A new bill in the Tennessee State House, the Tennessee Choice & Opportunity Scholarship Act (H.B. 1049), will provide students in struggling schools with what the bill defines as a "scholarship," also known as a voucher.
Vouchers pay tuition for students to attend private schools. Proponents of the bill say that it increases choice for parents, a noble cause.
Sure, the idea of a voucher system may seem like a good idea, but intrinsic and specific problems arise when implementing it on any level, especially on a sweeping state level.
The Compelling Myth
Vouchers have sparked much discussion, and for good reason: a voucher program offers disenfranchised students in struggling school districts (those in the bottom five percent of performance) the chance to attend a private school with a better performance record.
For many lagging districts, a voucher option seems to yield very positive short term effects, remedying educational inequality by temporarily leveling the playing field for some students. But the community benefits stop in the short term and only affect a select few of students.
A Brookings and Harvard study looked at African-American students’ performance on either side of a voucher program in New York City.
African-American students in the program experienced an increase in the competitiveness of the colleges that they attended. The percent that went to a “selective” college, one with a median SAT score of at least 1,100 out of 1,600, increased from three percent to seven percent.
The increase suggests that voucher programs work in the long-term, and the logic follows. Better schools produce better students, so when students have an opportunity to go to a better school, they perform better.
Interestingly, the study failed to see much increase in the Hispanic community. The biggest takeaway from the study lies in the fact that their success seemed largely cherry-picked.
Brookings and Harvard conducted the study in only one city’s program and saw statistically significant changes in only one demographic. They noted that neither extensive nor long-term evidence has yet to cumulate.
The biggest problem with the basic argument for the benefits of vouchers for those students lucky
enough to receive them lies in the inconsistency in evidence for even the most basic pillar of voucher proponents’ argument.
Further, the benefits, difficult to prove in the first place, have many limits for the number of students that will receive the scholarship in a struggling district.
The bill, H.B. 1049, even sets up a mechanism for when private schools run out of seats in 49-1-1204 Section A, Subsection 3 : “If the number of eligible students who submit applications exceeds the permissible number of scholarships available statewide or the available seats at participating schools for any grade level, the department shall conduct a random selection process to award scholarships that provides each eligible student with an equal opportunity for selection.”
While this provision offers private schools the legal ability to close their doors to voucher students, it effectively means that not every student in a struggling school will have the opportunity to access the voucher. So much for a level playing field.
The rollout of voucher programs in other parts of the country caught the eye of the National Education Association, or NEA, who said, “In the places where vouchers exist, access means a chance in a lottery. One's name is thrown into the hopper. If it is pulled out, the parent gets a chit good for use in a limited number of places.”
Education should not be a lottery for those in struggling communities. It should be an unwavering beacon of hope and opportunity.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “Until we get equality in education, we won’t have an equal society.” Education should play the great equalizer, the engineer of a meritocracy. It connects hard work to success, but only when we let it.
These voucher programs will launch few out of a dim future and darken the road ahead of many more.
The Grim Reality
Education reform consisting of a new scholarship program will cost money, but the bill’s fiscal note indicates that the bill will not levy any new costs on the state government. Rather, it will pull $221 million out of funding over the first five years and $71 million per year after that.
In this way, 49-1-1204 Section A, Subsection 2 accounts for the costs, “For the purposes of funding calculations, each scholarship recipient shall be counted in the enrollment figures for the LEA in which the student resides and is zoned to attend. The scholarship funds shall be subtracted from the total state funds otherwise payable to the LEA and shall be paid directly to the participating school.”
Without the legal jargon, the provision says that for each voucher given to a student from a district, the cost will come straight out of the funding for the public schools in the district.
While the students will still count for funding, the subtraction will mean that expensive private school tuitions will take a toll on public school districts.
A dire future for failing school systems lies behind the well-intentioned measure to prevent a fiscal note.
“Tennessee schools have not received the full amount of funding which the law requires,” contends TREE, Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence.
