In Tennessee, Republican Governor Bill Lee (left) and Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton are at the center of an ongoing GOP controversy in the state over school vouchers.
After a years-long fight, the Tennessee General Assembly and Governor Bill Lee finally succeeded in establishing a school voucher scheme for the state. Lee made vouchers the signature piece of his legislative agenda during the 2019 session, and his push proved pivotal. The so-called Education Savings Account plan passed the state House of Representatives in April by just one vote.
The story of how Tennessee became the latest state to succumb to the Betsy DeVos-backed voucher craze involves more than just an earnest first-term governor using his political goodwill to secure passage of controversial legislation. There’s an ongoing FBI probe. There’s a scandal that took down the pro-voucher House Speaker featuring cocaine and texts about a sexual encounter in a hot chicken restaurant.
Lee’s zeal to create and implement a voucher plan a year ahead of schedule—despite all of this controversy and in the face of public opposition—now threatens to divide the Republican supermajority in the state’s political leadership. In fact, on August 23, the House chose an avowed voucher opponent, former GOP Caucus Chair Cameron Sexton, as a new Speaker. Sexton voted against Lee’s plan, and is now expressing opposition to Lee’s plan to accelerate the program.
The former head of a heating and air conditioning company he inherited from his family, Lee is used to getting his way.
Does any of this give Bill Lee pause? Not at all. The former head of a heating and air conditioning company he inherited from his family, Lee is used to getting his way. Now, his allies at the American Federation for Children (more about them soon) are using online ads to attack Republican lawmakers who opposed vouchers.
Just to be clear: The Republican Governor of Tennessee is attacking Republican lawmakers (who support most of his agenda) simply because these lawmakers voted against a voucher plan that is now state law and will soon be implemented.
Why is Lee so adamant about vouchers that he would take out members of his own team? First, he’s been committed to vouchers for some time. In 2016 he wrote of his voucher plan, “The Tennessee Choice & Opportunity Scholarship Act would allow families to take a portion of the funding already spent on their child’s education and send him or her to the private school of their choice. For children languishing in schools that are failing to meet their needs, especially in urban areas like Nashville and Memphis, this proposal represents a much-needed lifeline for Tennessee families.”
Never mind that the evidence suggests vouchers actually cause students to lose ground academically. Bill Lee likes them and he’s going to do all he can to see them implemented—even if that puts him at odds with the new house speaker.
Second, his top policy advisers come from pro-voucher groups. His legislative affairs director is the former state director of TennesseeCAN, and before that headed up StudentsFirst in the state. Both of those organizations are longtime supporters of “school choice” in all its forms. His policy director came to the governor’s office after having served as Tennessee state director of American Federation for Children, an organization Betsy DeVos co-founded and once led.
Third, it’s about money. Records at the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance indicate StudentsFirst spent more than $200,000 lobbying the legislature on school choice in 2014 (when Lee’s current Legislative Affairs Director was heading the group). Additionally, the group spent nearly $600,000 on legislative campaigns that year by way of a political action committee. Likewise, in 2018, the Tennessee arm of American Federation for Children spent just over $250,000 on campaigns.
An attack ad funded by pro-school voucher organization American Federation of Children, an ally of Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee, targets Republican state representative Mark Cochran.
That’s a lot of campaign money going out, but where does all the public money these vouchers will spend end up going?
Well, roughly one month after the voucher bill was signed into law, a North Carolina-based private school announced plans to expand into Nashville. The school, Thales Academy, notes it does not offer transportation, a cafeteria, athletic programs, or special education services. They will, however, accept Tennessee tax dollars to pay for student tuition.
Closer to home, perhaps, is the private school affiliated with the church Lee attends. The school, Grace Christian Academy, recently expanded and now offers a full K-12 experience for students.
This type of opportunistic expansion is just what new House Speaker Sexton warned about in an address to a local school board in his district back in 2017:
“For Sexton, the vouchers offer ‘false hope’ because the vouchers can’t cover the entire cost of private school tuition,” reported the Crossville Chronicle at the time. “That could lead to a boom of private for-profit schools opening that would accept the voucher funds, ‘which may or may not be great schools,’ Sexton said.”
Turns out, Sexton was right on target. Now, he’s at odds with a governor from his own party. Based on how Lee has treated others who have opposed his aggressive school privatization agenda, Sexton may be the next in line to receive “friendly fire.”
The question going forward will be whether Sexton can navigate his House colleagues toward a long-term solution that favors public schools as he suggested soon after being appointed as speaker: “We should do everything we can to improve all public schools in the state of Tennessee so they can be successful,” he said. “I would rather go that route than the voucher route.”
Or, will Sexton become a victim of the forces of privatization led by the likes of Betsy DeVos and Bill Lee and backed by seemingly endless funding?
The result of this internecine struggle over vouchers in Tennessee could determine how the GOP addresses the issue across the country.