Posted on 02/13/2025 3:17:58 AM PST by 11th_VA
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Gov. Bill Lee on Wednesday signed legislation designed to drastically expand school voucher access throughout the Volunteer State that will allow families to use taxpayer dollars on private school expenses regardless of income.
However, while the $447 million initiative has been touted as a “universal" program for anyone interested, Republican leaders included a key provision: Students living in the country illegally will be prohibited from participating.
According to the new law — which goes into effect July 1 — Tennessee's Department of Education “shall deny” any school voucher application where the family “cannot establish the eligible student’s lawful presence in the United States.” It's unclear how the state plans on confirming legal residency. The school voucher proposal doesn't contain instructions on checking immigration status.
“What's most important to know is that this language doesn't change anything about the state's obligation as it currently stands to educate children,” Lee told reporters on Wednesday after signing the bill into law during a ceremony. “But for this scholarship, it's only available to Tennessee citizens.”
The language comes as Tennessee and other GOP-dominant states are increasingly embracing President Donald Trump's administration's aggressive immigration agenda. Much of the focus has been on Trump's plans for mass deportations of migrants. But some Republican-led states have been open to helping in other areas, such as schools, now that the Trump administration has said it allows federal immigration agencies to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.
Tennessee's new voucher program allows 20,000 education vouchers of around $7,000 each to become available in the 2025-26 school year. Half of those would go to students who are lower income, disabled or otherwise able to participate in the new voucher program, but any student entitled to attend a public school could access the remaining 10,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
“Some immigrant families”?
A briefer and more informative headline would have referred to illegal immigrants directly.
Hurray. Gimme a “T” for Tennessee.
American Pravda left out a key word. They said “immigrant families”. What they neglected to mention was the law applies only to ILLEGAL immigrant families.
Just the sort of lies and distortions one would expect from American Pravda.
Yeah - I saw that as well
What about the Anchors?
Free education for the kiddies doesn’t come with RAT “amnesty”.
The title is so misleading
IMMIGRANTS are not excluded...
Only illegal aliens are excluded...
Illegal aliens are not IMMIGRANTS..
Headline broken.
“Tennessee Governor Signs New School Voucher Program Which Excludes ILLEGAL ALIEN Families.”
There, I fixed it for literate AMERICAN CITIZENS.
IMMIGRANTS can prove they are in this country legally...
I am SICK of my taxes paying for illegals and their translators and everything that goes with it - separate prayer facilities, removing pork from the menu, separate materials, special accommodations, bussing and feeding those who have NEVER paid a penny into our system.
https://alphanews.org/faribault-schools-remove-pork-from-menu-to-accommodate-muslim-students/
It should be, if you’re here illegally. Home school your kids. We’re not paying to teach them to speak Spanish or how Corona beer won the Battle of Puebla.
I’m in TN, and was at the Walmart checkout line a while back when vouchers were in the news. One of the publications had it on the front page.
The woman in front of me was going off because “poor kids won’t be able to eat lunch if the lunch vouchers are gone.”
I told her that’s not what “vouchers” means. She started to argue. Then the younger woman with her — assume daughter — made her stop talking.
I see this is specifically about the voucher program allowing less-advantaged kids some school choice.
The mostly-unvaccinated illegal aliens will still take up space in the public schools, holding America kids behind with their language gaps while garnering the school income per the “butts in seats” paradigm.
Right.
The woman thinks the kids are given little tickets — “vouchers” — every Monday and then give one to the cafeteria lady at lunch time.
School choice and vouchers will eventually strangle the miserably failing government schools. Public schools could rise to the occasion, focus on basics, throw out woke studies and become competitive. But Lefties ALWAYS and predicably double down on stupid. This will end public schools as we know it inside a decade. Not fast enough for me, but it will take time.
Buys us nothing but scorn. It will not get them to deport themselves.
Perhaps confining vouchers will do wonders for the nuns in schools that are free.
Oh. Boo. Hoo.
Did AP ever stop to consider TN does not pay for needy children in California, Canada, or India? How could they be so cruel?
How many illegal children does AP feed, house, and educate?
Whenever the leftists pontificate about the poor and downtrodden, which they are oft apt to do, I find myself thinking about how the Bible described Judas before his betrayal of Christ:
John 12:4-6 NKJV
But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.
(D) is for Democrat and Disingenuous.
This is the way.
Not good enough!
Should say: "will exclude ALL migrant families....
We have no problem with "immigrant" families!
It is the diseased migrant-invader vermin that need to be excluded from everything, including any location inside the borders of the USA...
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