During the Great Debate in the Tennessee Legislature over Governor Bill Lee’s School Voucher Scheme, proponents found it necessary to sweeten the pot in order to get the necessary votes. So they promised the school teachers a $2,000 bonus to clamp down on opposition to the scheme or scam. Whatever.
Teachers and their families were pretty excited until they realized it was a one-time payment rather than an annual bonus. Yet, $2000, even once, is quite nice for low-paid educators, so the opposition tended to evaporate.
Now, as Paul Harvey used to say, for “the rest of the story.” Teachers are receiving their pay stubs for the $2,000 payment, and many are shocked to see that they are only receiving $1,300 after deductions for FICA, Social Security, Medicare, and the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS) contribution. (For teachers who belong to the NEA/TEA, they also need to recognize that their annual dues contribution is approaching $800!) So, how does that $2000 payment to silence opposition to the Bill Lee voucher scheme look now?
Add to the controversy surrounding the fact that some parents were notified they had been awarded the vouchers before being informed that they had not actually been selected. Or, the fact that the State of Tennessee is still refusing to disclose how many of those being provided with the taxpayer-paid vouchers for private schools were already attending private schools. If the plan is such a positive one for moving children from under-performing public schools to private schools, why hide the numbers?
In many states that have adopted similar plans, the overwhelming percentage of those receiving the taxpayer funding for private schools were already enrolled in private schools. Is there any reason to believe that Tennessee will be any different when, and if, those figures are actually disclosed?
There were a lot of promises made during the sales pitch to pass taxpayer-funded vouchers, including $2,000 bonuses to teachers. And other states that have passed similar schemes have found that the annual cost of the vouchers soon becomes much, much higher than lawmakers claimed at the outset. How many other facts will be proven false when the truth finally becomes clear and the bills come due?
