There have been some mixed reactions to Tennessee lawmakers’ efforts to reintroduce school choice legislation for vouchers that allow public tax dollars to be used for private school enrollment.

Voters in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska have decisively rejected efforts to implement school voucher programs that would allow families to use tax dollars for private school enrollment.

Despite criticizing Gov. Bill Lee’s plan previously as “terrible,” Representative Scott Cepicky’s, R-Culleoka, expects lawmakers to iron out their differences about school choice legislation next year.

A new report from the Georgetown University education think tank FutureEd notes that 569,000 K-12 students received public subsidies for private schooling in 2023-24 across eight states with universal school choice programs.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has a history with an issue Tennessee Democrats have spent the last year opposing.

Tennessee is taking steps to ensure that private schools get the opportunity to receive nearly $60 million in unused federal COVID relief funds set aside for them in 2021.But the state is considering loosening some of the strings that the federal government initially attached to those funds. In particular, under several options outlined Monday by Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, private schools wouldn’t necessarily have to serve a “significant” share of students from low-income families to be eligible for aid, as the Biden administration had required.