When Governor Bill Lee unveiled his proposed program to offer taxpayer funded private-school scholarships Tuesday, Tennessee House Education Administration Chair Mark White, R-Memphis, was among the supporters who made the trip to Nashville to be in attendance.
White says he plans to support the Education Freedom Scholarship Act as he believes competition will improve education in Tennessee.
“Freedom of choice just puts one more opportunity in there for parents,” said White. “The particular situation they may be in, it may not be working for them or their child. And so, the more options, charter, public school, private, all the above is what we want for our state for all students.”
The Governor’s proposed program would expand upon the framework of the existing Education Savings Account (ESA) to provide $7,075 to families statewide to cover private school tuition, fees, uniforms, textbooks, computers, and transportation.
Under the plan, Tennessee would offer 20,000 scholarships next school year on a rolling first-come, first-served basis to help Tennessee families send their children to private school. Half of those scholarships would go to economically disadvantaged students, disabled students, or those eligible for the existing ESA pilot program. The remaining 10 thousand scholarships would go to any Tennessee student.
The scholarship program will likely be the biggest education legislation under debate next year and Representative White believes lawmakers will make some tweaks to the Governor’s plan.
TCAP Assessments
One key addition he supports is ensuring students who receive the scholarship are required to be assessed annually through the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), like students in the current ESA pilot program.
“I see nothing wrong with continuing that. I think that puts accountability for all,” said White. “If a child is gonna go to a private school, I want to make sure it is a high standard private school. So I will fight for that because we want a child to go to a great school, just not one that’s offering another opportunity.”
Representative White is skeptical of adding accountability requirements beyond the TCAP.
Starting next month, every public school in the state will receive an A-through-F letter grade through the new School Letter Grades. Representative White says he doesn’t believe the data is available to require something similar for private schools taking part in the Education Freedom Scholarship Act.
He’s also leaning against requiring third-grade students who receive scholarships to face the new advancement requirements under the state’s Third-Grade Retention Law.
“That’s something we’re going to have to really study,” said White. “I think a lot of private schools, if we hold to the fact of high-quality privates, they’re going to have something in place to make sure that the children are moving along through grade level.”
Accountability has been a big talking point for opponents of the private school scholarship plan. Democratic raised the issue during a press conference Tuesday when Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis questioned whether private schools would be required to follow the same requirements that traditional public and charter schools have.
“Schools will not have to adhere to those standards. They will not have to have the same types of licensing and curriculum and accountability,” said Raumesh.
Pop-Up School Concern
Another big criticism from opponents is that the scholarships will lead to so-called “pop-up” private schools that are created specifically for the new funding.
Representative White says that is something he also wants to find ways to prevent.
“I think that would be detrimental. My opinion they would be taking the money first and thinking about the child second. So I want to make sure that these are private schools that are established and that we know exactly their performance levels,” said White.
Another key criticism of the proposed plan is that it would take valuable resources away from school districts. This is especially a concern for some rural school districts that may be less able to accommodate the budget change.
Alamo City Director of Schools Brooks Rawson is among those concerned about money and he attacked the plan on social media saying it will cost jobs.
Representative White said it will be important for lawmakers to be sensitive to those sorts of financial concerns but he believes the proposed legislation could offer important savings as well.
Some Tennessee school districts, especially in Middle Tennessee, are struggling to build schools fast enough to accommodate growing populations. Representative White believes the scholarship plan might help there.
“The local districts are faced with building new school buildings and so at $70 to $100 million a pop and they don’t have the property tax level coming in,” said White. “This may offset some of that, for those who may want to take the option of going to a private school, it may help them with not having the local expense of building another building.”
