Tennessee Voucher Bill Fails To Meet Conservative Standards (Op-Ed)

Image Credit: Tennessee General Assembly

Originally published in Jefferson County’s Standard-Banner; republished here by permission from author.

The Tennessee Conservative [By David Seal] –

The proposed voucher bill HB1/SB1 assumes that educators and taxpayers are stupid or ignorant of the bill content. 

Note: the voucher bill has been refilled for the Special Session as HB6004/SB6001.

As a commonsense conservative and retired teacher that generally believes in school choice, I place myself in a rare category of ideology. There is a place for public schools, purely private schools, and use of public money to help certain parents with private school tuition.

However, HB1/SB1 fails to meet conservative standards. 

Here are 7 reasons why the “Education Freedom Act of 2025” is DISQUALIFIED as a conservative legislative measure.

1) It pays the local public school system its full complement of state education funding AFTER a student withdraws to attend a voucher school, cost $140,000,000.00 in new expenditures.

2) The bill provides teachers a one-time bonus of $2000 each, cost $128,210,000.00. Teachers know this is figurative bribery and displaces money that would be better spent on meaningful teacher pay raises.

3) Private schools will be required to administer state and national standardized testing, forcing private schools to align curriculum to accommodate the testing regiment, stripping private schools of their academic independence.

4) The bill contains 28 references to the commissioner of education, state board of education, and worst of all, the Tennessee Department of Education (DOE) for rule making, empowering unelected bureaucrats.

5) Private schools will be required to submit student test results to the Office of Research and Education Accountability under the Comptroller of the Treasury, but are not required to deidentify student data, meaning that private student data could be compromised.

6) The voucher bill expands the government and is fiscally irresponsible, first year cost, just over 268 million dollars.

7) Statewide, 154125 students already attending private, church, or homeschool will be INELIGIBLE for a voucher. In Jefferson County that is 844 ineligible students.

The voucher bill appropriates 80% of the sports betting tax to a reserve account to be disbursed by the state treasury for school construction and maintenance of facilities, a sin tax that could be disbursed to local schools without a voucher bill.

With school systems in dire need of maintenance and building funds, why not just appropriate the money absent the voucher bill? The answer is again figurative bribery.

State legislators need to send the Tennessee DOE bureaucrats home with their tinfoil hats and let local boards of education improve the education system before imposing vouchers. 

About the Author: David Seal is a retired Jefferson County educator, recognized artist, local businessman, 917 Society Volunteer, and current Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. He has also served Jefferson County as a County Commissioner and is a citizen lobbyist for the people on issues such as eminent domain, property rights, education, and broadband accessibility on the state level. David is also a 2024 winner of The Tennessee Conservative Flame Award & has received an accolade from the Institute For Justice for successfully lobbing the TN legislature to protect property rights. David can be reached at david@tennesseeconservativenews.com.