Preface and Call To Action: As we near the end of the 2024 legislative session in Tennessee’s General Assembly, tracking legislation can resemble a science fiction movie. The rules that normally regulate how and when proposed legislation can be brought up for a vote in committee or on the full house floors can appear to warp and bend to the point that a bill like HB1183 and SB503 could suddenly pop up in another bill’s amendment. While we are watching the Finance Committees of the House and Senate for the original bills, we are hearing rumors that the language of these bills could be added to other caption bills passing through the process and end up on the floor for a vote. Without getting into the rules-bending possible scenarios of a time warp movie, we are just asking you to email or call your one legislator today and be firm that WE THE PEOPLE do not want the bill to get any votes except a NO regardless of where the sponsors amend it.
Find your LEGISLATOR HERE to call and email.
Main Article:
The Five Points of the Tennessee Home Education Association White Paper deserve both repetition and deeper explanation. This is the second in a series of deeper dives into individual points summarized in the original white paper. Point two reads:
· 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.
For those of us disagreeing with modern society’s misinterpretation of the separation of church and state, we hold that the church must influence the state rather than the state dictating beliefs and conduct to the church. With the addition of this School Choice program, the state will instead be able to unduly influence what church related schools teach through funding and regulations. The religious practices of these religious institutions may be unduly regulated and limited by such state interference in their religious liberties. Both now or in the future, this door for limitations on the religious freedom of parents, teachers, and schools should be kept as closed as possible. The current amount of control exerted by the state government is already enough of a hindrance to religious freedom.
With a Republican supermajority controlling the legislature the current proposal for School Choice may seem innocuous at the present in regard to religious freedom. However, the same opportunity for influence could be rather disagreeable under different political circumstances. A general assembly or governor less friendly to religious freedom could one day walk through this School Choice funded open door and impose more restrictions on parents and on schools in the private and homeschool world. Also, given the worldview espoused by many current Republican legislators who ultimately believe the state has at least an equal fundamental right to direct children’s education, even now such an open door to state influence over church related schools is at the very least concerning.
You may ask for examples of how similar legislation has led to such limits on religious freedoms in other states. Examples in the references describes stories of religious schools which accepted school vouchers who have already faced lawsuits for Biblical positions on marriage. If this were applied in Tennessee, many church related schools would not likely be able to participate based on conscience. Then, due to the interconnectedness of Tennessee homeschool law, 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)[1]. Basically, the state directly or indirectly controls all education in the state whether public, private, or homeschool through the Department of Education and its compulsory attendance laws (see separate blog article for further explanation [2]).
While current legislators will claim that no such regulation of homeschoolers or private schools will be included in Tennessee, we have seen that type of homeschool controlling legislation in other states added in subsequent legislative sessions or through those state’s departments of education. Tennessee legislators have publicly and repeatedly stated that they cannot promise that such future regulations will not be added later. They know that future sessions of the General Assembly could add completely different rules and regulations on homeschoolers and private school children. Already in our current General Assembly in 2024, some legislators have proposed bills to add regulations to the currently active pilot school choice program. —– HB2409 and SB2268 — HB2450 / SB2273 (Tennessee General Assembly[3]). 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[4]”.
We must stand now and not allow any present or future restrictions on our religious freedoms as expressed in the education of our own children. As a separate article on the site describes, parental freedoms and religious freedoms are intertwined with the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children being inherently religious in nature both in its explicit command from God and logically foundational in the life and perpetuation of a family. School Choice legislation which opens a door for undue influence of the government in the jurisdiction of education and parental freedoms deserves our vigilant resistance.
References
[2] https://wholepersonwholelife.com/homeschooling-and-the-school-choice-black-hole/
[3] https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/subjectindex/BillsBySubject.aspx?Primarysubject=1520&GA=113
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