Letters to the Editor

I rarely raise my voice publicly about a political issue, but this year, I am so alarmed I feel compelled to speak during election season. That issue is Tennessee’s funding of private education through the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship Program.

I have been opposed to school vouchers in Tennessee since their inception when I served on the Blount County Board of Education, and I am still convinced that vouchers are a harmful and unethical use of public funds which could and should be allocated to public education.

This is the description of our state’s voucher program: “Education Freedom Scholarships allow students who are residents of Tennessee and entitled to attend a public school in grades K-12 to use state funds toward education expenses, while enrolled in grades K-12 at registered Category I, II, or III non-public schools located in Tennessee, prioritizing tuition and fees.”

In the first year of the EFS, 20,000 scholarships were awarded. A state review found that families applying in 2025 averaged $96,400/year in income, about $20,000 above Tennessee’s median family income and nearly three times the federal poverty level for a family of four. Data also indicated that about two‑thirds of the recipients were already enrolled in private schools when they received their state awards.

The Tennessee legislature added 15,000 scholarships for the current 2026 school year, bringing the total to 35,000 with a scholarship amount of $7,530. One quarter of the new recipients live at or below the federal poverty level (family of four and income of $57,720 or less). The remaining are in an annual income category of up to $173,160, and 18,555 recipients are students returning from the first year.

Do the numbers. It’s a staggering amount of money going to people, many of whom have substantial incomes, so they can participate in PRIVATE education.

My family business has been education. I have three generations of teachers behind me, and I put in 39 years in high school and higher education as a teacher, school counselor, and administrator. For the life of me, I do not understand why this is happening in Tennessee; particularly when polls show that most Tennesseans do not favor private school vouchers.

I am pretty sure if my lifelong Republican parents were alive and I told them I lived in a Super Majority Republican state which is contributing millions of dollars to private schools, they would think I’d lost my mind. There is nothing fiscally responsible about this.

So, what do we do about it? I beg you to ask state and local candidates about their stand on school vouchers; every person on the ballot this year has or should have a stake in the debate over school vouchers.

And when you ask a candidate about their position on vouchers, ask them to explain how vouchers will benefit public school students in Blount County and the cities of Maryville and Alcoa. Why? Because Tennessee is bound by law to support public schools, not private ones. And because Tennessee public schools welcome ALL students, no matter their family income, intellectual ability, or religious affiliation.

Please help us end the Tennessee school voucher program and instead fully support PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR ALL.