Image Credit: Gov. Bill Lee / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
Gov. Bill Lee’s (R-TN) school voucher proposal failed to come to fruition in the Tennessee General Assembly this year, but the governor intends to bring the school choice legislation back in 2025.
During a Q&A session at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis on Tuesday, Gov. Lee announced that a different approach would be taken to push school vouchers through in Tennessee next year.
The governor stated that he is going to learn from what he “saw and experienced” with this year’s proposal and said he thinks his next attempt at school voucher legislation will look different.
Gov. Lee reiterated that he intends for Tennessee to have great public schools alongside an expansive voucher program, saying that if his school voucher proposal passes next year it will be paired with the largest funding increases for public schools in state history.
“We can have the best public schools and give education freedom to parents at the same time,” said Gov. Lee. “We should not expect anything less than that.”
He explained that his goal for “education freedom” is for it to be “universal.”
“What that means is that every family in the state have access to a choice about where their kids go to school,” he stated. “All education institutions will rise in quality when that happens and we should be committed to the best public, the best private, the best educational choices for all of our students.”
When asked about the opposition to school vouchers, the governor noted that there will always be critics.
“There are always concerns whenever there is change to the status quo. Entrenched thinking is the status quo and changing that is hard,” he said. “But we’ve seen…that parents far and wide across Tennessee, want to have better options, want to have options and choices for their kids. Why wouldn’t we want to give a parent a choice for a child’s education? Why wouldn’t we want a child to have another option to succeed?”
2024 School Voucher Proposal Timeline Recap
• November 2023: Gov. Lee announces the “Education Freedom Scholarship Act” to provide $7,075 each in Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) to 20,000 students for the 2024-2025 school year, with the program expanding statewide the following school year.
• January 2024: State lawmakers file caption bills or “placeholders” for legislation that either has not been completely developed by the filing date or legislation that lawmakers are not ready for the public to be aware of yet.
• February 2024: Former caption bill becomes school choice legislation with Senate Bill 0503 (SB0503) emulating the governor’s school voucher proposal and House Bill 1183 (HB1183) deemed the “House School Voucher Omnibus Bill,” differing drastically in its inclusion of large amounts of funding for “positive things for our public schools”; proponents of the public school system convey their opposition; Tennessee’s homeschool community conveys its opposition; HB1183 passes in House K-12 Education Subcommittee; SB0503 is deferred in Senate Education Committee.
• March 2024: SB0503 passes in Senate Education Committee; HB1183 passes in House Education Administration Committee and House Government Operations Committee; Reports circulate that the companion bills could end up in a conference committee due to their drastic differences.
• April 2024: SB0503 repeatedly deferred in Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee; HB1183 deferred in House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee; lawmakers maintain that the school voucher legislation is “still alive”; the Senate and House of Representatives do not come to a compromise and reports begin to circulate that the attempt at school choice has failed; Gov. Lee announces his disappointment that there is not a path forward for his school choice legislation this year; neither bill ever makes it out of the committee process and the Tennessee General Assembly adjourns.
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee.
You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
5 Responses
Tennessee elected “republicans” are all actually left wing traitor democrats. They exist to block anything the base actually wants.
This will never happen as long as we allow the state to continue with fake, rigged elections.
Entrenched thinking….well fancy that. What we call the junk voucher bill he is pushing is “bought and paid for politics” not improving education. Improving education for EVERY child does not cost millions. TN children already have choice in education but now they want us to pay for private education when our state Constitution clearly states we are to provide a free PUBLIC EDUCATION. Well, gee could it be the end game is to suck private education into the failed public system….you betcha folks. The goal of Common Core was to insure that EVERY child in the world (CC was not just being pushed in America) was being indoctrinated, oops I mean educated, with same programs. There can be no outliers and private/religous schools are outliers. If we have schools in Tennessee that are doing a good job (which I highly doubt) then lets see what they are doing and implement it in all TN public/charter schools. Money is not the answer but it sure is the answer for people who are not serious about fixing the absolute failure (but want to make parents think it is the answer) we see in our public school and many of us warned our legislators 10+ years ago we would be facing this problem of students that cannot even read at a 3rd grade level. So they slap some money out there and parents will grab at it thinking it will fix the fact their children cannot read. Well, first this problem is not for EVERY child. In fact very few children will end up being able to take advantage of this program. And what will be the next shiny toy thrown out the public in 10 years when this trojan horse programs fails??? The fix is not complicated. 1. get out of the US Dept. of Education 2. get back to basic education and end all the expensive worthless programs (SEL, DEI etc.) Phonics, cursive, math, science, history and call it a day. Schools are not supposed to be day care centers and they are not supposed to replace the family. Schools should be to educate children. Teach them HOW TO THINK not WHAT TO THINK (teachers need to keep their personal opinions to themselves) so they can succeed in the big bad world. The rest is for the parents to handle if they fail to do the job the way you think they should that is none of the schools business. Getting back to the traditional family and traditional family values will solve a lot of problems but that is not an issue for the public education system or the government that purposely set out to destroy the traditional family on purpose to create a dependent society. I never voted for Lee because I knew he was a fraud from the first time I heard him speak and he has not let me down. DEMAND real solutions not more schemes that will do nothing to improve education at the end of the day.
Same old, same old. The education monopoly in Tn. will fight tooth and nail to prevent school choice. It’s same old adage of the fox guarding the hen house. Our public school system is as corrupt as any in the nation, maybe more so. The best way to handle it and the Charter School issue is to put the proposals before the voters. I know, that’s too logical and if that happened those “stupid” voters might begin to realize how much power their vote has.
Parents already have choice. They can send their children to any school they want or home school now they want us to not only pay for the public school system but the private system too. You need to climb out of your socialist brainwashing.
Ralph, give this phone call with Cameron Sexton, J.C. Bowman and J.C.’s teacher union a listen so you can learn about all the teacher union pork that was in the alleged “parental choice” bill. And how Sexton references the other “important stakeholders” on this bill: the NEA.
https://rumble.com/v4jbr05-recorded-school-voucher-zoom-call-with-sexton-haston-and-bowman.html