programs, including increased reimbursements for first responders, which EMS providers argue is a bare-minimum requirement in an underfunded industry.

The bill also includes codes for regular allocations to hospitals and for judicial fees that courts rely on, and for which state authorization had expired at the end of July.

It also formalizes approval of a suite of other programs that had already been moving ahead with their budget spending, and for which the state budget secretary had not said new codes were necessary. These include funding for community colleges, aid to public libraries, and reimbursements for schools to provide universal free breakfast.

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) said that after speaking to his caucus he decided to vote against the bill because it does not fund programs that Democrats consider priorities, like the popular Whole-Home Repairs Program and a stipend for student teachers. Earlier that day, state Senate Democrats tried to amend the bill to add funding for those programs but the amendments were tabled.

“More work needs to be done on the other side of the aisle,” Costa said on the state Senate floor. The bill passed 29-18, with state Sen. Lisa Boscola (D-Lehigh) crossing party lines to vote with Republicans.

The more controversial bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate on Wednesday included Republicans’ more partisan priorities, such as a reintroduction of the school voucher program that Shapiro already axed from the main budget — and which state House Democrats have summarily rejected.

It also includes additional funding for the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, a tax break that businesses can receive in exchange for funding private school scholarships. It passed, 29-19 in a party-line vote.

Not included in either bill was code language for five programs Democrats have championed. Along with home repair and student-teacher stipends, these include funding for the commonwealth’s roughly 100 poorest school districts, allocation of new federal money for school mental health services, and Pennsylvania’s first-ever state funding for public defense.

An email obtained by Spotlight PA that was sent from state House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery) to state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) on Monday indicated that the divide between the chambers still runs deep.

In the email, Bradford noted that the two parties had, as of Monday, exchanged no code language, and wrote that Pittman was “needlessly extending this and by creating an intentionally bifurcated structure.”

Bradford recommended instead that “the most constructive use of time would be to pass what’s absolutely necessary,” pointing to components the state Senate ended up including in their first code package, like extending the expiration dates on judicial fees and reauthorizing the hospital spending.

In a statement after the Senate’s Wednesday session, House Democratic leaders wrote that a fiscal code “is not an opportunity to renegotiate the budget.”

“Since House Democrats passed the Senate’s budget in July, we have repeatedly tried to work to arrive at an agreement,” they said. “Unfortunately, the Senate Republicans’ actions today do not advance the conversation toward finalizing the state’s budget in its entirety.”

A spokesperson for Shapiro said that today’s votes indicated that “conversations have not yet happened.” The statement added that, “legislative leaders have more work to do to stop talking past each other and instead find common ground on the unfinished business before them.”

In a statement released by her office following the upper chamber’s floor vote, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward pinned the ongoing conflicts on Democrats.

“The Senate has done their best to give Gov. Shapiro and his counterparts in the House the necessary time to work through their party challenges, but the time has come that we must move beyond the broken deals and words and complete our work to ensure the fiscal solvency of our state,” Ward said, adding that House members should return quickly to complete the code process, even if they prefer to “provide a counteroffer to what has been passed.”

In the state Senate’s Wednesday session, lawmakers also advanced a bipartisan bill that would move up the date of Pennsylvania’s 2024 general election primary, which is currently scheduled for April 23, during Passover. That change is considered time-sensitive, and is broadly supported by Democrats and Republicans in both chambers — though they differ on precisely which date the primary should fall on.

As of Wednesday, the House is still scheduled to come back to order in late September. But a spokesperson for Bradford said they “are not foreclosing on the possibility that we may return sooner if an agreement is reached.”

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Tennessee picks vendor with no voucher experience to manage its education savings accounts

2023-08-10T10:00:00+00:00

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After failing to reach contract terms with its first choice to run its growing private school voucher program, Tennessee has turned to a young Indiana company with a small staff, modest cash flow, and no state-level experience managing education savings accounts.

The state education department signed a $3.675 million, five-year contract in May with Student First Technologies to help run the voucher program, bypassing Florida-based ClassWallet, whose proposal ranked first in the state’s bidding process.

Officials for the state and its new vendor say they’re on track to take all of their new electronic platforms live by January to automate the application and payment processes for education savings accounts. The voucher-like program lets eligible families receive taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

But Tennessee’s selection of 6-year-old Student First Technologies has raised eyebrows within the industry. The company faces a tight timeline to stand up new systems that need to work well enough to build public trust in the controversial program, which launched last fall in Shelby and Davidson counties and expands to Hamilton County this school year.

Gov. Bill Lee, who spent considerable political capital convincing the legislature to approve a voucher program, has a big stake in a smooth rollout. It’s no secret the Republican governor wants to expand voucher eligibility beyond Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga.

“Gov. Lee doesn’t need any more controversy or negative headlines about education savings accounts if he wants to grow this beyond a few urban counties,” said Kent Syler, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

Help wanted: New technology to support growing voucher programs

In January, Tennessee invited companies to submit proposals to manage its education savings accounts, as well as its individualized education account program for students with autism, developmental delays, and other disabilities.

Both programs have been overseen so far by a small team of employees at the state education department who review applications, confirm enrollment with private schools, pre-approve funds, and then disburse and monitor those funds.

“There’s a lot of work that we do by hand,” said Nate Parker, who was the state’s school choice administrator, during a presentation last October to the State Board of Education.

But the number of voucher users is projected to grow significantly beyond last school year’s enrollment of about 700 students with ESAs and 338 students in the IEA program. As of Aug. 4, the number of ESA participants enrolled in participating private schools for 2023-24 had more than doubled.

Shifting the management of both programs to automated platforms will be “transformational” in terms of efficiency and growth, Parker said.

Tennessee bypasses the market leader

Chalkbeat reviewed hundreds of pages of documents from the bidding process, obtained through a public records request from the Tennessee Department of General Services, which oversaw the process.

ClassWallet eclipsed four other bidders in the state’s evaluation this March of all technical and cost proposals to run the program, as well as each company’s level of experience. It’s the market leader and currently manages ESA programs in five states: Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and North Carolina.

On a 100-point scale, ClassWallet scored more than 20 points higher than Student First. Also submitting proposals were Merit International, Odyssey, and LiftForward Inc.

ClassWallet is no stranger to Tennessee, having landed the state’s initial two-year contract to manage its voucher platforms in 2020 under a controversial no-bid process. But just months before the program was to launch, the work ground to a halt due to a legal challenge to the state’s 2019 voucher law.

Once a 2022 court order allowed the program to proceed, ClassWallet was eager to work with Tennessee again. In its latest proposal, the company trumpeted nearly a decade of experience providing education-related online platforms, a staff of hundreds of employees, significant financial capital, and the ability to activate new platforms quickly. On average, it’s taken ClassWallet 48 days to get state-level voucher programs up and running once the work begins, the company said.

But negotiations between ClassWallet and the state broke down within weeks of the state announcing its first choice.

State officials declined to give specifics about what happened, as did Jamie Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of ClassWallet.

“While ClassWallet remains disappointed by the outcome, ClassWallet respects the decision made by the Tennessee Department of Education,” Rosenberg said in a statement.

Gov. Bill Lee answers questions about the restart of Tennessee’s education savings account program during a meeting on July 20, 2022, with Memphis-area private school leaders gathered at St. Benedict at Auburndale High School, a Catholic school in Cordova, near Memphis.

ClassWallet’s exit opened the door for a new player

Student First Technologies officially launched in 2017 to develop technology platforms for the growing number of publicly funded school choice programs.

According to the bios of the firm’s co-founders, Chief Executive Officer Mark Duran and Chief Technology Officer Forrest Fowler came from “alternative education backgrounds” that included homeschooling and learning pods, as well a mix of public and private school experiences.

Their company’s first focus: scholarship tax credits, which allow taxpayers to get full or partial tax credits when they donate to nonprofit groups giving private school scholarships to students.

Within two years, the company’s portfolio grew from two to 15 states and programs distributing over $100 million annually in family-directed education support. Then in 2019, Student First shifted its focus to education savings accounts and microgrants, and created a new online platform — dubbed Theodore — to manage them and its scholarship tax credit work.

Among the company’s biggest technology contracts is for Indiana Learns, a $20 million microgrant program providing after-school tutoring to help students in that state catch up from learning lag caused by the pandemic.

Tennessee’s program is the company’s first full-fledged entry into the education savings account arena.

“It’s a great addition to our portfolio of programs that are helping students access education opportunities,” CEO Duran said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

Student First’s platform can adapt to any type of education funding program, Duran said, adding that the company’s microgrant work is relatively similar to ESA management.

“So we’re very confident,” Duran said. “While this might be our first statewide contract for a state-administered ESA, the technical capabilities are similar.”

But concerns about the state’s choice linger based on the company’s technical proposal, which showed a total income of just over $230,000 and net income of nearly $69,000 between Dec. 1, 2022, and Feb. 28, 2023. Beyond its two founders, the proposal identified three full-time employees, as well as nine others doing freelance, consulting, or part-time work — with an eye on expansion.

“We have made offers to highly qualified professionals who have committed to joining the team upon award of this RFP,” the proposal said.

ClassWallet’s proposal, by contrast, reported that it had 244 employees, and that FACTS Management, a subcontractor, employs another 360.

Asked whether Student First has the staff, expertise, and financing to complete its tasks for Tennessee, a state spokesperson said the state’s evaluation of the company’s proposal “confirmed that the vendor meets the requirements and is able and willing to provide the services as outlined in the contract.”

And Lizzette Reynolds, Tennessee’s new education commissioner, called Student First a “great choice” based on her previous policy work at ExcelinEd, a pro-voucher advocacy group that keeps abreast of the vendor pool.

Last week, Duran said his firm has added full-time staff and continues to look for qualified developers, product managers, project managers, and other employees.

“As currently staffed, our team is very well equipped to take care of Tennessee,” he said. “But as a growing company, we’re also keeping an eye out for other people who might be a good addition.”

Duran added that the company’s organizational structure allows it to respond quickly to technical questions and any issues that may surface with Tennessee’s platforms.

“We are the only organization that has a co-founder as chief technology officer leading a U.S.-based technology development team,” he said. “This ensures that our product development and data security remain top quality.”

Vendor has a long list of deadlines to meet

Student First’s platform for Tennessee will go live in stages over the next six months, starting this month with the portal used by 75 state-approved private schools participating in the program in and around Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga.

Training for private school leaders began this week, while training for families with ESA accounts is to begin Sept. 1. The family portal to manage payments is scheduled to go live on Sept. 8 for students already approved to participate this school year. Providers of outside-of-school services such as tutoring and therapy are set to join the platform in mid-November. And the portal for families to apply to participate in the voucher program in 2024-25 is scheduled to open by Jan. 15.

Students at St. George’s Independent School say the Pledge of Allegiance before the start of a chapel service in the Collierville school’s gym in 2016. St. George’s is among 33 private schools in the Memphis area approved by the state to accept education savings accounts during the 2023-24 school year.

The state’s focus, according to a statement from the education department, has been to ensure that school administrators feel confident about their platform before parents access and make payments within the system.

“Everything is on schedule,” Duran added.

As for customer relations, the contract requires Student First to handle any technology issues — from system glitches to password resets — while staff at the education department handles questions about the program. Asked how many people are on that team, a department spokesperson responded only that “all members of the ESA team are responsible for ESA oversight.”

Passing ESA laws is hard. Implementation is harder.

Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat who opposes vouchers, is not surprised that the state chose a novice vendor to run ESAs.

The entire initiative, he said, is “misguided” and erodes support and funding for public education. Oversight and accountability over student learning via state-funded ESAs are also problematic, he said, as is the potential for discrimination against students who are too troublesome or expensive to teach, or who have beliefs that conflict with the beliefs of participating private schools.

“I don’t think the goal here is to improve student outcomes, and I don’t think this governor’s administration is particularly concerned about how well the program is executed,” said Clemmons, who chairs his party’s caucus in the House. “This whole endeavor is clearly designed to steer public money to private hands.”

Robert Enlow is the president and CEO of EdChoice, which supports programs like Tennessee’s that offer taxpayer-funded choices beyond traditional public schools. He says ESAs are already becoming entrenched in the nation’s K-12 landscape. For instance, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia now offer ESAs for most or all of their families.

Nineteen states are expanding their school choice programs in 2023, according to a national campaign to promote awareness about education options.

But Enlow cautions that “the devil is in the details.” There must be transparency, clarity, competence, and communication about payment options and processes, the appropriate use of ESA funds, and timely disbursements to private schools and other vendors offering private services.

“Passing strong ESA laws is hard, but implementing these programs with excellence is harder,” Enlow said. “The details of implementation have to be done well.”

Early reports of fraud in Arizona’s voucher program or delayed IEA payments in Tennessee haven’t helped to build trust with either the public or providers. And the logistics of managing ESAs can be daunting, including determining which educational expenses are allowable, as states put purchasing power directly in the hands of families.

At the same time, Enlow points out that the vendor pool for automating ESA services is young compared with, say, companies that manage third-party payments for large government programs such as Medicaid.

“It’s pretty early, which is another reason why we should be patient,” Enlow said. “These things do take time.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s new education chief says implementing policy is her strength and the governor’s priority

2023-07-24T10:00:00+00:00

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.

She feels prepared for that role, having overseen state-level education policy work in Texas for nearly a decade, including six years as its No. 2 administrator. She also has years of policy and political experience at the federal level, and most recently led policy work for the advocacy group ExcelinEd, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“Implementation is kind of my sweet spot,” Reynolds said. “When I was chief deputy commissioner in Texas, that’s what I did.”

Among her priorities in Tennessee: executing new programs to develop stronger readers; troubleshooting the switch to a new K-12 funding formula as of July 1; strengthening school models to prepare students for success after high school; and operating and expanding Lee’s controversial voucher program that gives taxpayer money to eligible students to attend private schools.

Meanwhile, much of the work to roll out a comprehensive new school safety package, approved this spring after a mass school shooting in Nashville, has shifted under a new law to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Since her official start on July 1, Reynolds’ schedule has been packed with meetings with staff, lawmakers, government officials, and education stakeholders.

Among the latter is JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee, who described Reynolds as “straightforward and direct.”

“She made it clear that she is here to serve students and educators in Tennessee. … I think she will do well here if she will stay above the political fray,” said Bowman, who was a frequent critic of Reynolds’ predecessor, Penny Schwinn.

This week, the new commissioner travels to Memphis, home to the state’s largest school district, for introductions with local officials and community leaders.

Last week, in her first media interview since Lee announced her hiring in May, Reynolds sat down with Chalkbeat to talk about her background, priorities, and leadership style. Since she’s on a learning curve in a new state, questions about policy specifics were off the table.

But she was open about her own K-12 experiences as a public school kid growing up in Harlingen, Texas, a heavily Hispanic community in the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border.

She described how, as a Hispanic American and a female, she experienced discrimination. As a first-generation college graduate and the oldest of four children of working-class parents, she benefited from scholarships and financial aid. And, as a parent of three children, one of whom was diagnosed with a disability in elementary school, she tapped both public and private schools to find the best fit for her family.

Reynolds said she jumped at the chance to join the administration of Lee, a Republican businessman who pushed for sweeping changes to education in his first term and was easily reelected last year.

“Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better,” she said. “I want to be part of that story.”

Below are highlights of Chalkbeat’s interview, which has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Getting to know you on a personal level, describe your own education experience. Did you go to public schools? Private schools? How did they shape you?

My only early experience in a private school was attending a Catholic school in pre-K. From kindergarten through 12th grade, I went to public schools in Harlingen.

From an early age, my mom drilled into me that “you got to go to college.” So I was always in a competition to be at the top of my class. I was going to be an astronaut, by God!

“I was going to be an astronaut, by God!”

I loved math but, when I took trigonometry in high school and it wasn’t connecting, my teacher was like, “You know, you’re a girl. You really don’t need to be doing this. You probably should just drop my class.” So I did.

I was shy and I couldn’t wait to get out of Harlingen. I was blessed with a great school counselor. When I told her I wanted to go to college, she said, “OK, here’s what you need to do.”

I got a merit scholarship to attend Southwestern University, where people in the financial aid office became my best friends and I was able to cover tuition increases through a combination of work-study and Pell grants. By then, I wanted to become an accountant. But after taking a political science class with a truly dynamic professor, I changed my mind. I wanted to save the world.

Your selection was announced by the governor’s office on the same day that Schwinn’s impending departure was announced. How did you come to this job?

A lot of the work I did for the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) was not only to advocate for its policy agenda but to work across the country with other advocates and supporters and philanthropy. I was on the proverbial “list” of people across the country who might be interested in being a state-level deputy or chief. And I’ve paid my dues. I had thought maybe I might lead the Texas Education Agency someday. But I wasn’t actively looking. I’d been at ExcelinEd almost seven years and loved my job.

This spring, the governor’s office here called and wanted to talk about Tennessee’s chief position and I said, ‘Of course I’ll talk.’ What a great opportunity to meet Gov. Lee, who had a great relationship with Gov. Bush. (During the week of April 11) I came to Nashville and met with (Chief Operating Officer) Brandon Gibson and then interviewed with the governor the next day.

“Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better.”

When I walked into his office, everybody was so awesome. Gov. Lee looked at me and said, “Why do you want to be commissioner of education in Tennessee?” I basically said, “Who wouldn’t want to be commissioner here?” Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better. It’s still strong in accountability and assessment. There’s great work passed in this administration and previous administrations. And then, just the fact that the governor really cares about education, that it’s a priority.

Tennessee is just a good place to be. I want to be part of that story and the continued success of this state with kids. At this agency, we don’t touch kids every day, but we help influence what happens in the classroom because of the supports and resources that we provide.

When I walked out of the governor’s office, I said to myself, ‘I want to work for that man and I’m going to be really disappointed if I don’t get the offer.’

