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Panel advances Education Freedom Scholarship rules amid questions on timing, data and oversight
Summary
The joint Government Operations committee advanced rules to implement the Education Freedom Scholarship program, which sets procedures, prioritization tiers and allowable uses for scholarship accounts; lawmakers pressed the State Board of Education on data collection, timing of awards and whether many beneficiaries already attend private schools.
The joint Government Operations committee voted to advance rules from the State Board of Education that implement the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship (EFS) program created by public chapter 7, signed Feb. 12, 2025, which authorizes state scholarships to help families pay tuition and other educational expenses at eligible nonpublic schools.
State Board staff said the statute instructed them to write rules "narrowly tailored to enforce the requirements of this program," and the packet sets application and eligibility processes, appeals procedures, account-closing rules and priorities for limited scholarship awards. "On the 02/12/2025, Governor Bill Lee signed into law the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship Act," Nathan James, State Board of Education, said in the presentation, summarizing the statute that authorized the rulemaking.
Committee members repeatedly asked whether the department would track whether scholarship recipients already attended private schools and raised concerns that conditional approvals and award timing could favor students already inside private schools. Trudy Hughes, assistant commissioner at the Tennessee Department of Education, told the committee that for the program’s first year 10,000 scholarships were set aside for qualified applicants (families with household income not exceeding 300% of the free/reduced lunch threshold) and another 10,000 were universal awards; she added that next year’s application will include the question that identifies whether an applicant was previously enrolled in a private school.
"For the 1st year, there were 10,000 scholarships that were set aside, and they were qualified scholarships based on an individual family actually providing information that their annual household does not exceed 300% of the amount required for a student to qualify for free or reduced price lunch," Hughes said. State Board staff said the law did not require broader data collection this year, limiting the board’s legal authority to expand collection beyond the statute.
Lawmakers also pressed the board on ambiguity in the definition of a participating private school’s physical presence, the permissible uses of funds, and how funds revert when a recipient withdraws. State officials said funds awarded to recipients will revert to the department when a recipient’s account is closed. "If a student withdraws from a nonpublic registered EFS nonpublic school, those funds revert back to the department," Trudy Hughes said.
The committee discussed whether the rules should require a larger sampling or full population testing of recipient academic outcomes; staff said the statute authorizes only the data the law requires and that a statistical sample is the approach provided in the rules. The committee approved a positive recommendation from the House; because a quorum was not present in the Senate at the time of the roll, some Senate votes were deferred or recorded later.
What happens next: the rule package will continue through the administrative process; members signaled intent to follow up on timing and technical questions about award cycles and reporting.
