This is great news! Parents in Tennessee stopped the voucher bill again, as one of its key sponsors announced that he would not introduce the bill in the coming session due to parent opposition.
“Sen. Brian Kelsey said Monday that he won’t ask a Senate committee to take up his bill — which would pilot a program in Memphis — when the legislature reconvenes its two-year session in January.
““I listen to my community. Right now, there’s not enough parental support,” the Germantown Republican lawmaker told Chalkbeat after sharing the news with Shelby County’s legislative delegation…
“Kelsey’s retreat calls into question the future of the voucher legislation in Tennessee, home to a perennial tug-of-war over whether to allow parents to use public money to pay for private school tuition. It also comes as U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has focused national attention on the policy…
“This week’s development signals that the momentum for vouchers may be shifting for now.
“Nationally, recent studies show that achievement dropped, at least initially, for students using vouchers in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C. And in Tennessee, one group that has lobbied annually for vouchers is taking a step back from the issue, according to its executive director.
“I can tell you that Campaign for School Equity will not be pursuing or supporting any voucher legislation this year. It’s a shift in focus for us …,” Mendell Grinter said, adding that the Memphis-based black advocacy group is switching emphasis to student discipline and other issues of more concern to its supporters.
“Even so, DeVos urged Tennessee lawmakers to pass vouchers during her first visit to the state last month. “Too many students today … are stuck in schools that are not working for them,” she told reporters. (The U.S. Department of Education cannot mandate voucher programs, but could offer incentives to states to pass them.)
“Vouchers have passed three times in Tennessee’s Senate, only to stall each time in the House. Proponents had thought that limiting vouchers to Memphis would garner the legislative support needed this year, but the Kelsey-Brooks bill didn’t sit well in the city that would be most impacted. Opposition swelled among county commissioners, local legislators, and numerous school boards across Greater Memphis…
“During discussions Monday with Shelby County lawmakers, Bartlett Superintendent David Stephens said vouchers would be a blow to districts already unsteady from years of reform efforts.
“Any time we take dollars out of public schools, we’re hurting public schools,” Stephens told Chalkbeat later. “We don’t need to do anything to hurt or cut funding there. When we talk in Shelby County about school choice, we have the municipal districts, charter schools, the county school system. That’s choice.”
Thank you, Tennessee Mama Bears and everyone else in Tennessee, for protecting your public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is Betsy D a Bot? She says the same thing over and over ( like the looping that a computer would do to keep replaying) without ever changing a word. Either she is a bot or she is/or has the laziest speech writer ever. I am so tired of hearing the same exact phrases.
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She will always say the same thing because she doesn’t know anything but Choice. Choice, choice, choice.
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The privateers are probably regrouping to figure out a work-around. These people do not go away. They regroup and double down on a new scheme.
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( I am a former resident of Jackson, Tenn). Tennessee is called the “Volunteer State”. Tennesseans do not enjoy compulsion. There are many people in the state, which would prefer to opt-out of some (but not all) of the public schools.
The support for school choice/vouchers is there, but not politically possible, at least for now.
“Fight the battles you can win”- Sun-Tzu.
Of course, there is a retreat, for now.
As school choice/vouchers pick up traction in other states, the political leadership in Tennessee, will observe how these programs work out in other states.
Some attempt to give the Volunteer state, the chance to volunteer out of public schools, will be made, probably sooner than later.
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Q 24
The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom. END Q Sun-Tzu.
There is no disgrace in retreating from a campaign which had “failure” written all over it.
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Nothing like shoving choice down people’s throats.
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OK, How do you shove choice down people’s throats? This seems antithetical. Choice implies freedom, people have the right to refuse choices, and this is a choice in itself.
In 1969, in the town I lived in (Bowling Green KY), some residents wanted to have Cable TV brought in (There are several hills in the city, that block reception). The city held a referendum, and some people objected to “shoving this cable TV down our throats”.
The referendum was defeated, and the city did not get Cable TV until 1981.
People who object to choices, are free not to choose.
I believe that if all publicly-operated schools are fantastic, and all non-public schools are hell-holes, then parents will choose the fantastic schools, and avoid the bad schools.
Why cannot the supporters of publicly-operated schools, trust parents to choose the terrific public schools?
Am I missing something?
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Charles,
You have been missing something as long as you come to this blog. Public schools are the heart of their communities. People don’t pay taxes to support religious schools or entrepreneurs swindles or Home schooling. They pay taxes for public schools open to all the community’s children, not to schools that choose their students.