About a week and a half later, I got the offer.

What did you and Gov. Lee talk about in your interview? Why do you think he picked you?

Bottom line, this job was going to be about implementation and execution of the agenda passed through the legislature and through his leadership and (Penny Schwinn’s) leadership at the agency. A lot has already been done. Now the hard work is the implementation piece and that is kind of my sweet spot.

“Tennessee is where reform really percolated and expanded and continues to live.”

When I was chief deputy commissioner in Texas, that’s what I did: Making sure resources are there, thinking about the right resources, bringing folks in to support those implementation efforts — all the pieces of the puzzle that need to come together to ensure that kids and educators get what they need to be successful.

But sometimes implementation also requires you to say no to some things or to certain vendors.

Because of your policy work with ExcelinEd, with its focus on school choice and privatization, many stakeholders think your selection suggests that voucher expansion and advancing choice programs are Job One for you under this administration. How would you respond?

First of all, it’s not about privatization. Our No. 1 priority at ExcelinEd was to improve the system because we know that about 90% of our kids are in a public school system. Second priority is the options outside the system, which includes ESAs (education savings accounts, a kind of private school voucher), charter schools, open enrollment, public school choice, letting parents go where they want to go in the public school system. Third priority is reimagining the system, so really thinking about what other ways we can develop these comprehensive high schools. That’s how we think at ExcelinEd, and that’s why I think I was a good candidate for this job.

Yes, ESAs are part of the package, but it’s not the only package. There is no silver bullet when it comes to education. ESAs are great, but they’re not for everybody. It all depends on the parents and the families and what they want to do and what options they want to pursue.

It wasn’t that long ago that a Tennessee governor wouldn’t think of choosing an education commissioner who didn’t have teaching experience. But you don’t, nor do you have a teaching license. How will you have “street cred” with educators here, given that your background is primarily in policy and politics?

As a parent of public school kids, I’m as close to the classroom as you’re going to get because I’m a consumer of the public school system. To say that my experience is irrelevant, I don’t think it’s very fair. But in that vein, I also want to listen and learn. Earlier today, for instance, I met with folks at the Tennessee Education Association (the state’s largest teacher group).

I’ve got to come at it with empathy and support. Have I done their job every day? No, I haven’t. But we’re all in this together. I’m going to listen. I’m going to engage and implement in a way that is fair and where the decision-making is transparent.

The department has had a number of significant departures in recent months, including Chief Academic Officer Lisa Coons and Deputy Commissioner Eve Carney, who was a veteran manager responsible for many of the state’s biggest education programs and initiatives. How are you building out your cabinet and filling out gaps in leadership? Will you look inside or outside of the state?

I’m looking for the best qualified folks, but my preference is to find people in Tennessee. We just hired Kristy Brown from Jackson as our chief academic officer. We need to fill the role of chief program officer, and I’d love to find a Tennessean for that. I don’t feel the need to look outside of the state because I think there’s a lot of qualified people here. Tennessee is where reform really percolated and expanded and continues to live.

Have you and your family officially moved from Texas to Tennessee, or do you plan to?

I’m here and I’m moving soon into a place in East Nashville. My husband is staying in Austin with our youngest son, who’s a rising junior, until he finishes high school. Our son wants to look at colleges here, so I’m super excited.

I don’t know if I’ll go back to Austin to live. We’ll see.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania Democrats, Shapiro cut budget deal without school voucher program

2023-07-06T01:48:04+00:00

A push by Pennsylvania Republicans and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro for a state-funded voucher program appears to be dead for now, after Shapiro said the program will not be enacted as part of the state budget.

In a statement Wednesday, the governor said he did not want to further hold up the already overdue budget. Last week, the Democratic-controlled House Rules Committee knocked down legislation that would have set up a $100 million so-called Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program.

As part of a deal with the House, which has a one-vote Democratic majority, lawmakers in that body passed the $45.5 billion budget bill with the voucher language included. Shapiro has promised to line-item veto the appropriation when it comes to his desk. Late Wednesday evening, the House voted 117 to 86 to send the bill to Shapiro.

“Without enabling legislation setting up this program, my Administration legally cannot implement it,” Shapiro said in his statement. “Knowing that the two chambers will not reach consensus at this time to enact PASS, and unwilling to hold up our entire budget process over this issue, I will line-item veto the full $100 million appropriation and it will not be part of this budget bill.”

Though the proposed voucher program will not be enacted as part of the state budget, Shapiro signaled similar proposals will continue to be brought up in the coming months as he has made clear he supports the idea of a state-backed, school-choice program.

“While I am disappointed the two parties could not come together, [House Majority] Leader [Matthew] Bradford has given me his word … that he will carefully examine and consider additional education options including PASS, Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC), and Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) as we work to address our public education needs in light of the Commonwealth Court’s recent education ruling,” Shapiro wrote in a statement.

In February, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional and ordered the General Assembly to bring it into compliance. While including some significant increases, this budget does not fundamentally overhaul the Commonwealth’s approach to education spending to provide adequate funding to all districts and make it more equitable.

Asked about vouchers, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement that his hope is that lawmakers will focus on adequately and equitably funding education so that Philadelphia students have the necessary resources to get “the education they deserve and need.”

The voucher program — negotiated between Shapiro and Senate Republicans — quickly became a sticking point in budget discussions. In a budget it passed on June 30, the GOP-controlled Senate revised an earlier voucher plan to make it more palatable to holdouts by adding household income limits and reporting requirements for private schools. It also got a new name: PASS, rather than the previously proposed “Lifeline Scholarship Program.”

As written, the majority of Philadelphia School District students would have been eligible under both the PASS or Lifeline versions of the voucher program. Critics said either version has the potential to upend the city’s public school system.

Philadelphia Board of Education President Reginald Streater told Chalkbeat in a text Wednesday that “vouchers are a red herring and will not address the needs of the families who depend the most on public education.” He said the voucher proposal “feels like a dereliction of duty,” and that fully funding education would solve many of the district’s challenges.

“We are on the cusp of an educational renaissance,” Streater said. “The last thing Philadelphia needs is any legislation that adversely impacts a scintilla of funding, resources and attention that would have any unintended or intended effect of kneecapping Philadelphia’s collective efforts and momentum to provide our city with the public education system our students deserve.”

Meanwhile, proponents of the voucher program, including the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, said it could have been one of “the biggest, most impactful, positive change[s] in education in three decades.”

Ultimately, Democrats in the House stood firmly opposed to any state-backed voucher program, blocking the budget bill late on Friday and killing the separate Lifeline Scholarship voucher bill in the House Rules Committee.

“This is an embarrassing setback for Governor Shapiro on his first budget and at the hands of his own party,” Erik Telford, a spokesperson for the Foundation, said in an email. “Shapiro would rather cave to Matt Bradford than stand firm behind his pledge to support the kids trapped in failing schools, despite having reached a bipartisan agreement with support in the House and the Senate.”

Pennsylvania’s other school choice programs

Pennsylvania already has two programs that promote school choice: the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Both give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students.

Those programs are notoriously opaque as state law prohibits the collection of information on academic achievement of EITC voucher students in particular. Although touted as a boon for low-income families, EITC has broad eligibility requirements — up to 500% of the poverty line. Families with three children and earning up to $168,000 a year can qualify.

OSTC, a much smaller program, is targeted more narrowly to families living in the attendance boundaries of the 15% of lowest-achieving schools in the state. Philadelphia has 139 such schools, which represents 36% of the 382 in the state, the largest number by far among the 500 districts in the Commonwealth. Both programs have steadily increased in cost over time; today, they are collectively funded at $340 million.

Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters PA, which opposes all voucher programs, said in an interview the PASS program’s ambiguous language could open the door to double or triple-dipping, allowing families to obtain funding from multiple school-choice programs at once.

Critics of both iterations of the voucher program also said it didn’t include enough protections against discrimination. Voucher programs in some states have been criticized for sending state money to private schools that discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers.

“The goal of legislation like this … is to push vulnerable students and families into private and religious schools where they check their constitutional rights at the door,” Democratic Sen. Lindsey Williams said on the Senate floor before casting her no vote on June 30.

“Private schools can and do discriminate against disabled kids. Private schools can and do refuse to admit LGBTQ+ students. Private schools can and do refuse to accept kids because they are poor or struggling academically,” Williams said.

Supporters tout vouchers as lifelines for students trapped in failing public schools. Many education activists reject that idea.

Philadelphia and other districts like Reading and Norristown with high numbers of students in poverty aren’t failing, said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, an advocacy group that opposed the voucher program.

Rather, she said, “the state legislature is failing them by not funding schools sufficiently.”

Not all Philadelphia-area Democrats opposed the idea of vouchers, however. Democratic Sen. Anthony Williams, who represents parts of Philadelphia county, voted in favor of the budget with the voucher program included, saying parents in Philadelphia cannot wait for the public school system to improve or for the legislature to develop a new funding formula that meets constitutional muster.

The Shapiro-backed PASS voucher program would have cost $103.7 million but was contingent on a commitment that vouchers would be part of a full budget agreement. That pact would have to include historic education spending and fund priorities such as student mental health, special education, universal free breakfast, and “sustained funding for necessary and urgent environmental repairs in Pennsylvania schools,” said Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s press secretary, in a text message Thursday night.

That historic increase never materialized. While the House added hundreds of millions in education spending to Shapiro’s proposed budget, the Republican-led Senate scaled back the total.

For instance, it eliminated $100 million Shapiro had proposed for school building repair — a desperate need in Philadelphia where several schools have closed due to asbestos — and increased special education by less than Shapiro wanted — $50 million instead of $143 million.

The Senate did increase so-called “Level Up” funding targeted to the 100 districts with the lowest per-pupil spending, including Philadelphia, which Shapiro’s proposed budget did not include.

Under the approved budget, basic education spending, the single largest line item, will increase by $567 million to a total of nearly $7.9 billion.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Push for Pennsylvania vouchers, backed by governor, could upend Philadelphia public schools

2023-06-27T14:04:28+00:00

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Pennsylvania’s Republican lawmakers are working to fast-track a bill to create a state private school voucher program that now has the backing of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, as alarmed critics say it could devastate Philadelphia’s public schools.

The bill creating a “Lifeline Scholarship Program” would set up spending accounts for families in areas with “low-achieving” public schools to use for tuition and fees at private schools instead. The Senate bill creating these scholarships includes language that would set up these vouchers for the 2023-24 school year.

It is unclear if lawmakers will ultimately include Lifeline Scholarships in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, or try to pass it separately; the new fiscal year begins July 1. But if enacted, the bill would have a particularly significant impact on Philadelphia by making thousands of students in the city eligible for such an account, regardless of their family’s economic background. More than 100 Philadelphia public schools meet the state’s definition of “low-achieving.”

During his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, Shapiro said he backed the concept of Lifeline Scholarships, although in a June 23 Fox News interview he stressed that he would not agree to take money away from public schools to fund it: “We’ve got to invest more in our children, not less.” Yet his support for the voucher system still stands out at a time when state private school choice programs often attract much stronger support from Republicans than Democrats.

By supporting the voucher bill, Shapiro has split from education unions in the state, including the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union that endorsed him in last year’s election. In a June 22 letter to Shapiro, the PSEA and other unions called Lifeline Scholarships “clearly irresponsible.” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan, whose union also endorsed Shapiro, also called the bill “outrageous.”

Opponents say the bill will draw students and much-needed funding away from the Philadelphia school district at a time when it is already operating on a strained budget and facing declining enrollment.

“This could have a really big impact on schools in Philadelphia, and all of the other school districts across Pennsylvania that are the lowest performing, which is also correlated with the ones who receive the least funding,” said Priyanka Reyes-Kaura, K-12 education policy director at Children First PA advocacy group. “That’s what I’m really concerned about, that the districts that desperately need public funding to better serve their students are those who are going to be hurt by this lifeline scholarship program.”

The state already oversees two private school choice programs. But school choice supporters say students who attend low-performing schools in cities like Philadelphia, where charter school seats are limited and selective admissions lotteries have major issues, need more options. And they’re betting Lifeline Scholarships are the most bipartisan way forward.

Guy Ciarrocchi, a fellow with the conservative-leaning Commonwealth Foundation, said Philadelphia could be “on the edge of the biggest, most impactful, positive change in education in three decades.”

A ‘very ambiguous’ school choice bill?

The legislation would create a Lifeline Scholarship Fund within the state Treasury to help students who attend or live within the attendance boundary of a “low achieving” school to pay tuition costs, school-related fees, and special education services fees at a participating private school.

According to Pennsylvania law, a “low-achieving school” is a traditional public school that is ranked in the lowest 15% of schools in the state, based on standardized test scores. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education show 139 of 217 district-operated schools in Philadelphia are considered “low-achieving.”

For the 2023-2024 school year, those scholarships would be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, “considering money available in the fund.” There is no price tag currently attached to the bill.

Students could receive scholarships of anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000, depending on their grade and their special education status.

Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters PA, which opposes the bill, said in an interview the bill is “very ambiguous” and could potentially apply to any student in Philadelphia, since more than half of the public schools in the city are considered “low achieving” under that state definition.

Overlapping attendance zones could mean a seven-year-old living in the attendance boundary of a low achieving high school could be considered eligible, even though they are not yet old enough to attend that school, Spicka said. But she added that the bill language doesn’t make this absolutely clear.

Spicka also raised the issue of “double dipping.” Pennsylvania has two programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit programs, that give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students. They both serve students in the bottom 15% of schools statewide.

Nathan Akers, a spokesperson for the Lifeline Scholarship bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Judy Ward, said in an email that “it is my understanding that there is no prohibition in the lifeline legislation on someone who is receiving a lifeline scholarship from also receiving scholarship money under the [Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit] program.”

However, Lifeline Scholarships would be the state’s first school choice program to use state funds, rather than private donations to scholarship-granting groups.

Opponents also say the voucher plan would fly in the face of a judge’s ruling early this year that found Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional. Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer said in February that the system treats students in low-wealth school districts unfairly, and ordered lawmakers to revamp it. Shapiro previously sided with the plaintiffs in the funding lawsuit, who said the state needs to invest billions more in schools annually.

Earlier this month, Jubelirer gave lawmakers 30 days to appeal her ruling.

Asbestos, gun violence could fuel support for vouchers

Data on the success of school choice programs in Pennsylvania has been limited and hard to parse. In recent years, studies of voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio have shown that students’ test scores did not improve, and in fact tended to decline. Another study of Washington, D.C., found that vouchers had no clear effect on test scores. Other research on outcomes later in life for students who used vouchers showed neutral or positive results.

Ciarrocchi said Philadelphia families might be growing impatient with public schools for several reasons. He cited ongoing school closures due to damaged asbestos, a gun violence epidemic that’s killed more than 20 students this academic year, and students who have been shut out of the lottery program for selective admissions schools or are on charter schools waiting lists.

“This is a chance to do something historic for the poorest of the poor in the schools that are clearly at the bottom,” Ciarrocchi said. “You look at the grades and you look at the violence and you look at the problems, that’s why they want a choice.”

But Reyes-Kaura said there’s a longer-term vision at stake. She argued the state should be focused on improving the education funding formula for all students.

“I understand why a parent who is desperate to get their child a better education might see a lifeline scholarship as something promising,” Reyes-Kaura said. “But it’s also a program that has the power to really detract from a moment where we could be rebuilding the public education system, to make it fair for everyone.”

Correction: June 27, 2023: A previous version of this story misstated a decision from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. Jubelirer’s decision gives Republican lawmakers 30 days to appeal her ruling that found Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Do school vouchers ‘work’? As the debate heats up, here’s what research really says

2023-05-31T18:38:26+00:00

Private school choice programs have exploded in the last couple years. A string of Republican-led states have launched far-reaching initiatives that allow families to use public money to access private education.

This has drawn fierce debate and raised big questions. Do vouchers raise test scores or lower them? Do they help or hurt students over the long term? Do they damage public schools or push them to improve? What will the financial impact be?

Chalkbeat combed through the academic research to get some answers.

Two caveats before we begin. First, context matters. Private school choice programs differ from place to place and have evolved. Recently passed programs have been broad based — often they’re open to all students, including those from affluent families or those who already attend private school. Prior programs were usually limited to a subset of students — say, those in low-achieving schools or those whose families are low-income. Studies have been done on some of these older programs, but not yet on the new ones. That means that prior research may be an imperfect guide for future results.

Second, the voucher debate is often about values. The recent expansion of private choice has been driven as much or more by cultural issues than questions of school performance. But research studies can’t answer philosophical questions on whether public money should go to religious schools or if providing more choices for parents is an inherent good. They can’t speak to debates about access for LGBTQ students or what type of curriculum is taught in class.

With that in mind, here’s what we know from research:

Recent studies find little evidence that school vouchers improve test scores — in fact, they’ve sometimes led to score declines. Older studies are more positive.

In the last several years, major studies in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, and Washington D.C. have shown that low-income students do not see improved test scores from attending private schools. If anything, students’ scores tended to decline. Choice advocates initially suggested that results would bounce back over time, but in three of the four cases achievement was worse in math, even after multiple years.

What are school vouchers and other forms of school choice?

A voucher provides families with a government-funded stipend to pay for private school tuition.

An education savings account, or ESA, provides families with a set amount of funds that can be used to pay for educational services outside of public schools. This includes, but is not limited to, private school tuition and home-schooling expenses.

A tax credit is a different way of administering and financing either a voucher or ESA program by providing indirect public support. Here’s how it works: The government offers individuals or businesses the choice to redirect some of the taxes they owe to a private organization, which then uses the money to fund private school tuition grants or ESAs. In practice, tax credit programs are not that different from publicly financed choice programs. The money is diverted from public coffers and used to fund private education. But the workaround has helped choice programs survive legal challenges and avoid government regulations.

