We’ll always side with more sunshine.
Unfortunately, the legislation that sanctioned Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarships earlier this year did not require reporting the prior enrollment of students, so it will be difficult to know whether most of the scholarships will be going to students already enrolled in private schools.
The original aim of such voucher-type programs, or so Republicans across the country have said (and what we believe is necessary), is to provide a better education for students in low-performing schools whose parents or guardians believe a private school can make a difference for them.
Anecdotal evidence shows that some students thrive in such new surroundings but doesn’t show such scholarships are a panacea for the majority of students who do make the switch.
Thankfully, in the first year of the program in the upcoming school year, half of the 20,000 scholarships are set aside for families who earn below a certain income cap. This is more in line with our views on how the $7,295 scholarships ought to be distributed.