The Voucher Budget is Winning
In the competition for state dollars in Florida, vouchers win over any other education initiative
Tennessee lawmakers recently passed Gov. Bill Lee’s dream legislation: Universal school vouchers.
The plan has a projected 5-year cost of just over $1 billion.
As a matter of perspective, that same amount of money would be enough to give every teacher in the state a guaranteed 6% raise every year for the next five years.
In a state with a large and growing teacher shortage, a pay raise for teachers could help stem the tide.
But, that’s not what Lee and his legislative allies want.
Instead, they want school “choice” at all costs.
Lee’s plan means (after year one) any family - even ones with kids already in private schools - can take state money and apply it to their private school tuition.
In other states, this has been a disaster.
In Arizona, for instance, the state faced a $1.4 billion budget shortfall, much of which was the result of new voucher spending.
Florida is an example of vouchers gone wild - eating up billions of state dollars while landing Florida disappointing results in the NAEP.
An analysis of the Sunshine State's private school voucher program reveals the total cost to taxpayers is $3.9 billion annually.
The Education Law Center in conjunction with the Florida Policy Institute conducted the analysis of the state's school voucher program. The results of the study show the cost of vouchers growing steadily. Vouchers now consume 23% of state education dollars, up from just 12% in the 2021-22 school year.
Peter Greene explores the Florida situation further, digging in with information from a professor from Florida State:
Cottle also wants to point out another factor. Florida used to run a huge budget surplus, but now it's running a deficit. Cottle and others are trying to raise an alarm about math instruction and the need to improve math instruction, particularly by recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers. But the "still-growing budget for school choice vouchers is surely competing for money with ideas for initiatives to improve student learning, and the voucher budget is winning."
Tennessee taxpayers should bookmark this blog and remember the 2025 special legislative session on vouchers.
Over the course of the next five years, as state funding is gobbled up by a privatization scheme and local taxes increase even as services offered remain the same or decrease, we can look back on this moment as the nail in the coffin of Tennessee public education.
Gov. Bill Lee won - and a generation of Tennessee students will lose as a result.
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