Tennessee is a red state. Betsy DeVos visited the state to make a personal pitch for vouchers. The state already has charters and a very low performing cyber-charter. Despite all that, vouchers are dead for 2018. The rural districts don’t want them. Communities don’t want them. The legislators have heard from the people who elected them. Vouchers are dead this year. Period.
A bill to start a voucher pilot in Memphis just officially was declared dead for this year. It won’t even be introduced.
A bill that would pilot a private school voucher program in Memphis is officially dead this year.
Rep. Harry Brooks, the Knoxville Republican who sponsored the bill with Sen. Brian Kelsey of Germantown, said Friday he won’t advance it in the House. Kelsey announced earlier this week that he was giving up on the bill in the Senate.
“The interest in the House is not there,” Brooks told Chalkbeat. “If the Senate is not going to proceed with it, there’s no need to move it in the House. It’s just an exercise in futility.”
Brooks’ decision ends a years-long effort to allow some Tennessee parents to use public money to pay for private school tuition — just as U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has focused national attention on voucher programs. Previous versions calling for a statewide program for students from low-income families met fierce opposition from state lawmakers from rural and urban areas, forcing sponsors to narrow the scope of the program. The latest proposal only applied to Memphis.
But unlike previous years when vouchers were stalled during the legislative session, this proposal — carried over from last year — lost steam before the 2018 session began.
Many members of the House in Tennessee said that vouchers would ruin the financial stability of their districts. The bill died because it had no support.
from novemoore http://ift.tt/2ChzkCR
Nova Moore Blog 