“Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools. The Tennessee General Assembly could vote on a proposal to expand the state’s school voucher program within days, though Republican lawmakers in the Senate and House are at odds on how large the program’s second-year expansion should be. The legislation cleared its final House committee on Tuesday. Committee members voted to simplify the House bill just days after Republicans inserted a controversial student immigration tracking requirement into the bill. The House version no longer includes any reference to immigration status tracking. The Senate proposal, which could be scheduled for a Senate floor vote at any time, would expand the Education Freedom Scholarships program by 15,000 seats. With an existing 5,000-seat expansion already baked into the program for next school year, the Senate bill would increase it to 40,000 seats for the 2026-2027 school year. In the House, where the legislation has moved more slowly, the bill would cap next year’s expansion at 10,000 seats plus the 5,000-seat expansion, for a total of 35,000 seats. Republican leadership in the House and Senate have just a few weeks to align on the details if they want to significantly expand Gov. Bill Lee’s school choice program in its second school year. Lee has already carved out more than $303 million in public dollars next fiscal year to help send 40,000 students to private schools across the state. It’s one of his largest new spending priorities in his final year as governor. Pulling back on Lee’s proposal would leave lawmakers more money to fund other legislation. The House version also tweaks the “hold harmless” provision of the original EFS bill, which was created to provide stable funding to public schools if they experience disenrollment. Previously, public schools were able to maintain their funding floor for any disenrollment. The new House bill would track students withdrawing from public schools to participate in the EFS program. Public schools would still receive hold harmless funding for those students, but not for students withdrawing for other reasons. The House version also includes a transparency provision that the Senate bill does not have. Under the House bill, the Tennessee Department of Education would have to publish an annual report on the number of applications received from each county, the number of applicants enrolled in a public school, and data on applicants’ household income. The Tennessee Department of Education last year faced criticism from voucher opponents and some lawmakers for its lack of timely data on who exactly is benefiting from the public program. The department has said the law establishing the program did not require them to track or report certain information, such as how many public school students were benefiting from it. Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org .
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