Is This The Year Tennessee Wins On School Choice?

2024 was supposed to be the year that Tennessee enacted school choice with Republicans in full control of the legislature and governor’s office. But it fell short. 

Nearly everyone publicly supported school choice in principle, but the Senate and House came into the last legislative session with dramatically different school choice bills. They never came to a consensus on the bill’s final language, and the clock ran out. As lawmakers gather on Tuesday for the start of this year’s session, they have renewed optimism based on lessons learned. 

In November, Republican leadership in the House and Senate introduced identical legislation, known as the “Education Freedom Scholarship Act,” backed by Republican Governor Bill Lee that will create 20,000 scholarships of around $7,000 that can be used for tuition at private schools. 

In an interview on school choice with The Daily Wire, Lee said he thinks the proposal should be an easy sell to Tennesseeans across the state.

“The fundamental idea that every child is different and every parent ought to have the best option for their kid. It transcends zip codes and economics, it ought to be for every family, it ought to be for every parent, it ought to be universal,” Lee told The Daily Wire. 

Both Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, who represents an area with some of the best public schools in the state, and House Education Chair Rep. Mark White, who represents an area with some of the worst, told The Daily Wire that they were in support of school choice policies. 

“Nobody would be happy if you lived in a neighborhood where you only had one grocery store to go to or one shopping center,” White said. “We go to other grocery stores or other businesses because there’s competition which gives us better prices and better performance and better customer service.” 

Johnson said that there was broad support among his colleagues to increase options for parents, adding that he was “cautiously optimistic” that the General Assembly would get the school choice legislation passed this session. He said that there had been productive conservations with both the House and governor’s office. 

“I think that the stage is set for us to get something passed. That’s not a promise, but it is the way I see the landscape right now,” Johnson said. 

White said that the proposal from Lamberth and Johnson could be subject to change as the session begins. He said that lawmakers were currently giving their feedback on the proposed legislation. He added that the legislature hoped to take up the issue first and said they would then vote it up or down based on its merits. 

The specific proposal would create 20,000 scholarships for the 2025-2026 school year worth an estimated $7,295 that parents could apply for and use for things like tuition at private schools and textbooks. Half of the scholarships would be reserved for students in households with annual incomes of less than 300% of the amount needed to qualify for free or reduced lunch. The second 10,000 would be universally open. 

If implemented, the program would create scholarship opportunities for about 2% of Tennessee’s one million school-aged children. 

In the second year, an additional 5,000 scholarships could be made available if 75% of the available scholarships are taken the previous year. In this year, the scholarships are prioritized based on current recipients and income levels if there is more demand than supply. 

The scholarships could be used at any accredited school in Tennessee. A student unable to prove legal residency in the state would be denied use of the scholarship.  

Scholarship recipients would have to be administered a nationally standardized achievement test or the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program. Lee said that all schools that would be participating in the program were already giving these kinds of tests. 

Additionally, the legislation would also stipulate that 80% of the revenue collected by the state from sports gambling would go toward the “maintenance and construction” of public school buildings and give all current public school teachers a one-time $2,000 bonus. 

The proposal is already causing debate in Tennessee

Polling conducted by the Beacon Center of Tennessee indicates that 67% of registered voters in the state support expanding Tennessee’s current school choice program. The poll surveyed 540 Republicans, 288 Democrats, and 372 independent voters. 

Conservative groups like the Club for Growth have already announced plans to support the initiative while organizations like Public School Strong TN are calling the legislation a “scam.” 

Provisions have been added to counter concerns that the legislation would bring ruin to public schools.

One guarantees that public schools would not lose state funding based on disenrollment from their schools. Johnson said he did not foresee a “mass exodus” from any public school, but said he didn’t oppose the provision if it would reassure local school districts. 

White told The Daily Wire he had questions about that particular provision and said he wanted “more clarity” on it himself.  

”We need to look at that carefully because if you’re losing a student it may be because of choice and no fault of the school system that they’re coming from,” he said. “But also I don’t want to falsely prop up a failing school or a failing system by continuing to give them money if they are losing students for the wrong reason. That is something that I have questions about as we go back into session.” 

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When asked by The Daily Wire about that provision, Lee said it’s highly unlikely any school would be losing students given the population increase in nearly every county in the state.

“For all future students that are coming here, the public school and the private schools will be competing for those students,” Lee said. “They will be competing for future funding. They’re not going to lose funding as they move forward now, but they certainly will compete for future students. That is what makes schools better,” Lee said.

The governor pushed back on a recent article highlighting data showing that students on the pilot program in Davidson, Shelby, and Hamilton counties were less proficient in math and English compared to the rest of the state. 

Lee said it was not fair to compare low-income inner-city students coming out of failing schools with high-income suburban students across the state. He pointed out that in Shelby County — home to Memphis — students who attended private schools on scholarships had a higher proficiency rate in English than their public school counterparts, and were tied in math. 

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Others have raised concerns about the potential for encroachment on private schools if they participate in the program. Johnson said he did not believe that this was a valid concern, saying that the General Assembly would not use it as a “backdoor” mechanism to start regulating private schools.

“The last thing we want to do is go out and start turning these private schools and making them run the same way we run our public schools, that would certainly defeat the purpose,” he said. 

Lee pointed to a provision on school autonomy. 

“The creation of the education freedom scholarship program does not expand the regulatory authority of this state, the officers of this state, or the authority of any [local education agency] to impose any additional rules, regulations, or requirements on private schools that enroll recipients beyond the rules narrowly tailored to enforce the requirements of the program,” the legislation says. 

Lee says the highest priority should be maximizing student achievement and parental satisfaction, not protecting the public system that is letting some kids down.

“We have to do something to challenge the status quo, we have to do something to provide a better opportunity for our children,” Lee said.

With the legislature meeting today, there has been talk that a special session may be convened to ensure the focus is on passing this legislation. While Republicans seem more unified than last year, the ghosts of last year’s failure have the bill’s backers insistent that it’s the first item on this session’s agenda.