Current Inks

The “String-less” Senate Bill 503: Who’s Included, Who’s Excluded?

March 20, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks Family, Tennessee Legislation

Let us settle the question about the inclusion of Homeschoolers in the bill. Did they include or exclude homeschoolers in this bill? The answer is BOTH.

SB503 reads on page 2 Section (2) “Eligible student” means a resident of this state who: (B) Is not enrolled in a home school for which a parent is required to provide annual notice to the local director of schools prior to each school year of the parent’s intent to conduct a home school, as described in 49-6-3050(b);”

They have exempted the “Independent Homeschool” students in the state. These are the students whose parents report directly to the local director of schools. Under this statute, students must take the “…same state board approved secure standardized tests required of public-school students in grades five (5), Seven (7), and nine (9) …” (49-6-3050 section (b)(5)(A)). Additionally, the legal statute makes the scores reported to “the parent-teacher, the director of schools and the state board of education;” (49-6-350 section (b) (5) (B) (iii)). The statute also has listed out the procedure for dealing with inadequate test results which may ultimately culminate in further testing and possibly force the parent to return the child to a public or private school setting.

For some reason, these are the homeschool students that the legislators chose to exempt- those already mandated to participate in state testing and undergo monitoring by the state.

The majority of homeschool students in the state do not homeschool under this provision. Instead, most of them are under the Category IV umbrella schools as described in 49-6-3050 (2)(A) “… where parents are associated with an organization that conducts church-related schools, as defined by 49-50-801…” Sometimes, the Department of Education (DOE) recognizes these students as private school students in a satellite school and sometimes as homeschool students; the legal code and the interpretation is ambiguous.

The Senate Bill 503 does NOT exempt Category IV schools or homeschools operating under a Category IV umbrella. Therefore, as we review how this bill could possibly affect Private or Non-Public schools who accept ESA students, homeschool parents operating under an umbrella program need to realize that this could one day affect their current level of freedom while operating within this category.

With this SB503 version, the “strings” attached to the use of ESA funds outright applies only to those taking the funds, but as we review the bill, you will see that it is not really that simple and could change over time. You might call these unintended consequences.

Questions: * Why did they exempt the Independent Homeschool category which already has government controls but include the Category IV private homeschool option which is free from direct government oversight?

* If they want ESA students to have the option to homeschool, why not allow the Independent Homeschool option for participation instead?

*Why are they unwilling to close the doors they are opening to future private and homeschool regulations by the DOE?

Seems like we need an answer to these questions from our legislators.

Funding Schema and Its Possible Effects on Private Schooling

March 18, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks Family, School, Tennessee Legislation

SB503 and HB1183 are presently traveling through the legislative process as sister bills, but are far from identical twin sisters. Each deserve individual attention as nuances as well as vast differences exist between the two bills focused on one goal of implementing school choice in Tennessee. Our series on the school choice movement in Tennessee has highlighted multiple aspects of each bill given that Tennessee’s ultimate school choice, if passed, will result from a fusing of these two bills in some form. Today, we look at how the funding formulas and methods of each will affect private schools in our state.

SB503

The Senate bill attempts to cut costs by using TISA funding and by allowing children with ESA funds to transfer between Local Education Agencies (LEA’s). In the SB503, children are eligible to attend either a private school or another public school outside their LEA. For transfer to another LEA, children take their TISA (Tennessee Investment in Students Achievement) funding with them and leave the local funding. There are funding formulas for movement between LEA’s that I will not spend time on here since they make little difference for private or homeschool students which is my focus. (SB 503 pg. 4-5 (c) (1) (B)

For private school- Non-Public Category I-V- the approximately $7000 is paid out from 100% state funds (SB503 p. 5 (2) (B)). From our understanding of the language, TISA money is generated for each student who receives an ESA. This would mean that those students currently in private education either schools or homeschools who are not allocated TISA money currently, could now receive TISA money allocation from the state. That TISA calculated money would be transferred into the EFSA scholarship fund for the student.

By approaching the funding in this manner, SB503 offers a smaller price tag in the first year of the bill at less than $100,000,000. In contrast to the $140,000,000 estimated price tag for the House bill HB1183, this might seem like a good deal, but we have to continue reading to the punch line. Each bill in the Senate and the House requires an attached fiscal note that estimates the cost of a bill on the state since each budget must be balanced so that the state does not go into debt. The fiscal note for SB503 begins with the lower cost of the program but continues that within 2 years the program could balloon to over $500,000,000 per year. That amount of money is a hefty price for the state and will make a sizable impact on the state’s private school sector. More to come on that impact after considering the House’s sister version.

HB1183

The House bill takes a more straightforward approach, ignoring the exchange of students between public school districts and seeming to leave TISA funding untouched. It simply lays out $7075 per student multiplied by 20,000 students and funds this from $140,000,000 earmarked for the program in the Governor’s budget. The TISA money already earmarked for public schools from prior and current budgets is not addressed, meaning that the money likely comes from the Tennessee General Fund although this is not stated explicitly. I believe this lack of mention might allow flexibility in future appropriations decisions for future year budgets by not pigeonholing the legislature into where future money can be appropriated from.

The House bill then offers a slower growth formula built into the legislation than the sudden expansion possible with the Senate version. As the number of scholarships actually given out each year reaches 90% of those available, the following year, the total number of scholarships can be increased by 20% if the legislature appropriates money in the coming year’s budget. The hypothetical situation in which each year the total is increased by 20% due to a high use of the scholarships each year would produce a price tag of over $500,000,000 like the Senate version in about 7 years. Although this formula allows a slower buildup, the costs to the state and ultimately the taxpayer are impressive over time.

Impact of either bill

The independent nature of private education funding which is free from government money would be fundamentally changed by this legislation in either form described above. Over time, as the program grows, government funding would become a major source of income for private institutions. Studies in other countries have shown that governmental funding fundamentally changes private education even if that is not the intent of those passing the initial legislation. Over time, the presence of the largest payor of services flattens out the differences in education like happened in Chile and Australia. In the end, the difference between private and public education becomes more a matter of semantics than content- same system, different building. Additionally, dependence upon government funds is likely to increase prices over time and increase administrative costs to meet governmental reporting requirements and testing which will be discussed later. These cost increases have been seen in higher education as well as medicine when government funding entered the picture and grew into a major funder of these services.

Retractable Leashes in School Choice Legislation Call to Action

March 12, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts Family, Government, School, Tennessee Legislation

(Updated 3/22/24 with Correction at end concerning testing requirements)

Although having grown up in a rural county meant that I never needed to put a leash on my family pets, I do appreciate whoever came up with the idea of a retractable leash. You can strap the leash on and grant your pet of choice a feeling of great freedom until you shorten the retractable leash and they hit their allowed limit. Sometimes you can give them 20 feet of open leash, sometimes you have to shorten it to 3 feet so they don’t cause trouble.

Government regulations often operate much like a retractable leash, attaching accountability measures which initially seem quite permissive, but later get tightened down when they decide you are not doing what they think you should do. The school choice legislation before us in the 2 houses of the Tennessee General Assembly are a great example of such a retractable leash which will be placed upon the necks of those trying to escape their failing local public school. Not only will escaping families be held accountable to the program’s rules, but the private schools and homeschool communities which accept them will also have a leash attached to their necks.

Multiple public statements have been made denying the reality that government money always has strings attached. The strings are euphemistically labeled accountability measures. On face, this is quite absurd as the explicit content of the legislation in both houses places specific limits on the money’s use:

The money cannot go directly to the parent or student.
The money can be used only for expenses approved by the Department of Education and require receipts for reimbursement.
Expenses without receipts or which are not approved will require parent to return that money.
A parent or school which is believed to commit fraud in regard to the expenses may be remanded to civil authorities for criminal prosecution.
Schools which are not in compliance with DOE’s promulgated (and potentially changing) academic standards and regulations will lose the right to participate in the program.
Testing requirements are attached to HB1183 which comply with the federal ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act). — CORRECTION AT END
Compliance with ESSA is required to receive federal funding with its strings.

Parents and their private schools should be concerned about these strings or leashes in their present form, but future prospects for the leash shortening are even more troublesome. We may (or may not) feel comfortable with the leash length right now, under the current administration and the current General Assembly, but the future holds no promises that future state leaders will allow such leash lengths to remain unrestrictive. Once the leash is attached to our neck through funding and the regulations which always follow such funding, we will have great difficulty extracting our necks from the leash when it shortens.

The best option is to avoid the leash being attached in the first place by rejecting the legislation and rejecting the promised money for educating our children.

Please take a few minutes to contact the House Government Operations committee and share the ideas above in your own words in opposition to this bill. You can email (good), call (better), or make an in-person / phone appointment (best). Their committee oversees the regulations written by various state government departments which would eventually tighten the leash. Tell Legislators that private school parents and homeschool parents DO NOT WANT a leash attached through this legislation, especially one which can be tightened later by future leaders. Their contact information is below. Parents can further warn their private school or homeschool umbrella program with this information.

Thank you.

Dr. Eric Potter

LINK to the Contact List for the House Government Operations Committee Members

CORRECTION 3/22/24

From details learned during Moms for Liberty legislative day 3/20/24

Posted separately on 3/22/24

You Learn Something New Everyday

In this brief post we offer a correction in part of our review of House Bill 1183. Because HB1183 has language dealing with the scholarships and even more language dealing with public education issues, we need to clarify the testing requirements for scholarship recipients. Previously, we noted that the testing requirements in the bill for the scholarship students follow the federal guidelines and testing schedule. However, that testing schedule is for the public education portion of the bill.

