TN House and Senate Pass School Voucher Bill

Both the Tennessee House and Senate voted Thursday to pass Governor Lee’s school voucher bill. The Education Freedom Act of 2025 will allow families to apply for public taxpayer money to pay for private school.  The Governor’s school choice bill would reportedly give at least 20,000 Tennessee students about $7,000 each for private tuition in the first year of the program.  The bill requires the Department of Education to award a one-time bonus in the amount of $2,000 to each teacher employed in a kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) school in Tennessee for the 2024-25 school year. However, in order to receive the bonus, the bill requires each local board of education and governing body of a public charter school to adopt a resolution affirming that an LEA or public charter school would like to participate and to submit its resolution to the DOE by June 1, 2025.