“While the early research was somewhat mixed … it is striking how consistent these recent results are,” said Joe Waddington, a University of Kentucky professor who has studied Indiana’s voucher program. “We’ve started to see persistent negative effects of receiving a voucher on student math achievement.”

In Louisiana, after four years in the program, students had substantially lower test scores in math, English, and science. The negative effects were quite large. In Indiana, students in the program saw dips in math that persisted for four years. In English, there was no meaningful change either way. The Ohio study found that “overwhelming evidence indicates a substantial negative effect on test scores of attending private schools under an EdChoice voucher” for the subset of students they were able to study.

Data in D.C. tells a different story, though. Students’ math test scores fell two years into the program, but by year three they had recovered. Overall, vouchers had no clear effect on test scores. Students who used a voucher were less likely to be chronically absent from school, a positive outcome.

What’s different about D.C.? It’s not clear, but one possibility is that other programs were evaluated with state tests that have higher stakes for public than private schools. In D.C., the researchers used a different national exam. Some argue that using state tests gives public schools an unfair leg up.

These more recent papers differ from older research on private school choice. Prior studies tended to show a mix of positive and null results. It’s not clear what has changed, but one theory is that public schools have improved — or at least gotten better at raising test scores — in response to accountability measures like No Child Left Behind.

It’s worth reiterating that these studies typically focused on choice programs that are targeted at low-income students, which is quite different from newer voucher initiatives.

Students sewing during a class at the School for Community Learning, a progressive Indianapolis private school that depends on vouchers.

Studies show that school vouchers have a neutral or positive impact on student outcomes later in life.

A different way of looking at private school choice is to track students over time — are they more likely to complete high school or attend college, for instance? Some school choice advocates say this, rather than test scores, is a better gauge of program effectiveness. There are fewer studies on this, but what exists is more favorable for private school choice: There are a combination of positive and zero effects, and no indication of negative effects.

For instance, one study of Milwaukee’s long-running voucher program found that participants were more likely to graduate high school and attend four-year colleges. A recent follow-up study confirmed these results, but found that vouchers had no clear effect on students’ likelihood of completing college.

A 2010 federal analysis of the D.C. voucher program found that its students were 21 percentage points more likely to complete high school (according to a survey of their parents, not a direct measure of graduation). But a follow-up analysis found that voucher recipients were no more or less likely to enroll in college.

A private school scholarship program in New York did not lead to improvements in college enrollment on average, but did seem to have a positive effect for Black students specifically. A later study of the same program also found no overall effects, but some benefits for “moderately disadvantaged” students.

In Florida, a 2017 study and 2019 follow-up found that its tax credit program led to small increases in college enrollment and degree completion. Specifically, 12% of students who went to a private high school using a tax credit grant earned a bachelor’s degree; that compares to 10% among demographically similar students in public schools.

Keep in mind: There are only a handful of studies available on long-term outcomes. Researchers also had to look at students who entered voucher programs many years ago — a necessary trade-off when examining long-term outcomes. What will the long-term effects be for programs that had negative impacts on test scores? That’s not clear.

There is one helpful data point on this question. A study of Louisiana’s program — the one that initially showed big declines in test scores for elementary and middle school students — found that it did not have any clear effect on college enrollment among older students.

Attending a private school may improve parent or student satisfaction.

There’s some evidence that families tend to be more satisfied with private schools. For instance, an older D.C. study showed that parents who won a voucher gave their schools higher marks. There was no difference for students though. The latest D.C. analysis found the reverse — parents were no more satisfied with private schools, but students were. Voucher students gave their private schools higher ratings and perceived them as safer. An analysis of national data showed that private-school parents generally were more satisfied with their child’s education than those sending their children to public schools. “Whether students enrolled in their choice program through lottery or self-sorted into their private school of choice, the results have shown that providing choice in education leads to higher levels of parent satisfaction,” concluded one overview study.

Research on prior programs suggests that vouchers lead to small improvements in public schools.

There is a large body of evidence suggesting that public schools get slightly better in response to competition from school vouchers, at least as measured by test scores.

This has been seen in studies of Florida, Louisiana, Milwaukee, Ohio, San Antonio, and even Canada. As one research overview put it, “Evidence on both small-scale and large-scale programs suggests that competition induced by vouchers leads public schools to improve.”

The impact is usually small and may vary depending on the program.

A study in Louisiana, for instance, found some evidence that vouchers boosted math scores in public schools, but they didn’t seem to have any effect on reading scores. Another recent study in Florida found more consistent impacts: Tax credit–funded vouchers led to small improvements in math and reading test scores, as well as suspension and attendance rates. Effects were largest for lower-income students.

Again, however, these studies tend to focus on more targeted voucher programs rather than the universal programs that are currently spreading — and those could have very different effects on public schools.

Targeted school voucher programs may not be costly, but universal programs probably will be.

A key factor driving the costs of choice programs is whether a student would have attended a public school if they didn’t have access to a voucher. In that case, the added cost may be small. After all, public dollars would fund that child’s education either way. Some choice advocates have produced analyses concluding that private school choice would actually save money because vouchers are typically funded at a lower rate than public schools.

But if a large share of voucher recipients would have attended private school on their own dime, the cost calculations change. That seems likely to happen with universal programs. In that case, students’ education that had been privately funded is now being publicly funded. That increases costs. Arizona, which passed a universal private school choice law in 2022, has seen the program’s projected cost this year jump from $33 million to $276 million. (There’s also some evidence that universal programs will lead private schools to raise their tuition.)

“By making choice scholarships quickly available to non-public school student populations with little incentive not to take the taxpayer funds, universal school choice programs have … higher up-front costs for governments and, thus, taxpayers,” wrote Christian Barnard, an analyst with the libertarian-leaning Reason Foundation, which supports school choice. Ultimately, the price tag and how it’s paid for will depend on the state and the voucher program’s design. If there are major added costs, policymakers will have to decide how to pay for them — whether through higher taxes or by providing less money to public schools or other public services.

It’s worth keeping this in mind alongside the above section suggesting that private school competition improves public schools. If new programs lead to less funding for public schools, that could negate any benefits from competition.

School voucher programs targeted at low-income students are not likely to increase racial segregation — but larger-scale programs might.

Although there is limited research on the effects of private school choice programs on segregation, existing studies have not found that voucher programs targeted at low-income students worsen segregation. A study in Louisiana found vouchers led to slightly more racial integration, while an older analysis of Milwaukee showed no impact.

However, there is reason to think that larger-scale voucher programs open to families regardless of income could exacerbate segregation. For instance, research on charter schools, a universal choice option, has found that they lead to modest increases in racial and economic segregation.

This article has been updated from its original version in 2017.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Will Illinois tax credit scholarship end? Four things you should know about Invest In Kids

2023-05-17T17:42:30+00:00

A controversial Illinois tax credit scholarship program could end if lawmakers don’t act to extend it.

Invest in Kids — which grants tax credits to people who fund scholarships that allow Illinois students from low-income families to attend private schools — is slated to sunset Dec. 31 unless state legislators approve an extension.

Jaclyn Driscoll, a spokeswoman for Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, said lawmakers still have time to extend Invest in Kids before the end of the year. The spring legislative session is scheduled to end Friday, but state lawmakers could approve an extension during a special session or the veto session in the fall.

The Invest In Kids Act became law in 2017, when Democrats and Republicans met during closed-door negotiations to overhaul how the state funded public education and ended a budget impasse that had lasted for two years. At the time, lawmakers agreed the program, which started in the 2018-19 school year, would sunset after five years. In 2022, the state extended the program by a year, with it now set to end January 2025 unless lawmakers agree to include it in the 2024 budget.

Several bills were introduced this session to extend the program, but none have been successful.

If Invest in Kids is allowed to end, Illinois will be bucking the trend of red states such as Indiana and South Carolina that plan to establish or extend their voucher programs.

Here are four things to know about Invest in Kids.

How many students currently benefit from the tax credit scholarships?

Over 9,000 Illinois students received the tax credit scholarship during the 2021-22 school year, according to a report from the state’s Department of Revenue obtained by Chalkbeat Chicago. In prior school years, enrollment numbers remained around 7,000 students.

Students who receive the scholarships come from low-income families. Under the tax credit scholarship law, students must come from households making less than 300% of the federal poverty level — which is about $90,000 for a family of four in 2023. Once the child receives a scholarship, the family income cannot exceed 400% of the federal poverty level, or about $120,000 for a family of four.

Of the students who received scholarships to attend private school in 2021-22, 57.6% were white, 29.7% were Latino, and 17.8 % were Black, according to the state’s report obtained by Chalkbeat Chicago.

Who donates and gets tax credits?

Illinois taxpayers can make a donation to one of the six grantee organizations that provide scholarships to students — also known as Scholarship Granting Organizations — and receive a tax credit of 75 cents for every dollar they donate. The amount donated is capped at $1 million per taxpayer per year. The state Department of Revenue says that taxpayers can donate their funds to a school that they would like their contribution to benefit.

Why do people want the program to end?

Public school advocates who are against the tax scholarship program argue that Invest In Kids diverts taxpayer dollars from public schools to private schools and lacks data or oversight. Some fear schools may discriminate against students with disabilities and LGBTQ students.

Illinois Families for Public Schools has been lobbying for the past few months to get state lawmakers to end the program. Cassie Creswell, director of the organization, says the state can’t afford a private school choice program because public schools are underfunded by billions of dollars.

“It should be deeply concerning to all public school supporters,” said Creswell. “Vouchers aren’t a evidenced-based policy that improve equity or education outcomes. We shouldn’t be funding them with scarce state dollars.”

What happens if Invest In Kids sunsets this year?

It’s unclear what will happen to the 9,000 students who receive scholarships to attend private schools if the tax credit scholarship program were to sunset. State law says the Invest In Kids Act will end Jan. 1, 2025, meaning students would at least have the chance to continue going to their schools through the 2023-24 school year.

School voucher advocates remain hopeful that the general assembly and Gov. J.B. Pritzker will continue to support the program — Pritzker said yes to supporting the tax credit scholarship program in a candidate survey for the Chicago Sun-Times in the fall.

Dan Vosnos, executive director of One Chance Illinois, an advocacy group involved in creating Invest In Kids, said the program has been helpful for families who cannot afford to go to a school of their choice.

“It allows families that don’t have the means to provide their child with their best fit education,” said Vosnos. “It gives families reassurance that their kids are in a loving, caring, nurturing, safe environment getting the education that they may not have received at their neighborhood school.”

Update May 17, 2023: After the initial publication of this article, a spokesperson from the Speaker of the House said the Illinois general assembly has until the end of the year to extend Invest in Kids.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

More students, steeper costs: Indiana, South Carolina are latest states to vastly expand school vouchers

2023-05-10T16:24:57+00:00

On private school choice, more states are going big and bold.

In Indiana, the Republican-controlled legislature last month approved a massive expansion of the state’s voucher program, making nearly every student eligible to receive public money to attend private school. Just days later, South Carolina followed suit, creating a taxpayer-funded program to cover private school tuition and expenses for thousands of students.

They join four other Republican-led states — Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Utah — that have established or expanded private school choice programs just this year. Now, more than 30 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, give students public money to attend private school — a number that could keep growing as state lawmakers push dozens more bills to subsidize the cost of private education.

But it isn’t just the number of bills that’s ballooning — it’s also their scope. Unlike past programs, which often targeted low-income families or students with disabilities, the newest ones are open to almost everyone and often allow parents to use the tax dollars for private school or home-school expenses.

Indiana’s newly expanded program is a prime example. Higher-income families can now participate, and students no longer must meet other need-based criteria. As a result, roughly 97% of students will now qualify for private school subsidies, and the state projects that participation could soar by nearly 42,000 additional students within two years.

Bigger programs mean steeper costs. In Indiana, the program’s price tag is expected to nearly double over the next two years.

Private school choice laws surged during the pandemic as conservative lawmakers seized on many parents’ frustration with school shutdowns and mask mandates. Republicans have also used “parents’ rights” rhetoric to justify the laws, arguing that they empower families who are dissatisfied with the public school system to opt out.

Critics have been alarmed by the wave of legislation, which they say deprives public schools of much-needed resources and could promote discrimination against LGBTQ students or those with disabilities, who have fewer protections in private schools, the majority of which are religious. Plus, experts said they wonder about the segregation that could occur among students when it comes to race, income levels, and academic ability.

But school choice advocates are celebrating the bills as the culmination of a decades-long campaign to give every student the option of a publicly funded private education.

“We hailed 2021 as the year of educational choice,” Robert Enlow, CEO of the Indianapolis-based EdChoice, a school choice advocacy group, said in a statement. “Now we are celebrating 2023 as the year of universal choice.”

As these programs proliferate, here’s what to know about eligibility and costs:

New school choice laws vastly expand voucher eligibility

The latest voucher programs are open to nearly every student.

The move toward universal eligibility reflects a sweeping new rationale for private school choice. Once pitched as a lifeline for students whose needs weren’t being met by traditional schools or whose families couldn’t afford private tuition, proponents increasingly argue that every parent should decide how to spend the tax dollars allotted for their children’s education.

It becomes a “universal entitlement program,” said Joseph Waddington, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky at College of Education and Martin School Public Policy and Administration. Rather than target the neediest students, he added, the new programs are “just putting the money in kids’ backpacks” and letting parents decide how to spend it.

John Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, argued that the shift is part of a “re-thinking of how we fund education in general.”

“For the first time in the history of American education policy, states are embracing the ‘money follows the child’ model of education funding that has long been the dream of parental-choice advocates,” Nicole Stelle Garnett and Richard W. Garnett wrote in an article in the right-leaning City Journal this year.

Arizona put this new philosophy into practice last year when it made every parent eligible to receive about $7,000 in state funds, or 90% of the cost to educate a student without disabilities in a public school, to use for private school tuition, tutoring, or homeschooling.

This year, six more states made all or most students eligible to attend private school at taxpayer expense. (West Virginia established a near-universal program in 2021.)

In Indiana, a family of four with an income of up to $220,000 now will qualify for taxpayer-funded tuition assistance. Lawmakers also eliminated other restrictions, including rules that voucher recipients have a disability or are in foster care.

But it’s hard to say if the voucher expansion will lead to large numbers of new students enrolling in private schools. In both Iowa and Indiana, analysts expect that nearly 90% of voucher recipients will be current private school students or kindergarteners entering private school.

“I don’t know if we are going to see a rapid expansion,” said Christopher Lubienski, professor at the Indiana University School of Education and director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy.

Plus there are limitations on enrollment, such as the capacity of non-public schools and tuition that exceeds the stipends parents receive, as well as students’ access to private schools in rural areas.

Critics, including many Democrats and teachers unions, say the new universal voucher programs amount to a giveaway for families who already can afford private school.

Costs will soar as the programs expand

As newly eligible families apply for vouchers, costs will surge. But by how much, no one knows.

One reason for the uncertainty: Universal vouchers are, in effect, a grand experiment states are conducting in real time. Budget analysts have scrambled to predict the programs’ eventual price tags, but they can only guess at how many freshly eligible families will participate.

Another complication is that lawmakers in some states scrapped enrollment caps when they expanded eligibility, turning the cost ceiling into a question mark.

The uncertainty has led to wildly divergent estimates. In Florida, the Republican lawmaker who sponsored the universal voucher bill pegged the program’s expected cost at about $210 million, while the left-leaning Florida Policy Institute put it at $4 billion. Later, the Florida Senate came up with its own cost estimate: $646 million.

One big point of contention is what percentage of families who currently pay for private school will start using vouchers to cover tuition. The bill’s sponsor guessed that only 50% will apply, which critics called a wild under-estimate. By contrast, the Florida Policy Institute assumed that 100% of eligible private school families will apply.

In Arizona, participation — and price — have far exceeded expectations.

Last June, the legislature estimated that the expanded voucher program would cost about $33 million this school year. But six months later, after applications from newly eligible families flooded in, the expected cost had soared to $276 million — more than eight times the original estimate. The cost has continued to rise as even more students enroll.

As in other states, a large share of the voucher recipients already attend private school or home-school. (When Arizona expanded access last year, 75% of the first wave of applicants had never attended a public school.) For those students, the state cannot simply transfer funds from public to private schools — it must find a whole new pot of money to cover tuition that parents previously paid for.

Now, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is looking to scale back the program, which she warned “will likely bankrupt this state.”

In Indiana, the state previously set aside $240 million annually for private school vouchers. But with the move to near-universal eligibility, the cost is expected to swell to more than $600 million by 2025.

That amount is eye-opening, said Lubienski, who added that it also follows a pattern of shifting costs to taxpayers. While Indiana lawmakers did increase funding for traditional public schools in this year’s legislative session, the lion’s share of attention and largest funding increases went to voucher and charter programs, he said.

School choice advocates stressed that the cost depends on how many students enroll, but others argued that the money allocated to vouchers amounts to the state endorsing private education.

In the wake of her state’s voucher expansion, Indiana state Sen. Andrea Hunley, a Democrat, said she worries about having enough money for the majority of Indiana’s students who attend public schools, especially those who are English language learners, in special education, and from low-income backgrounds.

“Our kids can’t wait to be properly resourced,” she said.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief and covers higher education. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Pronouns, libraries, and textbook fees: The K-12 policy changes Indiana lawmakers made this year

2023-05-01T21:45:29+00:00

State legislators have introduced more than 100 new education bills and bills impacting schools and students during Indiana’s 2023 legislative session. For the latest Indiana education news, sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free newsletter here.

This article was originally published in the Indiana Capital Chronicle. It has been edited by Chalkbeat Indiana to only include education and student-focused legislation.

Indiana’s Republican-controlled General Assembly convened for 110 days, during which education, health care, and taxes dominated much of the discourse.

The highlight, however, was the passage of Indiana’s $44 billion biennial budget plan.