While the scholarship students in private schools will have their academic performance indicators monitored by the Department of Education, they are not required to test according to the federal guidelines like the public-schools. Instead, a third-party contractor will be collecting data from the private schools regarding the scholarship student’s academic performance per the school’s chosen measures. These will be included in a yearly report to the house education committees. We have been told that the third-party contractors will be prohibited from selling the student’s data for profit but do not see the language for this provision in the current version of the bill.

Despite its less rigorous testing schedule, the house bill still contains the same Department of Education approval oversight, DOE rules promulgation issues, and public-private funding concerns. Because the funding schema in this bill involves government money (not tax relief) being paid directly to private education institutions, it tips the balance of power over private education in favor of ever greater state oversight- especially in the future as the size of the program grows.

While some of the public education measures in this bill seem to have some merit, we continue to oppose the bill for reasons discussed. Let’s find another way to help children stuck in a bad education system, not extend the power of that system over the private sphere.

How Could This Affect My Private School

March 11, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts Family, Government, School, Tennessee Legislation

When a student uses ESFA funds to pay for a part of their private school tuition, the schools bring themselves more directly under the DOE and potentially lose their autonomy.

First, the schools will have to deal with testing issues. In the Senate bill, scholarship recipients must undergo annual testing using a normed referenced test approved by the state board of education as well as administering an English language arts test (TCAP or other DOE approved test) in third grade and a mathematics test (TCAP or other as approved by DOE) in eighth grade. Then, in eleventh grade they must take the ACT or SAT. Administering the tests is the responsibility of the schools on pg. 13 (b).

In the House bill, testing will be required for ESFA students. THIS WAS INCORRECT AND HAS BEEN CORRECTRED AT THE END AS WELL AS IN A SEPARATE POST. ——-ERROR REMOVED———– Right now, this is being set up as a state funded endeavor. The legislation gives the commissioner of education the right to establish the schedule for the statewide tests. No further information on who administers the test is given in the legislation. If a private school has scholarship students, presumably they will come under the administration schedule of the commissioner of education but this is not clear in the legislation. If federal funding ever comes into play, the schools may be brought under federal guidelines.

Second, the school is responsible for providing adequate receipts for documentation for all expenses paid with funds (p 14). They may not refund the parent but only the state account (p 14). Should the school have several students using the funds in various ways, the administrative overhead may increase depending on the rules and requirements established by the DOE regarding this matter.

Third, the senate bill gives the state board of education duty to “promulgate rules allowing the department to suspend or terminate a private or public school from participating in the program due to low academic performance, as determined by the department” (emphasis mine) (pg. 15 (2)). The school can then be removed from participating in the program. What other rules come into play regarding the school remaining open are not addressed but probably can be found in other legal codes and rules. The testing that the schools are required to perform is stated to be for information purposes only so it is unclear how the school’s academics will be evaluated. These rules will be made by the state board after the legislation passes. Direct oversight by the DOE who perhaps has a different educational philosophy from the private schools should be concerning to independent private schools.

Fourth, fraud protections extend to “any other person” who use funds deposited in an account in a way that is not qualified or “any other person” who misrepresents the nature, receipts, or any other evidence of one or more expenses could be made to pay restitution or may be brought up on criminal charges. The DOE is given the right to promulgate the rules regarding all these issues (pg. 15-16).

Fifth, for private students with educational disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding uses federal money to provide those services. One child using this money could bring the entire private school under federal regulations. This is a complicated issue that was left unanswered by the Education Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, legal counsel for the House, and legal counsel for the DOE. Both bills include IDEA funding for students with disabilities who leave the public system to go into the private system. Schools need to be aware of this issue and careful that they do not come under federal regulations. In conclusion, by taking this money, the private schools are taking on the responsibility of annual testing, adding administrative tasks and possibly legal consultation fees to their budgets, putting themselves under direct evaluation by the DOE for academic performance, and possibly opening themselves up to fraud charges if the money is not handled just as the yet to be promulgated rules allow. They also must be careful with the use of IDEA funds for special education student needs or could end up under federal regulations. Even more important, everyone should be aware that federal ESSA guidelines are being followed for testing schedules which sets the state up for being able to take federal funds in this endeavor in the future which could put private schools under federal regulations. Private schools need to count the costs carefully before accepting this money.

Stay Tuned for a Call To Action March 12th (tomorrow).

CORRECTION 3/22/24

WE LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERYDAY

By Jennifer Potter

School Choice Infringes on Religious and Parental Rights

March 3, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts School, Tennessee Legislation

Behind any legislation, even well-intentioned legislation, which infuses public money into the private spheres of community and family life, lurks many dangers to liberty. This danger is greatest in the education of children because their education goes far beyond the mere transmission of neutral facts and figures floating around outside of meaningful context. Instead, children, as human beings and not mere data crunching machines, always receive facts and figures within a context or framework of meaning. These facts are always communicated- both implicitly and explicitly- in the context of a wider world and life view which answers the larger questions: religious questions of meaning and purpose such as “Why am I here?” and “How am I to live?” Education by its very nature is a religious exercise, which brings concern for the inalienable rights of human beings to bear upon this legislation.

In fact, it is in the education of children that we find an intersection between the inalienable right of freedom of conscience and of religion and the inalienable right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. Education is an inculcation or passing along of a world and life view; again it is a religious exercise. Freedom of religion or conscience is clearly delineated in both the First Amendment and in Article One Section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution. Therefore, in the state of Tennessee, parents are guaranteed the freedom to pass along their religious and life view as dictated by their conscience. Opening the door to further governmental mandates regarding parents and their children’s education endangers these rights. This ESA legislation, with its infusion of public money into the private schools and homeschools, opens a door for ever greater government infringement upon the God-given responsibility of parents.

Therefore, the interweaving of the inalienable rights of freedom of religion with inalienable parental rights within the arena of education demands that the government refrain from unconstitutionally inserting its power where parental responsibility lies because it is the sworn duty of our legislators to wield their power within the constitutional framework. Those proposing expansion to a universal ESA program in Tennessee must answer for their willingness to open a door regarding state usurpation of these ordained, inalienable rights and responsibilities of parents. Rather than institute tax relief measures for families, this legislation creates another government program, and we all know that government programs cost public money. Inevitably, this public money requires accountability from those involved. In this program, parents and private schools will be held accountable for outcomes measurement, but measurements require standardization for comparison between various cohorts. In this case standardized tests like the TCAP will be required by the state- perhaps first for those taking the money but which could later easily extend to every child in a private institution which accepts any ESA funding. Such bills have already been proposed. We do not yet know if private entities will be forced to take the ESA vouchers, though that measure has been proposed in the past. Universal accountability through universal measurement logically flows from putting public money in private institutions.

Here the inalienable rights of parents bump up against the public’s right to know the outcomes from the use of their public money. Although parents in the private system may hold significantly divergent worldviews from those appointed to the bureaucratic boards, because of the public money flowing into their private institutions, the door has been opened for government mandates to infringe upon the parent’s inalienable right to direct the upbringing of their own children- such as through mandatory testing which would fail to properly assess children in non-conventional educational settings. Therefore, in order to continually “prove” to the state that they have the “right” to rear their own children, parents will be forced to teach towards a test chosen by the state, regardless of their parental choice or their child’s needs. This use of governmental force upon the family violates freedom of conscience and parental rights.

Further, public money flowing into private institutions opens the door to government intrusion into the community and family, contrary to the Tennessee Constitution. Section XI Article 12 reads, “The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools.” It does not give the General Assembly the authority to oversee or delegate the oversight of education for those involved in private education- precisely what public money use will demand.

Much more could be said about the dangers of this type of legislation. Both my stated and unstated concerns are borne out by evidence from other states and by logical inference. ESA legislation as applied to private schools and homeschools through the infusion of public money into private education opens wide the door to impingement upon the inalienable rights and responsibilities of parents in directing the upbringing and education of their children, especially as inextricably related to freedom of religion. Contrary to the claims of its proponents, this plan fails as Parent Choice legislation; it should instead be called State Choice legislation.

Elaborating on the Tennessee Home Education Association White Paper

February 24, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts, Papers

“The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.”

– Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)

The case of Wisconsin v. Yoder serves as one example from a line of legal precedents upholding the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. In this case, the state of Wisconsin legislated a compulsory school age which conflicted with the religious beliefs of Amish parents thus pitting the interests of parents against those of the state. The Supreme Court upheld the fundamental rights of Amish parents to rise above that of the state as the court determined that doing so would “…not impair the physical or mental health of the child, or result in an inability to be self-supporting or to discharge the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, or in any other way materially detract from the welfare of society. Pp. 406 U. S. 229-234.” The Amish children were therefore not required to continue under the state’s compulsory school laws after a specified age. We have this United States Supreme Court precedent only because the Amish chose to stand up against this encroachment of their First Amendment freedom of religion. Many other Supreme Court cases have upheld similar parental rights as noted in the appendix at the end. Today, parental rights in Tennessee need to be considered in light of our state’s school choice voucher efforts. However, before focusing attention on Tennessee’s voucher efforts, an understanding of the history of the school choice movement prepares you to see the present in the fullest light. Such a historical review is beyond the scope of this essay, but can be surveyed in a separate essay on Whole Person Whole Life (Potter 2024[a]) and further investigated through its bibliography. For now, be aware that this movement began in the 1950s with Milton Friedman’s essay “The Role

[a] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/a-brief-overview-of-the-school-choice-movement-in-america/

of Government in Education[b]”, gaining steam with his work in the 1980s along with the work of others on the conservative side of politics including President Ronald Reagan[c] (Cavanagh 2004, Pear 1985). Besides the conservative movement, in the late 1960’s progressives also developed plans for use of progressive vouchers to promote equity and diversity in education[d] (Forman 2005). Both sides of the political aisle have taken various voucher positions working towards different goals over the decades.

