Tennessee Republican fights for key education reform

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced his support for universal school choice in late November.

But some worry it might not be universal. 

The initial school choice proposal would include, according to Nashville’s News Channel 5, “The current pilot program, called the Education Savings Account (ESA), has more than 3,400 families applying to join, and more than 2,400 students enrolled in participating non-public schools, according to the memo. The participating students get about $9,000 a year to attend eligible private schools.”

Yet it was reportedly only supposed to apply to only three counties. Republican State Rep. Bryan Richey wants it to apply to all of 95 counties in his state.

The original plan reportedly was for vouchers to be available to only students whose parents make less than 200% of the national poverty level. Richey wants school choice to be available to all students.

“That right there is segregation,” Richey told BASEDPolitics.

But he’s optimistic changes are happening.

“I am the biggest advocate for parents having choice on where their kids get educated,” Richey told us on Thursday. ‘But at the end of the day, to say that I support or oppose the governor’s bill when I haven’t seen it is foolish.”

Fair enough.

Richey is part of the Hazlitt Coalition, a group its organizer Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) calls “a growing network of more than 320 pro-liberty legislators in over 40 states.” YAL is a libertarian youth group founded in 2008 that has since grown to become one of the largest center-right student groups in the United States.

School choice has been a frontburner issue for the Hazlitt Coalition in many states, and in Tennessee Richey and others are working to not only get school choice—but to get it right.

Richey says his most recent conversations with the governor’s office indicate that for the 2024-2025 school year the limit might be raised to 300% of the national poverty rate and for the year after that there would be no financial limits at all.

True universal school choice. “Parents, not the state, should decide,” Richey added.

“It’s a lot better than what they were saying,” he said of recent meetings with the governor’s office, adding that it is “foolish” for anyone to come out for or against the proposal until everyone actually sees it.

“Conceptually he’s got a good idea, how it’s going to be rolled out, there’s still a lot of ‘what ifs,’” he said.

Richey added, “I’m in favor of parents being able to send their kids into the right environment.”

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