Here’s a recap of the education issues — some big, some small — and a look at what prevailed and what didn’t quite come together before the 2023 session came to a close early Friday morning.

Holcomb agenda achieves success

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s 2023 legislative agenda highlighted proposals for several major funding increases in the next two-year state budget, including paying for all K-12 textbooks, salary increases for state police troopers, and millions more for public health services in all 92 counties.

A massive private school voucher expansion was the sticking point in the final hours of the session — although vouchers weren’t part of Holcomb’s priorities.

Still, the governor got most of what he wanted — saying he will “gladly sign” the final budget draft — and praised lawmakers for their work an hour after the session’s end.

Indiana families shielded from K-12 textbook fees

Indiana’s governor rallied hard to eliminate textbook and curricular fees for Hoosier kids. Figuring out how to fund the ask proved less straightforward, though.

Holcomb’s proposed budget explicitly included a line item for textbook fees — separate from the school funding formula — directing funds to the state education department, which would then be responsible for dishing out textbook dollars to schools.

But House budget writers originally took a different approach, seeking to require schools to dip into their foundational funding to fully pay students’ curricular materials costs.

Pushback from public school officials prompted changes to that funding mechanism in the final budget plan.

Now, a $160 million annual line item — added by Senate Republicans — ensures that Hoosier families will not have to pay student textbook fees in K-12 public schools. Private school students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch will also see their textbook fees waived, according to the budget.

Grant program for college access gets a boost

The Holcomb administration’s push to get more Hoosiers educated included a move to automatically enroll eligible Hoosier students into Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars Program, a statewide grant program that helps students from low-income backgrounds attend two- and four-year schools.

A bill doing just that advanced to the governor’s desk last week.

House Bill 1449 requires the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to work with the state education department to identify kids who qualify for the program, and then notify students and parents about their eligibility. Students must agree to participate in 21st Century Scholars and can opt out at any time.

Funding for Martin University increases

Also part of Holcomb’s agenda was a proposed $10 million for Martin University — the state’s only predominantly black institution — specifically to help the students from low-income backgrounds, students of color, and adult-learner populations served by the university.

The House GOP budget plan matched that request, but Senate Republicans opted to give every higher education institution in Indiana access to that $10 million over the biennium for students of color, as well as first-generation students and those from low-income backgrounds.

The final budget landed somewhere in between, appropriating $5 million to Martin University, and creating another $5 million pot for all other Hoosier colleges and universities.

Feat of imagination: more kids reading

Country music icon Dolly Parton’s book program mails over two million books monthly to children across the country — and elsewhere — monthly, according to its website. Now, the Imagination Library is set to be available statewide in Indiana.

Launching the program was a priority for Holcomb, as well as some lawmakers, and they saw success in the final version of the state’s two-year, $44.5 billion budget. It’s one line item in the 249-page document: a $6 million appropriation.

Lawmakers address pronoun changes in classrooms

A controversial bill mandating that Indiana schools notify parents when a student asks for name or pronoun changes is now awaiting a signature from the governor.

House Bill 1608 also bans human sexuality instruction to the youngest Hoosier students.

The proposal is reminiscent of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law that has been described by some as one of the most “hateful” pieces of legislation in the country.

Supporters say parents have the “right” and “responsibility” to control what their children learn — and are called — when at school.

But critics of the bill — which was pared down in its final iteration — have argued that it’s part of a nationwide wave of legislation “singling out LGBTQ+ people and their families.” More specifically, they say that the legislation could put transgender children at risk of harm if they’re outed to unsupportive or abusive parents.

New process to govern school library book grievances

In the final hours of the legislative session, Republican state lawmakers resurrected a much-debated ban on materials deemed “obscene “or “harmful to minors” in school and public libraries.

The bill requires school libraries to publicly post lists of books in their collection and create a formal grievance process for parents and community members who live in the district to object to certain materials in circulation.

As part of that process, school boards must review those challenges at their next public meeting. An appeals process must also be established if officials don’t agree with the request.

Language in House Bill 1447 also removes “educational purposes” as a reason that schools or district board members could claim legal protection for sharing “harmful material” with underage students.

Public libraries would not be affected, however, despite other proposals debated earlier in the session that would have expanded the language’s reach. The bill only applies to public and charter schools, not private schools.

Bills on partisan school boards, child care fall short

Republican lawmakers touted big wins across the board at the conclusion of the legislative session, but several big-ticket items didn’t make it across the finish line.

Many of the measures are expected to be reworked and introduced again next year.

A bill that would have let Hoosier communities decide if local school board elections should be partisan died in the House in February.

That means school board races will stay nonpartisan, at least for now. Similar bills have circulated around the Statehouse in years past, and GOP leadership said others are likely to come up again in the future.

With this year’s House Bill 1428, specifically, Republican lawmakers could not find consensus over whether school board candidates should have to be nominated by party primaries or only be listed by political party on the November general election ballot.

Something that didn’t get too much attention through the 2023 session was child care and early childhood education. Though legislators expanded eligibility for On My Way Pre-K from 127% to 150% of the federal poverty limit, roughly $41,625 annually for a family of four, they didn’t add more funding.

Leaders said that current expenditures left money behind, including in the Child Care Development Fund. However, families and businesses alike bemoan the shortage of quality child care available in communities, saying it hampers economic growth.

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Tennessee legislature sends governor pared-down school voucher expansion bill, omitting Knox County

2023-04-21T19:45:13+00:00

Tennessee lawmakers agreed Friday to expand the state’s private school voucher program to Hamilton County — but not to Knox County — as they prepared to wrap up their legislative session for the year.

The House had approved a bill on Wednesday to add both counties to the program now operating in Shelby County and Metro Nashville to let eligible families use taxpayer money toward private school tuition.

But the Senate, which voted in February to extend vouchers to Chattanooga-based Hamilton County, rejected the wider House expansion bill on Thursday without explanation.

On Friday, the House voted 57-27 to concur with the Senate version and send the measure to Gov. Bill Lee for his signature.

The final bill, while pared down, marks the first major expansion of the private school voucher program, which launched last fall under a 2019 law that cleared a series of legal hurdles last year but still faces challenges in court.

With 44,000 students, Hamilton County Schools is one of the state’s largest districts.

Lee pressed for the law to give parents more education choices for their children. But detractors say that private school vouchers do not improve student outcomes and divert scarce resources from public schools that serve most students who are disadvantaged or have special needs.

Tennessee’s law caps enrollment at 5,000 students in the program’s first year. The program has significant room to grow, based on the latest numbers from the state education department.

As of April 14, the state had approved 705 applicants to use vouchers this school year to exit Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools. Of that number, 453 applicants had submitted proof that they’ve enrolled in state-approved private school and are using their voucher of nearly $8,200 toward tuition.

While there was no discussion on the Senate floor about reasons fo rejecting the House’s proposed expansion to Knox County, none of the three Republican members who represent that area — Sens. Richard Briggs and Becky Massey and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally — supported it.

“I think we have a very good school system in Knox County and that parents already have a lot of choices,” Briggs told Chalkbeat last month.

He noted that students in his district have the option to attend magnet schools, a charter school, specialized learning academies, and international baccalaureate programs, and to transfer among the district’s 90 schools, as long as there’s space available.

“The last time we voted on (school vouchers) in the legislature, the majority of our Knox County delegation voted against it,” Briggs added. “And there’s definitely not support for them among our citizens.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bill to extend private school vouchers to Hamilton and Knox counties clears Tennessee House

2023-04-19T19:06:15+00:00

Tennessee’s House voted Wednesday for a bill to extend vouchers to Hamilton and Knox counties, just months after the purported pilot program launched in Shelby County and Metro Nashville to let some families use taxpayer money toward private school tuition.

The proposal passed 57-35 and now returns to the Senate, which voted in February to add Hamilton County before the House sponsor introduced an amendment to include Knox County, too.

If it becomes law, the wider expansion bill will bring Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program to all four of the state’s urban districts.

The push shows the Republican-controlled legislature’s desire to expand the program quickly after it cleared a series of legal hurdles that had delayed its launch as a pilot program under a 2019 law. The law still faces challenges in court from the Shelby County and Metro Nashville governments.

The state comptroller’s first report on how well the pilot is working isn’t due until Jan. 1, 2026, but that hasn’t stopped Republican lawmakers from pursuing a quick expansion.

“Why would you add two additional counties to an unproven, unsubstantiated program?” asked Rep. Sam McKenzie, a Knoxville Democrat, before voting against the bill. A pilot program, he argued, is designed to test an idea’s effectiveness on a small scale.

“This will actually help us collect more data by having more counties,” responded Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who is co-sponsoring the measure with Sen. Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga.

Critics say private school vouchers do not improve student outcomes and divert scarce resources from public schools that serve the bulk of students who are disadvantaged or have special needs — also leading to more segregated schools.

White said parents simply want more options for their children’s education. He added that he is seeking to add Hamilton and Knox counties at the request of several lawmakers who represent those areas, including Republican Rep. Michelle Carringer of Knoxville, who spoke on the floor in favor of the bill.

But several Democrats representing both counties said the support of some GOP lawmakers wasn’t good enough.

“The citizens of Knox County, the majority of them, do not want vouchers,” said Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville.

Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, a Chattanooga Democrat, represents Hamilton County and previously served on the local school board.

Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, of Chattanooga, added: “What you’re telling us is that it’s not relevant what the parents think in those communities. It’s not relevant what the community leaders think.”

Tennessee’s voucher law caps enrollment at 5,000 students in the program’s first year, far above the current enrollment.

As of April 14, the state education department had approved 705 applicants to use vouchers this school year to exit Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools. Of that number, 453 applicants had submitted proof that they’ve enrolled in state-approved private school and are using their voucher of nearly $8,200 to pay toward tuition, a department spokesman said.

The program is already poised to expand next school year under a separate bill passed earlier this session and signed into law Monday by Lee. That measure extends voucher eligibility to students who attended private or home schools during the last three school years. Previously, a student had to move directly from a public to private school.

You can track the bill to extend vouchers to Hamilton and Knox counties on the state legislature’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Religious charter school rejected in Oklahoma, but a national fight looms

2023-04-12T00:36:59+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to keep up with how public education is changing.

A state board in Oklahoma voted down Tuesday an application for the country’s first religious charter school, highlighting the legal uncertainty around using tax dollars to directly pay for religious education.

In rejecting the school’s initial application, board members acknowledged that the larger issue of whether religious charter schools pass legal muster would likely be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has already ruled that states cannot exclude religious schools from private school choice programs.

If the court eventually rules in favor of religious charter schools, as some legal experts expect, it could have broad implications for the separation of church and state, as well as lead to more charter schools and less money for traditional public schools.

“This is a huge deal,” said Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut, “and not just for red states, but for the entire country.”

The unanimous vote, which came after about two hours of discussion by Oklahoma’s five-member Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, delayed a final decision on the application for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The school can submit a revised application, which could come before the board again as soon as next month.

Board members raised a number of issues with the application, from how the proposed charter school would serve students with disabilities to its management structure to how it would ensure internet connectivity for students. But the thorniest question was whether it was even legal to approve a charter school with an explicitly religious mission.

“The constitutional issue is a big high hurdle,” said Board Chairperson Robert Franklin.

Another board member, Scott Strawn, said, “Is it settled law? That’s the gray area we’re all living in.”

The Catholic Church in Oklahoma City and Tulsa proposed the online charter school as a way to reach students in rural areas with few local schools. Named for the patron saint of the internet, the St. Isidore school would eventually enroll up to 1,500 students statewide in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Charter schools are publicly funded but operated by private groups rather than local school boards. Some religious groups run charter schools, but the schools are fully secular.

By contrast, the Oklahoma charter school would be explicitly religious. The school application says Catholic schools are “places of evangelization” that serve the mission of the church. The online charter school would display religious symbols such as crucifixes, and students would study religion and attend church services, the application says.

Before the vote Tuesday, the board heard from several commenters opposed to religious charter schools.

Bruce Prescott, a retired Baptist minister, said religious charter schools would “upend the entire educational landscape in Oklahoma.”

“One of the hallmarks of public schools in America is that they are non-discriminatory and secular in their acceptance of all students regardless of their faith or beliefs,” he said.

A proposed religious charter school sparks debate

Critics say the proposed school would violate state laws and the “establishment clause” in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which prohibits the government from endorsing any religion. They have also raised concerns that the school could discriminate against students or employees based on their religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

In its application, the church said the school would adopt an anti-discrimination policy, but would also defer to Catholic teachings on issues such as marriage and homosexuality, which the church considers immoral when acted upon. In interviews, Oklahoma church officials have declined to say whether the school would admit openly gay or transgender students.

“St. Isidore plans to, or at the very least reserves the right to, unlawfully discriminate in admissions and employment,” said a letter to the state virtual charter school board from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a legal advocacy group that opposes the proposed school.

Proponents of the school argue that it is the state’s charter school law, not the proposed school, that violates the First Amendment. They say that stopping religious groups from operating charter schools according to their faith amounts to religious discrimination.

In December, Oklahoma’s former Republican attorney general issued an opinion saying the state’s ban on religious charter schools likely violated the First Amendment. But shortly after, the state’s newly elected Republican attorney general withdrew the opinion, saying it tried to “justify state-funded religion.”

The state’s Republican governor attacked the move by Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

“You contend that the United States and the Oklahoma Constitutions permit, and indeed require, the state to discriminate against religious organizations seeking authorization to operate charter schools,” Gov. Kevin Stitt wrote in a letter to Drummond. “In fact, the opposite is true.”

Several members of the statewide virtual charter school board noted the differing legal opinions in the discussion Tuesday. Franklin, the board chair, said he asked prior to the meeting if board members would have legal protection and “support from the attorney general’s office” if they were sued after the final decision.

“We’re not going to be able to answer that legal question,” he said.

The big legal question: Are charter schools public or private?

Both sides of the debate about whether charter schools can be religious tend to agree that, under the U.S. Constitution, public schools cannot promote religion. Where they disagree is whether charter schools are truly public schools.

In legal terms, the question is whether charter schools are “state actors.” If so, they cannot impose religious beliefs on students.

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said charter schools are clearly state actors.

“I would say there’s 101 reasons why they are state actors,” he said, “and none why they are not.”

He noted that charter schools and traditional public schools both receive public money, cannot charge tuition or turn students away, and must adhere to state academic standards. Unlike traditional public schools, charter schools don’t answer to elected school boards and they enjoy flexibility from some state regulations. But those qualities don’t make charter schools “private actors,” Black argued.

If Oklahoma were to approve the plan for a religious charter school, the state would essentially be endorsing the school’s religious beliefs, Black said.

“That is the state adopting private religious beliefs as the state’s curriculum,” he said. “That stamp all by itself is state action.”

But proponents of religious charter schools argue they are more private than public.

Nicole Stelle Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said charter schools do not qualify as state actors because their actions cannot be attributed to the government. In fact, she argues, the premise behind charter schools is that they operate independently of the state in a way that traditional public schools cannot.

“That’s kind of the whole point of charter schools,” she said, “to foster pluralism and foster innovation by giving them freedom from government control.”

Whether or not charter schools are state actors is at the heart of a legal case in North Carolina, where a student sued a charter school that requires girls to wear skirts. The school has argued that it is not subject to federal anti-discrimination laws because it is not a state actor.

A lower court ruled against the school, which appealed to the Supreme Court. In January, the court asked the Biden administration to weigh in on the matter, which could signal the court’s interest in the legal question.

Based on recent Supreme Court rulings that said states cannot stop religious schools from receiving public benefits, some legal experts think the court’s conservative majority will declare that charter schools are not state actors — and therefore free to promote religious beliefs. Such a ruling would raise a new set of issues, including whether religious charter schools may discriminate against students or staffers on religious grounds.

“Those are questions that remain unanswered,” Garnett said.

Some of the original proponents of charter schools, however, say any attempt to mix charter schools and religious instruction runs counter to the intent of those schools.

“If a religious school receives public funding, that is not a charter school and should not be called that,” said Ember Reichgott Junge, a former Democratic state senator in Minnesota who wrote the senate version of the country’s first charter school law, which passed in 1991. “It’s something else.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org. Cara Fitzpatrick is a story editor at Chalkbeat.

Tennessee’s latest private school voucher expansion proposal would add Knox County, too

2023-03-23T23:13:53+00:00

Tennessee’s private school voucher program, currently limited to eligible students attending public schools in Memphis and Nashville, would expand to all four of the state’s urban districts under new legislation.

A bill to extend the program to Chattanooga-based Hamilton County Schools passed last week in the Senate. And under a new GOP measure filed recently in the House and facing its first vote next week, the bill could be amended to include Knox County Schools, too.

Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who is co-sponsoring the expansion bill with Sen. Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, said Thursday that he is seeking to add Tennessee’s third largest district at the request of some Republican state lawmakers from the Knoxville area.

The proposal marks the latest effort to expand eligibility for Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program, which gives taxpayer money to eligible families to use toward private school tuition.

The program launched last fall as a pilot program under a 2019 voucher law that surmounted a string of legal obstacles and continues to be challenged in court. The law allows up to 5,000 students to participate in the program’s first year, but according to the Tennessee Department of Education, the state has approved just over 700 applications so far for families wanting to exit Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools this school year.

The House Education Administration Committee, which White chairs, is scheduled to consider the expansion bill and White’s Knox County amendment on March 29.

Rep. Mark White, of Memphis, chairs the House Education Administration Committee.

Rep. Bryan Richey has filed a more ambitious amendment to take vouchers statewide, but White does not expect a vote on the Maryville Republican’s proposal.

“If he tries to run that amendment, it will kill Gardenhire’s bill,” said White. “I told him, ‘Don’t run it this year; run it next year.’”

That comment — and this year’s expansion bill — are indicative of the larger goal of the governor and many Republicans, according to Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Knoxville Democrat who opposes vouchers.