Presently, the use of vouchers is a part of many school choice programs in various states and political advocacy groups with funding from wealthy sources have been working in the states for decades promoting school choice legislation. Only a longer essay can trace these beginnings to the present-day advocacy groups and do any justice to the story’s complexity. For now, this very brief history with its proponents and opponents brings us to the present situation across the nation with 32 statewide school choice programs currently active[e] (2023-2024 Trends). Each has its own nuances in terms of how many students are involved, how much money is granted, what regulations are enforced, and more. Various state programs have faced legal challenges, mostly overcoming them. The outcomes of voucher programs have varied in each state, but none have produced impressive success stories much less serve as models for other states. A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Three Reasons To Oppose School Choice – Failures[f]– Part 3 Of 4”.

TENNESSEE

Having a broader understanding of school choice across the nation is helpful, but as Tennesseans, we must examine Tennessee’s own history. We have long possessed freedom in our state to choose from a variety of options for schooling our children. Presently these include public schools, private schools, charter schools, and various forms of homeschooling. We can begin however to understand our state’s view of education, by looking back to our 1870 Tennessee constitution where it addresses education in Section 12 of Article XI.

Article XI. Miscellaneous Provisions of the Constitution of the State of Tennessee

[b] https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEFriedmanRoleOfGovttable.pdf

[c] https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/reagans-legacy-a-nation-at-risk-boost-for-choice/2004/06 https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/14/us/reagan-proposes-vouchers-to-give-poor-a-choice-of-schools.html

[d] https://openyls.law.yale.edu/handle/20.500.13051/2530?show=full

[e][4] https://schoolchoiceweek.com/trends/#h-texas

[f] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-failures-part-3-of-4/

“Section 12. The State of Tennessee recognizes the inherent value of education and encourages its support. The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools. The General Assembly may establish and support such postsecondary educational institutions, including public institutions of higher learning, as it determines” (Fleming).

Here we see that the state has assigned itself a responsibility to provide “a system of free public schools.” To this responsibility, they added the Compulsory school laws of 1905 and 1913 (Langley[g] 2015) which mandated the age range in which children would be required to attend a school of some form. Private schools and homeschooling had been in place from the state’s early days even prior to these laws, but in an effort to build up the public system, these compulsory school laws were added along with other changes both legislative and administrative. Homeschooling reemerged as an official option in the 1970s and 1980s when parents challenged the compulsory attendance law and won the right to fulfill this compulsory law by homeschooling. In court cases, parents stood on their right to determine what their children were taught rather than submit their children to various unacceptable subjects being taught in the public schools. This and other laws bring us to today where parents have a number of options limited only by finances, admission standards, and residential location.

However, these freedoms are being threatened by the School Choice movement not only within our state, but also through the influences of national organizations. Today, at least eleven education reform entities are working in Tennessee to influence both the executive and legislative branches as can be seen in these links (Friedman[h] 2023 and Beaman 2023). Today, organizations like the American Federation for Children working in Tennessee have school choice talking points reminiscent of the progressive voucher plans in the 1960’s with their goal for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Under the influence of these national groups, state legislators in 2019 aimed to increase the opportunity for more public-school children to access the non-public school options by creating a pilot program in two counties (later expanding to a third) in which approximately 2000 students would be granted what they called a scholarship that could be used towards options besides the public school they were assigned to. The state overcame legal challenges in the courts to establish these small-scale programs which continue to this day. To enroll, parents sign a contract with its stipulations in order to access this money which can be spent only for expenses approved by the state. The Governor’s website[i] boasts a 91% satisfaction rate in support of expanding the program, although no other study reporting objective educational outcomes has been cited.

[g] https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/research/histories/a-history-of-homeschooling-in-tennessee/

[h] https://tennesseelookout.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Charter-school-connections-4-2.pdf

[i] https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/11/30/the-27-1-million-clash-between-education-reform-and-public-school-advocates/

In November of 2023, Governor Lee proposed to extend the as yet unproven pilot program to 20,000 students from any school district in the state. The proposal at the time of this writing is only available as principles as the formal legislation is not yet publicly available despite being announced months ago. The Governor’s website and unofficial leaks of the proposed legislation offer the following hints. The 20,000 students would receive approximately $7000 to be used towards private school tuition or other approved academic expenses. In the first year of operation, preference would be given to lower-income families, but then opened to all demographics. A contract would be signed in which the parent agrees to abide by the program’s rules or risk loss of benefits. The Governor and other leaders have publicly stated that the money to fund this over $140,000,000 program will not decrease funding to public schools already provided through the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Acct of 2021 (enacted in 2023). Neither the source of these funds for the present 20,000 students nor for the future goal of offering to all of Tennessee’s students is yet clear but is rumored to be from the state’s general fund. A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Tennessee School Choice – Parts 1 through 3”.

The information that we have available primarily comes from the Governor’s Education Freedom website and leaked drafts of the legislation. The closest official look we had was a temporary posting of a bill that was removed and later reported as an accidental release. Without official language in a submitted bill, few if any legislators will publicly comment on their opinion. At this point, besides rumors, we only have two matching caption bills SB2787 and HB2468 which propose a study to determine the “benefits” of school choice. While these bills only propose a study at this time, a caption bill allows amendments up to and including a full replacement of the bill with the full program proposed on the Governor’s website. The public has had no real opportunity to review and consider the full legislation’s exact wording and may not if the legislators utilize the minimum 24-hour notice for amendments before the Education committee hearings on either Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. The lack of transparency regarding this bill concerns THEA and the homeschoolers it represents and should concern all citizens of Tennessee.

As we are kept in the dark by our legislators, we have our Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner, Lizette Gonzalez-Reynolds, leading the department which will be responsible for implementing the program. She fellowshipped in 2021 under a national organization, 50CAN, which is behind the movement for school choice (50CAN[j]) and has worked in several positions across the nation where she advocated for school choice. Her position on school choice reform should be evident, and informal reports indicate she is lobbying at the capitol to garner support from various legislators offering to show them the bill’s draft.

[j] https://50can.org/national-voices-fellowship/fellows/lizzette-reynolds/

In opposing this proposal by our Governor, we do so not for simple dislike of its components, but due to the fundamentally different principles on which it operates. We hold that God gave mankind principles in His Word by which to live. These revealed principles include that God delegated the upbringing of children to their parents, meaning that parents have ultimate jurisdiction over and ultimate responsibility for their children, not the state. We assert that government funding and its regulations put the government in charge over the parent in the arena of private schooling. For this reason, the funding of public schools and the funding of private schools should be kept separate. In order to avoid entanglement with government control, homeschoolers should not accept any government funding. We offer an extended explanation for the five points mentioned in our white paper before adding further reasons not previously mentioned.

Elaboration on the 5 Points of White Paper Plus Additional Concerns

The Education Scholarship program will limit the parent’s educational choices to those the government and its experts approve of while advocates falsely claim that parents retain control over their children’s education.

In Tennessee, we currently have three separate educational systems which minimally overlap: public, private, and homeschool. Government funding with regulations will infuse money into the private and the homeschool sectors in such a way as to bring both under greater state control. The government funding will dictate what expenses are approved for these non-public options as determined under contract law. The parents, having willingly signed a contract with the state, will have little recourse should the state determine an expense is not permitted. The schools accepting the money will be bound by the regulations promulgated by the Legislature or the Department of Education. Furthermore, the parent’s choice of school will also be limited by private school’s freedom to not participate in the program. With all of these forces active, the history of school choice programs in other states demonstrates how state funding can alter Tennessee’s education options as it has altered non-public options in other states. See References (1,2,3,4,5,6,9). A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Homeschooling and the School Choice Black Hole[k]”.

The Education Scholarship program will Restrict religious freedoms via government oversight particularly for Church Related Schools and the homeschool students using them as an umbrella program.

While disagreeing with modern society’s misinterpretation of the separation of church and state, we hold that the church should influence the state rather than the state dictating beliefs and conduct to the church. With the addition of this program, the state will be able to unduly influence what church related schools teach through funding and regulations. While this may seem innocuous at the present with a Republican

[k] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/homeschooling-and-the-school-choice-black-hole/

supermajority controlling the legislature, such control could be rather disagreeable under different political circumstances. Also, given the worldview espoused by many current Republican legislators who ultimately believe the state has the more fundamental right to direct children’s education, even now such an open door to state influence over church related schools is alarming. In other states, religious schools which accepted school vouchers have already faced lawsuits for Biblical positions on marriage. Many church related schools will likely not be able to participate based on conscience. When private schools who run umbrella programs do participate, the umbrella homeschool student may become regulated through their umbrella program despite not taking any scholarship funds themselves. This potential for state regulation arises from the following hierarchy of education regulation. The Department of Education approves the accreditation agencies which oversee the private schools which then operate the umbrella schools enrolling most homeschoolers in our state. A 2018 presentation online from the Tennessee Department of Education describes homeschoolers in category IV church related schools to be “non-public school students” meaning those homeschoolers could be regulated as private school students (Tidwell 2018)[l]. While current legislators will claim that no such regulation of homeschoolers or private schools will be included in Tennessee, we have seen similar legislation in other states added in subsequent legislative sessions or through other state’s departments of education. Legislators have publicly and repeatedly stated that they cannot promise no future regulations will be added later. Others in the Tennessee state legislature have already proposed bills to add regulations to the currently active pilot school choice program. —– HB2409 and SB2268 — HB2450 / SB2273 (Tennessee General Assembly[m]). See References (10, 14, 15, 18). A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Part 4 – Unintended Consequences[n]”.

The Education Scholarship program will increase government bureaucracy, education costs, spending, and eventually taxes without demonstratable, widespread, positive educational outcomes, and thus, is fiscally irresponsible.

