Fight over school vouchers heats up

Republicans press bill despite objections citing diverted funds

NASHVILLE — The legislative battle over school vouchers in Tennessee is escalating, with the bill set for committee votes in the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Wednesday, and the state Democratic Party chairman attacking it Monday.

The voucher bill, which allows taxpayer dollars for education to move from public schools to private schools for student tuition, is also a point of contention among its Republican supporters.

Gov. Bill Haslam has proposed a smaller pro- gram initially, limited to 5,000 low-income students statewide during the 201314 school year, increasing to 20,000 in 2016-17 and thereafter. But state Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, said last week that he will push for a “more expansive” program.

Meanwhile, advocacy groups are running a bar- rage of television commercials in support of the bill, in Nashville, Knoxville and on cable in cities where lawmakers on key committees live to try to drum up public backing.

Any voucher bill that focuses on lower-income students is expected to have its largest impact in Memphis, where nearly 90 percent of students qualify for free or discounted school lunches under federal poverty guidelines — an eligibility requirement in the governor’s bill. The Shelby County Unified School Board and the Tennessee School Boards Association oppose the bill. Funds for the vouchers, or “Opportunity Scholarships” in the bill, would be subtracted from the state funds sent to the school district for each resident using a voucher and sent directly to the private school.

On Monday, Tennessee Democratic Party chairman Roy Herron attacked the bill as a part of a “Republican war against public schools,” backed by advocacy groups and forprofit education companies that he said are spend-

ing “hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps millions” on the ads and lobbying.

“These outfits want to pilfer, plunder and profit from the privatizing of public schools and the pickpocketing of public funds. Vouchers may benefit vultures but they take from Tennessee taxpayers and leave our children and our state worse off,” Herron said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

The former state legislator, said the TV ads in support of the bill are either “ignorant or dishonest.” The 30-second spot running in Nashville by the free-market Beacon Center of Tennessee says that “for decades, politicians were afraid to reform anything,” and shows pictures of four former governors — only one of whom served since the 1970s. It omitted former governors Lamar Alexander, Ned McWherter and Phil Bredesen, all of whom launched major education reforms during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

The state Senate two years ago passed a voucher bill by Kelsey that was limited to lower-income students but still would have covered about 20 percent of Tennessee students, he told the Senate Education Committee last week. It failed to win House approval, and last year, Haslam asked legislators to hold off on vouchers until a special commission he appointed last fall could study the issue and make recommendations.

Kelsey said the governor’s bill, which is based on the task force’s recommendations for a more limited approach, will make only about 3.5 percent of Tennessee students eligible for the vouchers and, based on testimony from Florida’s voucher-program administrator, only about 5 to 6 percent of those eligible will actually participate.

As a result, Kelsey said, “only about two one-thousandths of 1 percent of students would benefit” under the governor’s bill. “I will be sorely disappointed if we end up” with that, he said.

House Bill 190 is scheduled for the House Education Committee at noon Tuesday and its companion Senate Bill 196 is in the Senate Education Committee at 3 p.m. Wednesday.