On Thursday, I voted for the Educational Freedom Act in the Tennessee Legislature

. Over the past several weeks I’ve had multiple in-person conversations, phone calls, texts, and emails. Some of those conversations were “vote yes”, some were “vote no”, and others said “do what you think is best”.

Knowing a vote on the bill was coming weeks before the special session was called, I immersed myself in the language and tried to learn every detail of the bill I could. For the past six years, there have been multiple bills brought on “school choice”, and I have had ongoing conversations with constituents regarding this issue. Some say they want choice; others are concerned it will take money from public schools.

Last year there was a very lengthy bill filed that did some good things for all, but it did take money away from public schools which was the non-starter for me. For many years, I’ve tried to find a way to keep public school funding from decreasing due to disenrollment.

Counties have to maintain a maintenance of effort for funding in public schools; I always thought the state should have the same obligation. This year, a much shorter and more compact bill was introduced for the special session. Put simply, it did four things: Provided parents with a choice, created a maintenance of effort from the state (hold-harmless provision), gives a $2K one-time bonus for teachers, and created a building maintenance fund for our schools.

Some argue parents/students already have a choice. For some, I’m sure they do, since they have been doing it already.

For others, they haven’t had that option. For some, this may provide enough for them to make that decision on what is best for their child while knowing they will have to cover the remainder of the tuition cost. For some, it may provide a little relief since they have been covering the whole cost of tuition.

And for most of us, we will continue to send our children to public school. I have three children in public school and one more that will join them in two years. I’m a product of public school, my wife is a product of public school, and my kids will be, too. For my family, as well as most, it would take a lot of planning, effort, and logistics to get a child to a private school. It’s all I can do some mornings to get my three to school much less take them 30 plus miles to attend elsewhere. Choosing a private school education for my children doesn’t make sense to me. But for some parents, it does.

I have fought for and advocated for something this bill also provided, a hold-harmless provision (similar to a maintenance of effort at county level). It had always bothered me that funding was tied to attendance numbers or enrollment. The amount counties receive could, and sometimes would, fluctuate based off of the number of students the district had. When school choice bills were brought in years past, here was the greatest objection: “It will take money away from our schools.” And under previous bills, it would. When a student left the school district, so did the funding. Thursday, I voted for a bill that would NOT take funding away from our public schools. Now, our schools will never lose funding for disenrollment going forward.

Since I was first elected, the state has put over 2 billion new reoccurring dollars into public education bringing the total to over 3.8 billion dollars in the last 10 years. I’ve also voted for and passed 6 teacher pay increases/bonuses with one of those that was included in Thursday’s bill. Some called it a “bribe” or even said it was an “insult” to teachers to include it in the bill. To me, I thought it was well deserved and I wish we could have done more. But guess what? Monday we go back into regular session and we will do just that. We have a lot of work left to do this year in Nashville, and there are some great things coming for public education. This bill was not the end-all be-all for education this year.

The final thing this bill did was create a maintenance fund, which is the first time in history the state will be involved in building maintenance on a recurring basis. School buildings belong to the counties and so does the upkeep. I felt this was long overdue, and I’m sure it will prove to be a great asset to rural counties.

With all that being said, I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind if you were against it. I just want you to know why I voted for it. Even though I had several calls and messages to vote against it, I had more who said “yes” or “do what you think is best”. For the two weeks leading up to this vote, I would lay in bed thinking about any and all effects this legislation would have on the people of my district. A solid night’s sleep was rare. I knew there would be an announcement coming from President Trump regarding a federal school choice plan, but the details were unknown. I didn’t know when or what it may look like, but on Wednesday of last week, President Trump signed an executive order giving the US Dept of Education 60 days to issue guidance on how to use federal funding in the states for school choice plans. Although I don’t know what that guidance will look like, we knew two weeks ago that there would not be any hold-harmless provisions for our local schools at the federal level. But because the Education Freedom Act passed, we now have that crucial hold-harmless provision in place for Tennessee.

I’m sure there may be only a few families to choose to apply for a scholarship, but every family will benefit from what the rest of this bill did. I voted yes because I was asked to do what I thought was best, and I did.

Now, I’m the same guy I’ve always been. I’m just Clay. Some of you have known me your whole lives, while some for just a few short years. I’ve made over 4200 votes while serving in the legislature. And just as with all my previous votes, no one twisted my arm to vote one way or another on this one. Despite allegations of corruption or “back room deals”, my vote was my vote.

I know we will not agree all the time, but if this is the first time we are on opposing sides, I’d say we are doing pretty good. At the end of the day, I love the community in which we live, I love the school my children attend, and I love the people I have been fortunate to serve.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out with encouragement, for your prayers and for your support, even if we disagreed. Please continue to pray for me and my family as we enter this new legislative session.