“They’re going to push the envelope,” Johnson said, “until all of Tennessee’s public tax dollars for education are going to private schools and charter schools. And none of those schools are being held to the same standard as our traditional public schools.”

Lee, who recently began his second term as governor, has said he wants both high-quality public schools and more education choices for families, even as vouchers and charter schools redirect funding away from traditional public schools.

When Gardenhire filed the original expansion bill in December, he said Hamilton County Schools would be the only district affected. But White said state lawmakers from several other counties approached him later about including their local school districts, too.

On Wednesday, Gardenhire told Chalkbeat that he supports the effort to add Knox County to his legislation. If the House approves it, he plans to bring the bill’s expanded scope back to the Senate for a vote.

But several other Knox County lawmakers, including at least one Republican, say they will vote against any expansion.

“I think we have a very good school system in Knox County and that parents already have a lot of choices,” said Republican Sen. Richard Briggs of Knoxville.

Briggs noted that students have the option to attend magnet schools, a charter school, specialized learning academies, and international baccalaureate programs, and to transfer among the district’s 90 schools, as long as there’s space available.

Knox County’s school board has passed multiple anti-voucher resolutions through the years. However, that body has become more divided since 2022 elections when a new state law opened the door to partisan school board races and drew local education policy under the influence of the national political divide.

Jennifer Owen, a Knox County school board member who was not up for reelection last year, said she opposes vouchers.

“I’m getting texts from a lot of concerned people here,” Owen said of the expansion amendment. “I think people who push this kind of thing brand it as school choice, and people just don’t know what that means. But in fact, we already have lots of learning options for kids.”

Five Republican representatives from Knox County have signed on as co-sponsors of White’s bill: Michele Carringer, Elaine Davis, Jason Zachary, Justin Lafferty, and Dave Wright.

On Thursday, Davis, Zachary, and Lafferty told Chalkbeat that they support White’s amendment but declined to comment on why.

Johnson, one of two Knoxville Democrats in the legislature, said voucher support from a few Republican legislators is not an accurate gauge of what most Knox County voters want.

“They are answering to special interests, not the majority of their constituents,” she said.

A second GOP-sponsored voucher bill advancing through the legislature also would expand eligibility for education savings accounts, although not to the same extent as the Hamilton-Knox legislation.

Sen. Jon Lundberg, of Bristol, and Rep. Chris Todd, of Jackson, are seeking to expand eligibility to students in Memphis and Nashville who attended private or home schools during the last three school years. The current law says a student must move directly from a public to private school to be eligible for the program.

Their bill cleared the Senate in February and is scheduled for a vote on the House floor on March 30.

Tennessee’s voucher law refers to education savings accounts as a “pilot program” and directs the state comptroller to report on the program’s efficacy after its third year of enrolling students. But because ongoing litigation delayed the program’s launch, the first report isn’t due until Jan. 1, 2026.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana parents, education advocates split over school choice budget increases

2023-03-17T15:27:15+00:00

Indiana’s 2023 legislative session is under way, and state legislators have introduced more than 100 new education bills and bills impacting schools and students. For the latest Indiana education news, sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free newsletter here.

This article originally published in the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Dozens of Hoosiers descended upon the Statehouse to call for increased K-12 funding in the next state budget, but much of the testimony heard on Thursday was split over a pending proposal to more than double taxpayer spending on Indiana’s school choice voucher program.

The Senate School Funding Subcommittee heard more than five hours of testimony on the possible voucher expansion, as well as other K-12 budget requests for English learners and special education.

Discussions also centered around “equalized” funding for charter schools.

School district officials and advocates for traditional public education noted that 90% of Hoosier kids attend public schools. As such, they called for even greater increases to tuition support to cover rising costs due to inflation, and to compensate for an unfunded mandate in the current budget proposal that would require schools to dip into base funding to cover textbook costs.

The very nature of private schools means that they can — and do — discriminate. – Joel Hand, of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

That state’s largest teacher’s union additionally emphasized that under the House-approved version of the budget, private school vouchers would get a 70% funding boost in Fiscal Year 2024. Traditional public schools would see only a 5% increase, however.

School choice supporters said parents deserve the right to more flexibility and customization in their children’s education. Doing so requires increased access to private schools, but also public charters. Those schools cannot currently draw on local property tax dollars like traditional public schools can, but a new funding stream carved into the House Republican budget seeks to remedy that.

Nearly half of the House Republican budget, 48%, goes to K-12 education, which will get a boost of nearly $2 billion over its current appropriation. One-third of that new funding will go to the Choice Scholarship program — which allows families to receive vouchers to attend private schools. And another chunk would come off the top to cover textbooks.

“Every dollar that goes to a public school gets put to use in helping ensure that the school can meet the educational needs of every kid who lives in that community … this is just the basic duty that we owe to our kids and our communities,” said Diane Hannah, a mom of three from Carmel. “This voucher expansion, by contrast, is a luxury. It is redundant. This budget would send tax dollars to wealthy Hoosiers to do something that they already can afford to do.”

The Senate likely won’t unveil their version of the state budget until later this month. A final version of the budget is expected by the end of April.

School choice versus ‘inequitable funding’

Expanded eligibility for the voucher program would raise the income ceiling to 400% of the amount required for a student to qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program, equal to about $220,000.

Currently, vouchers are limited to families that make less than 300% of the federal poverty level, meaning a family of four can make up to $154,000 annually.

After the expansion, the program would cost the state an estimated $500 million in fiscal year 2024, and another $600 million in the following fiscal year. The current state budget appropriates $240 million annually for the Choice Scholarships.

“We’re funding more and more money for students to go to private schools, when their results academically are decreasing,” said Joel Hand, representing the Indiana Coalition for Public Education and the American Federation of Teachers of Indiana. He pointed to a 2018 study by researchers at the University of Notre Dame which found that Hoosier students who leave public schools to attend voucher institutions showed declines in both math and language arts.

“Private school choice is not educational freedom for the parents, but is rather an opportunity for these private schools to pick and choose which students they want,” Hand continued. “The very nature of private schools means that they can — and do — discriminate.”

But John Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, said parents should have a say over where their tax dollars go when it comes to educating their kids.

While the group hopes to see an elimination of the income ceiling, Elcesser said the 400% cap is a good move, in the meantime. The association additionally supports the House’s proposed elimination of the eight pathways currently in place that determine student eligibility for the voucher program.

“I often say you need a PhD to understand who is actually eligible for the program,” Elcesser said. “Removal (of the pathways), if nothing else, would simplify the program so parents might have a better understanding if they’re eligible to participate or not.”

Elcesser noted, too, that the non-public school group wants to see Choice Scholarship eligibility expanded to include kindergarteners.

Multiple parents who testified Thursday further expressed support for a GOP-backed plan to ensure that every non-virtual charter school receives the same amount of per student funding as traditional public schools.

Voucher schools receive state funding but are not required to operate within the same parameters as local public schools. For instance, they don’t have elected school boards and don’t have to justify their spending. They also can reject any student. Critics have long maintained that such schools lack transparency and accountability to the public.

Meanwhile, charter school critics have long argued that such schools are not obligated to serve every student in a given community — unlike their traditional public counterparts.

The public charters also have private boards and are therefore not accountable to voters, opponents say. They held, too, that finances at charter schools are also less transparent, given that they are not subject to the same budgetary oversight as traditional public schools.

More dollars still needed for ELL, special education

Still, school officials from across the state called for more resources to address increasingly common — and costly — behavioral and mental health needs among students.

“Teachers have been burdened with doing more to support the mental health and wellness of students which diminishes their ability to focus on teaching and learning,” said Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association, noting that Indiana’s ratio of students per school counselor, 694 students per one counselor, ranks the state last in the nation.

David Clendening, Superintendent at Franklin Community Schools, added that his district needs more funding to help counsel and educate “violent, behavior-dysregulated students.”

“The increase is no longer gradual,” he said of such students, of whom many struggle with trauma, mental and behavioral health conditions, learning disabilities and family issues. “We think the root issues are many and varied. Violent, aggressive, disruptive and otherwise dysregulated children can be complex and challenging.”

Although Indiana schools could see increases to foundation grants — the basic grant for every student — of 4% in fiscal year 2024 under the draft budget, those grant amounts would go up just 0.7% in the following year. Denny Costerison, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials, said that means about three out of every four Indiana school districts would get less than a 2% increase — or less funding overall — in 2025.

Kathy Friend, chief financial officer at Fort Wayne Community Schools, said her district stands to lose over $17 million under the model in combination with the requirement to cover students’ textbook fees.

Supplemental “complexity” funding schools receive for low-income and at-risk students is also set to increase under the House Republican plan — up 4.4% in fiscal year 2024 and 1% in fiscal year 2025. Friend said that’s a welcome increase for Fort Wayne Community Schools, which serves one of the largest English learner populations in the state.

Mary Bova, a teacher for English learners in Indianapolis, said she also wants to see more ELL funding in the state budget, citing her own caseload of 67 students — far more than the state recommendation of 30 students.

“Being an ELL teacher has been the most heartbreaking and rewarding profession imaginable. It’s heartbreaking because so many of my students are misunderstood, and often called lazy, but they are undoubtedly the hardest working people I know,” Bova said, adding that charter schools deserve more funding, as well, to help support growing populations of English learners attending those schools. “If ELL students had more funding, my school may be able to afford more teachers, more support and more resources for students who need it.”

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Private school voucher and charter-friendly bills sail through Tennessee Senate

2023-02-28T01:34:39+00:00

The Tennessee Senate on Monday approved two Republican-sponsored bills that would expand and clarify eligibility for students to receive private school vouchers or enroll in charter schools.

Both measures passed 27-5 along partisan lines and now await action in House committees.

Sen. Jon Lundsberg, of Bristol, sponsored the bill to expand eligibility for Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program to students who attended private or home schools during the last three school years. The current law says a student must move directly from a public to private school to be eligible for the program, which launched last fall in Memphis and Nashville.

A second bill, sponsored by Sen. Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga and Rep. Charlie Baum of Murfreesboro, would cap enrollment at charter schools — which are publicly funded but independently operated — at 25% for students who live outside the school district that authorized the charter. The House is scheduled to take up that bill on Tuesday in its K-12 subcommittee.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Cameron Sexton filed legislation that would let the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission approve charter schools to serve home school students, as well as residential boarding schools that are charters. Those charter applicants could apply directly to the state-appointed commission for authorization, without having to go through local school boards.

All measures seek to continue the Republican governor’s push to expand education choices for families. But critics say vouchers and charter schools are vehicles to privatize education at the expense of traditional public schools, which operate under stricter regulations, provide more transparency through their locally elected school boards, and serve the bulk of students who are disadvantaged or have special needs.

Under the education savings account bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Chris Todd of Madison County, voucher eligibility would be extended to students who did not complete a full year in public school after 2019, when the legislature approved the voucher law.

“The reason we’re doing this is because that legislation was locked up in the courts for a couple of years,” Lundberg said about ongoing litigation that halted the voucher program’s planned 2020 launch before a 2022 Tennessee Supreme Court ruling upheld the law.

Last week, Lundberg told the Senate Education Committee the change would open eligibility to many students who have applied to receive education savings accounts but were denied because they weren’t moving directly from public to private schools. So far, the state has approved 643 out of 1,273 applications, he said.

The voucher program, which provides taxpayer money for families to use toward private school tuition, is open to students in Memphis and Nashville but could be expanded to Chattanooga-based Hamilton County Schools under legislation approved by the Senate last week. That bill is scheduled for its first vote in a House subcommittee on Tuesday.

The charter school bill approved on Monday is backed by the Tennessee Charter School Center, an advocacy organization funded by pro-charter groups.

Currently in Tennessee, it’s generally up to the local school district that authorizes a charter school, as well as the governing body that oversees that charter school, to determine how many out-of-district students can enroll.

Gardenhire said his bill seeks to address confusion around those policies with a state law that would cap out-of-district enrollment at 25%, and give priority to students from within the school district.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, who voted against Gardenhire’s bill, said local school districts should be able to control enrollment policies for the charter schools that they authorize.

“If they’re making that decision for the public schools in their district, that same policy ought to apply to the charter schools in the district,” said the Nashville Democrat. “I think that ought to be a uniform policy.”

Elizabeth Fiveash, chief policy officer for the Tennessee Charter School Center, testified last week that out-of-district student enrollment in charter schools isn’t an issue in the four cities that have charter schools. However, it could be in the future as the state’s charter sector expands.

She told members of the Senate Education Committee that charter schools statewide have a waiting list of over 10,000 students, most of whom come from within the authorizing district.

“This is not an issue that’s currently happening,” Fiveash said, “but we’re trying to make sure it’s clear going forward.”

Sexton’s legislation, which is co-sponsored by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, would mark a significant expansion of Tennessee charter school law.

Under the proposal, the state could authorize charter schools to enroll homeschooled students from within any school district in Tennessee. Those schools would be required to provide classroom instruction at least three days per week, while parents providing instruction the other two days could use remote instruction provided by the charter school.

Lundberg and Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who chair education committees for their respective chambers, have signed on as co-sponsors.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information about Sexton’s charter school legislation.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana senators not so keen on voucher expansion included in House budget

2023-02-24T15:55:43+00:00

This article originally published in the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Top Indiana senators said they aren’t so sure about a House Republican budget plan that would more than double taxpayer spending on the state’s “school choice” voucher program.

House lawmakers on Thursday approved their version of the budget, punting it over to the Senate.

But pushback is already mounting against provisions that seek to generously expand eligibility for the state’s “school choice” program — which allows families to receive vouchers to attend private schools.

Republican Senate Pro Tem Rodric Bray said that while his chamber is “passionate about school choice, too,” he’s skeptical his caucus will be on board with the House proposal.

“I’m a little hesitant on that,” he said Thursday, pointing to “a big number” price tag to allow a majority of Hoosiers to qualify for the school choice program. “Every year the voucher piece is a big discussion on the budget. We’ll have some other conversations, as well, but that will be a big one.”

He also hinted at support for more voucher school accountability, but spared any specifics.

Republican House Speaker Todd Huston remained firm, however, that his caucus has no interest in adopting additional transparency or accountability guardrails.

“The program as it exists has been extraordinarily successful,” Huston said. “We feel very good about where we are … [the Senate] will have different priorities, and we’ll work through those different priorities with them.”

Senate expected to hit the brakes

The new voucher dollars account for roughly a third of the $2 billion in new, additional state funds that House Republicans want to earmark for K-12 education over the biennium.

Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said the decision comes as a way to increase “options” for Hoosier parents.

Expanded eligibility for the Choice Scholarship program — which allows families to receive vouchers to attend private schools — would raise the income ceiling to 400% of the amount required for a student to qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program, equal to about $220,000, according to the House budget.

Currently, vouchers are limited to families that make less than 300% of the federal poverty level, meaning a family of four can make up to $154,000 annually.

Bray said he also wasn’t sure the Senate would support the House’s proposed elimination of the eight pathways currently in place — in addition in income requirements — that determine student eligibility for the program.

“When you move it up to 400% of the poverty level, it’s a big number there. And when you get rid of the pathways, that really accentuates that,” Bray said. “We’re going to take a very close look at it.”

Voucher schools receive state funding, too, but are not required to operate within the same parameters as local public schools. For instance, they don’t have elected school boards and don’t have to justify their spending. Critics have long maintained that such schools lack transparency and accountability to the public.

The latest pushback came from a top GOP senator who called for voucher school reforms — not expansion — in the current legislative session.

Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Mishawaka, said that Senate and House disagreements on voucher spending predated this year’s expansion and senators consistently preferred a smaller amount than their House counterparts.

“That’s something we’ve always negotiated,” Mishler told the Indiana Capital Chronicle Thursday.

When crafting the last state budget, Mishler said his caucus agreed with the House’s voucher request though he personally objected.

In his recent letter urging Hoosier parents to rethink charter schools he called for additional guardrails, pledging not to support “one additional dollar spent” on the voucher program without student protections.

But even though he chairs the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee, Mishler said he still abided by the wishes of the overall caucus.

“That’s what people are misinterpreting — I can’t control that,” Mishler said. “I personally am reluctant to support an expansion until I can get some protections… [but] I’m not trying to take down this program, I’m actually trying to strengthen the program.”

Mishler said he was meeting with voucher proponents to discuss future guardrails for voucher schools but specific solutions would come out later.

“Our caucus members just have to ask themselves — they’re spending over half a billion dollars to increase the eligibility. For our members … What do they want to give up to get to that dollar? I think that’s really the overall question,” Mishler said. “But I can’t control what we do. I always go to the caucus.”

House leadership still committed to expansion

Indiana has about 87,000 private school students, according to the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE). About 44,000 of those use the state’s Choice Scholarship program — which allows families to receive vouchers to attend private schools. But under the House GOP plan, the remaining 43,000 would be eligible for the grant, which would average around $7,500 statewide.

Still, about 90% of Hoosier students currently attend a traditional public school.

Huston held that the “hundreds of thousands of kids” that have used Indiana vouchers in the last decade are a testament to the program’s popularity — and a sign that increased eligibility would boost participation even more.

“They’re popular. They’re popular with families,” he said. “We see no reason why we shouldn’t continue to expand.”

Thompson additionally maintained earlier this week that private school tuition vouchers will “save the state money.”

“We’re educating 100,000 students [at voucher schools] for half the cost of those at traditional public schools,” Thompson said, pointing to debt service costs at public schools that “costs the state more money.”

“That’s a great deal for taxpayers, and also just honors a philosophy that I think a lot of us have, that parents should make what they believe is the best choice for their students,” he continued.

The Senate now takes the reins on the budget. But the chamber isn’t likely to unveil its spending plan for another month, closer to the release of the state’s next fiscal forecast.

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Tennessee private school voucher expansion bill clears first legislative hurdle

2023-02-09T00:49:59+00:00

A proposal that would expand eligibility for private school vouchers to students in a third large Tennessee school district passed easily out of its first legislative committee on Wednesday.

