School board members across Tennessee condemn voucher expansion

Gov. Bill Lee's proposal to expand taxpayer-funded vouchers for more students to attend private or home schools in Tennessee has sparked reactions in Nashville and statewide.

Lee made the announcement in news conference Tuesday, kicking off the first step of a long legislative process to pass the program, known as the Education Freedom Scholarship Act. If passed, the scholarships would be open to 20,000 students in the 2024-25 school year, with universal eligibility starting in 2025. In 2022, the state began offering vouchers for low- and middle-income students through the controversial Education Savings Account program in Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton counties.

Rachael Anne Elrod, who chairs the Metro Nashville Public Schools board, released a fiery statement Monday condemning the move to create vouchers for more students.

"It is moral and fiscal malpractice for Tennessee to dismantle and destabilize public education," Elrod said in an emailed statement to The Tennessean. "The state started education privatization in Nashville and Memphis, and it is now spreading across the state."

Elrod cited recent data from Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests that showed students in the voucher program scored lower than their peers, along with 85% of charter school students falling short compared to the districts where they attend. She praised public schools as a vital source of education, social connection, jobs and healthy community across Tennessee.

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"Vouchers will siphon off millions of dollars from our already historically underfunded public schools while providing subpar results for Tennessee’s students and the public at large," Elrod said. "It is endlessly confounding that Tennessee’s public school systems receive a constant, ever-changing barrage of requirements from the state claiming to try to provide the best public education for Tennessee’s public, yet some state leaders are seeking to fund the worst of school choice concepts with little to no oversight, requirements or proof of good results."

Lee has long voiced support for giving families more options for school, with hopes of empowering parents to find the best fit for the children. Several states, including Arkansas, Arizona, Iowa, West Virginia and Utah, have adopted school voucher policies recently.

Other educators, advocates, school leaders and Democratic lawmakers also pushed back on the idea of expanding vouchers as news spread of the governor's new proposal.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board Member Amber Huett-Garcia said the vouchers can help some students whose needs aren't met by public schools. However, she also expressed concerns over state leaders seemingly lacking input from school districts and other stakeholders. She said if the state was consulting districts about vouchers, it would “hear loud and clear that they don’t want these.” Others on the Memphis school board questioned the motivation behind the move, with one calling it an "extreme" measure.

'Taking it to an extreme:' Memphis school leaders talk Gov. Lee's voucher expansion plans

A Knox County school board member expressed concern as well. The state's current voucher program does not apply to that county, but the new proposal would.

"We're using public funds to fund private schools," said Knox County school board member Jennifer Owen. "It's definitely crossing the line between church and state. ... Taxpayers want their taxes to go to public services, not to be funneled into private institutions they have no oversight on."

The Tennessee Education Association also released a statement in staunch opposition of vouchers. In the statement, association President Tanya T. Coats criticized the removal of income requirements in Lee's proposed program and said it shows the program was never about helping economically disadvantaged families. She also accused the state of making a "false promise" by saying vouchers would only apply to Memphis and Nashville when they initially passed.

"Now here we are just one year into the actual implementation of the program with the governor attempting to expand the unproven program statewide," Coats said in the statement. "What we do know from other states is that vouchers do not improve student outcomes and often segregate communities. The proposal allows for unaccredited, unproven and unaccountable private schools to siphon public funding away from the local school district and leave Tennessee children without the high-quality education they would have received in their neighborhood public school."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee school vouchers: TN School board members condemn expansion