The projected costs of a Tennessee program run into the 100’s of millions similar to the projections or actual numbers in other states like North Carolina where they predict a cost of over 500 million in the 2030s. Studies of school choice programs in other states have consistently demonstrated mixed results, not always positive, at best barely

[l] https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/stateboardofeducation/documents/sbe_workshop_january_25_2018/1-25-18%201%2050%20Non-public%20and%20Home%20School%20Update.pdf

[m] https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/subjectindex/BillsBySubject.aspx?Primarysubject=1520&GA=113

[n] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-unintended-consequences-part-4-of-4/

positive. At most, programs show that 30-40% of school choice students outperform public school predictions while 30-40% fare equally and 30-40% perform lower than prior. The total average only sometimes demonstrates overall positive results. Despite having our own Tennessee pilot school choice program, we have no studies of educational outcomes on which this decision is being based. At the very least, such a study should be performed before expanding our program. See References (4,5, 7, List, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16). A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Judge a School Choice Book by Its Cover, North Carolina Edition” Part 1 and 2 as well as ”Three Reasons To Oppose School Choice – Failures- Part 3 Of 4[o]”.

The Education Scholarship program will harm rather than encourage free-market educational solutions by tying both public and private school funding to the government and its regulations.

The definition of a free-market is one which is sufficiently free that it fosters free choices. Limitations on who is allowed to compete limits competition. Ultimately private schools and homeschools who accept these funds will have to follow rules similar to public schools. Once these schools are forced to follow the same rules which have operated public schools, the benefits of private and homeschool options to innovate will be greatly hindered. Once the state begins dictating the curriculum and testing policies of non-public school choices, the choices will be effectively limited to what the state approves despite having created the abysmal condition of the public school system which presses Tennessee to create such a solution as Education Freedom Scholarships. See References (1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10). A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Homeschooling and the School Choice Black Hole[p]”.

The Education Scholarship program will create a contractual agreement between parents and the state which requires state approval for spending as well as financial record-keeping by the parents to avoid repercussions for expenses not approved by the state.

By signing a contract with the state, the parent acknowledges their obligation to fulfill certain requirements in this program. Once that contract is signed with the state, some freedoms are forsaken which lawyers (such as HSLDA) protecting the families cannot regain. Once the contract is signed, the parents will be expected to spend the

[o] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/judge-a-school-choice-book-by-its-cover-north-carolina-edition-part-1/

https://wholepersonwholelife.com/judge-a-school-choice-book-by-its-cover-north-carolina-edition-part-2/

https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-failures-part-3-of-4/

[p] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/homeschooling-and-the-school-choice-black-hole/

scholarship money exactly in accordance with what the state approves. Expenditures outside the regulations will not be allowed regardless of how educational they might be. Year by year, the parent will be required to sign another contract in order to continue their participation although the Department of Education will be free to yearly alter the contract’s regulations. In other states, subsequent year’s legislative sessions have made changes to the regulations and the respective state education departments have made their own interpretations of what can be regulated or not. Various forms of record keeping have been required of parents in these programs. Altogether, the contracts have actually restricted the freedoms of parents and their children for the appearance of so-called school choice freedom. See references (1, 2, 3, 17). A more detailed explanation of this situation can be found at “Three Reasons To Oppose School Choice – Strings – Part 2 Of 4[q]”.

With the potential for this Education Freedom legislation to adversely affect homeschoolers and private school students, their parents should take advantage of access to their legislators through available channels of communication. Beyond this means available to all Tennessee parents, homeschooling parents should push for tangible representation within the organizations which write the regulations for their children’s education. This legislation must not place all control over regulations and contracts in the hands of unelected officials in the state bureaucracy to dictate what parents are allowed to do or to teach. Should this legislation session only pass a bill to fund a study of school choice in Tennessee, it should include parents from each type of schooling in the study process.

While we, the THEA, work to alert homeschooling parents of our concerns regarding this bill and work to prevent its damaging homeschool freedoms, we must recognize that many are working to push this legislation through our legislature. A different article (“Lots of Money Flying Around”, WPWL) describes the national organizations and the amount of funding they are pouring into Tennessee politics through both official donations to candidates and unofficial campaign support for candidates friendly to their cause. Organizations like 50CAN operate by training local advocates to promote school choice, but this only creates an illusion of local support. In reality, Tennessee is being influenced by outside organizations and funding which does not seem to be in line with our family values. As supporters of homeschooling in Tennessee, we seek an educational framework in which the worldviews of parents and their communities are free to express their God given right to believe and to teach children according to their beliefs. This is idealized in the Ephesians 6:4 with the Greek word “paideia” in which not only is knowledge passed on to the child, but more importantly an enculturation. In today’s terms, we might call it the passing on of a worldview. For this to happen, we must have both freedom for

[q] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-strings-part-2-of-4/

parents and freedom in the market to offer services and products in line with the parents’ beliefs without undue government influence. This legislation threatens to interfere with the religious freedom of parents and the schools which participate in this program. The legislation also brings those who choose to not participate one step closer to having the same regulations mandated for them. They will sooner or later be affected through ever-widening regulations and market forces resulting from the program’s implementation.

In summary, we advocate for retaining or expanding the freedoms we now have, rather than limiting them through contractual obligations inherent in accepting government funds, contractual obligations which would dictate what parents can or cannot teach their children. We advocate for true parental choice over state choice, parental choice which creates and encourages a broad system of opportunity rather than state choice which actually limits opportunities through monetary control of the market. THEA has been protecting and promoting educational freedoms in Tennessee for more than 40 years. During this time, the number of homeschoolers in our state has grown to estimates of 70,000 to 100,000 without the help of government funding. It is our position that ESA’s will damage educational freedom, not expand it, and will increase spending without real benefit. We adamantly urge homeschoolers to both refuse to participate and to join us in advocating against this proposed legislation as it now stands. Once that work is done, we further urge the homeschoolers of our state to join in an effort to make homeschooling affordable and accessible to all parents who want to leave the public school system. This is true freedom for parents and their children through expanding already existing private support to meet these needs.

For these reasons, THEA opposes The Education Freedom Scholarship Act

Bibliography in addition to the Original White Paper:

Friedman, Milton . The Role of Government in Education *. 1955. https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEFriedmanRoleOfGovttable.pdf

Cavanagh, Sean. “Reagan’s Legacy: A Nation at Risk, Boost for Choice.” Education Week, 16 June 2004, www.edweek.org/policy-politics/reagans-legacy-a-nation-at-risk-boost-for-choice/2004/06. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Pear, Robert, and Special To the New York Times. “REAGAN PROPOSES VOUCHERS to GIVE POOR a CHOICE of SCHOOLS.” The New York Times, 14 Nov. 1985, www.nytimes.com/1985/11/14/us/reagan-proposes-vouchers-to-give-poor-a-choice-of-schools.html. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Forman, James. “The Secret History of School Choice: How Progressives Got There First.” Faculty Scholarship Series, 1 Jan. 2005, https://openyls.law.yale.edu/handle/20.500.13051/2530?show=full. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024

Three Reasons To Oppose School Choice – Failures- Part 3 Of 4. Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-failures-part-3-of-4/

“2023-2024 Trends: What Is School Choice?” National School Choice Week, 18 Jan. 2024, https://schoolchoiceweek.com/trends/#h-texas. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Fleming, Cynthia Griggs. “Elementary and Secondary Education.” Tennessee Encyclopedia, 8 Oct. 2017, https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/elementary-and-secondary-education/. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Langley, Daniel. “A History of Homeschooling in Tennessee.” Coalition for Responsible Home Education, 2015, https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/research/histories/a-history-of-homeschooling-in-tennessee/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Friedman, Adam. “The $27.1 Million Clash between Education Reform and Public School Advocates.” Tennessee Lookout, 1 Dec. 2023, https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/11/30/the-27-1-million-clash-between-education-reform-and-public-school-advocates/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Beaman, Lee. “The Web Connecting Tennessee’s Education Reform Groups.” https://tennesseelookout.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Charter-school-connections-4-2.pdf

“Lizzette Reynolds.” 50CAN National, 50can.org/national-voices-fellowship/fellows/lizzette-reynolds/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://50can.org/national-voices-fellowship/fellows/lizzette-reynolds/

Tennessee School Choice – Part 1, 2, 3. Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.https://wholepersonwholelife.com/tennessee-school-choice-part-1-of-3/ https://wholepersonwholelife.com/tennessee-school-choice-part-2-of-3/ https://wholepersonwholelife.com/tennessee-school-choice-part-3-of-3/

“Homeschooling and the School Choice Black Hole” Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://wholepersonwholelife.com/homeschooling-and-the-school-choice-black-hole/

Tidwell, Marcy. Non-Public Schools and Home Schools in Tennessee. 2018. https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/stateboardofeducation/documents/sbe_workshop_january_25_2018/1-25-18%201%2050%20Non-public%20and%20Home%20School%20Update.pdf Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Tennessee General Assembly. https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/subjectindex/BillsBySubject.aspx?Primarysubject=1520&GA=113 Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

“Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Part 4 – Unintended Consequences” Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-unintended-consequences-part-4-of-4/

“Judge a School Choice Book by Its Cover, North Carolina Edition” Part 1 and 2. Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://wholepersonwholelife.com/judge-a-school-choice-book-by-its-cover-north-carolina-edition-part-1/ and https://wholepersonwholelife.com/judge-a-school-choice-book-by-its-cover-north-carolina-edition-part-2/

Three Reasons To Oppose School Choice – Failures- Part 3 Of 4”. Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-failures-part-3-of-4/

“Three Reasons To Oppose School Choice – Strings – Part 2 Of 4”. Whole Person Whole Life by Dr. Eric Potter. 2024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024. https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-strings-part-2-of-4/

The following References support our positions from the White Paper. The numbers in parenthesis after each bullet point refer to supportive citations and match the White Paper’s numbering.

