Tennessee Statewide School Voucher Plan Stalls As Legislature Enters Final Weeks
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
Photo Credit: John Partipilo
By Marta Aldrich [Chalkbeat Tennessee via The Tennessee Lookout] –
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.
“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.
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.
To lawmakers that support this…..why do ‘some’ parents get ‘educational choices’ for their children but not all? Seems to me that here is our so called ‘conservative’ governor and state legislature ‘picking’ winners! Are they ‘afraid’ to give 100% of Tennessee’s student an ‘educational choice’ or is this some sort of camel’s nose under the tent? And, the testing of students that take the opportunity is a no go for me! Educational choice is important for ALL Tennessee students, it WILL help public schools be accountable to their tax payers, as of late, many school boards simply thumb their noses at citizens! Money is the ONLY thing that school administrators understand and if enough parents take their students AND money out of ‘zoned’ schools, those same school will get better or suffer the monetary consequences! Why is the governor and the state legislature so bent on ‘picking’ winners with limits on ‘educational freedom’ of their citizenry? Maybe, their willingness to limit this program is a sign that they have alternative motives, other than the make public education more accountable to the tax payers!
Attn Tn political statist,
you need to resolve the current $pending issues before committing to additional expenditures.
All funds must follow the student
No double dipping.
$$$
Every governor is egotistically prideful re making their mark on a state
Try this one on billee, push a bill to refuse all social services to all Illegal aliens.
Felony criminal charges against any individual, NGO, business, group or association that harbors, aids and abeds or transports illegal aliens in the state of Tennessee.
If there is a group in-state that knows how to correctly write an encompassing referendum re the expenditure on
1. public funds supporting illegal aliens
2. Directing education funds to follow the student
I’d support that.
$
This article was really easy to find.
Only 53% of education funding in Tennessee makes it into classrooms, new Beacon Center report concludes
Meghan Mangrum
Nashville Tennessean
Education spending in Tennessee continues to increase year over year, but the amount of taxpayer dollars making it to the classroom hasn’t, a new report out Wednesday concludes. Instead, it has decreased.
Only about 53% of education funding from the state — nearly 7% less than the national average — makes it into the classroom, directly impacting teachers and students, the Beacon Center of Tennessee argues in its latest report tracking trends in the state’s education spending.
Tennessee spends more than $11 billion on K-12 education each year, or about $11,300 per student, according to the report. Funding has grown by about 30% since 2012, according to the report, despite student enrollment increasing only about 5% statewide.
Does the state fully fund schools?:Gov. Bill Lee says Tennessee’s education formula is fully funded. School officials say not so fast.
Much of the funds meant for students is used up in administrative costs instead, namely in the rising number of vice principals and other administrators employed by school districts across the state, Ron Shultis, director of policy and research for the conservative-leaning think tank, told The Tennessean.
“What we’ve consistently seen is despite these calls for increased funding, the amount of funding ending up in the classroom is decreasing,” Shultis said. “We want to make sure these tax dollars are being used wisely.”
The report finds that though student enrollment has grown about 5% statewide since the Beacon Center published its first report on education spending in 2013, state funding has grown.
And so has the number of vice, or assistant, principals added to local schools, Shultis said. Spending on vice principals at the district level has increased 25%, he said, compared to about 5% for principals. The number of teachers has actually decreased by 3%.
“While we keep hearing how education is underfunded, the real issue right now is that the money isn’t making it into the classroom,” Jason Edmonds, research associate at the Beacon Center and author of the report, said in a statement. “We continue to spend more and more on administration and systems rather than funding students and teachers.”
‘Fails to meet the needs of students’:Tennessee’s school funding formula fails to meet the needs of students, education foundation says
Funding formula
Tennessee’s Basic Education Program funding formula has four major categories — instruction, benefits, classroom and non-classroom.
Student enrollment is the primary driver of BEP-generated funds, according to the Tennessee State Board of Education.
There are 46 specific components of the funding formula based on student enrollment, such as students per teacher, assistant principals per school or dollars per student for textbooks.
The BEP has long been a point of contention for school districts, particularly the state’s largest. Metro Nashville Public Schools and Shelby County Schools is in the middle of a long-running lawsuit against the state challenging the formula.
Bloated central offices or administrator salaries are a common critique of school system spending, but who is defined as an administrator versus a classroom teacher can vary.
Deans of students, vice principals, instructional coaches in areas like math and reading are all considered administrative positions that work outside of the classroom.
Salaries for administrators, from principals to district superintendents, are also on the rise, the report finds, despite average teacher salaries actually decreasing when adjusted for inflation, the report finds.
Shultis, on behalf of the Beacon Center, argues that funding would be better spent directly impacting teachers and students, such as though substantially increasing teacher salaries.
New model could increase transparency
Now, the organization is calling for an emphasis on student-based budgeting — a model that could increase transparency as well as better inform parent choice programs like Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program, which is currently tied up in the court system, Shultis said.
The Beacon Center has supported Lee’s school voucher program, including in court. A Nashville judge ruled the program unconstitutional, since it only applied to two counties. The case is currently before the state Supreme Court.
“Our organization has always supported a parent’s right to choose the education for their child,” Shultis said. “We know the majority of parents are going to choose the public school system. So if the vast majority are going to use the public, government school system, then we are going to make sure we are getting the best bang for our buck so to speak.”
Overhauling school funding:Tennessee Democrats propose overhaul to how the state funds public education
The Beacon Center recommends the state and local districts consider using a more student-based funding system that shows how the dollars follow the student — a model not unheard of and currently in use at the local level to inform some school district’s budgets.
In contrast, other groups, including the Nashville Public Education Foundation, continue to argue the BEP funding formula is antiquated and doesn’t meet the needs of students.
“Bottom line, the BEP consistently underestimates what it takes to run schools and places an unattainable burden on local districts to pick up the difference,” Katie Cour, president and CEO of the Nashville Public Education Foundation, said in March.
Regardless, the Beacon Center said the public should demand more accountability from elected officials and district leaders for how their tax dollars are spent.
“To reverse course and return funding to the classroom, actions must be taken at both the state and, more importantly, local levels,” Edmonds writes. “Parents, educators, and stakeholders statewide should demand accountability from local school districts and push for school boards to address the reasons why they have consistently chosen to fund their systems over their students.”
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Meghan Mangrum covers education for the USA TODAY Network — Tennessee. Contact her at mmangrum@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.