An education savings account bill that initially seemed to offer such promise for school choice in the state has passed the Tennessee House and Senate and is on its way to the governor’s office contorted and bloodied but unbowed.
We have long been a proponent for offering students in struggling schools a reprieve and hoped a new governor with new ideas could make it happen.
But Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account plan, though it smoothed over some of the problems previous bills had, was controversial from the beginning. It was never going to have the support of the public-education-or-die crowd, but it automatically excluded some students in the struggling school districts who should have been included and included some who needn’t have been covered.
In the end, it wound up covering only Metro Nashville and Shelby County (Memphis) schools and those in the state’s Achievement School District for failing public schools.
We’re delighted that families who qualify in those districts will receive about $7,300 in state and local tax dollars to use for private schools, for transportation to different public schools or for educational assists like laptop computers. We hope in time it will be shown the extra money given for those students – up to 15,000 of them – has made a real and measurable difference.