Thursday, February 28, 2013

How Many Jobs Will Tennessee Lose because of Bills that Would Outsource Education?


I thought this was a legitimate question as many bills that are being steamrolled ahead in the Tennessee legislature would take education delivery away from Tennessee, resulting in Tennessee jobs being lost as we seem to be intoxicated with outscourcing.
 I sent a short piece to Tennessean opinion page, and below is what I wrote...and a couple of posts down is an expanded version of this question that we put to the governor, house speaker and house and senate education commuttees. click here for a link to the short piece in The Tennessean.
 
What is TN's Economic Loss from Outsourcing Education?

How much money will Tennessee lose to further education outsourcing if voucher school bills are made law?

Local CEO Bob Higgins made a good point in a recent Tennessee Op-Ed when he asked for impact studies to "better inform legislators about how changes in state law might affect Tennessee’s economy."

While some of our legislators seem to be in a great hurry to run off the voucher cliff without due diligence, our state is already paying an estimated $16 million a year to a Virginia corporation, K12Inc., for its poorly performing online school. What about the effects of even more out-of-state, for-profit corporations, which would be allowed via the vouchers? How many administrators, teachers, support staff and allied services would be taken out of Tennessee, and what would be the economic impact of those lost jobs?

Add to that charter management corporations and charter schools based out of state. Great Hearts Academy, which includes Tennessee in its national expansion plans, is based in Arizona. For each charter school they might place in Tennessee, how many Tennessee jobs would be lost, and what would be the economic impact on our state?

What would it hurt for our legislators to be more deliberative and look before they leap?

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