Governor’s Education Freedom Scholarship Plan faces uphill battle for passage

Governor Lee’s signature education proposal this year appears to be on life support.Tuesday afternoon both the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee and the House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee passed the state’s budget without taking up legislation to create the Education Freedom Scholarship plan. It would allow parents across the state to use public tax dollars to send their children to private school.The House version of the plan is more expansive than the Senate version and could cost more than $400 million because it also includes additional funding for smaller school districts and for teacher insurance plans.The budget that advanced from both finance committees only includes $140 million for the Education Freedom Scholarships. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, told WKRN News that it will become hard to fix the differences between the two versions once the budget passes.That’s expected to happen Thursday.“What we’re wanting to put in the budget for finance is not in there. So once the budget passes that’s not a good sign for it,” said Sexton.Another key difference between the two plans involves testing. The House plan would reduce the number of annual state assessments public school students are required to take.Supporters like Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, says that change is something they’ve heard teachers want.“We have boxed our teachers in to the system that we’ve created that we have to operate in. The over testing, the over evaluations, the over interventions and they can’t teach anymore,” said Cepicky. “Teachers have told me you gotta redo the system so that they can teach more to get better results.”The Senate plan did not include rolling back accountability measures and some education leaders question whether reducing testing would even provide a benefit in the classroom.During the debate on the Education Freedom Scholarship plan last month, Maryville City Schools Director Mike Winstead told lawmakers that the extra time in the classroom teachers would receive if Tennessee reduced required testing wouldn’t mean much for improving performance.“As far as directly impacting those test scores, no,” said Winstead. “I don’t see anything in here that’s a magic pill that’s going to change the test scores in Maryville for instance or anywhere else.”In recent days leaders in the House and Senate have held meetings to try to iron out the disagreement on testing and other differences between the two Education Freedom Scholarship plans and from all appearances both chambers appear to still be far apart with the legislative session winding down.Speaker Sexton says leaders in both chambers do not want to pass separate plans and rush to work out the differences in a conference committee.“We were very clear in the last meeting we had with the Senate, and they agreed, that until we have an agreement together, we wouldn’t move the bills forward,” said Sexton. “The testing is a big part and so It’s just two different thoughts.”