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The Tennessee House passed legislation to expand the state’s voucher program to 35,000 seats next fall despite rare bipartisan opposition from Democrats and a significant group of Republicans.
House Bill 2532 passed on a 52-43 vote on Monday night, barely clearing the majority vote needed to pass.
The House version now alters the funding floor provision of the Education Freedom Scholarships program passed last year, a “hold harmless” clause promised last year to maintain current levels of public school funding even if local districts saw enrollment decreases.
House leadership also quietly slipped in a new amendment that could help state officials track the immigration or citizenship status of public school students. High-ranking Republicans have for two years attempted to count the number of undocumented students in Tennessee public schools, but the effort has run aground in various bills amid bipartisan pushback.
EFS supporters last year passed the universal voucher program, pushed by Gov. Bill Lee, with clear parameters like a 5,000-seat growth cap and funding promises to local public school districts.
A year later, those parameters have been swept aside, which opponents from both sides of the political aisle criticized in a lengthy House floor debate on Monday.
The new House bill will track students withdrawing from public schools to participate in the EFS program. Starting in 2028, public schools would still receive “hold harmless” funding for those students, but not for students withdrawing for other reasons. The original voucher program maintained funding for all disenrollment, regardless of the reason a student is leaving the school.
“We’re not telling the truth. That’s what we told everybody we were doing last year,” said Republican Rep. Jody Barrett, a longtime voucher opponent who criticized the funding floor changes. “That’s what got us the 53 votes to get this thing passed, and now 15 months later we’re completely renegotiating the deal.”
A majority of Republicans shot down proposed amendments from Barrett and Republican Rep. Charlie Baum, who tried to reset the funding floor provision.
“It wouldn’t be fair to change that level of financial support at this time,” Baum said.
Under the new House version, public schools could only qualify for hold harmless funding for the 2026 and 2027 school years if they can prove a student with a Social Security number disenrolled from their school to take an EFS scholarship. Schools would have to collect Social Security numbers of all students enrolling in public schools to achieve this.
Tying the hold harmless funding to Social Security numbers appeared to be a last-minute maneuver by House leadership to begin tracking the immigration status of public school students. House Republicans have argued an unknown number of undocumented children may be draining financial resources from local school districts, even though all immigrants fund Tennessee schools through local sales tax purchases.
Some Republicans have sought to challenge a longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent that guarantees the right to a public education to all children in the country, regardless of immigration status.
Social Security numbers are provided to U.S. citizens and some documented immigrants, but not all immigrants with current visas are issued Social Security numbers, nor are they required to register for schools or receive certain benefits like school lunch programs.
Jenny Mills McFerron, director of Policy and Research at EdTrust-Tennessee, criticized the voucher expansion on Monday night for “diverting even more public funds to private schools that lack accountability and transparency that we require of public institutions.”
“Equally troubling is the amendment requiring Social Security number tracking, a backdoor attempt to track students’ immigration status,” Mills McFerron said. “Lawmakers have repeatedly invoked accountability and transparency as core values, but have chosen to wield it selectively to protect the wealthy and target the most vulnerable students in our state.”
The House and Senate are now at odds on significant details of the program, most notably the size of the program next year. The Senate version, which is up for a final vote on Wednesday, calls for 40,000 total seats in the program next year.
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.
Melissa Brown 2026-04-14 00:59:34
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