A plan to create Tennessee’s first school voucher program has been jettisoned.
The proposal had been set for a final vote Thursday in what was expected to be a close and heated debate. But its chief sponsor says the idea just didn’t have enough support.
Knoxville Republican Bill Dunn seemed to be near tears as he made the surprise announcement on the House floor. Dunn’s been fighting to pass vouchers for private-school tuition for four years, but he wasn’t ready to roll the dice on what would’ve been a close vote.
“I just felt like I wasn’t going to push it, go through four hours of debate or whatever it was, and then not have it there,” he says. “So, sometimes it’s a professional courtesy to your members, that if you know you don’t have the votes, there’s no use putting them through everything.”
The proposal would have created as many as 20,000 private-school vouchers for students from low-income families, primarily those assigned to low-performing schools.
Dunn says he was willing to scale his proposal down, to become a pilot program only in Memphis, where support for vouchers appears to be strongest. But some voucher supporters were wary of any last-minute changes.
Meanwhile, voucher foes are jubilant. David Byrd, a Republican lawmaker from Waynesboro, Tenn., and a former principal, says now isn’t the time to experiment.
“You’ve got some things that’s working. And why disrupt that process right now?” Byrd asks.
Voucher supporters could theoretically bring the bill back up later this spring.
But Dunn says it’s more likely he’ll wait and try again next year.