As Gov. Bill Lee prepares to leave office this year, that’s his legacy – changing the school funding formula, spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on private school discount coupons, and leading our state to dead last in school funding in the whole United States.
A recent story about Tennessee school funding notes not only is the state dead last in the nation in school funding, but also, the state’s investment in schools has dropped by 10% since the 2023-24 school year.
School funding in the state is dead last in the nation – and lower in real dollars than it was in the first year of TISA – 10% lower.
Teacher pay in the state?
Also lower than our neighbors – and lower in real dollars (6.5% lower) than a decade ago.
Lee’s legacy is clear: Less investment in schools, lower pay for teachers. Instead, Lee is spending $300 million next year to expand his private school discount coupon scheme – taking money from the least able to pay (and least likely to have access to private schools) and funneling it to the already quite wealthy.
A word from the Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) on how the meaning of words makes a difference for public school kids.
Earlier this year, Tennessee lawmakers introduced a bill that would change the state’s definition of students who are economically disadvantaged. The bill proposed adding TennCare (Medicaid) participation as a factor in determining which students are designated as “economically disadvantaged.” Tennessee’s definition of this demographic, which was changed in 2016, is one of the most restrictive in the country: it currently counts students whose families are actively enrolled in SNAP and TANF in addition to other categorical factors, such as students experiencing homelessness or part of the foster care system. A major reason this definition is considered so strict is due to the low income threshold for qualifying for SNAP compared to other states – Tennessee’s income limit is 130% of the federal poverty guidelines, while many other states have enacted policies that effectively increase this threshold, with some states up to 200% of the federal poverty guidelines.
Adding in TennCare enrollment data, as the bill proposed, would result in a state definition of “economically disadvantaged” that much more accurately captured the socioeconomic reality and lived experiences of students and families. The implications of this definition became prominent when the number of students considered economically disadvantaged became directly tied to public school funding with the passage of TISA in 2022.
Despite bipartisan support, the state did not allocate funding for the costs associated with the definition change if the bill had passed. However, the bill was amended to task the TISA review committee to study Tennessee’s definition of economically disadvantaged, analyze how the state’s definition compares to that of other states, assess the impact on public schools, and make recommendations by November 2027. While not a full realization of the original bill, the amended version, which passed nearly unanimously in the state House of Representatives and Senate, demonstrates positive forward momentum and a shared commitment to addressing this issue.
Tennessee has now been ranked as the worst state in the nation for spending on public school students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The finding is part of a new report from the National Education Association that tracks teacher pay, student spending and education investment across the U.S.
The report shows that public school spending per student has dropped nearly 10% from the 2023-2024 school year. In that year, Tennessee ranked 48th in the nation for student spending.
The report places the Volunteer State 51st in per-pupil spending, behind every other state and the District of Columbia, prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers who argue the numbers reflect years of underinvestment.
“It shows the state has prioritized big tax cuts and a private school program rather than dealing with the most important investment we make in the state’s future,” State Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) said.
Senate Democratic Caucus Chair London Lamar blasted the GOP supermajority and Gov. Bill Lee over the consistent underfunding of the state’s schools:
“While Gov. Lee and Republicans were busy shoveling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into their private school voucher scam, they left nearly a million kids in Tennessee’s public schools with less funding per student than anywhere else in the nation. This isn’t an accident — it’s a choice. And Tennessee families are paying the price.”
Tennessee policymakers and Gov. Lee have decided that funding a separate, $300 million voucher school system is more important than investing in our state’s public schools.
That decision carries real costs, as this letter writer to the Tennesseanpoints out:
The wonderful public school my precious granddaughters attend has been informed that they will lose $338,000 this year. In essence, to have the same services in 2026-2027, they will have to find donors and philanthropies to chip away at this hole in the next few months, or drastically reduce staffing. Already, current staff cover two or three job descriptions, double up on learning support and, at the same time, have produced better test scores and student retention. The system disincentivizes success.
Four months to raise $338,000 that won’t provide extras or undergird new efforts. It’ll be just enough to maintain. Metro and the State do not provide fundraising support. PTAs are keeping the doors open, and moms are popping their trunks in the pickup line to provide diapers, hygiene products and food for students whose government-supported benefits have been reduced or stopped altogether.
A tale out of Ohio highlights a frequent complaint in education: The unfunded mandate.
Lawmakers have the “best” idea – and if only districts would do it, everything would be great.
Funding? Districts don’t need money – just ideas. And mandates. Lots and lots of mandates.
This is the story of education a million times– some legislator gets a bright idea and declares “Let’s require schools to fix this” while waving vaguely in the direction of schools. And while this bright idea may require more resources and human-hours, that lawmaker will be confident that this whole new program can be implemented for free. Rick Hess has often said that you can force folks to do something, but you can’t force them to do it well. That is doubly true when you make zero effort to provide them with the resources needed to implement the program.
They also want to cut $4.5 billion from funds for afterschool and summer programs, technology and digital literacy, mental health services, rural schools, literacy instruction, new teacher training, emergency preparedness, magnet schools, services for unhoused children, arts education, American history and civics education, family engagement and more.
Unlike the Senate version, which did not cut K-12 funding, the House version slashes $12 billion in school spending (a 15% cut) — including $4.7 billion in cuts to Title I, which funds the nation’s most vulnerable students, constituting a 27% cut to low-income students. Democrats offered amendments to restore the proposed $4.7 billion Title I cut, but all Republicans rejected them.
After a 14-day trial in late June and early July, Judge Fox concluded that the state shorted public schools at least $2.2 billion for maintenance and construction costs between 1998 and 2013 — and likely billions more in the years since, after policymakers scrapped a formula for building repairs in favor of far less funding for competitive grants.
