Minority students most need voucher program
As a former educator and a mother of three school-aged children, it breaks my heart to know that so many families in Tennessee are struggling this school year. No one is being spared from COVID-19’S wrath, but research shows that low-income and minority families are being especially hard hit by this global pandemic. Unfortunately, an education savings account program that would have provided Tennessee families with greater ability to customize their child’s education – even in the middle of a global pandemic – is tied up under litigation because there are powerful interests in the state determined to prevent families from exercising greater educational choice. This is unacceptable.
Tennessee’s ESA program was modeled after diverse states
Now more than ever, all families – including Tennessee’s growing Latino community – should have the ability to choose an education plan that works best for their children.
When enacted, Tennessee’s ESA program was modeled after successful programs elsewhere in the country – including states with a sizable minority population – to allow families in Memphis and Nashville public schools to use as much as $7,000 of their education taxpayer dollars to spend on educationrelated expenses. Every state is different, but families can typically use their ESA accounts to spend on things like school supplies, tutoring, online classes and even school tuition.
Every family should be able to exercise this type of flexibility, but there is a growing body of research to show that low-income and minority students are being disproportionately negatively impacted by in-person school closures. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “Black and Latino students were also more likely to be absent at least 60% of the time during the fall semester.”
While some families have been able to adjust to school closures by sending their children to a private school, hiring tutors or even forming learning pods, most have not. As a former educator in California, I was able to see firsthand the disparity between students from lowincome and high-income families. COVID-19 is only exacerbating these educational and income disparities.
Research suggest ESAS would save schools systems money
Of course, there is no one solution to improve our country’s educational system. Ensuring equity in opportunity is difficult, but the one thing that we shouldn’t do is to close the door on innovation and the ability for parents to have a greater say on how to use their taxpayer dollars for their children’s education.
ESA opponents claim that the program is unconstitutional because it would deprive money from some public schools at the expense of other schools, but research from the Beacon Center of Tennessee found the opposite. According to the authors of the study, Shelby County Public Schools and Metro Nashville schools would save anywhere from $500 to $2,000 for each student who used the ESA program.
Even as public schools in Shelby County and Metro Nashville public schools begin phasing back in-person classes, every family in Tennessee should have the ability to customize their child’s education. In some cases, it may mean families immediately send their children back to their local public schools, but in other cases, it may mean choosing a hybrid model while using a program like an ESA to help pay for extra tutoring.
Don’t let politics interfere with good policy
The Tennessee Supreme Court has an opportunity to affirm the ESA program’s constitutionality and allow our state’s most vulnerable student body to choose an education plan that works best for their family.
Partisan politics should not get in the way of this noble pursuit.
Eva Angelina Romero is a former educator and a mother of three school-aged children who currently resides in Nashville.