NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Gov. Bill Lee said his quest for school choice statewide would continue past the legislature's adjournment.
Vouchers — or known to the governor as education freedom scholarships — would use public tax dollars for private school tuition in all 95 counties.
"I pitched my choice effort in my first State of the State address," Lee said after the House and Senate finished their work for the year. "I have long believed children need to have the opportunity to succeed. I think parents should have a choice related to a child's education. This year we made significant progress forward. We didn't complete that task. Sometimes very important issues take time to complete. It advanced us to a place to make it easier and much more likely next year."
Both House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally echoed Lee's sentiments. Both said they would work on new voucher language through the summer and election season.
Democrats said they were relieved the measure failed — particularly with different opinions spread across the House.
"Going into this year when he announced this if we were successful this year, we knew it would be a two or three-year battle," said John Ray Clemmons, House Democratic Caucus Chair. "We made a plan to combat this. This is the first year. Fortunately, we were successful this year. Fortunately, he failed miserably. We did benefit from local governments speaking up and saying no to private school vouchers and no to this false narrative of school choice."
What was the plan?
Known as education scholarships by lawmakers, vouchers would have given families a dollar amount to take their children out of public school and place them in private schools.
As the governor outlined, he wanted around $7,000 per year for families who chose to leave the public school system. Eventually, every family in the state would have access to those funds, regardless of household income. NewsChannel 5 Investigates published the plan first before the governor's announcement.
The $144 million was passed in the budget for the program. However, the money will sit since there aren't statewide vouchers this year.
Lee announced the plan in November, but the plan lacked finite details.
How did we get here?
The House and the Senate weren't agreeing on voucher language from the outset.
Vouchers kept being bumped on the House and Senate calendars three weeks in a row. The House wanted to include everything with the measure — removing fourth-grade retention, lessening local government strain for teacher insurance plans and changing testing requirements in public schools.
What it lacked was any private school testing accountability.
The Senate wanted to allow switching public schools with the voucher allotment and authorize private school testing to mirror something like TCAP for public schools.
Public school boards decried the effort for vouchers throughout the whole legislative session. Some House Republicans came out publicly and said they wouldn't vote on the measure either. Democrats stood against the measure the whole time.
