Tennessee governor backs Trump plan to nix Department of Education, sees bellwether on new school choice bill

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee told Fox News Digital that he believes President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory signals success for a second school choice bill introduced to the state legislature this week after his first proposal failed this year. 

Lee said he agreed with Trump’s promises to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, echoing the president-elect’s concern over the federal bureaucracy becoming entrenched with gender and race ideology rather than learning.

“I think it is a great idea to dismantle the Department of Education federally. And I’m a strong believer that policy at the state level should be handled by states, that states know best,” Lee told Fox News Digital. “In this case, states certainly know best. We know best in Tennessee what our children need and how best to educate our kids. The parents of this state should be given a greater influence on how their kids are educated, and that will happen if the federal Department of Education is dismantled and those funds are delivered to states to be used in a more efficient and more effective way.”

Lee said the political environment on the ground in the state is not what it was months ago when the first school choice proposal failed in the state legislature. Since then, the election saw a wave of pro-school choice candidates win at the state-level, and Trump succeeded in his bid for the White House.

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Gov. Bill Lee discusses the devastation from Hurricane Helene at the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency on Oct. 2, 2024, in Nashville. (Mark Zaleski/The Tennessean/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

“President Trump has long believed that school choice is important for the people of this country and that education freedom is something that all Americans could have. He’s talked about it. He campaigned on it,” Lee said. “One thing is very evident about what happened last week. And President Trump is very clear about what his policies are, and Americans were very clear about their acceptance of those policies last week. They, with a strong mandate, said we like what we hear. We want him to execute on those things and that President Trump has a significant understanding and a clear understanding and is the leader, frankly, on the issue of school choice. All of those things benefit us as we move into this next session.”

Lee’s new school choice bill, titled the Education Freedom Act of 2025, was jointly introduced to the state House and Senate on Wednesday.

Drawing from funding already approved by the state legislature, the bill would allow the state Department of Education to award up to 20,000 scholarships – valued at about $7,000 each – for the next school year to be spent on tuition, tutoring, technology and examination expenses. The first 10,000 scholarships would be set aside for low-income students whose parents might not otherwise afford to send their children to institutions other than the public schools in their districts. 

Democrats have painted school choice as disenfranchising low-income students, but Lee said he feels the opposite.

“Every kid is unique. Every kid has different learning styles. Every kid has a different life situation. And every family ought to have the opportunity to choose the best path for their kid,” the governor said. “In particular, I don’t think that only the wealthy families that can afford a private option, that those families should be the only ones and those children should be the only ones that have that option for choice.”

President-elect Trump has been shaping up his Cabinet nominations. (Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Oftentimes, opponents will say that school choice initiatives hurt public schools. I think that’s just the opposite,” Lee said. “This legislation that we’re actually bringing forth is an education policy initiative. It’s not just an Education Freedom Scholarship bill. It includes historic funding for public schools, bonuses for teachers, for public school teachers. We will include alongside with this legislation a teacher pay raise plan that will put us in the top 15 states for teacher pay raise in the country.”

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Lee noted that about 30 states already have school choice, 12 of which have universal school choice, and several of those states have passed their initiatives in recent years. 

“Americans are in growing numbers, and now the majority of Americans, as evidenced by the past elections, have come to believe that school choice is the way of the future,” Lee said. “It is the answer to challenging the status quo. It is the way that we take America’s rankings and educational outcomes that used to be the top in the world from way down the list as it relates to other countries back up into the outcomes that we hope for this country.”

“This is a way to challenge and change and bring innovation into an education system that’s grown stale and bloated and bureaucratic,” Lee said. “And we see it happening all across America. We believe it’s going to happen in Tennessee. It is an incredibly important moment in our country for parental rights and for the future of children and their education.” 

Lee said his schooling growing up in Tennessee happened before the U.S. Department of Education was established in 1979. 

“We knew how to do it then. We know how to do it now,” Lee said, explaining that Tennessee created a funding formula that “uniquely recognizes the needs of children with disabilities, with dyslexia and with English as a second language. “We know how to fund education for Tennessee children. We know much better than they do in a bureaucratic institution like the federal Department of Education. I think President Trump is exactly right. I think it’s a great idea.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee looks at a section of Interstate 26 over the Nolichucky River that collapsed during a flood in Erwin on Oct. 1, 2024. (Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

“As a governor, I would welcome the partnership with President Trump in allowing states to choose and determine how best to spend education dollars for their kids,” he added.

If Trump goes through with eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, experts expect the process could take several years. 

With Cabinet nominations underway, Fox News Digital asked Lee who he would like to see as Trump’s education secretary and if the governor would consider throwing his own name in the running.

“What I will say is and what I hope is that whoever takes this job is looking to work themselves out of a job,” Lee said. “It will take the right kind of leader who really understands, and I think, who really understands how states can function and how problematic for states federal bureaucracies are. Governors understand that. There are a lot of folks who would be well-qualified for this, but the next person needs to be hoping to work themselves out of a job.”

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On the heels of the devastation brought by Hurricane Helene, the governor said the new school choice bill would also commit state dollars from its sports gambling revenue to the construction and maintenance of public school facilities. The bill also offers $2,000 one-time bonuses to every teacher in the state and promises supplemental funding for school districts affected by enrollment drops.

“We can have the best public schools in America,” Lee said. “We can commit the right amount of finances and the right amount of focus. We can strengthen and support our public schools in unprecedented ways and provide freedom and opportunity for parents and choice. At the same time, those are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they shouldn’t be. We should improve every educational opportunity for every kid in our state and will do so through this legislation.”