When Tennessee’s legislature debated school vouchers in early 2025, supporters promised the program would help students escape failing public schools while preserving the independence of private education. They looked voters in the eye and said this was about educational opportunity for struggling students. The reality emerging from the state’s Education Freedom Act tells a different story altogether, one that legislators knew before they cast their votes.
Tennessee’s own fiscal analysis projected that roughly 65% of voucher recipients would already be enrolled in private schools, meaning taxpayer dollars would primarily subsidize families already paying tuition rather than expanding educational opportunities. The legislature had this analysis in hand when they voted. They knew what they were creating. Yet they deliberately designed the application process to avoid collecting the data that would verify this projection. When questioned about this glaring omission, Governor Bill Lee defended it by stating the data is “not necessary to have” because the goal is universal school choice regardless of students’ educational history.
This is not mere administrative oversight. This represents a calculated decision to shield the program from accountability while simultaneously imposing new testing mandates on private schools that accepted vouchers to avoid precisely this kind of government intrusion. The public was told one story. The fiscal analysis revealed another. The legislature sided with ideology over honesty.
The 65% estimate places Tennessee in the middle range of what has been documented nationwide. Arkansas leads with a staggering 95% of voucher recipients who never attended public schools in the prior year. North Carolina hit 92% in its first year without income caps.
Florida saw 69% in its initial year, costing the state an estimated $676 million to subsidize students already enrolled in private schools.
Ohio’s program evolved from 7% already-enrolled students before expansion to approximately 94% after universal eligibility. Even Arizona, which improved from its first year to its second, still saw 52% of vouchers going to students not previously in public schools.
Indiana provides perhaps the clearest picture of who actually benefits. The average voucher recipient is a white, elementary-aged girl from a household earning approximately $100,000, well above the state median income. Between 67% and 70% of Indiana’s voucher recipients had no record of prior attendance at public schools.
This pattern holds across different program designs and regional contexts. Legislators knew what the data from other states showed. They passed the bill anyway.
Tennessee structured its program with income thresholds that virtually guaranteed this outcome. Half of the 20,000 first-year vouchers were reserved for families earning below 300% of federal free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, which translates to approximately $173,000 for a family of four. The other 10,000 vouchers have no income restrictions whatsoever. The fiscal analysis concluded these thresholds meant the program would largely benefit families already affording private school rather than enabling new enrollment. The projected five-year cost exceeds $1.1 billion.
What Tennessee will not track extends beyond prior school enrollment. The state does not collect household income data for the 10,000 universal scholarships, making it impossible to determine whether wealthy families are the primary beneficiaries. Tennessee is not tracking how many students with disabilities enroll, despite disabilities being a stated rationale for expanding choice. The Department of Education did not respond to multiple requests for acceptance numbers, denial numbers, and staffing information. Public records requests have been met with delays and minimal responses.
These decisions were not accidental. Every choice about what data not to collect was deliberate. Every refusal to answer basic questions was intentional. Legislators created this opacity by design, ensuring that the promises they made to voters could never be definitively disproven, even as the evidence from every other state pointed to the same conclusion.
Representative Jody Barrett, a Republican who voted against the voucher program, observed that “it seems fairly clear that the administration does not want to know these things because they’re afraid it may not line up with the narrative that was put out there.” Barrett faced over $2.5 MILLION in opposition spending from the pro-voucher political action committees in his subsequent congressional race.
The second major concern I raised when opposing this legislation was that accepting taxpayer money would inevitably lead to increased government regulation of private schools. This prediction is already materializing in ways that vindicate those warnings.
Representative Mark White, chairman of Tennessee’s House Education Committee since 2019 and a key architect of the voucher program, now serves as Chair of the National Assessment Governing Board.
This federal board oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” In an October interview, White stated his goal to “convince more private schools to use NAEP” during his tenure, explicitly connecting this to voucher accountability debates. He argued that if people believe private schools perform better than public schools, “it would be nice to know that.”
This represents a remarkable evolution from White’s 2019 position, when he told reporters he would oppose vouchers without accountability measures because “we’ve worked so hard making sure the public schools are accountable with testing.” During the 2024 legislative debates, White presented a House version with no testing requirements for voucher students. Yet the final compromise legislation imposes testing mandates on private schools accepting vouchers, requiring them to administer either a nationally standardized achievement test or Tennessee’s state assessment for voucher recipients in grades three through eleven.
