It’s come to this: Gov. Bill Lee is pushing a school voucher expansion though even Texas – no bastion of political enlightenment – appears to have had the good sense to reject the concept. What is it with some Tennessee Republicans and their hostility toward education?

Toward public education, that is, which they have begun to disparage as “government schools” filled, to hear them tell it, with teachers who promote gender confusion, preach racial conflict and provide litter boxes for children who identify as cats.

I wish I were kidding, especially about that last part. I’m not.

Lee wants to expand his deceptively named Education Savings Accounts from their current approval for Nashville, Memphis and Hamilton County to include all 95 counties in the state. State Rep. Mark White, chairman of the House Education Administration Committee, is on board, writes Sam Stockard of The Tennessee Lookout.

“A lot of people say it takes money away from public schools,” Stockard quoted White as saying. “I’m not a believer in that. ... When you have choice, you have competition, which opens up innovation.”

Here’s what the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, says:

“School vouchers ... are diversions of public funds to private and religious schools. Efforts to implement and expand voucher programs in states across the country are key to the relentless and enduring campaign to defund and then privatize public education, a movement that also includes manufacturing mistrust in public schools and targeting educators and their unions.”

That pretty much nails it.

As the Tennessee program stands now, The Tennessee Lookout reports, 2,586 students are taking part with access to up to $8,200 a year each in taxpayer money. Some 75 private schools are eligible for the 2023-24 school year.

Of those 75, 63 – or 84% – are private religious schools, Adam Friedman of the Lookout reported. “Most of them are Christian schools, but an Islamic and several Jewish religious schools were also approved.”

How those Islamic schools made the approved list is a puzzler. Though a lawsuit would certainly have followed their rejection.

The voucher push is in addition to the proposal by House Speaker Cameron Sexton to consider having the state opt out of almost $2 billion in federal education money because of those pesky “strings” that come attached to it. Strings that, so far, no one in government has cared to identify.

On the positive side, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Sen. Jon Lundberg, isn’t keen on rejecting the funding. So maybe the idea will fizzle.

The Tennessee Conservative – an outfit whose name conveys its perspective – reports Lee also is “very interested” in the possibility of having a mental health professional in every public school in the state. Sound like a good idea to you?

Not to some of the folks who read the Tennessee Conservative’s tweet about the proposal. “What a waste of money!” one stated. “Last thing we need,” another said. “Every school should have someone like the sheriff who evicts tenants who don’t pay their rent, except he expels students who misbehave,” said a third.

From the faction that believes there is no situation that more guns won’t help came this comment: “Armed security NOT ‘mental health professional.’”

And then came the conservative evergreen solution to all school issues: “How about prayer in schools. If we really want things to change. This is the way. :)”

None of that should come as a surprise, I suppose. Back in July, the right-wing Moms for Liberty tweeted its opposition to a White House plan to provide around $100 million to help schools hire and train mental health professionals.

“Mental health care is health care Mr. President,” Moms said. “That’s why it has NO place in public schools.”

I’m at a loss to understand that thinking. I can only surmise that the Moms want the liberty for their children to be unhealthy in both mind and body.

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.