It's time to test a school voucher system in Tennessee, and a bill that would create such a system passed the Senate Education Committee Wednesday.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, would allow low-income parents with students in failing public schools to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private schools.
Although the bill has not moved in the state House and is still high hurdles away from becoming law, the screaming of public-school advocates can be heard for miles.
However, most of these public-school advocates would never enroll their children in these failing schools and would be hard-pressed to answer why the children of low-income parents in failing schools should be forced to stay in those schools.
Studies across the country have shown that voucher programs -- now often called scholarship programs -- offer significant benefits for black students and specifically in math scores. They also offer more satisfaction for parents about the safety of their child, the discipline in the school and the overall fact that they have a choice in education.
Further, a 2010 Department of Education study found that, within the Washington, D.C., school system, there was a 21 percentage point gap between the graduation rates of students in the voucher program (91 percent) and those who applied but did not win a spot in the voucher placement lottery (70 percent). Similar rates were seen with voucher programs in Arkansas and Wisconsin.
Gardenhire's bill, which even garnered the support of the committee's lone Democrat, is initially limited to 5,000 students in Hamilton, Davidson, Shelby and Madison counties but could grow to 20,000 students.
It also sets standards for the private schools that would choose to accept the students, including that they offer state assessment tests, provide annual graduation rates of the scholarship students, provide the state a financial audit and provide lunch to the scholarship students at a rate pursuant to qualifications of the National School Lunch Program.
Importantly, the program also mandates that the schools demonstrate achievement growth for scholarship students over a two-year period of at least "at expectations." If such students are found to be "significantly below expectations" for two years, the program may be terminated.
Whether the legislation passes, or is watered down or not, the children in question need a choice. If there is a workable alternative, how can we continue to say to them that they are mandated to attend a failing school in a warehousing system that we would never create if we had to start public education again from scratch?
* Two other Gardenhire bills also passed the Education Committee, one which would allow illegal immigrant students who are Tennessee residents to receive in-state tuition at Tennessee public colleges and one which would require the Tennessee STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Innovation Network to establish STEM "innovation hubs" in rural areas of the state and require the program to create a STEM curriculum that would be available to middle schools.
The first keeps children brought to the country by their parents from being punished by their parents' illegal action but does require graduation from a Tennessee high school (having attended for four years), a 3.0 grade point average or 21 ACT score, and U.S. citizenship application.
A 2.5 grade point average might have been a better threshold for in-state tuition, but House consideration of the bill and wider floor discussion could change the language if, or by the time, it goes to Gov. Bill Haslam for his signature.
Gardenhire proposed a similar bill a year ago but pulled it before committee consideration.
The second bill builds on the additional STEM training that most students need for consideration of high-wage technical jobs in the state.
* A fourth Gardenhire bill failed in the committee and with good reason. It would have forced local school districts to reimburse public colleges for their costs in providing remedial course work to recent high school graduates.
Although it rarely may be a teacher's fault, or that of a school as a whole, that a student needs remedial course work, the overwhelming majority of the time the fault lies with the student for failing to put in the necessary time to learn a subject, or with the parents for failing to supervise the completion of such work. A variety of other reasons, none having to do with the school, also may be responsible.