by Katie Glanton – WTVC News Channel 9 – Chattanooga
Thu, October 30, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Clink the link below to see the full video featuring comments from JC Bowman: Tennessee lawmakers scrutinize education budget: School voucher transparency questioned
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Some lawmakers in Tennessee’s general assembly were given a look at the state’s spending on education Thursday.
The Department of Education talked about teacher raises changes and student career readiness.
What they didn’t talk much about is the money spent on school vouchers, a first time expense for the entire state.
DOE Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds and other leaders in the department appeared before lawmakers amid ongoing budget hearings in Nashville.
Commissioner Reynolds says Governor Bill Lee’s budget added more than $2 billion for education this fiscal year. Of that amount, about $150 million went to the school voucher program.
JC Bowman with Professional Educators of Tennessee says…
“Why not stay with the number that you yourself just passed, rather than try to rush out and double it?”
This is the first year students across the entire state of Tennessee can use a school voucher to partly pay for private school.
File Photo Credit: WLOS Staff
Bowman says that citizens need to know all the details of this new program.
“You should know where these kids are coming from and who you’re paying for and why. That’s simple blocking and tackling of government. And they hid that.”
We asked the Department of Education how many students are using vouchers in Hamilton County over a month ago.
When we got no response, we asked again Thursday, but have yet to hear back.
Even lawmakers on the Finance Ways and Means Committee didn’t bring up vouchers.
WTVC
We reached out to committee chairman Representative Gary Hicks and Representative Mark Cochran, a lawmaker from our area who was in that meeting, to ask why.
They didn’t respond.
The way this bill is set up, Bowman says it mostly helping students who can already pay for private school.
“That should improve public schools as well, and competition supposedly improves everything. But what’s happening is we’re basically subsidizing kids who are already enrolled in private school.”
In September, the Tennessee Department of Education said that 10,000 scholarships are reserved for students regardless of income, and the other 10,000 are for families under a specific income limit.
In an interview at the beginning of October, Governor Bill Lee said he was happy with how this program is running so far.
“The program is working like it should.”
Now, lawmakers like House speaker Cameron Sexton want to expand the program to pay for more students.
“We need to meet that need, which is to add hopefully to add 20-30,000 more school scholarships in this next budget to allow“
Out of Tennessee’s 95 counties, the state says students in 86 counties received scholarships.
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