Rutherford County officials have joined their counterparts at five other Tennessee school systems to formally oppose school vouchers.
Board members with the Rutherford County School System just unanimously passed a resolution to that effect, school system spokesman James Evans told The Tennessee Star Tuesday.
Murfreesboro City School System board members, meanwhile, may vote on a formal resolution opposing school vouchers and Educational Savings Accounts at their next scheduled board meeting on Tuesday.
Pending the outcome of that vote, school system officials will forward the resolution to the House and Senate Education Committees, said school system spokeswoman Lisa Trail.
The Rutherford County School System covers most of the county, but the city of Murfreesboro also has a smaller school zone that covers grades K-6 for some parts of the city, Evans said.
Murfreesboro City Schools board member Butch Campbell declined to comment on the matter Tuesday.
Rutherford County School System board member Coy Young, though, said taxpayers should not fund a private entity. He also said board members have met with state legislators representing that district to discuss the matter. Those state legislators, Young went on to say, never offered comment as far as whether they are for or against school vouchers.
According to state figures released last week, about 43 percent of the students in Rutherford County who went to college needed remedial math courses and 28 percent needed remedial reading.
When asked about this, Young said the following:
“I would say that is based off ACT and as far as remedial courses go people had to take remedial courses when I was in college. Show me school districts that don’t have kids having to take remedial courses.”
As The Star reported, the five school systems in Tennessee that have already come out to formally oppose school vouchers haven’t exactly done that great of a job preparing students for college.
This, according to statewide statistics members of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission reported last week.
As The Tennessee Star reported, representatives from some of these school systems said they have higher academic standards than charter schools.
Those other school systems include Madison, Houston, and Wilson counties. Metro Nashville and Oak Ridge governments have also come out to oppose vouchers.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
[…] school vouchers. Since Bill Lee was elected governor in November 2018, school boards in Maury, Rutherford, Madison, Houston, and Wilson counties have formally opposed school vouchers. School officials in […]
[…] The Star reported this month, school board members in Madison, Houston, Wilson, and Rutherford counties oppose school vouchers. […]
Well of course they will oppose school vouchers. They don’t want the competition and could never compete with private schools if students got the funding to go elsewhere.
You want to improve public schools overnight? As in do one thing, and you are guaranteed to improve schools? Stop busing. Overnight. Improved.
All of these grand ideas, vouchers, charters, testing, more money, etc. etc. are experiments. They may or may not work, all they are guaranteed to do is cost more money. Stop busing, instant improvement.
I only wish it were that simple. But it would be a nice start. However, school choice via vouchers or another mechanism would be a much better way to force improvement in public schools – schools which in general cater to the lowest common denominator. Public schools are bottomless pits into which ungodly amounts of taxpayer dollars are dump by elected officials and school boards while providing poor results.