School Voucher Program Wouldn’t Immediately Impact UC Schools

A school voucher bill that passed the Tennessee House of Representatives Tuesday won’t have any major effect on Upper Cumberland schools.

That according to Crossville Representative Cameron Sexton, who said the bill would primarily affect Tennessee’s metro-area districts.

“There’s nothing in the bill that would’ve affected anything in our area. It only pertained to the four big counties in the state of Tennessee as a pilot [program], but it could down the road,” Sexton said. “I think after talking with teachers and educators, directors of schools and superintendents, parents, and even some of those at private schools, it seems like a vast majority of the individuals I represent were opposed to the voucher plan.”

The bill would create Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), allowing parents to use public money to pay for private school tuition costs.

Governor Bill Lee has pushed for school choice and voucher programs since taking office earlier this year.

Sexton was one of 48 representatives who voted against the bill. He said Wednesday the proposal ultimately hurts public school systems.

“I think it presents a false hope for a lot of people, and we need to focus more on how to improve all schools,” Sexton said. “There’s a lot of things going on… and other things we need to do to really help individuals who are in a struggling school to get ahead, have great schools in our area, and great schools across Tennessee that we can look at and model.”

Lawmakers were at a standstill Tuesday as the vote stood at 49-49, which would have caused the bill to fail. However, House Speaker Glen Casada held off on finalizing the vote for over thirty minutes before Knoxville Representative Jason Zachary switched his vote to approve the bill.

Sexton said more work needs to be done by state lawmakers to help improve the state’s public school systems.

“Long-term, I think it’s better to put money into and use innovation in public schools to try and determine what are the issues there, why are they struggling, and let’s work to fix those,” Sexton said. “We’ve invested billions of dollars already. Sometimes we might just have to go back and retool those areas and see if we can understand the problems, the dilemmas, and come up with a solution that would fix it.”

Along with Sexton, three other Upper Cumberland representatives voted against the proposal, including Kelly Keisling, Terri Lynn Weaver, and John Mark Windle.

Upper Cumberland representatives who voted for the voucher program include Clark Boyd, Paul Sherrell, and Ryan Williams.

The bill still needs to pass state senators before it heads to Governor Lee’s desk for final approval.