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After failing to reach contract terms with its first choice to run its growing private school voucher program, Tennessee has turned to a young Indiana company with a small staff, modest cash flow and no state-level experience managing education savings accounts.
The state education department signed a $3.675 million, five-year contract in May with Student First Technologies to help run the voucher program, bypassing Florida-based ClassWallet, whose proposal ranked first in the state’s bidding process.
Officials for the state and its new vendor say they’re on track to take all of their new electronic platforms live by January to automate the application and payment processes for education savings accounts. The voucher-like program lets eligible families receive taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.