Tennessee lawmakers recently returned to session with a potential K-12 school finance reform being the top priority. Gov. Bill Lee announced his plans for the state to explore creating a new K-12 education funding formula in October of last year and since then 18 exploratory subcommittees made up of teachers, lawmakers and researchers have been busy discussing how to improve Tennessee’s education funding system.
These discussions should be welcomed by parents, educators, and taxpayers, as Tennessee has an outdated school funding formula that is poorly suited to serve the needs of the state’s public-school students in 2022.
Tennessee’s current education funding formula, which determines how many dollars each