The Senate Education Committee voted 6-2 to advance a bill to bring the state’s education savings account program to Hamilton County Schools.

If the legislation becomes law, eligible families in the Chattanooga-based district, which has 44,000 students, could apply to receive taxpayer money to pay toward private school tuition next school year.

The program, pushed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee, launched this school year in Memphis and Nashville after the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the 2019 voucher law last spring. Metro Nashville and Shelby County governments continue to challenge the law’s constitutionality and have appealed their case to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The expansion bill passed out of committee with little discussion.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican sponsoring the measure, said his proposal “just adds Hamilton County to the ESA pilot program” and wouldn’t affect other counties or school districts.

But Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari said it’s too soon to broaden a new state program that’s intended as a pilot to see if education savings accounts are effective.

“I don’t think there’s been enough time to even see if it will be successful,” said Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who voted “no” with Republican Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald.

“I was opposed to it being piloted in Shelby County and in Davidson County as well,” Akbari added.

Sen. Rusty Crowe, a Republican from Johnson City, declined to vote.

The law directs the state comptroller to report on the program’s efficacy after its third year of enrolling students, which would be by Jan. 1, 2026.

As of Monday, the state education department had approved 643 applications to use vouchers, three-fifths of which are from families wanting to leave Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

You can track the bill on the state legislature’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Lee aims to raise minimum salary for Tennessee teachers to $50,000 by 2027

2023-02-07T11:00:00+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that he’ll propose legislation to increase the minimum salary for Tennessee teachers from $41,000 to $50,000 over the next four years.

If the proposal passes, the new base salary in the fall of 2027 would be up 42% from 2019, Lee’s first year in office, when the state’s minimum teacher pay was $35,000.

The Republican governor has sought to raise teacher compensation annually and said he wants $125 million more toward pay increases next school year.

He didn’t give details about his long-term pay proposal during his state address Monday night before a joint session of the Tennessee legislature. But his brief comments about teacher compensation prompted two standing ovations from lawmakers in a state that ranks toward the bottom in K-12 funding and where many teachers have to work 10 to 15 years to reach a salary of $50,000.

Lee’s education chief, Penny Schwinn, told Chalkbeat that a large jump in base pay would transform efforts to recruit educators to the profession — and retain them in subsequent years.

“This is a game changer in terms of how we talk about the profession, how we compensate the profession,” Schwinn said. “This is that retention component that is going to be critical.”

Raising base pay would have a “domino effect” on how more experienced teachers are paid, too, she said.

“You raise the minimum, which raises the midpoint, which raises the end-point salary. That’s what we see every year that we’ve raised the base salary by about a thousand dollars. You see a domino effect for all of the salary schedules statewide,” Schwinn said.

In conjunction with his address, Lee’s administration released his $55.6 billion proposed budget for next fiscal year, recommending that the state’s largest new investment — $3.3 billion worth — go to repair and build roads and bridges to address Tennessee’s decaying transportation infrastructure.

For education, he proposed adding $350 million to the $750 million in recurring funds already approved to launch the state’s new education funding formula, known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA, which takes effect July 1. Signed into law last year, TISA will replace the state’s 30-year-old funding system and sets a base funding rate of $6,860 per pupil, then distributes additional money to support students who need the most help.

The governor asked the legislature to approve one-time funding of $20 million for school safety grants and nearly $30 million for a related school safety initiative to hire at least one Homeland Security special agent in each of the state’s 95 counties to work with local schools and law enforcement.

“We’ve done a lot to make schools safer, but I don’t want to look up months from now and think ‘we should’ve done more,’” said Lee, promising to prioritize school safety every year he’s in office.

He’s also asking for recurring new funding of nearly $61 million to extend summer learning camps across Tennessee and to expand eligibility from grades 4-8 currently to kindergarten through the ninth grade, plus $10 million to provide bus transportation to and from those camps.

Lee seeks more funds for charter commission

Lee used his annual address to tout both public schools and voucher programs that give parents taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. He introduced Vincent Hunter, principal at Whitehaven High School in Memphis, which has expanded dual enrollment, advanced placement, and foreign language course opportunities and boasts a graduation rate above 90%. He also introduced Nashville fourth-grader Natalia Serrano, who enrolled in Holy Rosary Academy through Tennessee’s education savings account program, which kicked off this school year.

“I have always believed that we should strive to have the best public school system in the country — and provide choices for parents,” Lee said.

But Lee made no mention of charter schools in this year’s address, after using the platform a year ago to endorse a “partnership” with Michigan’s Hillsdale College to open classical charter schools in Tennessee that align with his conservative ideology. That effort initially failed (although Hillsdale’s American Classical Education charter group is trying again and recently submitted applications to open schools with five Tennessee districts).

Lee’s spending plan, however, includes more than $1 million more in recurring funding to support the state’s new Charter School Commission and its growing portfolio of state-authorized charter schools.

In his speech and budget blueprint, the governor called for more support for new mothers, foster care, and crisis pregnancy centers. He proposed investing $193.5 million to bolster the state’s embattled children’s services agency, which has been under scrutiny for sweeping failures in overseeing Tennessee’s most vulnerable children.

“DCS caseworkers have an incredibly difficult job, and they deserve our support,” Lee said. “Last year, we provided two pay raises for caseworkers, and I intend to boost their pay again in this budget.”

Critics say Lee’s policy plans fall short

The governor’s teacher pay proposals drew cautious comments from the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers organization, which noted that Alabama’s minimum starting salary for a teacher this year is $43,358.

“Tennessee has a long way to go to reach Gov. Lee’s goal of a starting salary of $50,000, but the state is well positioned to make this a reality sooner rather than later as we continue to record significant surpluses,” the group said in a statement.

For instance, Tennessee tax collections for the current fiscal year have been beating forecasts by hundreds of millions of dollars. And for the new fiscal year that begins in July, Lee proposes adding another $250 million to the state’s “rainy day” reserve fund, which is already at a record high.

Meanwhile, “teachers, like other Tennesseans, have been affected by inflation and rising costs in the family budget,” said TEA President Tanya Coats. “More can be done to improve the economics of being a professional teacher in our state.”

Outside the Tennessee Capitol earlier Monday, a small group of Nashville-area pastors called on the governor to pursue policies that benefit everyone, not just a select few people or special interest groups.

“There is nothing more beneficial to the common good than fully funded, high-quality public education,” said the Rev. Kevin Riggs, pastor of Franklin Community Church in Franklin.

Nashville-area pastors and faith leaders speak outside the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville on Feb. 6, prior to Gov. Bill Lee’s 2023 state address.

Riggs criticized new state laws aimed at banning books in classrooms and school libraries, holding back third graders if they don’t test as proficient in reading, and targeting LGBTQ students.

“These policies are failing our families,” he said. “We need to listen to teachers and principals and support the work of our public schools, making them stronger and our communities healthier.”

Over the weekend, House Minority Leader Karen Camper urged the governor to halt any policies that drain money from public schools, such as vouchers.

“Let’s invest in pre-K, smaller classroom sizes, and professional teachers who are preparing our children, not just for this decade, but for those beyond our lifetimes,” said the Memphis Democrat, in her party’s “prebuttal speech.”

“We must guard against the expansion of policies that result in the re-segregation of schools,” Camper continued. “If we ignore our past, we insult the struggles of so many heroes like Ruby Bridges, the Memphis 13, and Clinton 12, who passed down progress and inclusion in every generation since.

Tennessee lawmakers will begin reviewing the governor’s budget this week in their finance committees. The legislature must approve a final budget before recessing for the year this spring.

You can read the governor’s full address here

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana advances plan to expand school choice program to more students

2023-01-25T22:01:02+00:00

A bill that would expand school choice in Indiana and divert funds from public schools advanced on Wednesday with major changes.

Senate lawmakers enlarged the pool of students who could receive state money to attend private schools, but backed away from an initial proposal that would have opened the state’s Education Scholarship Accounts to all students regardless of family income or education needs.

Sen. Brian Buchanan amended his bill on Wednesday to limit the accounts to families meeting the program’s current income requirements. His changes also would reserve half of the total appropriation for students who receive special education services — the group the accounts currently serve.

The amended legislation passed the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development by a vote of 8-5, with GOP Sen. Jean Leising joining the four Democrats on the committee in opposition. It now heads to the appropriations committee.

The bill could become one of the more notable education policy legacies of Indiana’s 2023 legislative session. Proponents say it puts more control in parents’ hands over their children’s education.

“Any time you can give more choice and more options for parents, I believe it’s better,” said the bill’s author, Buchanan, in committee hearings last week.

Meanwhile, critics assail the program for siphoning off funds from state education and public schools.

“This is not about parent choice, this is about diverting and divesting money away from public schools,” said Sen. Fady Qaddoura, a Democrat.

Other concerns from opposition lawmakers included expanding a relatively new program to all families without data to gauge its effectiveness.

Created in 2021, the scholarship accounts currently are open only to students who receive special education services and whose families who don’t exceed certain limits on household income, allowing them to use state funding to attend private schools.

Buchanan’s bill would remove special education requirements, opening the choice program to families with a household income up to 300% of the federal poverty level. It would also raise the grant that a student would receive from 90% to 100% of the state tuition dollars earmarked for their public school.

The total cost of the proposal hasn’t been revealed, and that cost will determine the number of students who could participate. Buchanan said the appropriations committee would make that determination, but that he would support a $10 million appropriation, equal to its current budget.

Though just 143 students participate in the education scholarship program in 2022-23, interest is likely to increase as more people become aware of it, according to the bill’s fiscal note. Senate Bill 305 will make more families whose students attend private schools eligible for state support, potentially increasing the total cost to the state, according to the note.

The education scholarship accounts are separate from the Choice Scholarship program, which is open to most students from low- and moderate-income families in Indiana. That program served around 44,000 students last year, at a cost of about $240 million.

The expansion of the education scholarship accounts is not the only voucher or voucher-like program that lawmakers are considering this session. Another would create career scholarship accounts, giving students state grants to spend on job training with organizations outside their schools.

Career scholarship accounts would not come out of tuition support dollars for schools, though they would render schools ineligible for career and technical education dollars for each student who opts for a scholarship account instead.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana lawmakers weigh bill to create universal school choice program

2023-01-19T21:51:50+00:00

This article originally published in the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Indiana lawmakers on Wednesday began a contentious debate over whether it should bring universal school choice — and its daunting potential long-term cost — to Hoosier students and parents.

Testimony heard in the Senate education committee raised questions about how much universal education scholarship accounts would cost and whether the state can afford to fund all students who are eligible to participate. This would be separate than the state’s voucher program, known as Choice Scholarships.

Critics of the bill additionally doubled down on their concerns that the program expansion would pull additional dollars away from already cash-strapped public schools.

Bill author Sen. Brian Buchanan, R-Lebanon, maintained that his bill seeks to give families more options and ensure that students who don’t qualify for the program now — but want to — can participate.

“ESAs are designed all around to put parents in control of their kids’ education, allowing them to have more say in essentially determining how the money is going to be spent and what accountability and transparency will look like,” Buchanan said. “Anytime you can get more choice, more options for parents, I believe it’s better, and that’s what this bill is doing.”

The bill is awaiting committee approval, which could come as early as next week. Senate education committee chairman Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, said several amendments to the measure are likely to be adopted before a vote is held.

Will Indiana adopt universal school choice?

Indiana’s Education Scholarship Account (ESA) program was created by the General Assembly in 2021 despite pushback from public education advocates who argued that the program lacks oversight and takes money away from traditional public schools.

Currently, ESAs are limited to students who qualify for special education. Families must also meet income limits to participate. The income ceiling is high, however. A family of four can make up to $154,000 annually — equal to 300% of the amount required for a student to qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.

But Buchanan’s bill would extend the program to all students, regardless of a student’s educational needs or their family’s income level.

Accounts set up by the state treasurer’s office provide each qualifying student with funding for private school tuition and various other educational services from providers outside of their school district.

Buchanan is seeking to increase the ESA grants from 90% to 100% of the per-pupil funding that the state provides to local public schools. That means, on average, a student is eligible to receive about $7,500 per academic year.

The previous state budget appropriated $10 million a year for the program, enough to fund about 1,300 ESAs. Fiscal year 2023 is the first year the program enrolled students. The treasurer’s office reports that 143 students are participating in the program this year.

Buchanan said he “would be happy” if budget writers kept the ESA funding the same in the next biennium, noting that the program expansion “is contingent upon getting a line item for a fiscal line item in the budget.”

While Buchanan repeatedly tried to focus on that initial $10 million price tag, the program could easily grow.

For instance, Indiana has about 87,000 private school students, according to the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE). About 44,000 of those use the state’s Choice Scholarship program — which allows families to receive vouchers to attend private schools. But the remaining 43,000 would be eligible for the grant, which would average around $7,500 statewide.

That would equal more than $300 million annually.

The voucher program started similarly with a cap of 7,500 students at a cost of $15 million. The cap doubled the next year and now there is no limit and a current annual cost of $240 million.

Home-schooled students would also be eligible, along with public school kids. But the latter are already being funded in the state’s K-12 support formula.

Buchanan emphasized that less than 150 students currently participate in the ESA program. He said there are another 300 families who want to take part but aren’t currently eligible.

“This program only exists if it gets funded by the state budget that we’re currently crafting,” he said, adding that “whether it be $10 million again, or less or more than that, that will be the cap.”

Buchanan said the program will be “first come, first served” if the number of students who want an ESA exceeds the state cap.

It is unclear if the voucher program would still exist alongside a universal education savings account program.

It’s also not clear whether the GOP caucus will support a universal school voucher program in the current budget. Republican House Speaker Todd Huston said last week that he “would love to see” Indiana adopt such a program.

Changes to high school learning and degrees

Legislators on Wednesday also began discussions around a key education bill that seeks to “reinvent” high school curriculum. The House education committee heard two hours of testimony on HB 1002, a priority bill for the caucus that seeks to expand work-based learning in Indiana high schools, like apprenticeships and internships.

In addition, the bill would create a framework for students to earn a post-secondary credential before leaving the K-12 system.

Bill author Rep. Chuck Goodrich, R-Noblesville, said his proposal seeks to narrow the “skills gap” between Hoosiers and employers.

“Many students are not receiving the education and training they need to succeed in our workforce,” he said. “The world is changing at a rapid pace. We need to ensure that our students are ready for all that lies beyond high school — that they will have additional pathways to succeed.”

Paramount to the bill is a provision that would establish accounts for students in grades 10-12 to pay for career training outside their schools.

The career scholarship accounts (CSAs) would be similar to Indiana’s ESAs. Students would first be required to create a postsecondary plan in order to qualify for the scholarship accounts.

The amount each participating student can receive to pay for apprenticeships, coursework, or certification would be based on a calculation of the state dollars that their school receives. Students won’t qualify for a CSA if they’re already enrolled in a career and technical education program, though.

The IDOE would be tasked with approving the courses and tracks available to students, as well as determining the grant amount for each course.

GOP lawmakers said their goal is to get 5,000 to 10,000 students to participate in the next fiscal year.

Other provisions in the bill would require IDOE to put in place new diploma requirements by 2024, and ensure that high schools hold career fairs to help students connect with employers and work-based learning providers.

The bill would also allow students to apply funds from the 21st Century Scholars program — a statewide grant program that supports student enrollment at two- and four-year schools.

The CSAs have so far been met with support from business and economic leaders from across the state. Many education officials said they’re on-board with the idea, but they want more clarity around the bill’s fiscal impact.

The Indiana State Teachers Association, which opposes the current draft of the bill, said they specifically want lawmakers to ensure that public schools “play a major role” in work-based learning expansion.

“We are concerned that this bill drastically creates further privatization and outsources the public tax dollars that will have significant implications on school funding, how funding is streamed to schools and how it will affect students in classrooms,” said Jerell Blakeley, ISTA’s director of government, community, racial and social justice. “Educators in public schools are uniquely qualified, by training experience, to ensure that work-based learning experiences are both substantive and substantial.”

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Tennessee legislative preview: Key education issues to watch as lawmakers return

2023-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

When Tennessee legislators passed a tough third-grade reading law during their 2021 special session on education, they didn’t seek the input of many educators.

But they’re hearing a lot of feedback now, as the law’s stricter retention policy kicks in with this year’s class of third graders. Educators are warning about the potential for thousands of students to be held back because of low reading scores, along with a slew of logistical challenges created by the law.

Revisiting the controversial third-grade reading law is expected to top the list of education priorities heading into this year’s 113th General Assembly, beginning Tuesday in Nashville.

Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Bill Lee will unveil details of his legislative agenda and proposed budget several weeks after being sworn in for his second term on Jan. 21.

Last year, no education issue seemed too big or small for the GOP-controlled legislature to take up — from passing Lee’s sweeping rewrite of the state’s K-12 funding formula to authorizing teachers to confiscate students’ cellphones if they’re deemed a distraction in class. Lawmakers also asserted state power over several matters traditionally handled at the local or school level, including which books are OK for libraries and how to resolve a dispute between two cities over school properties.

This year, the GOP may flex its supermajority power again on socially divisive issues, including one bill that seeks to limit health treatment for transgender youth.

But whether charter school advocates will try again to pass charter-friendly legislation is still uncertain after several Republican-sponsored proposals sputtered last year and the fallout over charter applications linked to Michigan’s Hillsdale College galvanized supporters of traditional public schools.

As for the Democrats, their minority status limits their influence over legislation. But expect them to hammer their messaging around themes of restoring local control over education and the potential fiscal effects of expanding Tennessee’s charter school sector and private school voucher programs.

