NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Just one day after the election, Tennessee legislators filed new language to bring back another school voucher proposal for students statewide.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson introduced the legislation dubbed the Education Freedom Act of 2025. During the last legislative session, neither chamber could reach a compromise. However, $144 million remained in the state budget for vouchers even though it didn't go into effect.
Similarly to last year's language, students would receive $7,400 to attend a private school. These vouchers allow families to use public tax dollars to attend the private school of their choice. An analysis of our NewsChannel 5 viewing area shows that 61,000 students attend private schools. The biggest concentration of those schools are in Davidson, Williamson, Sumner, Rutherford and Montgomery Counties. Of the 45 counties we cover, the majority of rural counties don't have private schools.
For the upcoming 2025-2026 school year, the bill said it wanted to offer 20,000 voucher scholarships. Of those scholarships, lawmakers want 10,000 to go to students whose family income doesn't exceed 300% of the amount required for free and reduced lunch. A family of four making less than $170,000 per year would qualify. The remaining 10,000 vouchers can go to any student regardless of income.
Under this bill, voucher funds must first go to pay for tuition. Any leftover funds can go toward textbooks, tutoring, transportation or needed technology, like a laptop.
A sticking point this past session was testing students who received public tax dollars to attend private schools. The new bill outlined students must take an accountability test from third grade until 11th grade. Those test results will go to the state.
Last session, Democratic lawmakers were especially concerned about any decrease in enrollment resulting in less funds for public schools. That's because state funding for schools is determined by enrollment. In this plan, lawmakers wrote funding wouldn't decrease if enrollment dipped for school districts.
As an added bonus, lawmakers also propose a one-time $2,000 bonus for teachers. That money would come from state funds.
State money typically doesn't fund brick and mortar for school districts, but this bill would use tax money from sports betting to provide funding for distressed counties to improve their schools and East Tennessee schools affected by Hurricane Helene.
How did we get here?
The House and the Senate couldn't agree on voucher language from the outset in the 2024 legislative session.
Vouchers kept getting bumped week after week on the House and Senate calendars. The House wanted to include everything with the measure — removing fourth-grade retention, lessening local government strain for teacher insurance plans and changing testing requirements in public schools.
What it lacked was any private school testing accountability.
The Senate wanted to allow switching public schools with the voucher allotment and authorize private school testing to mirror something like TCAP for public schools.
Public school advocates fought the school voucher proposal all session long. Democrats strongly opposed the measure and eventually, some House Republicans said they couldn't support it either. It's unclear how much support the new bill will have.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email us at emily.west@newschannel5.com and chris.davis@newschannel5.com.
There are still so many families in East Tennessee hurting following the floods from Hurricane Helene in September. That made this year's running of the Santa Train extra special for many families in the northeast part of the state. This special Santa Express has been making an annual run in part of Appalachia for over 80 years.
-Lelan Statom
