Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) State Director Tori Venable sat down with the Editor-in-Chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star Michael Patrick Leahy in the latest episode of The Tennessee Star Extra to discuss Governor Bill Lee’s new legislative push for universal school choice.
AFP-TN Executive Director @ToriVen tells @michaelpleahy why her grassroots organization is 100 percent behind @GovBillLee's universal school choice proposal in today's edition of The Tennessee Star Extra. .@AFPTN pic.twitter.com/nrJk4IAvaz
— Tennessee Star (@TheTNStar) November 29, 2023
Lee unveiled his Education Freedom Scholarship Act on Tuesday alongside Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders – whose state has adopted universal school choice – as well as state lawmakers and families in Tennessee that have already benefited from the program.
The bill, if passed the upcoming legislative session in January, would offer education savings accounts (ESAs) for students in all 95 counties in the Volunteer State.
If the bill is passed in its current form, 20,000 scholarships would be available to Tennessee students in the 2024-2025 school year while universal eligibility would be available to students in the 2025-2026 school year and beyond – prioritizing currently enrolled students, low-income, and public school students if the demand exceeds available funding.
On this week’s Tennessee Star Extra episode, AFP-TN’s Venable, who previously applauded the governor for his legislative push, pushed back on criticisms of the proposal.
On the basis of critics who feel more funding should go to public schools, Venable said anytime the state legislature passes a law to give teachers a raise or give more money to the classrooms, administrative costs “completely eat up” all of that money.
“It’s really a false choice to think that we can’t have educational freedom and education freedom scholarships and strong public schools, because we can have both,” Venable said.
Responding to critics who feels as if the program is “unfair,” as Leahy put it, Venable flipped the script, asking, “How is it not fair for you to pay money as a taxpayer – you’re paying this money anyways in your taxes – how is it fair for you to be sending your child to a government school that is not delivering and not giving them the education they deserve? Or worse yet, not even teaching them how to read. How is that fair?
Venable also responded to Rachael Anne Elrod, chair of the Metro Nashville Public Schools board, who called the governor’s push for universal school choice “moral and fiscal malpractice.”
“It’s fiscally and morally reprehensible what they’re doing to our students in the failing metro public schools right now, and I can say that because I’m a graduate of a failing metro public school – Antioch High School,” Venable said.
“If you don’t want anything to do with it, you don’t have to have anything to do with it because that is what freedom looks like, that’s what choice looks like,” Venable said.
“If you think about it, people pay property taxes and that is what pays for the education system that we have. This is giving people their own tax dollars back to choose what school works best for their child,” she further explained.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
People who fight against school choice are evil.