Sen. Kyle, House Democrats Urge Delay of Private School Voucher Program

NASHVILLE — House and Senate Democrats today condemned a plan to implement Governor Bill Lee’s Education Savings Account a year ahead of what is required by the law.

The controversial legislation, which passed the General Assembly last year, would allow some families in Davidson and Shelby counties to use public school tax dollars to pay for private school tuition. Proponents said the law was modeled after an existing state program that gives families of children with certain disabilities the option of removing their students from public school and then provides a state-issued debit card loaded with tax dollars to help cover their children’s private school needs.

Even with only 137 families participating, an Associated Press investigation found state flagged nearly $30,000 in misspent voucher funds in one school year.

“If the education department cannot stop fraud in a voucher program with 137 kids, we have no confidence the education department can effectively police a private school voucher program with thousands of families receiving millions worth of public school tax dollars,” Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis) said. “Instead of forcing vouchers into existence a year earlier than required, the department should slow this process down to minimize the harm to students, families, schools and taxpayers.”

The Joint Government Operations Committee will consider rules today to allow the voucher program to go into effect in the upcoming school year as Democratic members vowed to fight against the proposal.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Stewart of Nashville called the ESA program “a failed experiment across the country that has seen numerous instances of fraud and mismanagement and will drain millions of dollars from public schools.

“We’ve seen our state Education Department mishandle everything from academic performance testing to the current limited voucher program for special education students,” Stewart said. “How can we expect them to implement this program?”

Stewart continued, “Vouchers are a public policy disaster and will ultimately go down as the most monumental failure of the Lee administration.”

Rep. G.A. Hardaway, also of Memphis, said, “As I’ve said since this bill was first proposed, this initiative is nothing but smoke and mirrors that is designed to accelerate the demise of public education and put money into the hands of a select few private school operators. We need to join together to defeat, deny and destroy this proposal.”

The Joint Government Operations Committee will meet today at 1:00 p.m. in House Hearing Room I.