Marshall, Alexis. (2023, December 5). Autonomy vs. accountability: Not all Tenn.. Republicans are on board with statewide voucher proposal . WKMS. https://www.wkms.org/government-politics/2023-12-05/autonomy-vs-accountability-not-all-tenn-republicans-are-on-board-with-statewide-voucher-proposal
Missouri Association of Teaching Christian Homes, Inc. (2022, September 2). Comment from Missouri Association of Teaching Christian Homes, Inc. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/MATCH.state/posts/pfbid02o9K7YC11MQoSbYZPTzT81fL5oW3azYuAJmKY6Bu6ofyufYjLZLzcEjw4RQyJX71pl
Dragon, B. (2019, July 30). 6/12/2019 – Legislative update. Nevada Homeschool Network Homeschooling vs Government school choice Why we should care Comments. https://nevadahomeschoolnetwork.com/nv-esa-funding-bill-threatens-liberty-of-homeschooling/
Editor. (2023a, March 13). 2/21/2023 Legislative Update. CHEWV. https://chewv.org/2-21-2023-legislative-update/
Editor. (2023b, April 6). 2023 Legislative Session: Takeaways. CHEWV. https://chewv.org/2023-legislative-session-takeaways/
Coulson, A. J. (2010, October 4). Do Vouchers and Tax Credits Increase Private School Regulation? – Working Paper. Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/workingpaper-8.pdf
https://wholepersonwholelife.com/three-reasons-to-oppose-school-choice-failures-part-3-of-4/
Hess, F. M. (2010). Does school choice “work”? National Affairs. https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/does-school-choice-work
PewEduReport. (2017, March 21). Philadelphia’s Changing Schools and What Parents Want from Them. The Pew Charitable Trusts. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2017/03/state-reforms-reverse-decades-of-incarceration-growth
Garnett, N. S. (2023, May 25). Unlocking the potential of private-school choice: Avoiding and overcoming obstacles to successful implementation. Manhattan Institute. https://manhattan.institute/article/unlocking-the-potential-of-private-school-choice-avoiding-and-overcoming-obstacles-to-successful-implementation
Truesdell, N. (2022, September 8). School vouchers for homeschooling are not conservative. Nicki Truesdell. https://nickitruesdell.com/school-vouchers-for-homeschooling-are-not-conservative/
McCluskey, N. (2013, June 8). Price Inflation Is a Real School Choice Worry. But Right Now, It’s More about Survival. Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/blog/price-inflation-real-school-choice-worry-right-now-its-more-about-survival
McClellan, H. (2023, April 26). Bill expanding N.C. Private School vouchers to all students moves forward in Senate. EducationNC. https://www.ednc.org/04-26-2023-bill-expanding-n-c-private-school-vouchers-to-all-students-moves-forward-in-senate/
Whole Person Whole Life Blog: https://wholepersonwholelife.com/judge-a-school-choice-book-by-its-cover-north-carolina-edition-part-1/

“One big debate in North Carolina (Associated Press 2023) centered around whether religious schools could receive government funding without violating separation of church and state. For now, it was ruled constitutional, and no school is restricted based on teaching religious beliefs in their classrooms. Time will tell if this freedom continues. Another debate that is still underway addresses whether participating schools can refuse entry to students who disagree with their worldview regarding issues like gender, marriage, and other cultural dividing points. This will be influenced by whether or not federal money is used as that money clearly contains thick strings regarding discrimination legalities.”

15. Wayne, I. (2023, January 13). Hasidic schools – a lesson regarding school choice. Illinois Family Institute. https://illinoisfamily.org/education/hasidic-schools-a-lesson-regarding-school-choice

16. Whole Person Whole Life Blog

“So, let’s look at the outcome studies which compare students who received scholarships versus those who remained in the public school assigned to them. To be blunt, we have silence at this point as I can’t find any studies in Tennessee that make that comparison. The only thing that the state reports is that 91% of recipient parents are satisfied.”

17. State of Tennessee. (2023, November 28). Parents Choose, Students Succeed. TN Education Freedom. https://tneducationfreedom.com/#section-accodion-7’. Accessed January 17, 2024.

18. Gryboski, M. (2021, December 13). Maryland can’t Bar Christian School from voucher program over beliefs on sexuality, judge rules. The Christian Post. https://www.christianpost.com/news/maryland-christian-school-wrongly-denied-voucher-funding-court.html

19. Estimated from: Ph.D, Brian D. Ray. “How Many Homeschool Students Are There in the United States during the 2021-2022 School Year?” National Home Education Research Institute, 15 Sept. 2022, www.nheri.org/how-many-homeschool-students-are-there-in-the-united-states-during-the-2021-2022-school-year/.https://www.nheri.org/how-many-homeschool-students-are-there-in-the-united-states-during-the-2021-2022-school-year/

General bibliography regarding school choice research, not cited above:

Catt, D., & et, al. (2021, November 4). 25 Years: 25 Most Significant School Choice Research Findings. EdChoice. https://www.edchoice.org/engage/25-years-25-most-significant-school-choice-research-findings/

DeAngelis, C. A. (2018, Winter). What Leads to Successful School Choice Programs? A Review of the Theories and Evidence. Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2018/what-leads-successful-school-choice-programs-review-theories-evidence

Dynarski, M., & et, al. (2018, May). Evaluation of the DC opportunity scholarship program. Institute of Education Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184010/pdf/20184010.pdf

Figlio, D., & Karbownik, K. (2016, July). Evaluation of Ohio’s Edchoice Scholarship Program. Fordham Institute. https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/FORDHAM%20Ed%20Choice%20Evaluation%20Report_online%20edition.pdf

Gleason, P., & et, al. (2010, June). The evaluation of Charter School Impacts – Executive Summary. Institute of Education Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104029/pdf/20104030.pdf

Mills, Jonathan and Wolf, Patrick, The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement after Four Years (May 10, 2019). EDRE Working Paper No. 2019-10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3376230 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3376230

Raymond, M. E., & et, al. (2023, June 19). As a matter of fact: The National Charter School Study III 2023. CREDO. https://ncss3.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Credo-NCSS3-Report.pdf

Waddington, R.J. and Berends, M. (2018), Impact of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program: Achievement Effects for Students in Upper Elementary and Middle School. J. Pol. Anal. Manage., 37: 783-808. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22086

Appendix of Supreme Court Cases:

From Parental Rights Foundation https://parentalrightsfoundation.org/legal/parental_rights_tradition/

Case index:

Meyer v. State of Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923)
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925)
Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944)
Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968)
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)
Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632 (1974)
Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977)
Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. 816 (1977)
Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246 (1978)
Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979)
Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982)
Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993)
Washington v. Glucksburg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)
Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000)

It is the natural duty of the parent to give his children education suitable to their station in life.

– Meyer v. State of Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923)

The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

– Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925)

It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder. . . . It is in recognition of this that these decisions have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.

– Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944)

The values of parental direction of the religious upbringing and education of their children in their early and formative years have a high place in our society.

Even more markedly than in Prince, therefore, this case involves the fundamental interest of parents, as contrasted with that of the State, to guide the religious future and education of their children.

The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.

– Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)

This Court has long recognized that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

– Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632 (1974)

Our decisions establish that the Constitution protects the sanctity of the family precisely because the institution of the family is deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. It is through the family that we inculcate and pass down many of our most cherished values, moral and cultural.

– Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977)

The liberty interest in family privacy has its source, and its contours are ordinarily to be sought, not in state law, but in intrinsic human rights, as they have been understood in “this Nation’s history and tradition.”

– Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. 816 (1977)

We have recognized on numerous occasions that the relationship between parent and child is constitutionally protected.

We have little doubt that the Due Process Clause would be offended “if a State were to attempt to force the breakup of a natural family, over the objections of the parents and their children, without some showing of unfitness and for the sole reason that to do so was thought to be in the children’s best interest.”

– Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246 (1978)

The law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions. More important, historically it has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their children.

The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.

Simply because the decision of a parent is not agreeable to a child or because it involves risks does not automatically transfer the power to make that decision from the parents to some agency or officer of the state.

– Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979)

The fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child does not evaporate simply because they have not been model parents or have lost temporary custody of their child to the State. Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain a vital interest in preventing the irretrievable destruction of their family life.

Until the State proves parental unfitness, the child and his parents share a vital interest in preventing erroneous termination of their natural relationship.

– Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982)

“The best interests of the child,” a venerable phrase familiar from divorce proceedings, is a proper and feasible criterion for making the decision as to which of two parents will be accorded custody. But it is not traditionally the sole criterion-much less the sole constitutional criterion-for other, less narrowly channeled judgments involving children, where their interests conflict in varying degrees with the interests of others.

“The best interests of the child” is not the legal standard that governs parents’ or guardians’ exercise of their custody: So long as certain minimum requirements of child care are met, the interests of the child may be subordinated to the interests of other children, or indeed even to the interests of the parents or guardians themselves.

– Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993)

In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the “liberty” specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights . . . to direct the education and upbringing of one’s children.

The Fourteenth Amendment “forbids the government to infringe … ‘fundamental’ liberty interests of all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.”

– Washington v. Glucksburg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)

The liberty interest at issue in this case-the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children-is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.

In light of this extensive precedent, it cannot now be doubted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.

The problem here is not that the Washington Superior Court intervened, but that when it did so, it gave no special weight at all to Granville’s determination of her daughters’ best interests. More importantly, it appears that the Superior Court applied exactly the opposite presumption.

