Nearly a year after a person shot through the doorways of The Covenant School in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood and killed six people, the House passed legislation Monday setting stricter penalties for threats of mass violence.
The measure sponsored by Rep. Bo Mitchell, D-Nashville, increases the penalty for threatening to commit mass violence on school property or at school-related events to a Class E felony from a Class A misdemeanor.
Mitchell received a unanimous vote amid bipartisan co-sponsorship from Republicans such as House Speaker Cameron Sexton, Reps. Ed Butler, Clay Doggett and Curtis Johnson and Democratic Reps. Caleb Hemmer, Jason Powell and Darren Jernigan.
Group seeks volunteers for human chain honoring The Covenant School
A coalition that came together in the aftermath of the deadly mass shooting at The Covenant School is planning a massive demonstration to mark the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.
What’s happening: Voices for a Safer Tennessee, a nonpartisan group that started after the shooting to advocate for reforms, is organizing a human chain from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to the Tennessee Capitol.
- The demonstration will take place from 5-5:30pm on March 27. You can register to participate online.
State of play: The group’s goal is to enlist 13,000 people to form a four-mile chain that weaves through Centennial Park and down Charlotte Avenue.
Timeline: How the private school voucher movement gained momentum in Tennessee
Tennessee school voucher proponents are closing in on their ultimate prize: a state law that would eventually allow for taxpayer funding for most kinds of schooling — public, private, parochial — for any student in the state, regardless of family income.
Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed Education Freedom Scholarship Act, if approved by the legislature this spring, would launch in the fall of 2024 with up to 20,000 students statewide. The Republican governor wants to extend it the following year to any student.
But Tennessee’s embrace of school vouchers for all has hardly been a foregone conclusion. Slimmed-down versions of the idea died many times in the legislature before one finally squeaked through on a controversial vote in 2019. A group of parents and local governments sued to block it, and the courts initially declared the plan unconstitutional. Those detractors continue to push back on Lee’s latest proposal, with more than 50 school boards on record opposing it.
Also, the research hasn’t supported the case for vouchers as a way to improve academic outcomes. Recent studies find little evidence that vouchers improve test scores. In fact, they’ve sometimes led to declines.
Even now, big questions loom about the cost, impact, and legal merits of a program that threatens to destabilize Tennessee’s public education system.
What is a voucher?
A government-funded system to pay for tuition, fees, and other education expenses at a non-public school
So how did vouchers take on an air of inevitability in Tennessee, so soon after they were staring down defeat?
It was a combination of political swings, judicial shakeups that led to a string of court victories, and a pandemic that ignited culture wars and shook faith in public schools. Also, credit behind-the-scenes lobbying, political maneuvers, and heavy influence from out-of-state groups with deep pockets.
In 2019, for example, the voucher law passed after a questionable parliamentary move, prompting several calls for a federal investigation. Two years later, the death of a Tennessee Supreme Court justice, just months after hearing arguments in the case, tipped the high court’s balance of power, likely contributing to the ruling that upheld the law.
Below is a closer look at where the march to universal vouchers began, and how it arrived at this pivotal point in Tennessee:
LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS2006 – The debate begins
Sixteen years after the nation’s first modern school voucher program launches in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers introduce at least three voucher bills in the Tennessee General Assembly aimed at students from low-income families or attending low-performing schools. The bills fail to advance in committees in the Democratic-controlled legislature.
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(Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)
LEGISLATIVE ACTIONSApril 21, 2011 – Voucher bill clears major hurdle, but stalls
After Republicans take control of the legislature in 2008 for the first time in more than a century, school choice gains steam. The Senate approves a voucher program for low-income students in the state’s four most populous counties, but the bill is blocked in a House subcommittee. In subsequent legislative sessions, the Senate becomes the friendlier pathway to passage, consistently approving voucher bills. Meanwhile, a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans in the House hold those proposals at bay.
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(Larry McCormack for Chalkbeat)