BLOG

During the special session in January, Governor Bill Lee and the legislature championed and passed a program to offer every Tennessee family a voice in their child’s education. The program, called Education Freedom Scholarships, provides around $7,000 for a student to attend a school of their choice as well as pay for other approved educational expenses, like tutoring and textbooks. Such educational choice programs that offer the same opportunities to every student are not unusual. In fact, there were 12 states that offered universal programs before Tennessee became the 13th, and many more are proposing similar legislation.

Despite the well-studied benefits of educational choice programs and a recent poll showing that nearly seven out of 10 Tennesseans support the program, opponents have come together and stated school choice isn’t beneficial. While the traditional claims from Democrats and teachers unions focus on how school choice will defund public schools, a minority of Republicans have claimed school choice is “not conservative” or is not supported by President Trump. However, Trump voiced his support for the bill before it passed, Governor Lee was in the Oval Office the day following the bill’s passage, and school choice was the focus of a recent executive order signed by the president. With the bill passing, there has been an enormous amount of misinformation spread about what the legislation actually does. We seek to set the record straight and list the facts of the legislation as it passed in January.

Claim: Education Freedom Scholarships are a “voucher scam.”

Fact: Education Freedom Scholarships will be a form of Educational Savings Accounts, or ESAs. Unlike a traditional voucher program, ESAs are not directed to participating schools but instead towards parents and students. ESA students are able to use their scholarships on a multitude of approved education options beyond private school tuition, giving parents a true voice in their children’s education. ESAs do not direct any funding to specific schools, but they give families the ability to spend a portion of their education dollars on educational options that best fit the student.

Claim: School choice defunds public education.
–
Fact: Despite the dozens of school choice programs in existence, public schools still exist, with even bigger budgets than ever before. Tennessee has made historic investments in public education in recent years with many public schools still producing below-average results. In terms of funding, dollars for the EFS program are outside of the school funding formula and pale in comparison to the billions spent annually on the public education system.

Claim: This program does not include accountability.

Fact: The program does not require any new testing, yet scholarships are only available to category I, II, and III private schools, which are all accredited and already are required to use high-quality nationally norm-referenced testing. For students who stay in public school, research has shown the increased competition from school choice programs improves and brings more accountability to public schools. And in the most important and clear form of accountability, if a school or educational provider is not meeting a student’s needs, parents can take their child, and their education dollars, to another provider. In contrast, when a traditional public school fails students, they are often given more taxpayer dollars as a result.

Claim: This program will only benefit 20,000 students.

Fact: The EFS program offers 20,000 scholarships in its initial year and grows with demand. While adoption of ESA programs have historically been slow in their first years and the majority of students, even in universal school choice states, choose to stay in their public school, the 20,000 scholarships participation would place Tennessee ahead of multiple states already offering universal school choice. Arizona, the state with the highest ESA participation by percentage, has only 6.3 percent of students taking an ESA, and the average ESA participation is just three percent of students. With the EFS program and its ability to grow by 5,000 additional scholarships each year with demand and subject to available appropriations, Tennessee could have more students using an ESA than the average universal state in just four years. With the program growing with demand, Tennessee’s EFS program has the ability to offer a scholarship to every student while also requiring the growth to be tied to available appropriations, making its growth both reasonable and fiscally responsible.

Claim: School choice does not help students.

Fact: Of nearly 190 empirical studies conducted on school choice programs, 84 percent have found positive effects. These include positive effects on educational attainment, fiscal impact, parental satisfaction, racial integration, and even improvement in traditional public school performance due to competition. Arguably most insightful is that for Tennessee’s current geographically and income-limited school choice program, 99% of parents are satisfied with the program.

Claim: School choice hurts rural communities.

Fact: On one hand, critics claim there are no private options for rural students, so ESAs won’t work in their communities. On the other hand, they claim ESAs will bankrupt rural schools. Both can’t be true, and unsurprisingly, neither are. If there are no private options for rural students, then no ESAs will be used and the status quo remains the same. However, many rural communities have quality private schools or are considering establishing new schools now that the program has passed. Like with other states’ ESA programs, some families will utilize those new options, while others will remain content in their existing public school like they are today.

Giving parents and students options when it comes to education should not be a hot-button topic. If public schools are meeting the needs of students, there is no reason to worry over any student looking for a better educational option. Though struggling public schools have been addressed for decades and must continue to be improved, the status quo of simply throwing more money at the problem has not benefited students in any meaningful way. Tennessee has taken a giant step forward with the passage of the EFS program, which has now empowered parents with choice and given them a real voice in their child’s education.