The Due Process Clause does not permit a State to infringe on the fundamental right of parents to make childrearing decisions simply because a state judge believes a ‘better’ decision could be made.

– Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000)

A Brief Overview of the School Choice Movement in America

February 19, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts School, Tennessee Legislation

Tracing the history of the modern School Choice movement in America becomes a monumental task given the sheer number and variety of experts who have weighed in on this subject over the last 70 years. The issue is tied up in the whirls and whims of politicians, economists, sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, and other leading experts weighing in on education policy. While School Choice, particularly vouchers, are often viewed as a priority for the political Right, both sides of the aisle seem to have found reasons to embrace School Choice vouchers. At the risk of over-simplification, the Right will usually hold up vouchers as a means of privatizing education through competition and the progressive Left tends to uphold vouchers as a means of assuring equity in education for those groups deemed disadvantaged. Underlying the pro-voucher arguments lies the tightly held assumption that the government should in some way control and provide for the education of children. Proponents of vouchers often focus upon the central role of the family in education decisions but behind each choice lies the bureaucracy of the State ensuring that the choices remain tightly controlled by the experts holding the reins of power.

By way of a brief overview, generally people place right leaning free market economist Milton Friedman’s essay “The Role of Government in Education” (1955) at the beginning of modern School Choice history. In this essay, he advocated for removing government as the administrator of education but was satisfied with government as the financier of education. For this end, he proposed using a system of vouchers to separate education financing from its administration, and although he prefers private school administration, he gives the government the right to lay down the basic minimal standards. (Friedman 1955). By the 1980’s, people like William Bennett, former Secretary of Education under the Reagan administration, looked to vouchers to “improve the efficiency of schooling as well as make possible the implementation of national standards…” (Bast et al 1997). Reagan himself promoted the idea (Cavanagh 2004 and Pear 1985). By the 1990’s, Dick and Betsy DeVos picked up the School Choice voucher issue as a means to improve education which for them included strengthening the public system through competition. They began mobilizing a philanthropically-funded, national political strategy to be carried out across the states, pushing various iterations of School Choice through political advocacy, campaign management, and political rewards (Wilson 2011). By 1995, Milton Friedman, founder of the voucher idea, had rejected compulsory schooling as a good idea but still held that vouchers could lead to privatization of education although he admitted in an interview that he could be wrong about that (Doherty 1995). By the late 1990’s School Choice was making its way into the states through the work of foundations such as those funded by the De Vos’s, and Right leaning institutions like the CATO Institute were writing policy debates over the use of vouchers as a means of separating school and state. The proponents of vouchers held that there was no other way to undo the public system and the voucher antagonists insisting that they would lead to more government control not less (Bast et al 1997).

While those on the Right debated the merits of School Choice vouchers, the left leaning progressives had made significant inroads into controlling the education bureaucracy. What has been their take on vouchers? Initially, those in the educational establishment tended to resist School Choice efforts- including vouchers- but this was not the only viewpoint. In “The Secret History of School Choice: How Progressives Got There First” an associate professor at Georgetown University Law Center makes the case, as the title suggests, that progressive advocates not free market advocates, had been making headway in the school choice game since the time of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Of interest for this discussion, progressive voucher proponents in the late 1960’s made plans for their use that differed somewhat from the stated goal of those across the aisle. “These early voucher plans were self-consciously designed to maximize equity and racial justice” (Forman 2005 p.1310). Under President Johnson’s administration, a group at Harvard’s Center for the Study of Public Policy received a grant to develop an “equity-oriented voucher system” (p. 1311). Basically, this plan included both public and private schools with voucher amounts increasing according to the student’s level of poverty. In addition, to prevent discrimination, the Jenck’s plan forced participating schools to only use their admissions criteria for up to one half of the entering class with the other half to be determined by lottery. For the progressive voucher system, in general, all schools would become public schools- even parochial schools. At the time, this plan did not lead to a widespread progressive voucher movement with only one school in San Jose using a modified version for 5 years with inconclusive results. The plan fell out of political favor. The Jenck’s plan may have fallen out of favor in the 1970’s but progressives may very well be looking at this plan today as the writer of this 2004 essay encourages in his conclusion (Forman 2005).

Indeed, the outlines of the Jenck’s plan seem very similar to the talking points found on the websites of the numerous organizations working today in Tennessee, with their billionaire, elitist donors providing ample resources with which to perform their political advocacy-some donors are considered more right and some more left leaning but the foundations that they support are busy pushing the diversity, equity, and inclusion mantra of the progressive voucher supporters all those years ago (see a list of some of the foundations at the end of this article). One such entity, American Federation for Children is doing extensive political advocacy in Tennessee and Betsy DeVos, having begun the groundwork for state-by-state political advocacy decades ago, served on their board until 2016 (AFC 2016). The organization’s obvious progressive slant on School Choice can be found on their website. Today, Governor Lee and the Tennessee legislators along with their political advisors seem to have amalgamated the right and left view of vouchers into the Education Freedom proposal as manifested by their reasoning and talking points.

Further, the funding sources for the numerous organizations advocating for some type of school choice in Tennessee includes a plethora of interconnected philanthropists and corporations- many who seem to benefit financially from public money infused into the private sector (Vogel 2016). Following the money and mergers of various organizations over the decades is an arduous and at times impossible task but today the organizations have a big financial impact upon the executive and legislative branches in Tennessee (Friedman 2023). According to a 2023 campaign finance estimate, together eleven “school choice” minded advocacy groups working in Tennessee have spent over 16.26 million dollars over the past 15 years influencing Tennessee politics and politicians (Friedman 2023). In another example of a national political advocacy group working in Tennessee, 50CAN, based in Washington D.C. openly takes credit for influencing Tennessee legislators toward School Choice options in recent years as well as openly advocating for a universal ESA to be passed in this calendar year (Magee 2022 and Magee 2024). By way of example, their donors over the years have included both right and left of center organizations like the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Carnegie Corporation and the left of center grant making foundation known as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (Financial 2023, Influence Watch 50CAN, Influence Watch SVCF). The political pressure and money influencing Tennessee governance on this issue cannot be understated.

Bibliography:

Friedman, Milton . The Role of Government in Education *. 1955. https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEFriedmanRoleOfGovttable.pdf

Bast, Joseph L., et al. “Vouchers and Educational Freedom: A Debate.” Cato.org, 12 Mar. 1997, www.cato.org/policy-analysis/vouchers-educational-freedom-debate. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024

Wilson, Bruce. “Heritage Foundation, Dec. 3, 2002: DeVos Outlines Strategy in War on Public Education.” Www.youtube.com, 1 May 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt9FmMrvJ3A. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Doherty, Brian. “Best of Both Worlds: An Interview with Milton Friedman.” Reason.com, 1 June 1995, reason.com/1995/06/01/best-of-both-worlds/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Forman, James. “The Secret History of School Choice: How Progressives Got There First.” Faculty Scholarship Series, 1 Jan. 2005, openyls.law.yale.edu/handle/20.500.13051/2530?show=full. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024

“Bill Oberndorf Succeeds Betsy DeVos as Chairman of American Federation for Children.” American Federation for Children, 30 Nov. 2016, www.federationforchildren.org/bill-oberndorf-succeeds-betsy-devos-chairman-american-federation-children/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

“HOME.” American Federation for Children, www.federationforchildren.org/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Vogel, Pam. “Here Are the Corporations and Right-Wing Funders Backing the Education Reform Movement.” Media Matters for America, 27 Apr. 2016, www.mediamatters.org/daily-caller/here-are-corporations-and-right-wing-funders-backing-education-reform-movement#ascafc. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Friedman, Adam. “The $27.1 Million Clash between Education Reform and Public School Advocates.” Tennessee Lookout, 1 Dec. 2023, tennesseelookout.com/2023/11/30/the-27-1-million-clash-between-education-reform-and-public-school-advocates/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Beaman, Lee. “The Web Connecting Tennessee’s Education Reform Groups.” https://tennesseelookout.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Charter-school-connections-4-2.pdf

Magee, Marc Porter. “Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA).” 50CAN National, 2 May 2022, 50can.org/goals-wins/tennessee-investment-in-student-achievement-tisa/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

—. “Week 198.” 50CAN National, 15 Jan. 2024, 50can.org/the-new-reality-roundup/week-198/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

“Financials.” 50CAN National, 2023, 50can.org/financials/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

“50CAN.” InfluenceWatch, www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/50can-inc/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

“Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF).” InfluenceWatch, 2023, www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/silicon-valley-community-foundation/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

Show Me the Bill

February 15, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts Government, School, Tennessee Legislation

We, the people of the State of Tennessee, as parents, grandparents, future parents, teachers, and if nothing else taxpaying citizens respectfully request that our elected officials temporarily serving us at our voting discretion immediately publish for public consideration the language for the Education Freedom Act.

This proposed legislation was first announced in November of 2023 by our Governor. The legislation filing deadline has passed with only 2 caption bills filed, SB2787 and HB2468. These bills only request a study of this school choice program to be performed, yet through accidental leaks we have seen potential drafts of a full program bill. Per legislative rules, the full bill could be added as an amendment with only 24 hours notice for public viewing before an Education Committee vote occurs in either legislative chamber.

This situation is considered unacceptable by the citizens of Tennessee who will be burdened by at least $140,000,000 per year expense for an unproven program to eventually impact the full population of Tennessee children for decades and change our educational system profoundly.

If our request for transparency and opportunity for dialogue is not granted, we will press our position until our public servants respond.

If you agree with me, go to the Education committee pages for each house and either email this or call their office. Also let others know.

