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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.
