Lee pushing statewide voucher expansion

Gov. Bill Lee is ready to expand Tennessee’s school voucher program statewide, introducing the Education Freedom Scholarship Act at a packed press conference Tuesday afternoon. He was joined by several members of the Tennessee General Assembly, as well as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who successfully shepherded a similar program in her state. Sanders touted the universal voucher push as “an absolute conservative education revolution.”

Tennessee currently provides vouchers to qualifying families through education savings accounts, though those are available only to students in Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton counties, as well as those zoned for the state-run Achievement School District. Currently, qualifying students must fall below a certain income threshold. The current ESA program, which was narrowly passed by the state legislature in 2019, was quickly met with litigation for targeting Davidson and Shelby counties. Several judges agreed with this argument, and the program was held up in court until 2022.