Lawmakers are now in their second week of weighing competing proposals to expand private school vouchers across Tennessee.
The House has already advanced a sweeping version of the bill, that would also make a variety of changes to Tennessee’s public school system. Meanwhile, the Senate is taking a more measured approach. It’s unclear when lawmakers might reach a compromise.
All versions of the bill would soon offer thousands of dollars in state funds to help families pay the costs of attending private school, regardless of their income.
Senate plan focuses on private and public school choice
Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg said his chamber is “laser focused” on its draft of the voucher proposal, which centers on school choice.
The current Senate version would also let students use vouchers to attend public schools outside their district. Similarly to the governor’s proposal, it sets aside half of the program’s initial 20,000 spots for students eligible for the state’s existing voucher programs and families who make up to 300% of the federal poverty level.
(The governor’s version of the bill, carried by Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, is still attached to the Senate bill, but Lundberg’s amendment is the current version.)
Lundberg’s version of the bill also would require testing for voucher recipients in grades 3-11. However, the test they take wouldn’t necessarily be the TCAP, which is the one that public school students take. The bill states that private schools must administer “a normed referenced test approved by the state board of education.”
Lundberg’s proposal is extremely different from its companion bill in the House, but he said the end goal for both chambers is the same: parental choice.
House voucher bill makes big public education changes
The House bill would open voucher eligibility to more affluent families faster. It does not earmark half the initial seats for lower income families, opening universal eligibility right off the bat. the House proposal does offer first priority for students eligible for Tennessee’s existing voucher programs. It also prioritizes families that make up to 400% and 500% the federal poverty level, respectively.
The House version also creates a mechanism to increase the number of vouchers funded by the state. For example, if more than 18,000 vouchers were used in the program’s first year, 90% of the cap, the next year, this bill would require the state to expand the program to 24,000 vouchers, a 20% increase in program capacity.
However, authors dedicated most of the 39-page house bill to the public education system. The bill would increase funding for teacher health plans and add new funds for school facilities. It also tweaks the state’s school funding formula to increase per-pupil funding in small and sparse school districts.
The House proposal decreases the number of state-required standardized tests for public school students. Proponents say that’s to give more class time back to educators in Tennessee public schools. The bill also would gradually close down the state-run Achievement School District. The ASD has long struggled to fulfill its purpose of turning around low-performing schools.
But House Speaker Cameron Sexton said these goodies for public schools aren’t guaranteed. He encouraged public education professional groups to tell their members what’s in the House bill.
“If these things are important to them, which they’ve told us for two decades, then they need to go over to the Senate and start talking to them about these are the things that we like, and these are the things that we think should be included.” Sexton said. “Because there is a possibility… that they get absolutely nothing.”
Universal opposition from Democrats
Democrats, meanwhile, unanimously oppose to any voucher proposal. That’s a rare occurrence, according to Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons. He has called the House version of the voucher bill an attempt to “buy votes.”
“If you want to make positive change and do positive things, then why aren’t we running that as a separate piece of legislation rather than tacking and on the back of a terrible voucher scam that’s going to steal money from every public school family?” Clemmons asked during a press conference Thursday.
The path ahead
Lawmakers expect it will be several weeks before a final version of the bill goes to the floor in either chamber. There’s a strong possibility that different versions pass in the House and the Senate, which would send the bill to a conference committee. There, senators and house members would hammer out the final language before another vote.
The bill is scheduled to be heard in both the Senate Education Committee and House Education Administration Committee on Wednesday.
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