Here are five things to watch for as the General Assembly convenes:

Expect a ‘quieter year’ from Lee’s administration

During his first term, the governor spent significant political capital to pass major education laws — launching a private school voucher program, creating a powerful state commission to oversee charter school growth, expanding vocational education options for middle and high school students, and replacing the state’s 30-year-old resource-based funding formula with a student-centered one called Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA.

Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican businessman from Williamson County, will be sworn in to his second term in office on Jan. 21.

Last fall, Lee suggested the dizzying pace would continue, with a campaign pledge to teachers and parents that he would “make the most of the next four years.”

But legislative leaders working closely with his administration say this year’s education focus will be to execute what’s already passed — not introduce new major initiatives.

“We’ve done a lot, and I think it’s going to be a quieter year on education,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, who carries bills on the governor’s behalf.

Specifically, he said, Lee wants to monitor this year’s rollout of the funding formula and third-grade retention policy. “We may need some tweaks and improvements on those but, in terms of any new broad initiatives, I don’t anticipate anything from the administration,” Johnson told Chalkbeat.

Lee pledged more money for K-12 education

When Lee pressed last year for an education funding overhaul, he pledged an additional $1 billion annually for students if TISA passed, beginning with the budget that takes effect this July 1. With state revenues continuing to exceed expenses, the expectation is that he’ll make good on that promise.

On other budgetary matters, Lee has said he wants to continue upping teacher pay. He’ll also likely set aside money so the all-volunteer state textbook commission can hire staff to manage a new library book appeals process authorized by the legislature in 2022. And he’s expected to propose more funding for the state agency for children’s services, which is severely understaffed and short of beds for abused, neglected, or foster children who are taken into state custody.

Meanwhile, the legislature will review ways to continue tapping state or federal dollars for perennial educational wants, from more social services for schools to expanded access to pre-kindergarten and early child care.

Lawmakers will revisit third-grade retention policy

Vowing to stop the cycle of letting students who can’t read move up to the next grade, Lee pressed for the new third-grade reading law, which tightens state retention policies that generally haven’t been enforced under a 2011 law.

The 2021 law made it more likely that schools will hold back students who aren’t considered proficient in reading by the end of third grade, based on the results of annual state tests this spring. It also authorized new summer school and after-school tutoring programs that can help struggling third graders avoid being held back.

But with only a third of Tennessee third graders projected to test proficient in reading, educators insist that state test results don’t tell the full story about a student’s reading ability. They want more local input that takes into account the results of periodic “benchmark” tests administered throughout the year.

“This is the No. 1 concern I’m hearing across the state with superintendents, school boards, and parents,” said House Education Committee Chairman Mark White, who says he’s open to adding benchmark test results into the calculations. “We cannot ignore it.”

Expect other legislative proposals to try to improve the quality of education before third grade, especially to support literacy.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican from Maury County, is one of the legislature’s most prolific sponsors of education legislation.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, for instance, is looking at raising the minimum age to begin kindergarten. Currently, Tennessee law requires children entering kindergarten to be at least 5 years old on or before Aug. 15 of the school year they’re entering.

His proposal is based on a recent analysis by the state comptroller’s office, which found that Tennessee students who were older at kindergarten enrollment performed better on third-grade literacy tests than their peers.

School voucher program could expand

After overcoming a string of court challenges, private school vouchers became available this school year in Memphis and Nashville. Now Sen. Todd Gardenhire is looking to expand the “pilot” program to Hamilton County, where he lives.

The Chattanooga Republican had voted against education savings accounts in 2019, but said he’s changed his mind since the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the controversial law last spring. He’s also frustrated that Hamilton County Schools has abandoned a $20 million school improvement plan for its lowest-performing schools.

Gardenhire filed his bill last month and recruited White to co-sponsor the measure in the House.

Meanwhile, the law continues to face legal challenges. Metro Nashville and Shelby County governments gave notice last month that they’ll appeal a lower court’s dismissal of their remaining legal claims to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The state comptroller’s first report on the program’s efficacy isn’t due until Jan. 1, 2026.

Efforts to attract and keep teachers grow

Both state and national data suggest that teacher shortages are limited to certain districts, schools, and subjects, not an across-the-board problem. But with the churn of educators and school staff worsening during the pandemic, expect several new proposals to try to strengthen teacher pipelines beyond Tennessee’s existing grow-your-own programs, as well as to support those already in classrooms.

The Tennessee School Boards Association is urging the legislature to incentivize potential teacher candidates by reimbursing those who pass the Praxis exam, which measures knowledge and skills needed to be a teacher. The test generally costs about $120. (The State Board of Education is also considering dropping EdTPA, another licensing test required currently of about 900 “job-embedded” candidates, who make up about a third of the state’s teacher pipeline.)

Cepicky and Sen. Joey Hensley have filed a bill to provide teachers with $500 annually to pay for classroom supplies, instead of the current $200, so that they’re not counting on charity or personal funds to cover those costs.

But for many districts, an even bigger staffing issue is hiring enough support staff.

South of Nashville, Williamson County Schools has only three-fourths of the school bus drivers needed by the suburban district and is also understaffed for teacher aides for special education students.

“Every little tool you can give us in our toolbox, if it can fill one or two spots, it’s worth it,” Superintendent Jason Golden told his local legislative delegation during a weekend workshop.

“We’re looking at it,” responded Hensley, a Hohenwald Republican. “We know it’s a big issue.”

To find legislators, track bills, and livestream legislative business, visit the Tennessee General Assembly website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

DeVos-funded campaign for school voucher-like plan withdraws petitions in a sign of defeat

2023-01-10T00:43:51+00:00

A Betsy DeVos-backed proposal to help Michigan families use taxpayer funds to cover private school tuition and other education-related expenses appears finished after organizers withdrew petitions they’d submitted to the Secretary of State.

The proposal — which critics have likened to private school vouchers — doesn’t have a clear political path after Democrats won full control of the state Legislature in November.

“This is an acknowledgement that it failed,” said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who has been critical of the proposal and of vouchers.

Let MI Kids Learn, the group behind the proposal, gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures and spent $11.4 million on its campaign, most of which was donated by former U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos and her family.

Proposal would have created a tax credit

The initiative was part of a decades-long effort by the DeVos family to direct taxpayer dollars to private schools, in the face of a provision in the Michigan Constitution that broadly bars using public funds for private schools.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected a 2000 ballot proposal funded by DeVos to create a voucher system that allowed students to use public school funds for private school tuition.

Let MI Kids Learn took a different tack. It would have provided tax credits to individual taxpayers who funded scholarships for private schools or other educational services, such as tutoring. Each dollar contributed to the scholarship accounts would be credited back to donors on their state tax bill.

The proposal would have cost the state an estimated $500 million in the first year, of which roughly $50 million would come directly out of the state school aid fund.

Supporters of the proposal said kids would benefit from being enrolled in private school.

“Michigan students already suffered through two years of unnecessary COVID learning disruption, and as the most recent data show, the results have been devastating,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman for Let MI Kids Learn.

Recent studies of voucher programs in other states show broadly negative academic results, especially in math. They also show that in many cases, students who benefit from the programs were already enrolled in private school. Some older studies tended to show neutral or modest positive effects of vouchers on academic performance.

Campaign hit snags on the way to November

The November election results weren’t the only bump in the road for Let MI Kids Learn. In May, signature gatherers for the campaign were found to be misleading Detroiters about the proposal. In June 2022, the campaign missed a deadline to submit signatures to the state, precluding the proposal from going before the Republican-controlled Legislature before new lawmakers took power in January.

While ballot initiatives generally go to a vote by the public in a general election, Let MI Kids Learn had aimed to have its proposal enacted directly by the Legislature through a provision in the Michigan Constitution that allows a ballot proposal to become law without the governor’s signature. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, vetoed a similar proposal in 2021.

But after the Let MI Kids Learn campaign missed the June signature filing deadline and Democrats won control of both chambers of the Legislature, the proposal’s prospects dimmed.

“With the new Legislature in place, I’m sure they felt it was going to be an undoable task to move things forward,” said Pamela Pugh, a Democrat on the State Board of Education.

In withdrawing the petitions, organizers of the proposal apparently decided against putting the issue to a statewide vote.

“If they thought voters were going to vote for this, they would have gone that route immediately,” Cowen said.

Wszolek, the Let MI Kids Learn spokesman, said “we’ll continue to join with the hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who signed these petitions to advocate for immediate help for students across the state.”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Nashville, Shelby County to appeal court’s dismissal of Tennessee school voucher case

2023-01-03T22:09:48+00:00

Plaintiffs behind two lawsuits challenging Tennessee’s private school voucher law plan to appeal a judicial panel’s dismissal of their remaining legal claims.

Metropolitan Nashville and Shelby County governments, which jointly challenged the 2019 law that applies only to their counties, notified the Tennessee Court of Appeals late last month that they will appeal the latest ruling. Attorneys representing parents and taxpayers in a second lawsuit submitted a separate notice of appeal.

The appeals will extend the 3-year-old legal battle over Gov. Bill Lee’s controversial Education Savings Account program for at least several more months. The program provides taxpayer money for eligible families in Memphis and Nashville to help cover private school tuition for their children.

Emboldened by a string of court victories, Lee’s administration began accepting applications late last summer to launch the program by fall. Meanwhile, officials in those cities went back to court to try to stop it, partly on grounds that their school districts would face financial harm if the voucher program diverts taxpayer funding from public to private schools.

But in a 2-1 vote in November, a three-judge panel ruled the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing at this point to pursue the case on those grounds, noting that the law provides for compensating the districts for lost funding in the program’s first three years.

In pursuing the appeal now, the plaintiffs are pointing to the dissenting opinion from Chancellor Anne Martin of Nashville, who cited the state’s constitutional obligation to maintain a free public school system that provides equal educational opportunities for residents. Martin said the plaintiffs’ allegations of discriminatory treatment and unequal funding were sufficient concerns to let the case proceed.

On Tuesday, Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz told Chalkbeat that an appeal is the “next logical step to bring some clarity to these issues.”

“Chancellor Martin made important points in her dissenting opinion,” Dietz said, “and we believe these important constitutional questions should be resolved by an appellate court.”

A spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office declined to comment.

The appeals will go before a judicial panel that ruled against the voucher law in September 2020, siding with Martin’s initial ruling that the statute unconstitutionally singled out two counties. Her ruling halted the program’s planned launch that year.

But after the state’s highest court overruled two lower courts and upheld the voucher law last May, the governor ordered the education department to kick off the voucher program with the 2022-23 school year.

As of Dec. 22, the department had approved 323 voucher applications from students in Memphis-Shelby County Schools and 236 applications from students in Metro Nashville Public Schools — well under the law’s participation cap of 5,000 students for the program’s first year. Another 510 applications were deemed ineligible, according to a department spokesman.

Meanwhile, a Chattanooga lawmaker has filed legislation that would expand the state’s voucher program to Hamilton County.

Similar legal battles over school choice and privatization are playing out in other states. In New Hampshire last month, opponents sued to stop one of the nation’s broadest school voucher laws, while the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down a Republican-backed initiative to award tax credits for donations supporting private school tuition. (A similar initiative in Michigan, backed by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, stalled.) Arizona launched its education savings account program last year, overcoming efforts to stop it.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee private school voucher law would expand to Hamilton County under bill

2022-12-08T22:05:03+00:00

Tennessee’s private school voucher law, which now only affects districts and some students in Memphis and Nashville, would widen to include Hamilton County Schools under new legislation filed this week.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican, wants the legislature to expand the eligibility criteria for the education savings account program to include students in districts with at least five of the state’s lowest-performing schools, as identified in the last three “priority school” cycles since 2015.

Under those criteria, Hamilton County Schools, which is based in Chattanooga, would qualify — but not districts in other counties with priority schools such as Knox or Madison.

The proposal would mark the first expansion of the program that launched this fall under the controversial 2019 voucher law. The law, which was signed by Gov. Bill Lee, passed Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature after a decade-long tug-of-war between those who want to use taxpayer money to give parents more education choices and others who say that approach diverts money from already underfunded public schools.

When the initial voucher bill was being debated, Gardenhire was among lawmakers in Chattanooga and Knoxville who sought to exclude their counties from the law’s reach. But Gardenhire says the circumstances have changed, and he now supports including his home district.

He noted that Hamilton County Schools now has more priority schools than in 2019, when the district was in the midst of a $20 million school improvement plan known as Partnership Network. That initiative has since been disbanded.

“We’ll know in a few years if the ESA program works. But we know what we’re doing now in Hamilton County is not working. It’s a total disaster,” Gardenhire told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Gardenhire said he also was concerned initially that courts would overturn the new education savings account law, but the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld it on appeal this spring. (Plaintiffs that include local governments in Davidson and Shelby counties are still considering whether to appeal another court’s recent ruling dismissing the remainder of their claims.)

“With the appeals adjudicated, it’s time to put Hamilton County Schools under the ESA Act,” Gardenhire said.

Democrats, who voted unanimously against the voucher law, were quick to criticize the bill.

“Public school tax dollars belong in our public schools,” said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis. “We opposed private school vouchers for Nashville and Memphis, and we oppose any expansion of a disproven approach that hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried.”

Akbari said Tennessee should instead invest its time and resources in strategies that have a proven record of boosting student achievement, like smaller class sizes and wraparound student support.

The law refers to education savings accounts as a “pilot program” and directs the state comptroller to report on the program’s efficacy after its third year of enrolling students. But because ongoing litigation delayed the program’s launch, the first report isn’t due until Jan. 1, 2026.

Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, a Chattanooga Democrat, said Tennessee should not expand the program so soon after rolling it out.

“Good policy means studying something for several years before you start trying to change it,” Hakeem said. “We don’t even have a year of data yet to track.”

Gardenhire said he has a co-sponsor lined up in the House but declined to identify that legislator.

Two key GOP legislative leaders have signed on as co-sponsors in the Senate: Bo Watson, of Hixson, who chaired his chamber’s finance committee in the recent legislative session; and Sen. Jon Lundsberg, of Bristol, who chaired the education committee.

Tennessee is among more than 20 states that have either started or expanded voucher-type programs in the last two years.

Research on the effectiveness of vouchers is mixed. Recent studies have found that switching to private education using a voucher tends not to help — and may even harm — students’ test scores, especially in math. Other studies, though, have found neutral or positive effects of vouchers on high school graduation and college attendance.

You can track the bill’s progress here.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

After a bruising Michigan election, what’s next for Betsy DeVos and her education agenda?

2022-11-28T23:00:00+00:00

Over a decade of Republican dominance in Michigan, perhaps no individual shaped school policy as much as Betsy DeVos.

Michigan has some of the nation’s highest concentrations of charter schools run by for-profit companies, and key aspects of their financial operations, such as teacher salaries, are shielded from public scrutiny. In Detroit, schools can open and close anywhere in the city at any time without input from local authorities. Teachers unions in the state are limited by so-called right-to-work laws and limitations on tenure and bargaining.

All of that is thanks, in large part, to DeVos and her billionaire family’s political influence.

Seeking to expand on those wins, DeVos and her family members spent at least $11 million to support various political causes in the 2022 election cycle, including the Let MI Kids Learn ballot proposal to create voucher-like scholarship accounts for private school, and the gubernatorial campaign of Tudor Dixon, who ran on a pro-school-choice platform.

But the November election turned out to be the most striking public repudiation of DeVos’ agenda since 2000, when Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected a school-voucher proposal she funded. Dixon lost by double digits to Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who made reproductive freedom the center of her campaign. And the Let MI Kids Learn proposal, which DeVos’ team failed to get on the November ballot, appears to have little chance of becoming law anytime soon.

Democrats won full control of the Legislature for the first time in 38 years and are now in position to undo some of DeVos’ signature education policies of the past decade.

Two of their top priorities are requiring charter schools to disclose more detailed financial records and rolling back a DeVos-backed law requiring third-graders to be held back if they are more than a grade level behind in reading.

So does that mean DeVos’ influence over education in Michigan is waning?

It depends on whom you ask.

The Michigan Education Association would like to think so. MEA is the state’s largest teachers union and a longtime opponent of DeVos’ voucher initiatives.

“The far right don’t like her because she didn’t stand up for Donald Trump” after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, said MEA spokesman Thomas Morgan. “And the left and middle have never liked her here in Michigan because of her repeated attempts to destroy public education.”

But few others are convinced that the election setbacks will halt the family’s decades long pursuit of a school-choice agenda.

“It’s a loss, and all losses sting,” said Bill Nowling, former spokesman for the Republican Party of Michigan and a longtime campaign consultant. “Are these fatal moments (for DeVos’ agenda)? I don’t think so … . It’s something they believe strongly in, and they’re going to keep trying.”

DeVos was not available to comment for this article, a spokesperson said.

Supporters of her school-choice agenda say the change in control of the Legislature doesn’t diminish the urgency of their cause.

Let MI Kids Learn would provide a path for students to catch up academically, said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by DeVos.

“Doing what’s best for our children shouldn’t be political,” DeShone said.

Debates play out on a field DeVos helped build

Before she was education secretary, DeVos was chairperson of the Michigan GOP, a prominent member of the state’s richest family of political donors, and a driving force behind a wave of reforms that redefined the state’s school landscape.

Many DeVos-backed policies are now deeply embedded in the state’s education system and would be hard to undo.

Consider the cap on the number of charter schools statewide that can be opened statewide, which DeVos and her political allies successfully fought to eliminate in 2011.

Teachers unions and other education groups fiercely opposed that move, but reinstating the previous cap would mean closing schools — never an easy political task, and one that would have the most impact in Detroit and Flint, which have large concentrations of both charter schools and Democratic voters. Any new cap without school closures wouldn’t have much effect on the charter school movement, because charter school growth has slowed.

Even the language that defines debates over teachers unions and vouchers bears DeVos’ influence.

