By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org
    
NASHVILLE – Gov. Bill Haslam’s private school voucher plan has him in a tight spot.
    
The governor proposed legislation to launch a limited private school voucher program in the Volunteer State for low income students in the worst performing schools. As currently written, vouchers would be limited to low income students in “priority schools,” which includes 83 poor performing schools in Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, Knox and Hardeman counties.
    
The bill also limits the number of vouchers to 5,000 in the first year, expanding slowly to 20,000 by 2016, Knoxnews.com reports.
    
State Senate Republicans believe the plan is too restrictive, while their conservative colleagues in the state House aren’t totally sold on the idea of vouchers in general. Democrats are virtually unanimous in their opposition to the plan, though some may support Haslam’s plan because it’s so limited.
    
“Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey said he sees Senate Republicans as more strongly supportive of vouchers than their GOP colleagues in the state House.  The Senate, he said, is likely to delete the restriction on vouchers to those in only the lowest-performing schools, and may increase the eligible family income levels and raise limits on the overall number available – or perhaps delete them entirely,” the newspaper reports.
    
“Ramsey said he believes the bill was put into its limited format to make it more palatable in the House, where even some Republicans have voiced misgivings about vouchers.”
    
The Republican senators seem to understand that the more students who are eligible for vouchers, the greater the potential to changes lives and generally improve education in Tennessee.
    
The more vouchers available, the more power parents have to influence the state’s public education system. It’s that influence that will force all schools to compete and improve to attract and retain students.
    
But we have little doubt that once any voucher program is established Tennessee residents will immediately see the value of school choice, and the results will convince more lawmakers that expanding the program may be the best course.