Representative Scott Cepicky misleads the public in radio interview on his school vouchers plan

Representative Scott Cepicky and supporters at a fundraiser in Columbia (Photo by Sky Arnold)

Representative Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, went on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show recently to discuss the failed effort he led last session to reduce the amount of state tests Tennessee students are required to take along with the number of evaluations their teachers see.

Both changes were key parts of the House plan to implement Governor Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship proposal to allow families to use public dollars to send their children to private schools. Senate leaders were not on board with the proposed House changes and that disagreement ultimately led to the General Assembly’s failure to pass universal school choice legislation, sometimes referred to as “school vouchers,” this year.

Representative Scott Cepicky speaking at a fundraiser in Columbia (Photo by Sky Arnold)

Representative Scott Cepicky at a recent campaign event

Cepicky told listeners of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show that the changes he championed were similar to changes Wisconsin lawmakers made when they implemented a school voucher program.

“The one thing they also did was what we were trying to do which was to do some major transformational reform in public education. Less testing, less evaluations, more teaching time,” said Cepicky. “The bill that we were running in the General Assembly this year was eerily similar to what they ran 14 years ago. Invoking school choice, putting some parameters on growth on it, making sure homeschoolers weren’t included, putting the parameters on private schools to protect them, but the transformational changes that they made in public education changed the whole deal for them.”

Cepicky made the case that reducing testing and teacher evaluations spurs creativity and innovation in the classroom, but a detailed analysis found Wisconsin lawmakers actually didn’t make the types of changes he referenced in the interview.

Wisconsin currently has three voucher programs, including a statewide program and school choice programs in Milwaukee and Racine. The legislation that created them did not include proposals to reduce testing and teacher evaluations in public schools.

Wisconsin also requires public school students to take additional assessments beyond those required by the federal government and lawmakers there passed requirements for students taking part in Milwaukee’s voucher program to take the assessments their public school counterparts are taking.

Wisconsin did make changes to its teacher evaluation system in 2011, but those changes were not aligned with voucher legislation and they didn’t reduce frequency of evaluations as Tennessee House leaders proposed this year.

Wisconsin success overstated

Cepicky also overstated the success of Wisconsin’s education program after implementing vouchers.

He told listeners of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show that Wisconsin student performance took a major turn after implementing changes similar to those Tennessee House leaders proposed this year.

“They were 38th and languishing kind of like we are. They reached a plateau and just kind of got stuck. When they opened it up to school choice and they did the transformational reforms in public education, in five years they were in the top ten in the country,” said Cepicky in the interview.

An evaluation of Wisconsin’s academic performance on the Nation’s Report Card found the state has traditionally scored above the national average in reading and math for both grades 4 and 8 going back to the early 90s.

Since implementing vouchers statewide in 2013, fourth grade math and reading scores have risen just a point over the national average. Eighth grade math and reading scores were already well above the national average in 2013 and both have also risen slightly since then, but neither were as far ahead of the national average in 2022 as they were in the 90s.

Governor Lee has vowed to bring back his universal school choice proposal next year and both Cepicky and his GOP primary opponent Ray Jeter have said they plan to support it.

Unlike this year, Cepicky says the plan next year is to run proposals dealing with student testing and teacher evaluations in a separate bill.