The national pattern is unmistakable. Louisiana implemented the most stringent regulatory regime when it expanded vouchers statewide in 2012, requiring participating private schools to administer the same state tests as public schools, align curriculum with state standards, accept all eligible students with no selective admissions, and receive performance ratings that could lead to removal from the program. The result was that only approximately one-third of Louisiana’s private schools chose to participate, and research found that voucher students performed significantly worse than lottery losers who remained in public schools.
Wisconsin’s evolution spans three decades. What began in 1990 as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program with minimal regulations now requires participating schools to administer state testing, receive the same report cards as public schools, obtain accreditation from independent agencies, undergo annual financial audits, and meet the same health and safety requirements as public schools. Indiana assigns letter grades to entire private schools based on voucher students’ performance. Ohio originally required state assessments but modified the law after complaints from private schools, though it still mandates reporting of alternative standardized test results.
Research documents how testing requirements deter high-quality private school participation while attracting struggling schools seeking revenue. A 2021 study of California and New York private school leaders found that state standardized testing requirements reduce participation likelihood by 29%, while higher-quality schools were more deterred by testing mandates. Louisiana surveys found that 34% of non-participating schools cited administering state accountability tests as a major factor, with the biggest concern being “future regulations that might come with participation.”
Governor Lee’s defense of the data gaps reveals the philosophical commitment underlying this program. The goal is not to evaluate whether vouchers achieve specific educational outcomes or serve disadvantaged students. The goal is universal school choice as an end in itself, regardless of cost, impact, or equity concerns. Evaluation would require data. Data might reveal uncomfortable truths. Therefore, do not collect the data.
This approach insulates the program from accountability while imposing accountability measures on private schools that accept vouchers. It shields state officials from criticism about subsidizing wealthy families while criticizing public schools for inefficiency. It allows continued expansion based on ideological commitment rather than evidence of effectiveness.
The emerging pattern across states suggests voucher programs function less as mechanisms to expand educational opportunity for disadvantaged students and more as systems to shift public education funding to private institutions. High-quality private schools with full enrollment can afford to refuse vouchers and the accompanying regulations. Struggling schools accept both the funding and the mandates. Families already paying tuition receive taxpayer subsidies. Meanwhile, students with disabilities and other special needs face uncertain prospects in private schools that can maintain selective admissions and lack the legal obligations that protect them in public schools.
Legislators who passed this bill betrayed the public trust. They sold this program as a lifeline for students trapped in failing schools, knowing full well their own fiscal analysis showed the majority of funds would subsidize families already in private schools. They promised to preserve private school independence while drafting legislation that imposes testing mandates those schools sought to avoid. They claimed to support accountability in education while deliberately designing an application process that prevents any meaningful evaluation of the program. These were not honest mistakes or unintended consequences. These were choices, made with full knowledge of what similar programs produced in other states.
The predictions I made in opposing this legislation are being validated with remarkable speed. Taxpayer money is flowing to families already in private schools, though the state refuses to verify the extent. Private schools accepting vouchers now face testing mandates they previously avoided. Basic questions about program outcomes, beneficiary demographics, and fiscal impact go unanswered because the state deliberately chose not to collect the data.
The fundamental principle remains unchanged regardless of how the program is structured. Private schools should not receive taxpayer dollars. The moment public funding flows to private institutions, government control follows inevitably, contradicting the very autonomy that makes private education distinctive. No amount of careful program design can resolve this contradiction because the contradiction is inherent in the concept itself.
What Tennessee has created is worse than a poorly designed program. It is a deliberately opaque transfer of public funds to private institutions, sold to voters through promises legislators knew they could not keep, insulated from accountability through strategic ignorance, and justified by an ideology that values choice as an abstract principle over the concrete realities of how these programs actually function. The public was told this would help students escape failing schools. The legislature’s own analysis showed it would primarily subsidize families already in private schools. They passed it anyway and then refused to collect the data that would prove them wrong.
This is not school choice. This is a betrayal of public trust, a billion-dollar commitment of taxpayer resources based on promises that were false when made and designed to remain unverifiable thereafter. Tennessee deserves elected officials who will tell the truth about what legislation actually does and who actually benefits, not those who pass programs designed to avoid ever answering those questions.
Tennessee built a billion-dollar voucher program designed not to know if it works.
