Republicans are blowing it on expanding school choice. Gov. Bill Lee should not let it go

Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly have protected musicians from artificial intelligence.

They’ve replaced the Tennessee State University board of directors.

They’ve even prevented people from marrying their cousins and kept emotional support animals out of restaurants.

They can’t get on the same page when it comes to creating more public education options for Tennessee families who need them most.

Another view: Admit it: Tennessee Senate and House are at odds on school vouchers. It's time to move on

Republicans aren't able agree on the basics

The Education Freedom Scholarship Act (EFSA) is a public education voucher idea in search of a majority consensus.

The Senate version is focused on vouchers to families hoping to attend a private or public school different from the one for which they are zoned. Instead of running the same version of a single-subject bill down the tracks,

House Republicans presently have an educational Frankenstein that shares some common themes with the Senate language while including more sweeteners than a candy store.

Vouchers to both public and private schools are a potential lifeline for children stuck in schools that can’t meet their educational needs. Tennessee, like most states, has a number of chronically underperforming public schools. We have “accountability” measures going back a decade or more which document troubled schools and districts.

Tennessee’s solutions to the challenge have produced mixed results. When it comes to the EFSA, Republicans can’t even agree who should receive limited voucher funding first.

Another view: School choice expansion helps Tennessee parents who have been waiting for better options

Tennessee should provide vouchers for children with special needs

One obvious criteria for granting vouchers seems like enrollment in consistently low performing “priority” schools as determined by Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) assessment data (bottom 5%) or those which have less than a 67% graduation rate during the most recent school year. Giving kids in these schools other publicly funded educational options makes a lot of sense.

The House version of the EFSA also includes special needs students in the first cohort. As both a foster parent and parent of children with special needs, I’m blessed to live in a school district that has the capacity to meet the needs of my children.

Demands for students with cognitive and physical differences are often expensive.

If a local school can’t offer those supports, Tennessee should absolutely provide vouchers to families to help defray the cost of securing those services.

Use a means-test approach on determining income eligibility

The next question is whether to prioritize remaining voucher resources through means-tested tiers. For example, the Senate version uses 300% of the federal poverty level. The House version has tiers at 400% and then 500%.

Put some dollar figures on those numbers.

For a family of four, 500% of the federal poverty level in Tennessee is $156,000 in a state where the median household income is $64,035. I fully understand that Republicans don’t want to be seen as giving vouchers to the “rich,” but income is a poor mechanism for determining who needs educational options. Bledsoe County Schools are a good example. According to state accountability standards, the district maintains “exemplary” performance in a county with a median household income of $51,783.

The House and Senate should use Tennessee’s existing accountability matrix to prioritize families in the schools and districts with the worst records of underperformance. Utilize the vouchers from the bottom up. Giving a voucher to a student in a high performing district doesn’t really solve any problem.

If Republicans are still concerned about wealthy individuals taking advantage of the program, they should means test the whole program. Phase the vouchers out gradually from 300% of the federal poverty level to some ineligibility threshold.

Another view: Rejecting federal education funding would be a failure for Tennessee's children | Opinion

Teachers union opposes the bill but makes a great point

State testing requirements should be a component, but we should maniacally focus on relative student achievement year over year. What matters is whether students make progress against their current performance trend line. If a failing student shifts to another school, whether private or public, the probability of that student improving overnight is vanishingly small. We should be able to see whether the student is making relative progress after a year. If not, we’re failing to address the issue of upgrading the quality of a student’s educational environment.

If we can address who gets the vouchers and how to determine accountability for their use, we might have a bill worth a vote in the General Assembly. Unfortunately the House language has an extra 40 titles comprising 20 more pages of legislative text.

The Tennessee Education Association (TEA) which opposes the EFSA sums up the situation with shocking clarity. “In an attempt to win support for a bad bill, the voucher expansion legislation has been packed with concepts to improve public education for which the Tennessee Education Association has advocated for many years,” said Knox County educator and Tennessee Education Association President Tanya T. Coats.

These “goodies” in the House version include more funding for “sparse” and “small” districts, less frequent accountability for underperforming schools, guaranteed health benefit funding for public school instructional personnel, and a significant rewrite of teacher evaluations.

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Lee should work to primary lawmakers if they fail to pass the bill

If Republicans can’t get vouchers through the House of Representatives without effectively buying GOP votes with TEA priorities, then the GOP doesn’t have the members it needs. The National Education Association (NEA) and its affiliates like TEA are protectors of the public education status quo with an emphasis on putting more money through the same system. Those organizations are also smart enough to know how to use poison pills in the legislative process.

Securing House votes with more public education spending and less accountability is likely a non-starter in the Senate. If neither the Senate nor the House will budge, then the EFSA is deader than an armadillo crossing I-65 … at night … in the rain.

For the EFSA to have a chance, Gov. Bill Lee must finally play hardball. Get the Senate EFSA version to the House and force Republicans to vote it down. Before the vote, Lee should let House Republicans know he’ll spend the last two years as a lame duck governor raising money and finding candidates to primary every last one of them. Maybe the NEA and TEA will protect them. I’d put my money on the conservative challengers who believe that parents and kids are more important than state bureaucracies.

The EFSA isn’t quite dead yet, but its survival depends on Lee making a stand.

USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney who worked for conservative Republicans. He and his wife Justine are raising three boys in Nolensville, Tennessee. Direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on X, formerly known as Twitter. Agree or disagree? Send a letter to the editor to [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee school vouchers expansion imperiled by stubborn Republicans