Tennessee Statewide ESA Bill Will Not Proceed This Year
Image Credit: Gov. Bill Lee / Facebook
The Center Square [By Jon Styf] –
Tennessee’s statewide educational savings account bill will not move forward, Gov. Bill Lee told the Tennessean in a statement on Monday morning.
The bill had been held in the Senate and House Finance, Ways and Means committees and subcommittees while the two bodies worked to discuss details of the bill and gather support.
But Lee told the newspaper that the bill will have to wait another year.
“I am extremely disappointed for the families who will have to wait yet another year for the freedom to choose the right education for their child, especially when there is broad agreement that now is the time to bring universal school choice to Tennessee,” Lee said in an early Monday statement. “While we made tremendous progress, unfortunately it has become clear that there is not a pathway for the bill during this legislative session.”
Lee’s announcement came a week after the Tennessee Journal reported the bill was dead for this session.
The bills each had a significant number of ESAs worth $7,075 the first year to be spent by students and families on school-related expenses such as private school tuition.
Both had 20,000 ESAs statewide starting in the fall with eligibility determined on some level by income.
Overall, the Senate Education Freedom Scholarship program is estimated to cost nearly $100,000 in the first year and then more than $300,000 annually in subsequent years.
A major difference in the Senate version was to allow students to use the ESAs to enroll in a public school outside their home district as well.
The estimated impact on transferred public school funding was estimated at $48.5 million in the first year and more than $107 million in the years that followed.
About the Author: Jon Styf, The Center Square Staff Reporter – Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonStyf.
MESSAGE TO GOVERNOR LEE: Your bill was a scam and the public was on to this ridiculously expensive scam that was taking the easy way out to address the horrible COMMON CORE education standards, testing and curriculum. HERE IS A SUGGESTION IF YOUR INTERESTED IS REALLY IMPROVING EDUCATION: If private schools are offering superior education and education results in TN any intelligent person, not bought and paid for, would simply find out what they are doing and implement the same thing in the public/charter schools. You will find none of them are using the federal standards, testing or curriculum. Oh but perhaps Governor Lee would not make his donors from the American Federation for Children or AFP and the federal government pleased with him. He has no clue how to fix education. Throwing more money at education is NOT the answer when what you are giving people is a false choice. 10 years ago many of us warned our Assembly we would be facing the devastating reality of implementing another federal program (Race To The Top/Common Core) but we were ignored and now here we are again. What will be the next scheme in 10 years when it is determined that this voucher scheme didn’t work either. What the public needs to understand is this voucher scheme is not about offering real education choice for parents (we already have all the choice options) it is to eventually suck ALL children under the same failed education system. When you never address the root cause of a problem you will never reach a real solution. Perhaps our legislators should be required to take a training course in “root cause analysis” as part of the requirement for elected office. It is obvious they (and that includes the Governor) takes a political course of action when addressing problems.
It must be available for students
Public funding must follow the students
You have no clue. This is a scheme to eventually suck ALL students into the federal education system. THAT is the REAL agenda they don’t want people to know. Common Core and Race To The Top was all about getting EVERY student into the federal system. Common Core was not an American movement it was a global movement to get all students under one system but in order to get the private school kids they came up with these voucher schemes and our elected getting donations to carry the water for these organizations play along without a clue as to what is really going on. Taking the easy way out and 10 years from now when this scheme fails what will be next? Mixing public with private is Fascism. This plan would not write a check for every student only some students. Are you saying you support only SOME students getting a good education. If you had any common sense you would know this is not way to fix a broken system. If the private schools are doing a better job at education than the intelligent response would be to duplicate what the private schools are doing in the public schools and we then need to get out from under all federal education policies coming from many federal departments. This ESA plan was a false choice. It will do nothing to fix education. Why do you people always think money is the answer.
We the people made it very clear this is not what we want. He has made it very clear
that he does not care for us at all! He is just another politician out for himself.
We know why the private school’s work. It’s because the government doesn’t have a say in them or their tainted money.
Every year it’s always more money. WE need more money. Kendra you are correct. They don’t need more money. WE need to remove all of the bureaucrats out of the school boards and the directors.
Why do we need them? WE don’t.