HB1214 Is A Bad Choice For School Choice (Op-Ed)
Image Credit: Speaker Cameron Sexton / Twitter
By Dr. Eric Potter, Mrs. Jennifer Potter, and son Colson Potter [Special to The Tennessee Conservative] –
In recent years, the School Choice movement has gained much momentum, as few will argue against accessible, successful education options for families and their children, options which fit their needs and values.
Practically everyone in Tennessee wants more good options, but HB1214, currently working its way through committees, could both threaten the best current options and introduce new, worse ones. Broadly speaking, we now have Public, Private, Charter, and Homeschool options in Tennessee. House Bill 1214 and its sister, Senate Bill 1194 (sponsored by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally) have the potential to alter several of these choices.
Yes, school choice deserves our support, but HB1214 creates bad choices and opens the door to coercion, not freedom.
These few pages of legislation could impact families and communities across the state. If the bill passes both houses of the Tennessee legislature or the language is inserted into other education bills, we will find ourselves with an array of unwanted choices. These bills and any later attempts to revive their ideas must be voted down in their entirety. Their passage would affect homeschooling, current charter schools, private umbrella schools, family rights, migrant asylum possibilities, infringement on local self-government, funding quandaries, and civil liberties (if the state designates your children as ‘at-risk’), all while centralizing power in an unelected body.
The scope of this article simply cannot encompass the full weight of these issues, though, with time and opportunity, I will address each one in-depth later. In the present, you must understand the gravity of the situation and understand why vigilance demands we respond to this threat, especially given the number of ways these changes, in or out of their original bills, could be passed during this legislative session.
Parents want choices for their children’s education, and parents have a right to freedom in those choices. More than that, parents want good options for their choices, paths which will provide their children with a solid education for their needs and goals. These bills profess to add to the available choices and to change (ostensibly for the better) the options already in place.
However, before any such significant changes are made, we must be sure that the legislation is not making the suboptimal situation in public schools even worse or harming the good options we currently have.
The present legislation comes before us as three yet-to-be-approved amendments to HB1214, amendments which, if passed, could affect homeschooling, create a new type of hybrid public charter school, create a new type of year-round boarding school for ‘at-risk’ youth, and adversely affect current private and charter schools.
Beyond the effects on current school choices, the amendments could infringe on local school board jurisdiction, open the door for unwanted public charter schools regardless of local government, and possibly provide a pathway for the state to deem a child ‘at-risk’ in order to send them to one of these newly created boarding schools.
Depending on which amendment passes, we would see some new school ‘choice’ added or some freedom diminished by this bill. None of the amendments are free of fundamental problems. Although the bill has been presented as an expansion of school choice, in reality it’s a rotten apple, with worms in every possible bite. If we bite in far enough, we may even end up with actual ‘coercion’, not just diminished freedoms.
This door is opened by the ‘at-risk’ language in the new charter-boarding school option. This option seeks to create year-round boarding schools that accept children who are expelled, paroled, ‘at-risk’ economically, ‘at-risk for state custody due to family dysfunction’, or ‘at-risk of educational disadvantage due to… abuse, neglect, or disability’, provided they reside in the state of Tennessee. Because the bill lacks clear legal definitions of these terms, the power to define them would lie in the hands of administering bureaucrats, barring future legislation. Hold that thought in mind.
School choice stands as a noble aspiration only when the options you are choosing from are any good. We in Tennessee have some good options already-homeschooling, private schools, and some charter schools. Those options do not need to be changed, particularly not the way this legislation wants to change them. Furthermore, if new choices are to be added, they should be good choices, not bad ones as described in this proposed bill.
The boarding school for ‘at-risk’ children grades 6 through 12 is a bad choice. The bill leaves open multiple dangerous questions, including the question of whether your child could be designated ‘at-risk’ and coerced into attending one of these year-round boarding schools. After all, the amendment does not completely define ‘at-risk’ or even define who should be defining it. Could the state define your children ‘at-risk’ because it disagrees with the worldview you teach your children, the medical therapies you choose for them, or the political views you hold? The bill does not put up any real borders to any of these possible scenarios.
Say ‘No’ to HB1214’s bad school choice by telling the House Education Committee members and Speaker Cameron Sexton that you want this legislation struck down before the legislature, that you never want to see its likes again.
Say ‘No’ to HB1214 and educational coercion because someone may one day determine that your child is ‘at-risk’. Share this alert with others; contact your legislators before the imminent vote on April 5th. Say ‘Yes’ to a better hope for our children’s future. Tennessee families deserve good school choices, not new, worse ones like those outlined in this bill.
Email Speaker Cameron Sexton here >> speaker.cameron.sexton@capitol.tn.gov
House Education Administration Committee Members
Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) – rep.mark.white@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-4415
Rep. William Slater (R-Gallatin) – rep.william.slater@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-2534
Rep. Charlie Baum (R-Murfreesboro) – rep.charlie.baum@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-6849
Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) – rep.gino.bulso@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-6808
Rep. Ed Butler (R-Rickman) – rep.ed.butler@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-1260
Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) – rep.monty.fritts@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-7658
Rep. Ron Gant (R-Piperton) – rep.ron.gant@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-6890
Rep. John Gillespie (R-Memphis) – rep.john.gillespie@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-8201
Rep. Kirk Haston (R-Lobelville) – rep.kirk.haston@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-0750
Rep. Chris Hurt (R-Halls) – rep.chris.hurt@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-2134
Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) – rep.justin.jones@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-2184
Rep. Justin Lafferty (R-Knoxville) – rep.justin.lafferty@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-4110
Rep. Harold Love, Jr. (D-Nashville) – rep.harold.love@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-3831
Rep. Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) – rep.sam.mckenzie@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-0768
Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) – rep.antonio.parkinson@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-4575
Rep. John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) – rep.john.ragan@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-4400
Rep. Robert Stevens (R-Smyrna) – rep.robert.stevens@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-3830
Rep. Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) – rep.todd.warner@capitol.tn.gov – 615-741-4170
Thank you for providing this very important contact info. To say that I have been shocked and disappointed with the decisions being made by our Legistators in this Tennessee Congressiomal session is an understatement. It is very appoarent that they have loss touch with the thoughts of their constituents. They are making decisions to benefit themselves, not the Taxpayers in the State of Tennessee. It’s time for some major changes in our leaders from the Governor and Lt. Governor all the way down to Representatives and Senators. HB 1214 needs to be killed in Committee now!