Founder and president of Professional Educators of Tennessee JC Bowman joined Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the leaked draft of Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice plan, known as the Education Freedom Scholarship Act.
Lee’s bill, according to the undated draft leaked this week, would make 20,000 scholarships available for 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.
The bill would expand the state’s existing Education Savings Account (ESA) Program, which currently provides scholarships for eligible students who are zoned to attend Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Metro Nashville Public Schools, Hamilton County Schools.
However, Bowman argued there is a capacity issue with Lee’s plan, saying that the current ESA program has already shown there are “not enough seats” in private schools to accommodate such demand.
“Here becomes the problem – they’re already out of places that you can put kids in these areas that they’ve done the ESAs. There’s not enough. We talk about capacity, capacity is the issue. Where do you put the kids? There’s not enough seats,” Bowman said.
“Not every school is designed to fit every child,” Bowman added.
Bowman went on to cite a small private school he drove by in Houston County, questioning whether or not that specific school could accommodate an increase of students and how the quality of education the school provides its students would change if Lee’s ESA program were to pass.
“I was driving through Houston County, the smallest county in the state, by the way, great people in Houston County,” Bowman said. “And so I was in Houston County to speak and I look, there’s one school along the way. And it’s a little sign and it’s a tiny school I saw off on the side of the road and I looked at it and I go, ‘now how many people could fit into that school? And again, do we care what quality education they get?’ I mean, do we care?”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
