KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Last week, WBIR 10News sat down with seven district superintendents across East Tennessee. All of them oppose Gov. Bill Lee's school voucher plan.
One of the reasons many of them said they don't think the plan is good for the state is through looking at how other states have faired with ESAs or Education Savings Accounts.
Several states across the U.S. have some form of education savings account program, including Arizona, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma. Other states are discussing making programs of their own.
In the round table discussion, school superintendents like Rebecca Stone of Alcoa City Schools, brought up failures seen in Arizona.
"Why are we planning to adopt a program that hasn't proven to be successful in any other states that it's in?" Stone said. "When you look at Arizona, it is fiscally killing them in education, but they continue to pour more money into it."
According to a staff memo from Governor Katie Dobbs (D-Arizona) to the State and House Democratic Caucus, Arizona's education budget is 'overfunded'.
In it, she explains "the ESA voucher program may cost taxpayers up to $943,795,600 annually, resulting in a potential $319,795,600 General Fund shortfall in Fiscal Year 2024."
In addition, the report from the governor's office said 53% of all new spending on education in Arizona is going to only 8% of students.
Stone argues the money given to students in Arizona isn't helping students who need it.
"Over 75% of the students enrolled in that program, were already in private school," she said.
According to a study by Grand Canyon Institute, a non-partisan research organization in Phoenix, eight in 10 students who applied for Arizona's ESA program were not enrolled in public school at the time of their application.
In addition, the report says the $10,000 scholarship for private schools ends up in the hands of the most wealthy families in the state.
Jennifer Fields, Director of schools in Campbell County, said Louisiana's voucher results are also poor.
"The latest results have shown that in Louisiana, students have scored worse now with vouchers than they did as a result of Hurricane Katrina, or COVID-19," Fields said.
A report from the Education Resources Information Center reported poor scores in ELA (English, Language Arts) and math scores in Louisiana's voucher plan.