(The Center Square) – A bill that would double the number of Education Freedom Scholarships was given the green light by the Tennessee House Education Committee in a close vote on Tuesday.
House Bill 2532 would double the number of scholarships from 20,000 to 40,000, raising the price tag to $310 million. Gov. Bill Lee is supporting the bill.
“Education freedom is changing lives, but there are still thousands of TN children waiting for the same opportunity,” Lee said in a Tuesday social media post. “It’s time we double Education Freedom Scholarships to 40,000 to serve even more TN students and families.”
House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, said more families want the scholarships. More than 56,000 students applied for the 2026-27 school year, while more than 38,000 applied for the 2025-26 school year, according to the Tennessee Department of Education.
The original bill, passed during a January 2025 special session, allowed for 20,000 in the initial year and 5,000 in subsequent years.
The committee agreed 11-9 to move the bill expanding the scholarships to Finance and Ways and Means. Five Republicans voted against it.
Democrat and Republican lawmakers opposed to the bill said there was a lack of transparency about who received the scholarships in the program’s initial year.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, said the most reported income among families was $31,000, and the average of all recipients was $96,000. He said he doesn’t care about the specific data on the recipients, repeating a statement he made at a previous subcommittee meeting.
“These are all Tennessee children that need education and their parents feel like the schools they’re sending them to are the best for them to receive that education,” Lamberth said.
Clarksville Democrat Ronnie Glynn said the fact that some do not want the data indicates the program is not working.
“Because if we really wanted to know where taxpayers dollars were going, we would have accountability,” Glynn said. “We were elected to be good stewards of the Tennessee tax dollars. So shouldn’t we know? Just because 50,000 people applied, it doesn’t mean it that it’s meeting the intent and the intent of the students that you’re trying to attract.”
A bill by Rep. Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, that would have required the Department of Education to provide more information about scholarship recipients failed in the K-2 subcommittee before the full Education Committee meeting. The data reported shows that 54% of the scholarships went to the state’s four most populous counties, and the state’s top 12 counties accounted for 81% of the scholarships, Barrett said. Nine of the 12 wealthiest counties in Tennessee are among the top 12 recipients, he said.
“We’re not just giving people back their taxpayer money,” Barrett said. “We’re taking everybody’s taxpayer money, and we’re giving it to a select few.”
