Students in Cumberland County and in Tennessee are now eligible to apply for scholarship vouchers to attend private schools should their parents choose.
Late last week, the Tennessee House and Senate passed Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act. State Sen. Paul Bailey represents Cumberland County in the Senate. He voted with the majority to approve the bill.
“Education is not a one-size-fits all endeavor,” the Sparta Republican said in a prepared statement. “Each child has their own learning style and pace. While I acknowledge this legislation does have flaws – it serves as a starting point that can be refined over time.”
House Speaker Cameron Sexton represents Cumberland County in the lower branch of the General Assembly. He was among the 54 House members who voted for the bill’s passage in last week’s special legislative session.
Lee has pushed for the approval of school vouchers, referred to in legislation as the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, since taking office in 2019. The governor has said the state-funded scholarships will allow parents to choose where their children attend school with the help from the scholarship vouchers.
But using that state dollars for tuition to private schools is one of Melissa Ellis’ biggest problems with the plan.
“You have taxpayers paying for something that isn’t really public,” said Ellis, a Cumberland County mother of four.
“It’s tax money going to, you know, a voucher system [that] pays for public and private [school] … but the general idea of public school is that it was taxpayer funded,” she added. “And so now we have taxpayer-funded private school and public school, and then it takes away the whole point of public school. And private school is supposed to be funded by, you know, their benefactors. So, I have a strong issue with that.”
Heather Mullinix covered the Cumberland County Board of Education and school issues for the Crossville Chronicle for two decades. She said one of the problems she has with the act is a lack of accountability regarding the testing in public versus private schools.
“I’m very concerned about the act because I don’t think that it is good for the vast majority of students in our public schools,” said Mullinix, a former Chronicle editor and the daughter of a retired educator.
Mullinix said that the state would have “uneven accountability in terms of testing.”
“Private schools get to choose which kind of tests they give,” said Mullinix.
Mullinix discussed how current vouchers in place are performing in other counties in Tennessee.
According to the FAQ section of the Tennessee Education Freedom website, “6,500+ families have applied for Tennessee’s current choice option — a successful pilot program in Shelby, Davidson, and Hamilton counties — and more than 3,500+ students are currently enrolled in a participating school. Today, 99% of families are satisfied with the program.”
“If you look at the vouchers that are already in place, the ones that are available to students in Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton County, the latest data shows that those students taking those vouchers performed worse than their public school peers,” said Mullinix. “So, yet their parents were all very happy with the program. I just don’t know that a survey of parental satisfaction is sufficient. Especially when you consider all of the regulations that our public schools have to meet. All of the accountability measures that are in place for every public school in this state.”
She added, “I think we have a lot of needs in our schools that this money could be better used to address.”
In his prepared statement, Bailey said his focus has always been on protecting rural school districts and maintaining their funding levels.
“This law guarantees no school will face a reduction in funding as a result of Education Freedom Scholarships,” the senator said. “This safeguard means funding to school districts will remain stable, even in the event of student disenrollment.”
Representatives of the Cumberland County Board of Education were not available for comment by press time.
According to the act, students who live in Tennessee and are authorized to attend public school are eligible for the scholarships. Students who are enrolled in homeschool or a church-related school are not eligible.
This act authorizes the Tennessee Department of Education to create 20,000 scholarships to be made available to eligible students in the 2025-’26 school year.
The bill states that half of the 20,000 scholarships will go to students who currently qualify for free or reduced price lunch, “eligible students under state law based on being zoned to attend certain ASD [achievement school district] schools and meeting other related criteria,” or students who have certain disabilities.
The other 10,000 scholarships are for all eligible students whether they meet the above criteria or not.
The bill also addresses future school years with “… the number of scholarships available for the respective school year is determined by the funds appropriated for scholarships, together with any available funds returned to the state treasurer.”
According to the bill, scholarships will increase by an additional 5,000 for the next school year if the Department of Education receives applications that exceed 75% of the total number of scholarships available for the following school year.
According to the bill summary, “Subject to appropriation, this bill requires the department to award a one-time bonus in the amount of $2,000 to each teacher employed in a K-12 public school for the 2024-’25 school year.”
The bill further explains that these teacher bonuses are not part of TISA funding. Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement formula is funding based on outcomes of school performance, direct funding, students who need additional support and essentials for every school.
According to the bill summary, eligible students who wish to receive a scholarship must:
Complete and submit a scholarship application.Enroll in private school.Ensure that the student is not enrolled in public school while using the scholarship.
Scholarship vouchers may be used for the following:
Tuition and fees required by the private school.Textbooks, curricula, instructional materials, and uniforms required by the private school.Tutoring services provided by a tutor or tutoring facility that meets the requirements established by the department.Fees for transportation to and from the private school, paid to a fee-for-service transportation provider that meets the requirements established by the department.Computer hardware, technological devices, and other technology fees that meet the requirements established by the department and that are used for the recipient’s educational needs.Tuition, fees, textbooks, curricula, and instructional materials for summer academic programs and specialized afterschool academic programs that meet the requirements established by the department, but not afterschool childcare.Fees for early postsecondary opportunity courses or examinations, entrance examinations required for post secondary admission, and industry credentials as approved by the department.Educational therapy services provided by therapists who meet the requirements established by the department.
The bill summary states that the scholarship vouchers should be used for tuition and fees first before subsequent costs.