Scholarships harder to get for Tennessee home-schoolers
Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, left, talks with other panel members as Rep. Chris Newton, R-Benton, leans back to listen to a comment by Sen. Bill Clabough, R-Maryville, as the lottery committee meets. Newton is House sponsor of the legislation; Cohen is th
Not all students are equal in how they are treated in the state's proposed new lottery scholarship program: Home-schoolers have a higher bar to cross.
They must prove themselves worthy of a scholarship with a 23 ACT college entrance exam score, while others need only a 19 out of a possible 36. A last-minute change to help pass a contentious bill in the legislature loosened the standards for everyone but home-schoolers.
''It's unfair. It's discriminatory,'' said Kay Brooks of Inglewood, who teaches her four children, ages 7 to 15, at home and runs a Web site for home-schoolers. ''We're being held to a higher standard merely because we're 'different.' ''
Some lawmakers agree. ''It's obvious they shouldn't have been carved out that way,'' state Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, said yesterday. ''I don't think it was done intentionally. It is something that will have to be fixed before scholarships...