Tennessee Democrat calls GOP governor's school choice expansion plan a 'real scam'

EXCLUSIVE: A Democratic Tennessee lawmaker said Gov. Bill Lee's plan to take school choice statewide is a misnamed "scam" that is going to harm public education.

The Republican governor introduced the Education Freedom Scholarship Act on Tuesday, explaining that it will extend school choice to every family across rural and urban Tennessee communities. The plan calls for 20,000 scholarships to be made available to Tennessee students, including 10,000 scholarships for students who are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, have a disability, or are eligible for the existing pilot program, and an additional 10,000 scholarships will be available to a universal pool of students entitled to attend a public school.

Students would get a little more than $7,000 in vouchers for the 2024-25 school year, with eligible expenses including private school tuition, fees, and uniforms required by the private school, textbooks, curricula, and instructional materials required by the private school, tutoring services, and computer hardware. By the following school year, the proposal would have "universal eligibility for all Tennessee students entitled to attend a public school, prioritizing currently enrolled students, low-income and public school students if demand exceeds available funding," according to the governor's office.

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Democratic State Sen. Heidi Campbell said the name of the measure may be "enticing," but it was ultimately misleading.

"This is part of a real scam actually that's been going on for a long time in our state," Campbell told Fox News Digital. "It has absolutely nothing to do with choice, despite the really enticing name. It's not about freedom at all. It's about getting our public schools and taking money out of our public school system so that it can be funneled inevitably to private out-of-state investors."

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"What's really going on here is this $7,000 a year is not going to be something that people in low income demographics can take advantage of," she continued. "Because there isn't a private school in this state that I know of that costs $7,000 a year. So you're putting people in a position where if they want to take advantage of this, they have to be able to subsidize it with their own dollars. And in the long run, what will happen is that it will become basically a tax subsidy for people who are already sending their kids to private school."

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Tennessee is looking to become the 10th state to pass universal school choice. Asked to respond to proponents - particularly parents - who believe Lee's plan will offer them the best options for their children, Campbell said data from other states suggests it will backfire in Tennessee.

"Public dollars should be going into public education," she said. "And I'd also say that the data from other states who've employed us clearly shows us that that's not the case. We see time and time again in other states where this has been enacted, the students are performing poorly and inevitably there's huge attrition."

She described the state of education in Tennessee as "not great," saying the Volunteer State ranks 45 out of 50.

"We need to have public schools that are as good as those private schools," she said. "We should aspire to have a public education system that's like the system in Massachusetts or Minnesota, where we have great public schools and great public school options."

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Getting education right, Campbell said, should be one of the most important items on lawmakers' agenda. 

"I do think that one of the No. 1 charges for good government is to educate the public and educate our children," she maintained. "That's one of our highest callings. It very much disappoints me that we have a government in Tennessee right now that really kind of wants to get out of the business of education." 

Republican leaders say Lee is on the right track. Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who signed a universal school choice bill earlier in the year, joined him at Tuesday's press conference.

"There is an absolute conservative education revolution happening in our country and I wanted to be part of it here in Tennesee and in my home Arkansas," Huckabee Sanders said on Tuesday.

"Tennessee's Education Freedom Scholarships will empower parents with the freedom to choose the right education for their child and give them a say in where their taxpayer dollars are invested," Lee said this week.

Lee's office responded to the criticism with a statement to Fox News Digital.

"Since taking office, Gov. Lee has made significant investments in public schools every year, including the largest teacher pay raise in state history," Lee spokeswoman Elizabeth Johnson said. "Tennessee should strive to have the best public school system in the country and provide choices for families -- these ideas are not in conflict. We can all agree that every child deserves a shot at success, and the Education Freedom Scholarship Act expands options for parents, while prioritizing low-income students and students with disabilities."

Other school choice advocates are cheering on Lee's plan.

"Tennessee will fund students, not systems – and there’s nothing Randi Weingarten and the teachers unions can do about it," American Federation For Children senior fellow Corey DeAngelis told Fox News Digital.

Fox News' David Rutz, Jeffrey Clark and Joshua Q. Nelson contributed to this report.