'Majority opinion is wrong': Nashville asks state Supreme Court to rethink school voucher ruling
The city of Nashville filed a petition asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to review its recent ruling that cleared the way for Gov. Bill Lee's school voucher plan.
"In the state's supreme court ruling, the court ... does not consider (Metro Nashville Public Schools) to be the school system for both Nashville and Davidson County," Mayor John Cooper said at a news conference Wednesday. "(It states) MNPS is somehow not part of Metro government, and not part of Metro government's direct financial responsibility. Now we just know that's not the case."
The voucher program would provide public money for families to send their children to private school or cover other education-related costs.
The Tennessee General Assembly narrowly approved the the three-year pilot program in 2019.
The Tennessee Supreme Court two weeks ago found the education savings account program did not violate the state constitution's home rule provision by only applying to school districts in Davidson and Shelby counties.
“County boards of education themselves are not bestowed with home rule authority,” the majority opinion said. “In the absence of home rule authority, LEAs cannot logically be deemed to be endowed with the protection of the home rule amendment.”
The city maintains that because Nashville and Davidson County combined in 1962 to form the metropolitan government, the Home Rule Amendment does apply.
Metro Legal Director Wallace Dietz said the court's recent decision also conflicts with its own prior rulings, in which the court struck down similar legislation in accordance with the Home Rule amendment even when that legislation did not, on its face, apply directly to a county.
Cooper said Nashville schools are already "systematically underfunded" by the state, and the voucher program threatens to "siphon" more resources away from Nashville's public schools.
Metro Nashville Board of Public Education Chair Christiane Buggs said the voucher initiative targets children solely in the state's most diverse counties: Davidson and Shelby.
"The portions of our state with the most languages spoken and the highest numbers of families that have been historically marginalized are the only ones seeing funding taken away from their schools ... that should be infuriating to us all," Buggs said.
MNPS spends roughly $13,000 per child annually, and the voucher bill allots about $7,300 per child — not enough, she said, for a high-quality education.
Sen. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, said the voucher program doesn't cover the entire cost of tuition and cannot guarantee that private schools will admit all children who apply.
"My fear is parents will be pushed into loans to cover the full cost of tuition," she said.
Cooper and MNPS Director Adrienne Battle said they are "highly concerned" about the timing of implementation — if the voucher program goes into effect this upcoming school year, MNPS could see its funding shift last-minute, long after Metro's budgeting process has concluded.
Contact Tennessean reporter Kirsten Fiscus at 615-259-8229 or KFiscus@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KDFiscus.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville requests state Supreme Court to rethink school voucher opinion