House of Representatives Education Committee

Senate Education Committee

Homeschooling and the School Choice Black Hole

January 31, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts School, Tennessee Legislation

Thankfully, black holes reside far away from us in the universe as their irresistible gravity will pull anything nearby, even light, into their utter darkness. While we do not have to worry anytime soon about a black hole engulfing the earth, we do need to be concerned about a legislative black hole called school choice. Bad legislation such as school choice can act similar to a black hole in that it can pull the unsuspecting bystanders into an undesirable situation by its own legal force or through its connections to other previous legislation. Beyond these legislative strings, “natural” strings pull some into the black hole unexpectedly when they are connected by shared programs or services. I will cover the basics of these various strings in regard to the black hole potential for school choice legislation in Tennessee to affect homeschoolers so that you can decide for yourself how to respond.

Over the course of this essay, I will provide the following information concerning the present status of Tennessee homeschooling and then the potential future for homeschoolers under school choice. First, I will review the current homeschool legal status and how we got here. Second, I will examine the natural and legal ties of homeschooling with public and private schools. Third, I will discuss some effects that school choice legislation could have on public and private schools. Finally, I will return to the primary emphasis of this article, how homeschoolers can get pulled into the school choice black hole before they know what grabbed their children.

The current laws permitting and addressing homeschooling in Tennessee did not begin with the state’s founding nor did they pop into existence and remain unchanged. Under the compulsory school laws which covered Tennessee in 1913 (LINK) students were required to attend a public or private school between certain ages. Today, this is an accepted fact of life that kids must go to school. This fact of life had little pushback until back in the 1970s and 1980s when parents were beginning to object to some subjects and books taught in public schools. This led to the early homeschool movement. After a series of court battles followed by legislative advocacy, homeschooling legality was signed by Governor Lamar Alexander in 1985. Initially, this freedom was limited, but over time legislative changes have brought us to the present status in which parents have three options to homeschool their children in Tennessee. The first option, which still continues from early legislation is for the parents to enroll as an independent home school with the local school board and follow certain rules. The second option allows parents to affiliate with a church-related umbrella school that allows more independence from the public system. The final option allows parents to enroll their child with an accredited online school. Each of these have some requirements attached which can be read at (LINK). While the current law offers some freedom, they require ongoing vigilance to maintain and need concerted effort to press for more freedoms.

While Tennessee legal code officially considers these homeschool options separately from other school legal code, parents and their homeschooled children still live with various connections to the private and public-school systems. At the most general level, all students must comply with state requirements for a high school diploma. From there, connections with public schools exist for independent homeschoolers who report to the local education association (LEA). These parents are held accountable by these LEA’s for standardized testing and other reporting. The LEA’s can at times attempt to refuse permission for parents to withdraw their children from the public schools or at least make it difficult. For these reasons and others, legal groups like Home School Legal Defense Association and Heritage Defense exist to provide legal support for these parents against resistance from school districts.

For homeschoolers who choose either private school option, umbrella or online schools, you are dependent on the existence, support, and advocacy of such schools. While many of these schools do not have brick and mortar private school counterparts, many do operate private schools which must follow legal codes applicable to them. Homeschoolers who affiliate with these options must abide by the regulations that their umbrella or online school is held to. These schools report less to the state but are still held accountable for their education of the children. Participating families benefit from the services and opportunities found under such schools such as academic counseling, record keeping, social connections, and extra-curricular activities like sports.

Should the school choice legislation described in a prior essay pass this year, the various forms of schooling in Tennessee will be affected in different ways. The public school system stands the most at risk of major changes if parents are able to take their children out of poorly performing schools and then legislation dictates that the school loses some of their funding for that reason. While the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act of 2019 (described at LINK ) claims that the money follows the child in order to incentive schools for success, one major pushback against the school choice program concerns this loss of money for public schools. Without an actual written proposal by our Governor for his so-called Education Freedom bill, we don’t know the final plan, but we can hear the hemming and hawing of numerous legislators claiming that we won’t take money from our children in the public school system despite that being a point of emphasis for school choice in general. No one is sure which direction this will go.

While the wider public will continue the public-school funding debate, private schools need to be watching the legislation’s development and final details also. The private schools accepting voucher or scholarship money (which term is actually used by law makers is superfluous) will have to accept the regulations which are attached to the money. In lay terms, there will be strings for any government money handed over to private schools. Public school advocates demand a variety of strings, but ultimately it comes down to proof of the school’s success in terms of comparable standardized testing and some type of reporting whether accounting of money spent, or public reporting of curriculum taught. The legislation could include limitations on what worldviews or topics are allowed in classrooms. Once these schools accept state money with such strings, they must find ways to implement it through adding expenses or shifting expenses or raising prices. Changes must occur to some degree or else they will risk losing their approval to participate.

Homeschoolers would seem to have it the simplest of all these groups. Like private schools who could just say no to state money, they could feel pretty safe from governmental intrusion. Private schools might suffer from such a decision due to competitive forces from those schools who take the money, but it would seem that homeschoolers could continue to function outside the gravitational force of school choice legislation. If only that were true, I would not need to write so much about this issue.

In reality, homeschoolers can also be pulled into the school choice black hole in a number of ways without seeing the danger before it is too late. For the independent homeschoolers, they are already beholden to their local LEA for oversight, so less may change for them. For homeschoolers operating through private options like the umbrella option or online school option, regulations for the private school could trickle down to the homeschoolers and pull them in. Regulations regarding required standardized testing could extend beyond the private school students receiving vouchers/scholarships to engulf the homeschoolers either by legal code imposed in the legislation or by the school’s necessity. For online schools, curriculum options could be affected so that they would comply with state requirements or to optimize scores on standardized testing. For either type of private school, the costs of compliance with the new system could increase costs which would be passed on to parents or cause the school to face difficult business dilemmas.

Outside of these more indirect effects upon homeschoolers under private schools, there is also the potential for legal terminology changes or confusions. The long and broad history of law offers near limitless examples of the importance of terminology in understanding and applying passed legislation. When a term is used in formal law, it must carry specific meaning. When that word is used across a variety of legal codes, it must carry the same meaning in all settings and then connects those different laws when legal challenges arise to the definition of that term. In Tennessee, homeschool laws maintain a separate section under education law which limits their connection to public school and private school laws as much as possible. For example, homeschooling families do not have to abide by fire codes or emergency planning regulations. Homeschool parents also don’t have the same education requirements as do schoolteachers. Neither do they have the same reporting requirements to the state for their child’s education or curriculum. Should school choice offer its money to homeschoolers under private school options, homeschooling code and public-school code could be intertwined. This is almost never a good thing.

Beyond these indirect effects and potential legal ties, future legislation amendments could even bring homeschoolers who refuse the money into the regulations imposed on those that do. Control enamored legislators claiming noble intentions could come back and decide that while initially only the homeschoolers taking the money had to follow the new rules, later they want all homeschoolers to follow a certain curriculum or take the standardized tests or have to report more on their children. Even if the legislators don’t do this, the department of education could “interpret” the regulations as applying across all homeschoolers. The Tennessee Department of Education recently attempted to reinterpret legislation regarding homeschoolers reporting of vaccination status. Only a statement by the state legislature corrected them and stopped their completely opposite interpretation. We must always be vigilant for future legislation to change our present freedoms or for the bureaucracy to impose its own faulty interpretation on otherwise decent legislation.

This brings up the question of why our government moves in these directions towards more and more restrictions of freedoms unless we push back. In this case, it comes down to the basic assumption by many in government and the education world that our children belong to the public of Tennessee and they as our leaders have a responsibility to prepare them for our future society. This blatantly contradicts the Biblical and Christian worldview that parents are the primary parties responsible for the education and rearing of children. That worldview of lawmakers and the general public results in law code that seems to focus more on limiting parents’ freedom in the name of preventing parents from harming their own children. What we need instead is more legislation intent on preventing government from intruding into the jurisdiction of family life and parental freedom. The faulty worldview has created major blind spots for sometimes well-intentioned legislators in terms of supporting the education of Tennessee children. They do not recognize the black hole they can create with this new legislation and do not seem to see the repercussions of the school choice upon private schools and homeschools in Tennessee.

Parents of homeschoolers and those hoping for a future opportunity to freely homeschool future children must see through the darkness of this black hole by viewing the situation through a different worldview. We must recognize that these precious little ones before us are gifts of God, and we are called to be stewards of their future rather than just serve as babysitters while the state dictates their future. The legislation of our state can either work to protect our freedoms and thus our children or it can encroach on those freedoms and lead to lifelong harm. We must evaluate school choice proposals when they are formalized and understand how it will impact on homeschooling in Tennessee. If we don’t, no one else will do so. It is up to us to stand firm. We must know the issues ourselves and not depend on our legislators to simply tell us what is best for us and our children. We must then make the issues known by others around us so that we can collectively and effectively advocate to reject the school choice black hole. We can do this through social media postings of essays like this one, emailing our legislators, sharing this understanding with our churches, calling legislators with our opinions, attending legislative meetings, and more. In these situations, besides knowing your position, don’t accept platitudes and unhelpful generalities about helping all of our state’s children. Open other’s eyes to what we are facing and hold legislators accountable to protect our educational freedom instead of watching it go down a black hole with a new bill falsely advertised as Education Freedom.

