Nashville, Tennessee (AP) -Thursday Tennessee Council has approved a law that significantly expands the number of families who can spend money on taxpayers at private schools, regardless of income. To win the GOP holdout.
The bill goes to Lee for his almost certain signature. Tennessee will join the other 12 states that have excluded the conventional strict income requirements of families who are trying to access public dollars to provide funds for children’s public education.
“We have long believed that we had the best public schools, regardless of income or postal code, and had long been able to give their parents a choice in child education,” Lee said in a statement. “Today is a milestone for education in Tennessee.”
Under Tennessee’s proposal, about $ 7,000 educational vouchers, respectively, will be available next year. The half of them will be sent to a lower income, disabled person, or to students who can participate in a new voucher program in other ways, but the remaining 10,000 students will be qualified to go to public schools.
Thursday’s house and Senate approval occur in a specially called by Lee, and for several months on the progress, for several months to cover all kinds of topics, you can concentrate on the members’ attention instead of waiting for action. It has come. The special session started on Monday.
Trump focused on social media on Tuesday. He praised the Tennessee Council, “I praised that I was working hard to pass the school choice this week. In addition, the Trump administration is prioritized using discretionary money to the US Education Bureau. I told you to attach it School choice Providing a new guidance on how to spend the federal government money to support the K-12 voucher program to the program and the state.
The conservative club is running a television advertisement that praised the voucher plan, so to provide a Republican member of the Diet to fund the preliminary election challenger to try to defeat the bill. I warned.
Supporters have repeatedly argued that expanding school choices is important to support parent’s rights and give their families the best options to their children. At the Republican National Convention, Lee called school choices “the civil rights issue of our era.”
However, Tennessee has only the scope of power, but a Democratic member who led accusations due to public questions in the governor’s voucher plan repeatedly pointed out the unexpected costs that appeared in other states this week. He emphasized that legislation could benefit wealthy families. No fiscal assistance is required. Legal analysts assume that about two -thirds of the vouchers will be sent to students who are already attending private schools.
“It’s definitely welfare for the wealthy people,” said Democratic Representatives John Ray Clemmons, on Thursday’s floor discussion.
Republican members have defended loose income restrictions, claiming that their parents need more options, regardless of the wealthy.
“As a sponsor of this law, I have never said that this is a program designed for a blessed family,” said Senator Jack Johnson, Senator GOP.
The promotion of expanding school vouchers has recently increased criticism of public schools. They say that some public schools are too late to resume with COVID-19 pandemic, trying to limit public schools to teach races and sexuality, and prohibit transgender athletes in school sports. The laws and rules have been adopted.
However, when the voters were directly presented, the efforts of school choices have declined. The previous election, voters in Kentucky I refused to take measures To enable public funds for private school attendees and voters in Nebraska Partially abolished A law that uses taxpayer’s money to subsidize private education. The constitutional amendment in Colorado will establish a schoolchild’s “school choice”. I was defeated again。
In Tennessee, several local boards of education have passed a resolution to oppose Lee’s voucher plan. This week, the teachers and students shouted that they would gather at the Parliament, hold signs, and walk to a floor session to petition for not smoking public education. On Thursday, some protests distributed a fake money with a label called “Voucher fraud BE”.
Another point of attachment is that a large amount of testimony from a family with a learning disability can refuse students to a private school with a specific disability. The House of Representatives refused to fix private schools, which had banned discrimination against students with disabilities.
Since taking office in 2019, Lee has narrowed his efforts to create a school voucher program for low -income families in three counties. But last year, Lee I couldn’t beat enough support It is not based on income to start a voucher program throughout the state.
In the future budget year, more than $ 400 million will be secured for a voucher plan that folds other educational initiatives. One of these add -ons is $ 172 million, one -time bonus of $ 2,000 for teachers.
However, in order to receive it, the local Board of Education must pass a resolution to opt -in to the bonus section of the voucher bill. This requirement has been added after several Boards of Education have passed a resolution that greatly opposes the vouchers.
Legal Budget Analyst Project This Act costs $ 1988.8 million a year in the future.
Republicans have recently focused on adding billions of dollars to education from kindergarten to high school, but the Democratic Party states in Tennessee’s K-12 education. He pointed out that it was ranked near the bottom.
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