When Tennessee’s legislature debated school vouchers in early 2025, supporters promised the program would help students escape failing public schools while preserving the independence of private education. They looked voters in the eye and said this was about educational opportunity for struggling students. The reality emerging from the state’s Education Freedom Act tells a different story altogether, one that legislators knew before they cast their votes.
Tennessee’s own fiscal analysis projected that roughly 65% of voucher recipients would already be enrolled in private schools, meaning taxpayer dollars would primarily subsidize families already paying tuition rather than expanding educational opportunities. The legislature had this analysis in hand when they voted. They knew what they were creating. Yet they deliberately designed the application process to avoid collecting the data that would verify this projection. When questioned about this glaring omission, Governor Bill Lee defended it by stating the data is “not necessary to have” because the goal is universal school choice regardless of students’ educational history.
This is not mere administrative oversight. This represents a calculated decision to shield the program from accountability while simultaneously imposing new testing mandates on private schools that accepted vouchers to avoid precisely this kind of government intrusion. The public was told one story. The fiscal analysis revealed another. The legislature sided with ideology over honesty.
The 65% estimate places Tennessee in the middle range of what has been documented nationwide. Arkansas leads with a staggering 95% of voucher recipients who never attended public schools in the prior year. North Carolina hit 92% in its first year without income caps.
Florida saw 69% in its initial year, costing the state an estimated $676 million to subsidize students already enrolled in private schools.
Ohio’s program evolved from 7% already-enrolled students before expansion to approximately 94% after universal eligibility. Even Arizona, which improved from its first year to its second, still saw 52% of vouchers going to students not previously in public schools.
Indiana provides perhaps the clearest picture of who actually benefits. The average voucher recipient is a white, elementary-aged girl from a household earning approximately $100,000, well above the state median income. Between 67% and 70% of Indiana’s voucher recipients had no record of prior attendance at public schools.
This pattern holds across different program designs and regional contexts. Legislators knew what the data from other states showed. They passed the bill anyway.
Tennessee structured its program with income thresholds that virtually guaranteed this outcome. Half of the 20,000 first-year vouchers were reserved for families earning below 300% of federal free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, which translates to approximately $173,000 for a family of four. The other 10,000 vouchers have no income restrictions whatsoever. The fiscal analysis concluded these thresholds meant the program would largely benefit families already affording private school rather than enabling new enrollment. The projected five-year cost exceeds $1.1 billion.
What Tennessee will not track extends beyond prior school enrollment. The state does not collect household income data for the 10,000 universal scholarships, making it impossible to determine whether wealthy families are the primary beneficiaries. Tennessee is not tracking how many students with disabilities enroll, despite disabilities being a stated rationale for expanding choice. The Department of Education did not respond to multiple requests for acceptance numbers, denial numbers, and staffing information. Public records requests have been met with delays and minimal responses.
These decisions were not accidental. Every choice about what data not to collect was deliberate. Every refusal to answer basic questions was intentional. Legislators created this opacity by design, ensuring that the promises they made to voters could never be definitively disproven, even as the evidence from every other state pointed to the same conclusion.
Representative Jody Barrett, a Republican who voted against the voucher program, observed that “it seems fairly clear that the administration does not want to know these things because they’re afraid it may not line up with the narrative that was put out there.” Barrett faced over $2.5 MILLION in opposition spending from the pro-voucher political action committees in his subsequent congressional race.
The second major concern I raised when opposing this legislation was that accepting taxpayer money would inevitably lead to increased government regulation of private schools. This prediction is already materializing in ways that vindicate those warnings.
Representative Mark White, chairman of Tennessee’s House Education Committee since 2019 and a key architect of the voucher program, now serves as Chair of the National Assessment Governing Board.
This federal board oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” In an October interview, White stated his goal to “convince more private schools to use NAEP” during his tenure, explicitly connecting this to voucher accountability debates. He argued that if people believe private schools perform better than public schools, “it would be nice to know that.”
This represents a remarkable evolution from White’s 2019 position, when he told reporters he would oppose vouchers without accountability measures because “we’ve worked so hard making sure the public schools are accountable with testing.” During the 2024 legislative debates, White presented a House version with no testing requirements for voucher students. Yet the final compromise legislation imposes testing mandates on private schools accepting vouchers, requiring them to administer either a nationally standardized achievement test or Tennessee’s state assessment for voucher recipients in grades three through eleven.
