Tennessee Republicans push for significant last-minute ESA voucher expansion

“Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Tennessee Republicans want to drop all enrollment caps and expand eligibility to the state’s initial voucher program, effectively merging Tennessee’s two voucher programs as Gov. Bill Lee pushes lawmakers to provide state dollars to all families who applied to the Education Freedom Scholarships program this year. A last-minute amendment tacked on to House Bill 1881 would substantially alter the Education Savings Account program, the state’s initial voucher program that is currently available to 12,500 income-capped families in Davidson, Shelby, and Hamilton counties. House lawmakers are expected to consider the new amendment on Tuesday. If a majority approves the new language, it will mark the second time in two weeks that the Republican majority has made major last-minute changes to Tennessee’s voucher programs. The House floor amendments have allowed voucher-friendly Republicans to push forward significant changes in tight votes while bypassing a thornier committee process, where amendments are debated at length and require multiple voting rounds to advance. If finalized, the ESA bill changes would usher in a monumental shift to Tennessee’s school choice policies. Last year, lawmakers were assured the state’s universal EFS program was tightly controlled from expansion, limited to just 5,000 new students a year. Now, voucher proponents in the Republican supermajority have blown past that cap to expand the EFS program to 35,000 students and are attempting to drop all enrollment caps to the ESA program in Tennessee’s most populous counties. House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons criticized the last-minute amendment Tuesday morning. “At the eleventh hour, Gov. Bill Lee and Republicans are attempting to put the final dagger in our public schools and blow up our state budget by eliminating all caps on the voucher scams and removing any accountability whatsoever,” Clemmons said. The new amendment would include Knox County in the ESA program, opening it up to as many eligible students in the four counties as possible. The bill would also significantly roll back accountability measures and testing requirements on the ESA program. Republicans also look to expand eligibility by increasing the income eligibility cap from 200% of the federal free and reduced price lunch threshold to 400%. This would be about $171,600 for a family of four, under the federal guidelines for the upcoming school year, well above Tennessee’s median family income. The ESA program provides up to $9,787 per student this school year, nearly $2,000 more than the EFS voucher. The ESA program has been historically underused, in part due to its testing requirements that require participating private schools to administer Tennessee state tests to ESA students. The testing requirement was a crucial reason the program passed the legislature by a single vote in 2018, as many lawmakers argued an apples-to-apples comparison was needed to determine student academic progress. But many private schools do not want to offer the state tests. Now, some Republicans want to drop those testing requirements, which would likely encourage more private schools to participate in the ESA. Participating schools could either offer a “nationally norm-referenced” test, which can vary widely in their content, or offer the state standardized tests. The new amendment also aims to stop requiring annual audits of the ESA program and drops the requirement that the state measure academic growth in the program with the same TVAAS scoring metrics public schools are held to. Republicans backing the measure say ESA testing requirements need to be aligned with the EFS, and that private schools should have the flexibility to choose a test that aligns with their curriculum. But the effort follows a Tennessee Comptroller report from last winter that found ESA recipients continue to trail their public school peers in academic achievement, with some exceptions in Memphis-Shelby County schools. With the testing changes, it will not be possible to accurately compare and contrast academic progress among Tennessee students, Democrats opposed to the measure argue. The House is expected to vote on the amendment on Tuesday, April 21, though schedules are shifting quickly as the General Assembly looks to wrap up its session this week. The Senate could take up its version at any time. Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org .

Summary generated from the RSS feed of Chalkbeat. All article rights belong to the original publisher. Click through to read the full piece on www.chalkbeat.org.