Reports: Tennessee Gov. Lee’s public statewide ESA push to begin early this week

(The Center Square) – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is expected to begin his public push for a statewide Educational Savings Account program in the coming days after Tennessee Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis, said earlier this month that a plan was coming.

The plan will be introduced early in the legislative session and is expected to be pushed in Lee’s State of the State speech but White told The Center Square earlier this month he expects it to take much of the legislative session for the bill to pass.

Lee has a press conference scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville.

The ESAs will expand on a pilot program started in fall 2022 with Davidson and Shelby counties after an extended court battle and then added Hamilton County this year.

The plan will include an expected $7,000 ESA that can be used for private or religious schools with students needing to be at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, have a disability or be eligible for the pilot ESA program to join for the 2024-25 school year, according to a copy of the plan acquired by Phil Williams of NewsChannel 5 in Nashville.

The plan would then be expanded to eligibility for all who are eligible to attend a public school for the 2025-26 school year. Eligibility would include home school students enrolled in a Category IV school but not those in an independent home school.

Several Tennessee Democrat lawmakers have already publicly opposed the plan.

“If you’re a Tennessean who cares about the future of our state then you’re opposed to vouchers,” said Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville. “It will destroy public ed and raise your taxes – the only winners are out-of-state private investors – your tax $ will go to them while our kids lose the opportunity for a better future.”

The plan is projected to fund a minimum of 10,000 ESAs initially before expanding to all who are eligible. The ESA could cover private school tuition, fees and uniforms along with textbooks and instructional materials, tutoring, transportation, computer hardware and tech devices, postsecondary courses or exams, entrance exams and educational therapy services, according to the plan.

Tori Venable of Americans for Prosperity in Tennessee told The Center Square earlier this month that her group planned to go all in on canvassing in favor of the statewide ESA proposal, employing 100 part-time canvassers who can knock on 200,000 doors of potential voters every two or three months.

Tennessee State Rep. Bryan Richey, R-Maryville, told the Tennessee Star that he is in favor of the ESAs but not in favor of the income limits on the proposal.

Venable said she prefers an ESA program to a voucher because it allows a parent to obtain the ESA and then use it for a school of the parents’ choice, creating a separation from the state and federal funders and the school of choice. A voucher is a direct payment from the state to a school that could come with strings attached, she said.