The national pattern is unmistakable. Louisiana implemented the most stringent regulatory regime when it expanded vouchers statewide in 2012, requiring participating private schools to administer the same state tests as public schools, align curriculum with state standards, accept all eligible students with no selective admissions, and receive performance ratings that could lead to removal from the program. The result was that only approximately one-third of Louisiana’s private schools chose to participate, and research found that voucher students performed significantly worse than lottery losers who remained in public schools.
Wisconsin’s evolution spans three decades. What began in 1990 as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program with minimal regulations now requires participating schools to administer state testing, receive the same report cards as public schools, obtain accreditation from independent agencies, undergo annual financial audits, and meet the same health and safety requirements as public schools. Indiana assigns letter grades to entire private schools based on voucher students’ performance. Ohio originally required state assessments but modified the law after complaints from private schools, though it still mandates reporting of alternative standardized test results.
Research documents how testing requirements deter high-quality private school participation while attracting struggling schools seeking revenue. A 2021 study of California and New York private school leaders found that state standardized testing requirements reduce participation likelihood by 29%, while higher-quality schools were more deterred by testing mandates. Louisiana surveys found that 34% of non-participating schools cited administering state accountability tests as a major factor, with the biggest concern being “future regulations that might come with participation.”
Governor Lee’s defense of the data gaps reveals the philosophical commitment underlying this program. The goal is not to evaluate whether vouchers achieve specific educational outcomes or serve disadvantaged students. The goal is universal school choice as an end in itself, regardless of cost, impact, or equity concerns. Evaluation would require data. Data might reveal uncomfortable truths. Therefore, do not collect the data.
This approach insulates the program from accountability while imposing accountability measures on private schools that accept vouchers. It shields state officials from criticism about subsidizing wealthy families while criticizing public schools for inefficiency. It allows continued expansion based on ideological commitment rather than evidence of effectiveness.
The emerging pattern across states suggests voucher programs function less as mechanisms to expand educational opportunity for disadvantaged students and more as systems to shift public education funding to private institutions. High-quality private schools with full enrollment can afford to refuse vouchers and the accompanying regulations. Struggling schools accept both the funding and the mandates. Families already paying tuition receive taxpayer subsidies. Meanwhile, students with disabilities and other special needs face uncertain prospects in private schools that can maintain selective admissions and lack the legal obligations that protect them in public schools.
Legislators who passed this bill betrayed the public trust. They sold this program as a lifeline for students trapped in failing schools, knowing full well their own fiscal analysis showed the majority of funds would subsidize families already in private schools. They promised to preserve private school independence while drafting legislation that imposes testing mandates those schools sought to avoid. They claimed to support accountability in education while deliberately designing an application process that prevents any meaningful evaluation of the program. These were not honest mistakes or unintended consequences. These were choices, made with full knowledge of what similar programs produced in other states.
The predictions I made in opposing this legislation are being validated with remarkable speed. Taxpayer money is flowing to families already in private schools, though the state refuses to verify the extent. Private schools accepting vouchers now face testing mandates they previously avoided. Basic questions about program outcomes, beneficiary demographics, and fiscal impact go unanswered because the state deliberately chose not to collect the data.
The fundamental principle remains unchanged regardless of how the program is structured. Private schools should not receive taxpayer dollars. The moment public funding flows to private institutions, government control follows inevitably, contradicting the very autonomy that makes private education distinctive. No amount of careful program design can resolve this contradiction because the contradiction is inherent in the concept itself.
What Tennessee has created is worse than a poorly designed program. It is a deliberately opaque transfer of public funds to private institutions, sold to voters through promises legislators knew they could not keep, insulated from accountability through strategic ignorance, and justified by an ideology that values choice as an abstract principle over the concrete realities of how these programs actually function. The public was told this would help students escape failing schools. The legislature’s own analysis showed it would primarily subsidize families already in private schools. They passed it anyway and then refused to collect the data that would prove them wrong.
This is not school choice. This is a betrayal of public trust, a billion-dollar commitment of taxpayer resources based on promises that were false when made and designed to remain unverifiable thereafter. Tennessee deserves elected officials who will tell the truth about what legislation actually does and who actually benefits, not those who pass programs designed to avoid ever answering those questions.
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble