Rural Tennesseans support Gov. Lee’s universal school choice plan, poll finds

A new survey reveals rural Tennessee voters strongly support Gov. Bill Lee and his plan for universal school choice.

The poll surveyed nearly 1,600 Tennessee voters from 29 rural counties.

It found 70% strongly or somewhat agreed with Lee’s school choice proposal, which would establish $7,000 education savings accounts (ESAs) for educational expenses, including private tuition.

Seven in 10 respondents also agreed the program should be universal and not limited to low-income students.

Even more Tennesseans (79%) expressed support for the principles behind school choice – that parents should be able to use their own tax dollars to decide when and how to educate their children.

“Voters support Gov. Lee’s vision for school choice,” commented Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee Director Tori Venable, who sponsored the poll. “Parents want to be in control of how education tax dollars allocated for their children are spent and be empowered to decide how their children are educated. It’s as simple as that.”

Most survey participants also had positive views of Lee’s performance in general and said they were more likely to vote for other pro-school choice politicians.

“Universal school choice is a pivotal issue for rural Tennesseans,” Venable continued. “Even when presented with doomsday, Armageddon scenarios peddled by unions and the far left, Republican voters see through it and understand the need for a major shake-up in how we educate Tennessee’s next generation of leaders.”

Tennessee is jockeying to become the 11th state in recent years to pass universal school choice legislation.

However, the Tennessee state teachers’ union has opposed the effort, claiming it will result in “underfunded public schools” and “threate[n] the strength of our Tennessee communities.”  

It even released its own polling suggesting potential Republican voters didn’t support Lee’s proposal.  

But Lee has remained undeterred.  

“There are thousands of parents in this state who know their student would thrive in a different setting, but the financial barrier is simply too high,” he said in his recent State of the State address. “It’s time that we change that. 

“It’s time that parents get to decide – and not the government – where their child goes to school and what they learn. Some are concerned that more choices for families could mean fewer resources for public schools, but that is simply not true.”