By Karen Aguilar – Fox 17 News, Nashville
Wed, January 8th 2025 at 9:38 PM
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — FOX 17 News pressed Governor Bill Lee on the success of his school voucher pilot program or ESA schools. TCAP scores obtained by FOX 17 News show public school students are more proficient in English and Math across the state compared to ESA students. They are accelerating in growth.
Governor Lee said the main indicator of success is high parental satisfaction. He also claimed ESA students are exceeding their peers, but the data on the Tennessee Education Savings Account Annual Report on the standardized test shows that’s not true academically.
The Governor is pushing school vouchers that would use taxpayer money for public school students to go to private schools. There is already a pilot program.
The governor points to the 99 percent satisfaction as the “primary motive” for school choice.
“My belief is that parents should choose what is best for their education,” said Governor Lee.
However, JC Bowman, the CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee said the test scores show the pilot program is a failure.
“The state public schools across the state outperformed their ESA counterparts,” he said.
The TCAP scores for 2023-2024 in English in Math, enforced that notion showing public school students outperformed ESA students overall.
Governor Bill Lee was asked if public schools should drop TCAP scores if parent satisfaction is all that matters.
“I think testing is very important,” he said.
So we followed up on that very statement, asking him if he says testing is very important but new TCAP scores show that ESA schools overall are underperforming in comparison to public schools, so then why push the full voucher program?
“Well uh I think the statistics that you report are a true mischaracterization of the facts. Comparing inner city students in an ESA program in Shelby County to a suburban school district around Nashville is a misrepresentation of the true facts. The true facts are that students in the Educations Savings Account program when compared to their peers actually exceed the outcome of their peers,” he said.
Data from the Tennessee Department of Education paints a different picture.
We broke down the numbers from each county for Math and English for 2023-24.
The TCAP scores for 2023-2024 in English in Math, enforced that notion showing public school students outperformed ESA students overall. (Data from the Tenn. Department of Education)
In Davidson County, public school students are exceeding their peers and their overall proficiency is better.
In Hamilton County, it’s the same.
In Memphis-Shelby County, public school students are doing better than ESA students in exceeding expectations.
But in English, ESA students are doing better in overall proficiency and the students are tied for math.
View the full annual report here.
We attempted to get a follow-up question with that data in mind.
“When you combine academic improvement with parental satisfaction that’s a program we out to be expanding-” said Governor Lee.
Then we got cut off.
We followed up in an email with no response.
“The Governor is flat out wrong that these students that are in ESAs are better than their public school counterparts,” said Bowman.
The Governor said he is considering a special session to address school vouchers.
