By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER
LOCAL EDUCATION NEWS | As you read this, members of the Tennessee Legislature are likely debating the pros and cons of expanding Republican Governor Bill Lee’s proposed voucher system. On Monday night, the Moore County School Board voted to send Moore County’s legislators a resolution opposing that system.
In it, the resolution states that it stands behind the Tennessee Constitution’s mandate for a “free and public education for all” and reminds elected officials that the Moore County School System employs over 150 staff members.
It further states that the local Board is “committed to maintaining local control over its schools, ensuring that they are reflective of the community’s needs and values” and that the voucher program would “threaten the district’s ability to maintain the quality of its educational offerings as [vouchers] would divert state funds to private actors and disrupt local control of education.”
The Tennessee School Board Association (TSBA) recommended the resolution to the local school system.
“The Governor’s voucher program is something that, in my opinion, would be a detriment to public schools,” Moore County School Board Director Chad Moorehead told the Board. “Personally I do not like the thought of giving public tax dollars to private schools with little or no accountability for how it is used when public schools are under heavy scrutiny.”
“According to what I’ve seen in the news, there have been lots in the surrounding counties and people statewide who have done something similar,” stated member Greg Thompson. “Is this the template that they’ve used?”
Director Moorehead also opened it to the Board to change or alter any line in the resolution prior to the vote, but no changes were made. Nathan Buchanan made the motion to approve the resolution and Jammie Cashion seconded it.
The Board unanimously approved the resolution and it’s signed by all five board members including Chair Tanya Vann, Jammie Cashion, Edward Cashion, Nathan Buchanan, and Greg Thompson. To read the resolution in its entirety, click here.
2,400 Tennessee student currently use vouchers
Tennessee currently offers vouchers through the Education Savings Accounts program, which was passed by the state legislature in 2019. The program was swiftly embroiled in years of legal challenges, but ultimately overcame those and officially launched in the 2022-2023 school year.
Even under Tennessee’s current Republican supermajority, Lee’s original voucher proposal barely squeaked through the House of Representatives in 2019, and only after sponsors agreed to limit the program to just a few urban areas.
Under the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, vouchers are currently only offered in Shelby County, Metro Nashville, and Hamilton County as of May 2019 but Lee’s proposal would expand the program to all Tennessee counties.
Currently around 2,400 students are using the program to offset costs for private schooling.
To participate, students must be a Tennessee resident entering kindergarten through 12th grade attending schools in Memphis, Metro Nashville, or Hamilton County. The current program also utilizes income requirements, but the larger state program drops them.
Study shows voucher student perform worse on TCAP
His proposal would see the program expanded to 20,000 students who would receive taxpayer-funded grants to attend private school beginning in the 2024-25. Half of those grants would go to low-income students with the other half being available to all other students – even those who can well afford the private school bill – drawing criticism from some for supplementing private school for rich kids on the backs of taxpayers. The estimated cost of the program expansion is $141.5 million annually, plus administrative costs.
According to the most recent Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) scores, school voucher students performed lower than their public-school peers.
Proponents say the state should “fund students, not systems” but many state school systems – especially those in rural areas – take exception to that claim.
Opponents claim that the voucher system diverts state funding away from public schools, many of which are already underfunded. It’s an opinion local School Board Director Chad Moorehead shares.
Lee’s gone on the record stating that the voucher program or Education Freedom Scholarship program would be funded separately from the state’s education funding formula, but that formula is tied to student numbers at local schools and districts could lose money if students opt to use the voucher program.
As a reminder, any school funds not covered by state funds become the responsibility of local taxpayers.
Also at issue is accountability. Lee’s voucher system proposal does not currently require students who attend private schools or homeschool under the voucher program to be subject to any accountability like TCAP testing or the controversial third grade retention requirement recently imposed on local schools.
Tennessee’s program mirrors those already established in 16 states including Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana (2), Maine, Maryland, Mississippi (2), New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio (5), Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin (4)—and Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Voucher expansion efforts have also failed in six states including Georgia, Texas, Idaho, Virginia, Kentucky, and South Dakota.
Resolutions like the one the Moore County Board of Education just passed have also been passed in places like Tipton County where the school board the director there stated that “if you’re going to take state money, you should have to jump through the same hoops my teachers have to jump through.”
Arizona already rethinking its voucher program
Lawmakers in Arizona – one of the early adopters of school vouchers programs – are already facing a big deficit due to a combination of massive tax cuts and school voucher expansion.
After enjoying a $1.8 billion surplus a year ago, the state now finds itself in a $450 million hole with no evidence that that trend won’t continue.
Part of that shortfall is being caused by the elimination of the state’s graduated income tax. State coffers suffered an $830 million hit from that change. State officials estimated that the voucher system – which opened to all students in 2022 – would cost taxpayers $64 million but the real price tag for the current fiscal year is around $900 million, according to an Associated Press report.
According to Department of Education data reported in 2022, about 75 percent of the students who got vouchers immediately after the program was expanded had no prior record of attending an Arizona public school.
To let Moore County state elected officials know how you feel, contact Representative Pat Marsh’s office at rep.pat.marsh@capitol.tn.gov / 615-741-6824 or Senator Shane Reeves at sen.shane.reeves@capitol.tn.gov / 615-741-1066. •
{The Lynchburg Times is the only locally-owned and locally-operated community newspaper in Lynchburg, Tennessee and one of the few women-owned newspaper in the state. To see us dig in and report on how more state programs trickle down to Moore County and Lynchburg, support us by subscribing.}