NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After Tennessee lawmakers failed to reach an agreement about school vouchers during the 2013 legislative session, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam said the issue wasn’t dead and that lawmakers would revisit it next time.

Haslam is making good on that promise.

On Thursday, the governor announced that “he will support a school voucher bill this legislative session that’s similar to a limited measure he proposed last year, even though other GOP lawmakers say they’d like to see something a little broader,” the Associated Press reports.

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Haslam favors a modest voucher bill that would provide state money for private school tuition costs to low-income families with children stuck inside failing government-run schools.

Republican leaders in the state legislature want to open the voucher plan up to more middle class families.

While the size of the voucher bill kept Haslam and state lawmakers from reaching any deal last year, the two camps appear willing to work together to get a deal done this year.

“We’re trying to the meet the governor in the middle somewhere,” Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey told the AP.

For example, Ramsey supports capping the voucher plan at 10,000 students in the first year, but allowing other families to access the program if some vouchers remain after first being offered to low-income families.

“So if there’s 1,200 left, then it’s kind of a first come, first serve on the 1,200 – regardless of income. I’ve talked to the governor about this, and that’s where we need to end up,” Ramsey said.

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The teacher unions and their friends in the Democratic Party don’t want any type of voucher plan at all, of course. They argue private school vouchers will drain public schools of necessary funding.

What the union leaders refuse to acknowledge is that when students leave a (failing) public school, the school’s overall expenses go down, and the public school frequently is allowed to keep a percentage of that student’s state funding allotment.

They also fail to understand that the purpose of the state’s K-12 expenditures is to educate children, not to provide adult school employees with a job for life and a cushy pension upon retirement.

But the unions’ opposition may not matter too much. The Republicans control Tennessee’s General Assembly – by a wide margin – and the governor’s office. It would appear that a school voucher bill stands a good chance of becoming law at some point during the 2014 legislative session.

And that should be hopeful news for all Tennessee families.