Lee pitches school voucher expansion
“Because we have budgeted wisely through years of extraordinary revenue growth, Tennessee is now equipped to resolve this tax issue and make Tennessee an even better place to live, work and raise a family” – TENNESSEE GOV. BILL LEE
NASHVILLE — Nearly five years after narrowly convincing lawmakers to allow a select number of families to use tax dollars for private schooling, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Monday stood before the GOP-dominant Legislature with a much more ambitious pitch: Make school vouchers universal throughout the state.
It’s a proposal that would be ambitious for any governor in Tennessee, a state that has been skeptical of using public money for private schools. However, this year, Lee is also facing stagnant state revenues and a last-minute $1.6 billion expenditure regarding a business tax thrown together to prevent a looming lawsuit.
That’s because last fall, state officials became aware of a potential legal challenge over the structure of Tennessee’s 90-year-old franchise tax, with some 80 businesses that came forward to request a refund, according to the Lee administration. To avoid a potential lawsuit, Lee’s team wants to offer businesses an ongoing $410 million tax break and $1.2 billion in refunds to businesses.
Lee maintains the state still has enough money to spread around more school vouchers to families, properly fund public schools, distribute pay raises to state employees and even set aside more money for the rainy day fund.
“Because we have budgeted wisely through years of extraordinary revenue growth, Tennessee is now equipped to resolve this tax issue and make Tennessee an even better place to live, work and raise a family,” Lee said.
The governor floated his school voucher proposal during his annual State of the State address. The speech outlined his top priorities over the upcoming months, which include legislation designed to protect songwriters, performers and other music industry professionals against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence; and a bill to allow parents more control over their kids’ social media activity. Additionally, the governor said he wants to increase the number of state troopers and invest more in conserving Tennessee’s state parks and waterways.
In total, the governor’s office detailed a $52.6 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year, a modest 0.5% bump from the year prior.
Yet Lee’s school vouchers push has quickly attracted the most attention. School choice advocates have quickly lined up to praise the idea, while public school advocates counter that expanding vouchers will only further hurt struggling schools.
Key GOP legislative leaders are largely on board with Lee’s voucher proposal, but it’s still largely unknown what the rest of the GOP supermajority will want to get the legislative bill across the finish line.
Back in 2019, when Lee first asked lawmakers to consider expanding school vouchers, the plan was to allow parents of students in certain lowincome districts with three or more schools ranked in the bottom 10% to receive $7,300 from a government-authorized account to pay for approved expenses.
After much editing, Republicans just barely passed a program that only applied to Democratic strongholds in Davidson and Shelby counties, which encompass Nashville and Memphis. Lee’s victory came as some GOP members received assurances it would never apply to their own districts.
The program, known as education savings accounts, has since added Hamilton County, where Chattanooga is located.
It currently awards eligible families around $9,100 in public tax dollars to help cover private school tuition and other preapproved expenses for up to 5,000 low-income or disabled students.
Under Lee’s ambitious expansion plan, the state would create a new tier of school vouchers called “education freedom” scholarships. The first year of the program would cost $144 million to offer 20,000 scholarships to Tennessee families. Half of those scholarships would be available to families who meet certain income requirements, while the rest would be open to anyone.
Programs funded through vouchers, tax credits or scholarships have been around since the 1990s and are now available in the majority of states. Whether students who change schools with the use of taxpayer money achieve better educational outcomes is in dispute.