Further, The Tennessean reported that Shelby County Schools and Hamilton County Schools filed lawsuits against the Tennessee Department of Education because the district could not provide adequate salaries to teachers and money for facilities. School systems have tabled special programs for student engagement.
Tennessee’s schools spend way too little to fully serve the needs of students. According to the NEA, Tennessee lands at 47th in total expenditure and school revenue per student although Tennessee lands at 37th in income per capita.
The same report outlines the percentage of expenditure for local schools that comes from the local government. While Tennessee already has anemic schools, its local governments supply 40 percent of total revenue.
For this reason, Tennessee lands at 27th in local spending on schools.
In the same report, states’ dependency on federal funds soars as the state supplies less revenue. Atop that list stands some of the states that lag behind the most: Mississippi (1st), Louisiana (2nd), Alabama (13th), and Tennessee (14th).
The ACT reports state averages, and the ranking for those that lag behind stands as follows: Mississippi (50th), Louisiana (49th), Alabama (34th), and Tennessee (46th). Since 100 percent of Tennessee high school graduates take the ACT, an average score of 19.8 represents the state’s quality of education.
Only 8 percent of Tennessee students took part in the SAT, reports college advisory company
PrepScholar. This evidence shows that Tennessee lacks two things: non-compulsory participation and credibility for cited SAT scores.
Inequity and poor funding distribution leaves a gaping hole that forces the poorest districts to throw up their hands and roll out inadequate schools and subpar educations.
Through the formula adjustment, the most cumbersome districts for Tennessee’s average score would feel the biggest impacts.
Vouchers do not present a viable solution for Tennessee’s geographically disparate quality of education.
The best answer remains unclear, more difficult, and potentially more expensive for the state
government.
The Practical Solution
This is the part no one wants to hear. Vague political ideology cannot solve the widespread academic drought in Tennessee. Governor Haslam must develop a cost-effective, comprehensive, and equitable program to tackle the issue of failing schools.
When failing school districts become a pattern, the governor has the obligation to step in and correct it. He has tried to fulfill this obligation by throwing his support behind H.B. 1049.
Governor Haslam’s endorsement of vouchers does not cut it.
Struggling schools need a combination of funding, guidance, and programming. Extracurricular activities are the aspects of school that offer the most diversity of thought and activity, engaging and improving students’ perceptivity.
Offering engaging things to do can play a pivotal role in the success of students in a struggling area. Therefore, the best course of action for Governor Haslam could very well reside in a cocktail of BEP funding increases, comprehensive extracurricular programs, more rigorous standards, and pulls for new teachers.
Ultimately, the best response to struggling schools lies in the hands of the school boards. Without
funding to keep the lights on, school boards simply cannot find the money to pursue stimulating programs.
Governor Haslam should focus on empowering good statewide programs for extracurriculars, like the Tennessee High School Press Association, the Tennessee High School Speech and Drama League, the YMCA Tennessee Center for Civic Engagement, and International Baccalaureate programs.
For most students, the best way to learn is to do. With a focus on doing, not only will schools help students better realize the connections between their education and the real world, but schools will help them also stay off the streets, out of trouble, and on the right track.
What You Can Do
Luckily, Tennessee’s state legislators represent small constituencies, so people in support or opposition to any legislation have leverage over their respective legislator’s actions.
Bottom line, you can stop a voucher program, so do it. The most effective way to swing your representative’s vote is to gather a large (or small) group of people to call your state senator and representative’s office and essentially file your complaint.
Coupled with calling their office, flooding it with letters also helps convince your legislator of the repercussions of their vote.
As long as your legislator knows that a vote for vouchers means a vote against his or her job, they won’t cast it. Further, you can always push grassroots organization to muster the votes to replace your legislator if he or she decides to risk losing his or her job.
Finally, you can organize a local protest at your legislator’s office so that your objection becomes clear and persuasive.
While legislators politicize Tennessee’s failing school systems, the schools will lag farther and farther behind. Democracy exists for this reason: forcing leaders to do the right thing
Connor K. Carroll, TNYD High School Caucus Chairman