Bibliography:

Langley, D. (2015, Autumn). A history of homeschooling in Tennessee. https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/research/histories/a-history-of-homeschooling-in-tennessee/#:~:text=The%20legality%20of%20homeschooling%20was,file%20as%20a%20private%20school

Tennessee investment in Student Achievement (TISA) formula. (2024a). https://www.tn.gov/education/best-for-all/tnedufunding.html T

Tennessee State Government – TN.gov. (2024). Home school . https://www.tn.gov/education/families/school-options/home-schooling-in-tn.html

Prior Essays in this Series:

Be The Opposition (by my wife) (LINK)

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice

Part 1 – LINK

Part 2 – LINK

Part 3 – LINK

Part 4 – LINK

Comparison with North Carolina

Part 1 – LINK

Part 2 – LINK

Tennessee School Choice

Part 1 – LINK

Part 2 – LINK

Part 3 – LINK

Tennessee School Choice – Part 2 of 3

January 22, 2024 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts School, Tennessee Legislation

(continuing from part 1 introduction)

Current Program Evaluation for Tennessee

The purpose of any pilot program always includes the idea that a new concept can be tested at a small scale to see if it works before investing much larger amounts of money and effort into a larger scale endeavor. In other words, one tests the waters before diving in so you can either pull back from bad ideas or adjust imperfect initial plans to increase the chances of success at the larger scale. To make this process successful, an evaluation of some sort is required. Jumping in the water without at least sticking a toe in could be a problem if the water is the wrong temperature. For a governmental program spending millions of dollars, a pilot program allows this type of smaller scale test run before putting 100’s of millions of taxpayer money into a potentially unsuccessful program. Once the pilot program has its chance to operate for a period of time, then we must take some measurements to decide if it worked. If we stick our toes in and the water is too hot, we can change our original plunge plan.

Before jumping into the larger scaled program, we should have reliable criteria that can be confidently measured which tells us whether we can expect to get our return on investment out of a program. In regard to school choice, given the critical importance of our children’s future success in life and the hundreds of millions such a full scale program could cost (just look at other states in a prior article on site), we need to evaluate the small pilot program that occurred in Tennessee since the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) legislation was passed in 2019 giving first Nashville and Memphis opportunities for school choice before adding Chattanooga. Of course, we can also look at other states where similar programs have been running even longer, but if we have our own program and plan to inflate it to full statewide scale, we should evaluate if we are implementing a school choice program well or not. Minimal criteria should include whether the student recipients of our state’s vouchers or scholarships demonstrated improvements in education versus children who remained in our public system. Parental satisfaction and student mental health outcomes are less objective but still worth considering. Once the program has run for several years, we could look at whether more students graduate, more go to college, or whether they earn higher incomes. Tennessee’s program needs a few more years for these last criteria to be measurable, but some earlier short-term criteria could be evaluated if we were given the data.

So, let’s look at the outcome studies which compare students who received scholarships versus those who remained in the public school assigned to them. To be blunt, we have silence at this point as I can’t find any studies in Tennessee that make that comparison. The only thing that the state reports is that 91% of recipient parents are satisfied. That is a very subjective number. Realistically, a few years is probably needed to see if a student will learn more in a new school such that it can be measured and considered statistically and educationally significant. Beyond that, some method of comparing the students on an equal “apples to apples” basis is needed. In most other states, this standard comparison comes in the form of standardized testing, in which all students take the same test and see who scores better. This seems like a level playing field at first glance, but such a Tennessee comparison has not been done so far. At a second glance, even it has some problems.

Besides having no testing comparison in Tennessee, three problems arise out of trying to use such a standardized testing comparison. First, private schools in Tennessee are not required to administer a standardized test to all their students. Therefore, students moving from public to private schools may not get tested unless a new law requires it. Second, even when schools do test their students or if they are forced to do so, there are several options for standardized testing. If one group of students takes one test, and another takes a different test, the results are not technically comparable, still leaving us without an adequate comparison of apples to apples. Finally, even if all the students are compelled to take the same test, a school which does not employ a curriculum focused on that specific test will find itself at a disadvantage. Just like a sprinter training for the 100 yard dash will not fare as well in the 2 mile run having trained differently, the student who spends the year in one curriculum may not do quite as well on a test which did not match their recent curriculum. Unless the public-school group and the private school group utilize the same curriculum for the year, the private school students could be at a disadvantage. The private schools could therefore be incentivized to change their curriculum to match the test used for comparisons with the public school.

Without a fairly implemented objective comparison in Tennessee that extends over several years including sufficient numbers of students, we cannot predict whether expanding the program to a statewide form is a good idea or not. We are left with the one statistic and its hopeful logic. The statistic promoted by the state on their website sounds encouraging that 91% of parents are satisfied. What does that mean? Are they simply satisfied that they qualified for $7000? Are they satisfied that their child escaped a bully at school or school violence dangers? Are they satisfied that their child has a better teacher or better friends at school now? On the other hand, it seems logical that giving parents money to move their children out of a public school with subpar testing scores where they are bullied daily to a private school with higher academic standards would result in better outcomes for the child? If only logic always worked out in the real world. There are so many factors intervening between the money and the outcome that simple logic is often too simple. By looking at many other states as I did in another article, the outcomes for the school choice students have not always been as clearly successful as proponents have promised or reasoned.

Therefore, in regard to objective outcome criteria for Tennessee’s pilot school choice program, we do not have data on which to base a decision.

Without outcome data, we must turn to other statistics to better understand what the program is doing to or for our future generation. These numbers are mostly available, but a few gaps exist which could help Tennesseans determine whether or not to take the plunge on universal school choice. From Tennessee’s website, it looks like over 2400 students have been awarded educational scholarships out of over 3400 applicants. That should mean that around 1.7 million dollars have been awarded. The program stipulates income limits for recipients, so we can safely assume that these have been awarded to lower income families that probably would not have been able to afford the private schools. From there, I don’t see any data on where these children went in regards to private or charter schools. At least in North Carolina, there is a way to see how many children went to which private schools as some form of accountability and tracking North Carolina State Education Assistance Association. Before addressing the money question next, we return again to the one emphasized statistic, parents are 91% satisfied. I still wondered what made them satisfied and why are 9% not satisfied?

Now we come to an important data point, the cost of such a program. Scaling such a program involves multiplication obviously, but also a conscious decision on how big do we want the program to be. Even if we want to theoretically multiply and cover the state, at some point we have to draw a line and say we can’t afford to multiply by a bigger number. At this point, Tennessee reportedly spends about $11,600 (according to Federal report U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics from Education Data Initiative per student in the public school system. I assume that this number includes TISA’s 2019 increase in spending where 9 billion more was promised towards the education of Tennessee children. According to TISA’s law codes, 70% of a given school’s funding comes from the state while 30% must come from the local government over the school system. One of TISA’s guiding principles is that the money follows the child such that a school gets state money based on how many students are enrolled and additional factors regarding the child and certain school district characteristics. High risk or special needs children mean more money for the school district while school districts with challenging conditions also get a higher funding. How much beyond this TISA calculation are we going with this education scholarship money?

For the current school choice pilot program beyond TISA’s foundation, the state publicizes a number of rules to be followed for the student and the schools receiving the funds. As noted above, income limits apply to the student’s parents. The private schools which the student wishes to move to must accept the state money and its requirements. Currently independent homeschoolers who are not under an umbrella program cannot receive this funding. Beyond the private school tuition, the sate provides a list of approved spending. Once those stipulations are fulfilled and a child is awarded the scholarship., $7075 is available to their parents for school choice.

Before looking at the proposed scaling of this program, we look back at what we have available in terms of this pilot program. We are trying to decide if we want to go beyond sticking our toes in the water. Do we have enough data on the costs, success, and impact of this pilot program to decide if we want to take a larger plunge and how much further of a plunge do we want to take? Proponents seem to be basing their arguments more on three things. First, we get an emotional appeal that the situation for our children is desperate, and we must do something before it is too late. Second, we get an appeal to the logic that of course it will work to move children into supposedly better private schools. Third, while we don’t have real outcome measures for our pilot program, we can assume that our bigger program will succeed “like” other state programs even though their outcome measures were not consistently improved. So far, I am not convinced by the current information that is available.

Return Wednesday for Part 3 – Future Proposed Universal Program

Bibliography:

Aldrich, M. W. (2023, July 26). Teachers sue over Tennessee law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, Bias. Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/tennessee/2023/7/26/23808118/tennessee-teachers-lawsuit-tea-prohibited-concepts-crt-bill-lee-race-gender-bias/. Accessed January 17, 2024.

COVID-19 School Data Hub. (2023). 2023 state test score results: Tennessee. State Brief 2023-01-TN-01. Providence, RI: COVID-19 School Data Hub. https://www.covidschooldatahub.com/. Accessed January 17, 2024.

Hanson, Melanie. “U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics” EducationData.org, September 8, 2023, https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics. Accessed January 17, 2024.

Kelly, M. (2023, March 3). Parents concerned about bullying at Stewart County Middle School after student’s death. WKRN News 2. https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/parents-concerned-about-bullying-at-stewart-county-middle-school-after-students-death/. Accessed January 17, 2024.

Ohm, R. (2017, December 15). Keaton Jones bullying case highlights problem in Tennessee schools. Knoxville News Sentinel. https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/education/2017/12/15/keaton-jones-bullying-case-highlights-problem-tennessee-schools/952235001/. Accessed January 17, 2024.

State of Tennessee. (2023). Education Freedom. Tennessee Education Freedom One Pager. https://tneducationfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Education-Freedom-One-Pager-1.pdf. Accessed January 17, 2024.

State of Tennessee. (2023, November 28). Parents Choose, Students Succeed. TN Education Freedom. https://tneducationfreedom.com/#section-accodion-7’. Accessed January 17, 2024.

Tennessee Department of Education Report Card. Tennessee Department of Education. (2024). https://tdepublicschools.ondemand.sas.com/grades and https://tdepublicschools.ondemand.sas.com/. Accessed January 17, 2024.

Wethington, C. (2024, January 10). Former Lebanon High School teacher behind bars for statutory rape of student. WSMV4. https://www.wsmv.com/2024/01/10/former-lebanon-high-school-teacher-behind-bars-statutory-rape-student/. Accessed January 17, 2024.

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