Representative Cepicky promises “clean version” of voucher bill next year

Governor Lee (left) and Representative Scott Cepicky (right) at a fundraiser earlier this year (Photo by Sky Arnold)

Representative Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, led efforts in the State House last spring to attach amendments that would weaken student testing requirements and teacher evaluations to Governor Lee’s proposal to allow families to use public dollars to send their children to private school. Cepicky argued those changes were requested from educators and he made the case they would in turn, help the Education Freedom Scholarship plan, sometimes referred to as vouchers, pass.

The Senate refused to go along with Cepicky’s proposal, wanting to instead pass a more clean version of the bill. That disagreement ultimately led the Governor to pull the plug on statewide vouchers but Cepicky says he expects lawmakers to be able to iron out their differences with school choice legislation next year.

In a radio interview this week with Matt Murphy from 99.7 WTN, Cepicky said he’s confident legislators will be able to come to an agreement about how to approach expanding school choice moving forward.

“Last year when we went through this, I don't think the consternation in the House and the Senate was over the idea of school choice for parents, given the opportunity to choose what they want to do with their students education. I think it was trying to trying to navigate all the different things and all the different bills. I think you'll see a very clean version coming up this year. I think it'll focus on the shortcomings in other states that they've had that have led to problems with school choice. I think we'll address all those in the [new] bill,” he said in the interview.

The new school choice bill is expected to be the first filed for the new session.

Despite promising a “clean bill,” Cepicky said lawmakers may additionally consider including items that address the needs of Tennessee’s traditional public schools.

“I think you'll see something in there still for our public schools. One of the biggest challenges they all face is maintenance of our schools and capital outlay, especially here in Middle Tennessee with the with the growth we have. And I think you'll see something that is that we can all be proud of that will give parents the option in these failing schools to have their kids a better option in the private schools.”

During the debate earlier this year, some of the more vocal opponents of the Education Freedom Scholarship plan were homeschool families who worried it might bring additional government involvement in their children’s education

Lawmakers included provisions to ensure homeschool families were excluded from the Education Freedom Scholarship and Cepicky told Matt Murphy that will likely be the case next year.

“We received a letter last year myself and Chairman Moody when we were writing this bill from the Tennessee Association of Home Schoolers, and they went across of all the different groups that they represent,” he said. “They sent us a letter saying unequivocally [that] they do not want to be part of the school choice bill.”

The full podcast can be listened to on the Cumulus News Talk YouTube channel.