Image: Senate Education Committee Chair Dawn White & 1st Vice-Chair Bill Powers Image Credit: Adelia Kirchner / The Tennessee Conservative
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
On Tuesday, Gov. Lee’s “Education Freedom Scholarship Act” passed in the Senate Education Committee by a partisan 8-1 vote.
The legislation was amended, replacing various sections of the bill with more extensive language regarding duties of the state treasurer and allocation of funds.
Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon-District 17) had filed an amendment to change the way this school voucher program would be funded, by drawing from an 80% allocation of the state’s sports wagering privilege tax.
Currently, that 80% of the state’s sports wagering privilege tax is set to go towards an “LEA School Building Improvement Fund” as one of SB6001/HB6004’s public school incentives.
“I want our parents to have choice in where they send their kids for education,” said Sen. Pody. “However, the funding on this one seems…just a little bit unsure of where it’s coming from.”
Sen. Pody explained that rather than having a set number of scholarships and then funding those, this amendment would dictate a specific funding source for the scholarship program.
This way, the number of scholarships would be based on the amount of funding available.
“Now if it funds 8,000 students, it funds 8,000. If it funds 50,000 students, it funds…but it’s coming from a direct funding source,” said Sen. Pody. “I think that would give a lot of people more confidence that it’s not coming from any funds from public education or anything like that. It’s only coming from a new source of money going forward.”
The Republican senator went on to say that he in no way wanted to stop the bill from moving forward, but believed that his funding proposal was something to be considered at some point.
“That was the proposal I had, but Madam Chairman I can count to five and I don’t have five votes on this amendment,” he concluded. “However, I do believe that down the road this is something that we should be considering. So I’m gonna withdraw this amendment.”
Tennessee senators have faced large amounts of both support and opposition from various counties and groups within their districts and Senators Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield-District 23) and Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City-District 3) shared this very sentiment as they explained why they would be voting in favor of the “Education Freedom Scholarship Act.”
“This debate used to be rather easy, because it used to be kind of a Republican versus Democrat issue. It used to be a conservative versus liberal,” said Sen. Roberts. “Today, here we are in a debate where it’s been very conflated and we’ve got some people on the right repeating some of the talking points on the far-left, and it’s just become very confusing.”
“To add to the confusion, President Trump weighs in on what we’re doing in Tennessee. I didn’t expect that. And then we have statistics, so we read from one expert about why it doesn’t work, we read from another expert why it does,” he continued. “And here we are left to make a decision when our districts are probably about 50/50.”
As an example of this split, Sen. Roberts explained that in one of his counties he has a conservative group in absolute support of the voucher bill and another conservative in one of his other counties that is totally against it.
Sen. Crowe noted that he also has constituents on both sides of the debate, with all seven mayors up in East Tennessee writing letters of support to the governor and all of the school boards in his district voicing their opposition.
“My school board members up in Northeast Tennessee are majority, vast majority, conservative Republicans. They’re all against this, and we elect them to guide us through running our schools and hopefully we listen to what we have to say, as well as our mayors,” said Sen. Crowe.
“I think up my way it’s probably about a 50/50 proposition if you look at not just Republicans, but Independents, Democrats, the whole works,” he continued. “So it’s a decision that has to be made by us obviously, who represent them. This is a very important bill. It’s very important to this governor. […] I’m going to vote to send this on because it deserves a great deal of debate and proper discussion.”
2nd Vice-Chair and lone Democrat on the committee, Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis-District 29), brought up the cost that other states with similar initiatives look to be facing.
“Recently Indiana voted to expand access to vouchers. So they went from one year, 31% increase in those accepting the program. $439 million in their budget every year goes to support these voucher programs,” she said. “Florida similarly increased their voucher program. There was an increase of 23% in one year. $3.9 billion goes toward funding vouchers in Florida.”
As Sen. Akbari explained why she would be voting against the legislation, she listed off various groups who remain in opposition of it.
“I will be voting no on behalf of the people who have sent me extensive, I mean extensive, resolutions from last year to this year, letters that I’ve received from school boards from last year to this year, and I’m just gonna name some of them,” said Sen. Akbari.
The Democrat lawmaker’s list of people in opposition to the “Education Freedom Scholarship Act” included the cities of Bradford, Bristol, Greenville, Kingsport, Newport, Oneida, Paris, as well as Chester, Benton, Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, Johnson, Roane, White, and Wilson Counties.
Organizations included on Sen. Akbari’s list were as follows:
- The Tennessee Business Roundtable Chair
- Tennessee Stands
- Tennessee Firearms Association
- Tennessee Liberty Whip
- Public School Strong – Hamilton County
- The Tennessee Education Association
“It’s not just myself and my opinion I represent,” Sen. Akbari concluded. “It’s those of people who’ve contacted us across the state.”
Democrat Senator Akbari was the only member of the Senate Education Committee that voted against the school voucher bill. The full list of the members can be found HERE.
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. Adelia is The Tennessee Conservative’s on-site reporter for the Tennessee General Assembly. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
