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CV NEWS FEED // The Tennessee House and Senate passed the Education Freedom Act Jan. 30, expanding families’ ability to apply school vouchers to private school expenses.
The Senate passed the bill in a 20-13 vote, and the House passed it 54-44, with one abstaining.
“Tennessee took a bold step today toward expanding educational opportunities with the passage of the Education Freedom Act,” Shannon Pahls, public affairs director of the pro-school choice nonprofit “yes. every kid,” stated in a Jan. 30 press release. “By prioritizing parental choice, Tennessee is paving the way for a brighter future where families are empowered to choose where and how their children are educated.”
The Education Freedom Scholarship awards a little over $7,000 for a year per student recipient, according to local news outlet WGRV. The bill states that 20,000 scholarships can be awarded for the 2025-2026 school year. The department may add up to 5,000 scholarships per year beginning in the 2026-2027 school year based on the popularity of the program and available funding.
Homeschool students are not eligible for the scholarships, according to the TN Education Freedom website.
According to a Jan. 30 press release from Gov. Bill Lee, the Act also “further invests in public schools by delivering teacher bonuses to recognize their unwavering commitment to student success, increasing K-12 facilities funding, and ensuring state funding to school districts will never decrease due to disenrollment.”
Catholic bishops in the state have supported the act, according to a Jan. 21 report from the East Tennessee Catholic.
Bishop Mark Beckman of the Diocese of Knoxville wrote to state legislators ahead of the vote, urging them to support it. He wrote that recent research has found that less than one-third of public school third graders are reading at grade level. In local Catholic schools, for the same age group, more than 70% are at or above grade reading levels.
“By creating a scholarship program, Tennessee is taking a balanced, compassionate approach to addressing these educational inequities — allowing more families the financial ability to seek alternatives where the public schools are not meeting the expectations,” he wrote. “For decades, East Tennessee Catholic schools have provided quality pre-K-12 education for children — Catholic and non-Catholic alike — rooted in a fundamental belief that every child deserves the opportunity to develop their God-given potential. The Education Freedom Act is a long-standing commitment to serving the common good for families statewide.”
Bishop J. Mark Spalding in the Diocese of Nashville and Bishop David P. Talley in the Diocese of Memphis have also issued statements in support of the Act. This week, Bishop David M. O’Connell of Trenton, New Jersey, Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education penned a letter to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, and Rep. Adrian Smith, R-NE, expressing support for the pro-school choice bills they have introduced.
“The Catholic Church teaches that parents are the first and primary teachers of their children and therefore have the right to select the best educational environment for their children,” he wrote. “Whether that is in a public, homeschool or private school, parents know the needs of their children.”
