Miranda Williams Thomas is a Legislative Director for ExcelinEd in Action.
The curtain has fallen on Tennessee’s 2024 legislative session, and state leaders’ actions are paving the way for educational excellence and innovation in the Volunteer State.
Gov. Bill Lee set the tone for the year in his 2024 State of the State Address with bold education policy and funding goals. He challenged the legislature to increase public education funding, raise teacher pay, support summer learning, strengthen early literacy and level the playing field for public charter school facilities. He also set an ambitious goal to establish the state’s first universal education scholarship account program, which would allow families to comprehensively individualize the educational experience.
Tennessee lawmakers made incredible progress toward those goals and set the stage for even more education policy improvements in 2025.
Here’s what happened in 2024.
This year, Tennessee legislators focused on a critical issue: the disparity surrounding charter schools’ access to facilities and funding. Here’s the background:
According to ExcelinEd’s 2023 Charter School Facility Index analysis for the state, Tennessee has fulfilled 63% of the facility needs of its public charter schools. This “facility gap” left charter schools to seek alternative revenue streams to cover the remaining 37% of their facilities’ costs, averaging $814 per student not being spent on classroom learning. That’s something traditional public schools are not required to do.
Failure to proactively address this gap would worsen the problem for charter schools, with the facility cost gap estimated to balloon to $1,203 per student in the next five years.
Lawmakers introduced funding to assist charter schools with various expenses, including those related to facility costs, through its new school funding formula established in 2022, yet the gap between traditional public schools and public charter schools persists.
An average-sized charter school in Tennessee is compelled to forgo six teachers, diverting funds intended for student instruction to cover necessary facilities expenses. Conversely, traditional public schools in Tennessee receive $1,231 per student in additional local funding for facilities, from which charter schools are excluded.
Consequently, traditional public schools enjoy significant protection from having to sacrifice instructional funding for students to meet facilities’ needs. The facility gap also interferes with high-quality charter schools’ ability to expand and provide educational opportunities to more students.
In response to these challenges, Gov. Lee proposed and the legislature approved $15 million for charter facilities in the 2024-2025 budget and passed SB 135 by Sen. John Stevens and Rep. Ryan Williams. This law mandates that school districts compile a comprehensive list of underutilized or vacant properties and give charter schools the opportunity to purchase or lease these properties at fair market value for educational purposes. By expanding access to school facilities, SB 135 continues to address the pressing needs of charter schools while simultaneously increasing public school choice opportunities for families.
Statewide and national declines in math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) signaled a critical need for intervention. Tennessee eighth graders’ math score plummeted on the most recent NAEP, marking the state’s lowest performance since 2005.
Legislators began to answer the call to improve math outcomes with Sen. Joey Hensley’s SB 1712 and Rep. Scott Cepicky’s House companion bill. This law calls for a new approach to bolstering math education in three ways:
By understanding how much students know (and don’t know) and ensuring that educators have access to high-quality training resources, Tennessee lawmakers have taken crucial first steps to improve math outcomes.
As AI continues to play an increasingly prominent role in our lives, it’s essential that students and educators alike are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate this rapidly evolving landscape.
With SB 1711, Gov. Lee, Sen. Hensley, Rep. Cepicky and other legislative leaders positioned Tennessee among the first states ensuring safe use of AI innovations in educational settings. The new law requires universities and K-12 public schools to adopt policies regarding the use of AI in the classroom.
Incorporating AI into education is more than just a passing fad. According to experts, AI is expected to transform student learning and the teaching experience. Schools face the imperative task of adequately preparing their students for this AI-driven future, and Tennessee lawmakers have taken the right steps to empower them.
Tennessee’s 2024-2025 state budget affirms state leaders’ commitment to student-centered education policies. Noteworthy allocations include:
In tandem with these targeted investments, the state’s 2024-2025 budget also includes significant enhancements to the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) public school funding formula, with a commendable $261 million increase.
Building on the strong foundation Tennessee leaders laid in 2023 and strengthened in 2024, the Volunteer State is poised to continue advancing student-centered policies in 2025.
Gov. Bill Lee set the stage this year with a call to legislators to pass his proposal for a universal Education Freedom Account (EFA) program.
“Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarships will empower parents with the freedom to choose the right education for their child, while also giving them a say in how their taxpayer dollars are invested,” Gov. Lee said.