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I believe that you are making my point. How are public schools, the “heart of the community”? I don’t get it. Communities have existed, prior to the introduction of public schools. The first city in the USA, St. Augustine Florida, was constructed by the Spanish, and the schools were run by the Roman Catholic church. The parochial school, supported by taxes, was the heart of that community.
When the liberals brought in forced bussing to integrate public schools, many opponents of forced bussing, claimed that the “neighborhood schools” were preferable to forcing children to ride buses into the inner cities. It appears to me, that the opponents of school choice are “fellow travelers” of racists. As long as neighborhoods are segregated, the public schools in the segregated neighborhoods, will be segregated. Here we are, 60+ years after the Brown decision, and public schools are (often) as segregated as they were in 1954. This is a shame to our nation.
You claim that people don’t pay taxes to support religious schools. I disagree. Religious schools exist all over this nation, which are attended by students receiving public money, in the form of BEOGs, federal loans, GI Bill, ROTC scholarships,etc. (this occurs at the university/college level)
In states which have school choice (ex: Indiana) people are paying taxes, and the state is giving vouchers to parents that enable them to send their children to the school of their choice. This includes parochial schools. I assert, that people do pay taxes, to support religious schools.
Private school operators, are receiving public money to operate their schools. A Turkish Imam, is operating a chain of schools, see
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/120-american-charter-schools-and-one-secretive-turkish-cleric/375923/
In some states, parents who choose to opt-out of public schools, and educate their children at home, receive some assistance from the public. Some states (not Virginia) permit home-schooled children to participate in extra-curricular activities at the public schools.
Finally you assert Q They pay taxes for public schools open to all the community’s children, not to schools that choose their students. END Q
You are wrong here too. In Illinois, the state operates a publicly-funded school for gifted/talented children. The Illinois Math and Science academy, only accepts students who have passed rigorous entrance exams.
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Charles,
Your brain has been eroded by reading too many far-right publications. Diversify your input. Try reading Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains.” It’s about Virginia. You live there.
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I will be delighted to read that book. (I read liberal/progressive literature often. It is no fun to read texts of only one viewpoint, your brain will get ossified.
School choice/vouchers are coming, and they are coming nationwide. There will be some defeats, and some victories. It does not matter how many battles you win or lose. It only matters [i]which[/i] battles you win or lose.
The upcoming referendum in Arizona, may be prophetic.
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Charles,
The research on vouchers shows that kids lose ground. In states with many vouchers, few people apply to use them. The NAACP came out against unregulated and accountable charters. DeVos support for charters is the kiss of death. The tide is turning.
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Charles: I live in the Volunteer State, my ancestors moved here in 1806. If you do not believe that schools are the fulcrum of communities, especially communities in my beloved but troubled rural South, then you have never lived in one. Near my house there is a place called 16th Model. This place name came from the establishment of rural “model schools” all across the county. When my hometown school burned, the fight against consolidation raged way hotter than the recent presidential campaign.
But it is not only here. My close friend from a small town in Kansas recalls the same fight there as the rural areas lost population. When I have traveled across rural America, I have found this common denominator all across this country. When my neighbor was the first of our county to fall in World War II, they had a memorial in the local school. When public events are held, schools are often the places they choose. People choose to live in places because of their community schools. That, my good friend, is what choice really looks like when we choose to be a community.
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The telling word here being SCHEME. Many argue against reformer actions as if there is logic which might be heard and understood when, in fact, the only motivator for reformer action is the money to be gleaned….one way or another.
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Thank you, Tennessee Mama Bears and everyone else in Tennessee, for protecting your public schools.
Yes, and keep on with this effort
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The idea that parents are supremely skilled at choosing the best school, better than trained educators or anyone else at all is quite obviously absurd. Even for highly educated parents. So is the idea that all parents have equal agency, both of these and more being the “give everyone a participation trophy to raise their self esteem” sales pitch of choice. I periodically post a worthy link to the debunking of these lies, so here it is again. Still just as on the mark as the day it was written. http://horacemannleague.blogspot.com/2013/01/asymmetric-information-parental-choice.html
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I just want to re-emphasize the idea that the “choice” sales pitches are really nothing more than a self esteem participation trophy for parents, no matter what their socio-economic status is, and that choice is nothing more than a cynical and maliciously motivated transfer of resources out of the public sector, an attack not just on public education itself but on the idea of the commons and the common good. As I realized back in the 80’s, the right wing is totally about the Balkanization of the individual, the socialization of corporate risk and defending the ill-gotten privilidge and influence of the ultra wealthy oligarchs and other similar interests.
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