Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.Tennessee House Republicans have inserted a student immigration tracking requirement into a pending voucher program expansion bill, linking two of the most controversial policies affecting state public schools in recent years. House Bill 2532, which passed a key House subcommittee on Wednesday with a new amendment that took many by surprise, would add public school administrative requirements while also funneling more public dollars for 35,000 students attending private schools. The new version of the bill ties student immigration status to the voucher program’s hold harmless clause, which maintains current levels of public school funding even if there is disenrollment when students switch to private schools. The clause essentially established a funding floor for Tennessee public schools, a key point that helped pass Gov. Bill Lee’s initial Education Freedom Scholarships program last year. Under the newly amended House bill, public schools would only maintain their funding floor for disenrolled students they could prove held legal citizenship or immigration status. “To comply with it, districts would have to collect immigration status on all students. That creates a really troubling challenge for districts from an administrative perspective. More importantly, it will have a chilling effect on immigrant students,” said Jenny Mills McFerron, an assistant director at EdTrust Tennessee. “This bill will modify the floor and create transparency as it relates to those currently being funded in our TISA school systems,” said Chairman Ryan Williams, who sponsored the amendment.Republicans’ goal this session of forcing schools to collect data on all public school students has otherwise failed or hit serious roadblocks with other pieces of legislation. .subtext-iframe{max-width:540px;}iframe#subtext_embed{width:1px;min-width:100%;min-height:256px;}fetch("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alpha-group/iframe-resizer/master/js/iframeResizer.min.js").then(function(r){return r.text();}).then(function(t){return new Function(t)();}).then(function(){iFrameResize({heightCalculationMethod:"lowestElement"},"#subtext_embed");});The immigrant student tracking issue has drawn heated pushback from education and immigrant advocates, as well as hesitancy from some Republicans wary of drawing children into an increasingly politicized debate over immigration issues. Republicans in favor of tracking student status argue the data is needed to better understand how many undocumented students are attending state public schools, framing it as a resource scarcity issue. However, Tennessee schools are largely funded through local sales taxes, meaning any resident of a community is paying into the school system when buying groceries or gas. “It is interesting that at the same time we’re passing this massive expansion of public funding for private schools, and continuing to invest even more dollars in that program beyond what was originally projected last year, we’re now tying it to this issue that has been focused on resource scarcity,” Mills McFerron said.Another legislative effort underway for more than a year sought to challenge Plyler v. Doe, the longstanding U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing a right to a public education to all children in the country. That effort may have permanently stalled, though, over disagreements between Senate and House Republicans about the best path forward. Tying the documentation mechanism to the voucher expansion bill could also further complicate the governor’s plan to double the voucher program in its second year from 20,000 seats to 40,000. The new House version passed on Wednesday dials back Lee’s plan slightly, offering up a total of 35,000 seats for next year’s expansion. With the new House amendment, the lower chamber’s voucher expansion plan differs significantly from the Senate version, which is slated for a full floor vote any day. The new version also includes a new reporting clause requiring the Tennessee Department of Education to collect data on students applying for the program, including whether they were previously enrolled in a public or private school. The department has said it didn’t collect this data in the first year because it wasn’t explicitly required to. Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa atmbrown@chalkbeat.org.