“Vouchers were considered very, very radical in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Ellen Cogen Lipton, a state Board of Education member and former Democratic state representative from Huntington Woods. “Now they call them ‘education scholarships’ or ‘opportunity scholarships,’ and the terms they’re using have enabled them to change the conversation. They talk about rescuing kids from failing schools.”

So-called right-to-work legislation — which unions have blamed in part for declining membership — is another example of the way DeVos and her allies have established the terms of the debate. The phrase is widely used now to describe policies in Michigan and other states that free workers from requirements to pay union dues if they are covered by a union contract. Opponents of the policy say the phrase is implicitly partisan.

Money still counts in politics

Michigan Democrats appear to have enough votes to roll back some of DeVos’ favored policies, no matter how vigorous the opposition. But even slight delays could make a difference: Democrats have a long list of priorities and a narrow majority that they’ll be forced to defend in just two years.

DeVos’ personal wealth allows her to be a forceful advocate of some of the policies that Democrats seek to undo, said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education at Michigan State University.

“She’s still a billionaire,” said Cowen, a fierce critic of DeVos. “She could outspend the public education community for the (equivalent) of what it costs you and me to go to the grocery store.”

DeVos is already a major funder of state advocacy groups that support her agenda, including the Great Lakes Education Project and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. And she could support an additional public campaign against the changes Democrats propose, such as a requirement that charter schools disclose more financial information, including about teacher salaries, Cowen said. Such changes have been fiercely opposed by the charter sector, particularly by large for-profit school operators such as National Heritage Academies.

Meanwhile, spokespeople for Let MI Kids Learn have signaled that they’ll keep fighting for the tax-favored scholarship proposal, even though it likely won’t be certified until next year, when the Democratic-led Legislature would be able to vote it down.

If they succeed in putting the proposal on the 2024 ballot, that would also mark a major milestone for DeVos and her agenda. Michigan voters would be able to weigh in directly on a DeVos-backed education issue for the first time since 2002, while the battle for control of the reconfigured state legislature would determine whether Democrats get more than two years to try to undo her education policy legacy.

And DeVos’ influence is likely to endure in electoral politics. It’s hard to win a Republican primary in Michigan without DeVos’ support, Nowling said. She has been strategic in contributing to PACs and candidates who will advance vouchers and school choice, he said.

The family gave a combined $50,000 directly to Dixon’s campaign. But they gave $6.3 million to Let MI Kids Learn and millions more to other conservative PACs that support private school choice, such as the Great Lakes Education Project.

They also gave $270,000 to the state GOP and contributed to dozens of individual Republican candidates’ campaigns.

Supporters of public school choice say their investment in their cause will pay off in the long run.

“We’re trying to make a groundbreaking change, so it’s certainly not wasted,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman for Let MI Kids Learn. “We’re not convinced there’s not voters who don’t see this need for alternatives” to the public school system.

Even by DeVos standards, the 2022 contributions in Michigan were a big investment – $11 million this election cycle, not counting contributions that won’t be reported until the Dec. 2 filing deadline. In each of the last two midterm election cycles, they contributed just $3 million to Republican campaigns.

Given that push, the homestate setback has to sting, said Lipton, a longtime critic of DeVos.

“She has funded voucher movements in other states, and I think it’s really been a personal affront that in her home state, she hasn’t been able to get something that is really, really important to her,” Lipton said.

But DeVos has deep enough pockets to keep trying even when voters resist, Lipton said.

“People like the DeVos family, their fortunes are so vast,” Lipton said. “I don’t know that they ever have the self-reflection (to say), ‘Gee, maybe what we want is not what the people want.’”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: Nov. 29, 2022: A previous version of this story said that Betsy DeVos backed a ballot initiative to create private school vouchers in 2002. The initiative was voted down in 2000.

Tennessee’s private school voucher program wins again in court

2022-11-24T00:06:32+00:00

A judicial panel sided with the state on Wednesday and dismissed remaining legal claims raised in two lawsuits challenging Tennessee’s private school voucher law.

The judges ruled that Metropolitan Nashville and Shelby County governments, along with a group of parents who oppose vouchers, have no legal standing to challenge Tennessee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law, which provides taxpayer money to pay toward private school tuition.

Voucher advocates quickly hailed the decision by the three-judge panel of Davidson County Chancery Court as a victory for parents wanting more education choices for their children.

“Today is a great day for educational freedom in Tennessee,” said Justin Owen, president of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, one of several groups involved in the case.

But the ruling also could position the nearly 3-year-old legal dispute for a hearing before a higher court.

“We are reviewing the opinion and will discuss a possible appeal when we return to work next week,” said Wally Dietz, Metro Nashville’s law director.

The judges dismissed the argument that both governments face financial injury in funding their local public schools when students choose to withdraw and enroll in private schools — taking their funding with them.

In a 26-page decision, they cited a provision of the law that — subject to appropriation by the legislature — replaces any funding lost through vouchers through a school improvement grant program for the first three years.

Thus, the judges wrote, the “Plaintiffs’ claims are not yet ripe because the ESA replaces the diverted funding for at least three years.”

But their decision does not necessarily put the case to rest.

“We are disappointed by the court’s order and disagree with its conclusions,” said Chris Wood, a Nashville attorney representing parents and taxpayers in a second lawsuit opposing the law. “We are reviewing our options, which include appealing the court’s decision.”

The ruling came from Chancellor Anne Martin, Judge Tammy Harrington, and Judge Valerie Smith under a new state law requiring that constitutional matters be heard by three judges representing each of the state’s three grand divisions instead of by a single judge based in Nashville.

But Martin, the Nashville judge who initially declared the law unconstitutional in 2020, wrote that, while she concurred about the issue of standing, she dissented over other issues, including the plaintiffs’ arguments that vouchers will create unequal education systems. The state constitution says Tennessee is obligated to maintain a system of free public schools that provides for equal educational opportunities for its residents.

Wednesday’s ruling is the latest in the legal dispute after the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the embattled voucher law in May.

The high court overturned another argument that the statute was unconstitutional because it applied only to Davidson and Shelby counties, without local approval. That ruling cleared the way for the program’s launch this school year. Then, in September, the state attorney general’s office urged the panel to dismiss all remaining legal challenges.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Bill Lee, who pushed for the voucher law, did not immediately respond when asked for comment.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Here are the big education donors in New York’s governor’s race

2022-11-08T00:20:10+00:00

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin, her Republican opponent, have built large campaign war chests as they seek to win New York state’s highest office on Tuesday.

While education-focused groups haven’t stuck out as either candidate’s biggest donors, both candidates have received some substantial donations from those who exert influence on New York’s education world — helping to paint a clearer picture of who is hoping to have sway over schools policy.

Hochul has touted boosting funding for public schools while in office and has earned the endorsements of powerful teachers unions. She recently revealed that she supported lifting the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York.

Zeldin has voiced strong support for school choice, including charters and private choice options, and has embraced conservative talking points about banning “divisive curriculum” related to race and restricting “age-inappropriate” sex education.

Hochul’s campaign has garnered contributions from some of the biggest players, such as educator unions, while Zeldin has gained the support of some of the nation’s wealthiest businessmen.

Hochul’s campaign has collected nearly $54 million since she took office in August 2021, according to the most recent contributions report on the New York State Board of Elections website. Zeldin’s campaign has garnered nearly $24 million since he announced his candidacy for governor in April 2021.

Here are some highlights of who’s contributed to both campaigns as voters head to the polls Tuesday:

Hochul

Hochul has received contributions from every major educator union: $69,700 from the political committee associated with the state teachers union, New York State United Teachers, or the maximum allowed contribution across primary and general statewide elections; $47,100 from the city teachers union, representing the maximum allowed during a general election; $5,000 from the city’s principals union in September 2021, about a month after Hochul confirmed she would run; and the maximum $69,700 from the national American Federation of Teachers.

The city teachers union has also “engaged our own membership in this election through a combination of digital ads, mailers, emails, texts, robo and live calls in support of the Hochul-Delgado ticket,” said spokesperson Alison Gendar.

The union has praised Hochul for boosting funding for schools and signing a bill that aims to reduce class sizes in New York City public schools. Michael Mulgrew, president of the city teachers union, called Hochul “the best advocate for New York City students and educators in a generation,” when Hochul visited the union’s delegate assembly last month.

Before endorsing Hochul, the state teachers union hadn’t thrown its support behind a gubernatorial candidate since 2006, said spokesperson Matt Hamilton. The union often had an adversarial relationship with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, especially over school funding and how state tests factored into teacher evaluations.

In endorsing Hochul in January, the union’s president, Andy Pallotta, said in a statement that Hochul’s “commitment to listening to the needs of our members” is the sign of a “new day” in the state’s capitol.

Hochul’s contributions show she also has some support in the charter sector. New Yorkers for Putting Students First, the political action committee for pro-charter, education reform advocacy organization StudentsFirst NY, gave Hochul $40,000 in September 2021. The committee also donated to Hochul when she was lieutenant governor.

She also received $30,000 this year from the Great Public Schools Political Action Committee, which was created by Eva Moskowitz, who founded New York’s largest charter network, Success Academy. That committee had previously also supported Cuomo. A representative for Success Academy declined to comment on the donation. Eric Grannis, Moskowitz’ husband who was previously listed as the committee’s main contact, did not immediately respond for comment.

That donation came far before Hochul revealed in a recent debate with Zeldin that she, like Zeldin, supports lifting New York’s cap on how many charter schools can open.

Hochul also received $10,000 in October 2021 from the New York School Bus Contractors Association’s political action committee. The organization represents about 100 school transportation companies, according to its website.

Zeldin

While it doesn’t appear that any major education organizations have donated to Zeldin’s campaign, he’s received large sums from Dan Loeb and Ronald Lauder, two billionaires who have gained attention for their views on education policy.

Loeb, who is the CEO of a New York City-based asset management firm called Third Point LLC, donated the maximum $47,100 allowed in general elections to Zeldin’s campaign last month. In the education world, Loeb sits on the board of trustees for Success Academy and was previously the network’s chairperson. CNBC reported in the spring that Loeb, who had contributed $1 million to a political action committee that supported Mayor Eric Adams during the mayoral campaign last year, had been advocating for charter schools in private discussions with Adams.

On Third Point’s website, Loeb’s profile notes that he’s been “an advocate for reforming America’s schools to ensure all children have access to high quality education.” He donated roughly $250,000 over the summer to New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, a political action committee with ties to Students First New York.

Zeldin first announced his campaign’s education agenda in front of a Success Academy campus in Queens. He said he supports lifting the charter cap and more generally supports school choice, including establishing “tax credits for school choice” and creating education savings accounts, which families can use to withdraw their children from public schools and receive tax dollars to pay for private school or other educational options like therapy.

Representatives for Third Point declined to comment on why Loeb is supporting Zeldin.

Lauder, who donated nearly $61,000 to Zeldin’s campaign, gained attention in 2019 for bankrolling a lobbying effort to preserve the Specialized High Schools Admission Test, which is the single exam students take to gain entry to eight of New York City’s nine specialized high schools.

Lauder has exerted significant influence over the governor’s race this year, spending $11 million so far on getting Zeldin elected, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

In these 3 state races, education is central and partisan divides are stark

2022-11-07T20:00:00+00:00

In this year’s midterm elections, when control of Congress is up for grabs and the president says that democracy itself is on the line, how much do education issues really matter? Quite a bit, it turns out.

The economy, abortion, and crime top the list of voter concerns, but schools are important too. In a Pew Research Center survey last month, 64% of registered voters said education is very important in how they’ll vote in the Congressional elections, while other polls show that education is a key consideration in local and state elections.

Republicans have also seized on schools as a way to put a focus on hot-button issues involving race and sexuality, which they believe will mobilize their base and attract swing voters. But some Democrats say the other party overplayed its hand, turning off moderates who care more about school quality and student safety.

The most drama has unfolded in statewide races, where education tends to play a bigger role than in federal elections but national issues still shape the debate. Education has featured prominently in three battleground states with extremely tight races for governor: Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

In each, the central education themes of this election cycle have been on full display, including ideological clashes over curriculum and parents’ rights as well as longstanding debates about school funding and choice. And, in what might be this moment’s defining trend, those three gubernatorial races exemplify how thoroughly the country’s divisive politics have infused education policy, replacing occasional bipartisanship with fierce tribalism.

“Across the board, K-12 educational issues are becoming more polarized by partisanship,” said Sarah Reckhow, a political science professor at Michigan State University who studies education policy.

“Only 10 or 15 years ago,” she added, “partisan differences on education weren’t so clear cut.”

Arizona: Culture wars

Nowhere is the partisan split over schools wider than in Arizona’s closely watched race for governor, where a conventional liberal candidate is running against a far-right firebrand.

Kari Lake, the Republican nominee, has thrilled conservatives with her Trump-style populism. And, similar to the former president and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Lake has leaned heavily into the school culture wars.

In her education plan, she rails against mandatory face masks and COVID vaccines, accuses schools of stoking “race-based animosity” by teaching critical race theory, and claims that some educators want to convert students into “progressive activists” and push “their sexuality or personal sexual preferences on little children.”

If the Democratic candidate is elected, “your kindergartner wouldn’t learn the Pledge of Allegiance, but your precious 5-year-old would be taught about sex,” Lake, a former local news anchor, said in a misleading campaign video.

Lake’s opponent, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, has shied away from hot-button education issues. Instead, she has focused on traditional Democratic priorities, such as universal preschool, teacher pay raises, and school building repairs.

“What I’m hearing most from people is they want us to fund our public schools,” she told her supporters.

Polling suggests that Hobbs’ agenda reflects the concerns of most Arizona voters. In a May survey commissioned by the nonpartisan group Education Forward Arizona, two-thirds of likely voters said school funding is too low, while only one third said they strongly support a ban on teaching critical race theory, or CRT.

The Arizona poll is in line with national surveys that find most Americans support universal preschool and higher teacher salaries, worry about under-funding of public schools, and oppose book banning. The public is much more divided over what students should learn about race, but voters tend to agree that politicians from both parties are overly focused on how race and gender are taught in schools.

In a September memo, the Republican National Committee warned candidates not to alienate moderate voters, saying that “CRT and masks” might energize their base, “but parental rights and quality education drive independents.”

Michael Petrilli, president of the right-leaning Fordham Institute, said it was interesting that candidates like Lake had chosen not to moderate their message in the general election.

But if she wins, he added, “then her strategy of playing up these culture-war issues, in education and otherwise, will be validated.”

Michigan: School choice

When Tudor Dixon, a Trump-backed Republican running to become Michigan’s next governor, talks about “parents’ rights,” it’s usually in the context of the school culture wars.

But she’s also campaigned against Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer on a more traditional conservative take on parents’ rights: The prerogative to choose the best school for your child. She supports giving parents publicly funded scholarships to help them pay for private school.

School choice has often been overshadowed this election cycle by clashes over race and sex in schools, but it remains a staple of conservative candidates’ agendas. Republican candidates in this Tuesday’s 36 gubernatorial races were more likely to include school choice on their campaign websites than any other issue, according to an analysis by Andy Smarick, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

One reason for the issue’s enduring popularity among candidates is that most Republicans support charter schools and, to a lesser degree, private-school vouchers. But equally important to candidates is the enthusiasm for school choice among the party’s biggest donors.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Michigan, where Betsy DeVos, one of the country’s most prominent and polarizing champions of school choice, and her family have poured millions of dollars into a group supporting Dixon’s campaign. For her part, Dixon has endorsed DeVos’s private-school choice plan, which critics say would undermine the public school system.

“It is time to fund students, not systems,” Dixon said at a campaign event last month, echoing a phrase used by DeVos and other choice advocates.

Other Republican candidates have also embraced the idea of using taxpayer money to cover the cost of private school, homeschooling, or whatever option families choose. Lake in Arizona said she wants to “fund students not systems;” Gov. Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection in Texas, said he supports “state funding following the student”; and Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for governor of Wisconsin, has called for “universal school choice.”

While popular with some voters, this message also poses risks. Democrats in each of those races have accused their opponents of seeking to defund public schools, which remain popular among parents.

“The most important rule in education politics is that most kids go to traditional public schools and their families like those schools,” said Petrilli of the Fordham Institute. “If you get painted as somebody who is anti-public education, that’s a real problem.”

Wisconsin: School funding

While Republicans hammer away at hot-button education issues, Democrats have stuck to the basics: more resources for public schools and students.

Increased school spending is a perennial focus for Democrats and their powerful allies, the national teachers unions. But, the candidates argue, there’s an urgent need for more resources now as schools respond to the pandemic’s ongoing fallout — including staff shortages, mental health challenges, and academic setbacks.

More money for schools was the most common education priority on the websites of Democratic gubernatorial candidates, according to Smarick.

Exhibit A is Wisconsin, where Gov. Tony Evers has staked his bid for a second term largely on the issue of school funding. He has touted historic increases in state education spending during his tenure. In August, he unveiled a plan to give schools an extra $90 million in federal aid to help with teacher hiring and mental health services. And in September, he called on the state legislature to expand education spending by about $2 billion in its next budget.

“Kids need more support and resources now more than ever,” said Evers, who was previously the state’s education chief and a public school teacher.

Pointing to the record $190 billion that Congress provided schools during the pandemic, Republicans argue that money isn’t the problem. Schools are struggling, they argue, because Democrats pushed for prolonged school closures during the pandemic.

“Evers wants his big checks to make people forget his big failures,” said Evers’ Republican opponent, Tim Michels.

But Democratic strategists say their candidates’ priorities reflect the will of most voters. National polls show that likely voters favor more funding for schools and mental health services for students. In Wisconsin, a recent Marquette Law School poll found that, when given a choice of whether to increase state aid for public or private schools, more than 60% of voters chose public schools while just under 30% chose private.

But Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, cautioned against reading too much into opinion surveys.

“People have policy-issue positions,” she said, “and, given the hyper partisanship of our time, those things are largely irrelevant to their vote choice.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.