Governor Bill Lee has scheduled a Special Session for the Tennessee Legislature on Monday, January 27th. During this session, lawmakers will deliberate on several key issues, including the Education Freedom Act, Hurricane Helen and Disaster Relief, as well as matters related to Illegal Immigration. WLX sought public opinion regarding the Education Freedom Act, and the feedback indicated significant opposition to the proposal.
In a live interview with the Governor on WLX, we posed a series of questions aimed at clarifying the implications of the voucher bill for the community. When asked about his motivation for advocating this initiative, the Governor emphasized his commitment to Tennessee and its public education system. He stated, “This is a Governor who cares deeply about Tennessee and about the public school system. It would not go well for Tennessee if we cannot continue that commitment and you’re going to see it. If you look at my budget this year, you’re going to see another significant, historic investment in the public schools across our state. Even after a school choice license passes, as we’ve seen in other states, the majority of people are going to keep going to public schools because they like their public schools and we want them to. So, we will want to make our public schools the best there are in the country. We just also believe that if a parent has a desire for something other than their child then we ought to allow them to do that.”
Further inquiries regarding the potential impact of the Education Freedom Act on public schools in Tennessee led the Governor to reassure that no public school would experience a loss of funding due to students opting out. He remarked, “Legislatures guarantee that no public school will lose any funding because of a child that might leave the public school. That guarantees that not only will we put more money in public schools but we guarantee that they won’t lose any money; there’ll be nothing taken away from a single public school across the state of Tennessee.” The proposed act aims to establish scholarships, ensure that state funding for school districts remains stable despite potential disenrollment, and offer bonuses for teachers.
When questioned about the presence of any conditions tied to the funding or state oversight, the Governor responded, “Well, there’s a couple of things—there’s accountability. So when a child gets a scholarship, but it’s not a voucher, know that because we are not taking any money away from the funding formula for public schools. A couple of years ago we had a 30-year-old formula that was outdated; everyone knew it needed to be changed, so we did that and created