KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Update (3/27):
The House Education Committee passed Gov. Bill Lee's proposed school voucher program Wednesday.
House Bill 939, also known as the Education Savings Account Bill, is supposed to help students who need it the most, by allowing them to move from low performing schools to ones where they have a higher chance of success.
However, many local school board members, across the country and including some in Knox County, have come out against it.
In the current form of the bill, currently in the state legislature, there are three boxes to check to take part in the program.
- You have to have a K-12 student
- You have to be zoned to live in a district that qualifies for the program (Knox County would fit because it has more than three schools in the bottom 10 percent of schools in the state)
- You have to have a household income less than about $50,000 for a family of four, double the federal free lunch threshold for families
If you meet those qualifications, the state would give you about $7,300 in taxpayer dollars to send your kid to private school. That dollar amount varies depending on the county.
House Bill 939 will now be heard by members of the House Finance, Ways, & Means Subcommittee.
Previous story (3/26):
It is supposed to help students who need it the most, by allowing them to move from low performing schools to ones where they have a higher chance of success.
But now, local school board members across the country, including some in Knox County, have come out against Governor Lee's signature bill.
They say it doesn't do a good enough job targeting the under-performing schools it claims to help.
"I see the accountability issues, I see fraud issues, I see the people who are probably going to take advantage of this are not the ones we say we're trying to target," Virginia Babb, a Knox County School Board member said.
But one of the lawmakers who sponsored the bill says it's needed to help fix failing schools.
"The taxpayer should be happy any time a student gets a better education and does so at a lower cost," Representative Bill Dunn said.
In the current form of the bill, currently in the state legislature, there are three boxes to check to take part in the program.
- You have to have a K-12 student
- You have to be zoned to live in a district that qualifies for the program (Knox County would fit because it has more than three schools in the bottom 10 percent of schools in the state)
- You have to have a household income less than about $50,000 for a family of four, double the federal free lunch threshold for families
If you meet those qualifications, the state will give you about $7,300 in taxpayer dollars to send your kid to private school. That dollar amount varies depending on the county.
"This is a program that is allowing people to take money away from the public schools and allow people to send it to the private schools," Babb said. "Everybody in the county can use it. so your child can be at a very successful high school performing very well and now you've got public dollars to use to send your kid to private school."
Dunn disagrees and says it allows parents to choose what's best for their children.
"We give the money to the parents and the students and they find where best to spend the educational dollars so they can get the biggest bang for their buck," he said. "If we don’t do something like this to help improve our schools, to improve the outcomes of our failing schools, all taxpayers are going to have to pay for these students who are going to grow up to be incarcerated, on welfare, totally in need."