Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is all-in on dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and is leaving the door open to use federal funds to support his new school voucher program.
Last week, hours before President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing his recently-appointed Education Secretary to begin the dissolution of the federal DOE, Lee reissued his support of Trump’s plan, telling reporters the state would be better off without the federal oversight of education.
“I am one who believes that the federal Department of Education is largely a bureaucratic problem for states,” Lee said, calling the federal government “too big, too cumbersome and too bureaucratic.”
The governor, who was set to attend the executive order signing, has been supportive of Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education since at least November, when he said he “hopes it looks something like block-granting the dollars to states,” comparing the idea to a Medicaid block grant waiver that Trump approved in his first term, allowing Tennessee more discretion in spending money intended for Medicaid recipients.
In an op-ed published Wednesday, Lee called the DOE an “$80 billion failure,” and said that states were better off managing federal education funding, as had been the case prior to the DOE’s formation in 1979.
When he initially endorsed Trump’s plan, Lee declined to comment on whether he would use the funds to benefit his private school voucher program, which later passed in a January special session, partly urged by Trump to address immigration. For each of the last three years, including 2025 projections, the DOE has reportedly provided Tennessee between $3.36-3.66 billion.
On Thursday, with the voucher bill signed into law and the end of the DOE in sight, Lee suggested that the legislature could conceptually tap into the DOE money for vouchers.
“The funding from the federal government shouldn’t impact that strategy,” Lee said. “It should just continue to give us the resources necessary to fund the education for all the children of the state, both public and private, through education freedom scholarships or through traditional funding to our public schools.”
Lee noted that he expects to see a “ramp up” in the voucher program, but added that “the law, as it stands today in Tennessee, is how I view that it will be going forward, until the Legislature makes a decision to change.”
Educators and parents across the country have expressed concern that a lack of federal oversight could prevent some students, like those with disabilities or special needs, from receiving adequate and fair education.
“If successful, Trump’s continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said in a statement, calling supporters “anti-public education.”
Lee dismissed those concerns, arguing that the state is better equipped to manage those students than the federal government, repeating a common refrain that the states know best how to handle education.
“I don’t have one bit of concern about a lack of services or a lack of educational opportunities for children when the federal Department of Education is removed,” Lee said.
Lee’s wholesale support of a Trump plan before the details have been shared echoes his alignment with Trump’s deportation policies, which Lee loudly supported and urged other Republican governors to support before Trump was in office or had shared specifics.
On the other hand, Lee continued his streak of refusing to comment on pending Tennessee legislation when he was asked about several measures that have been through statewide legislative committees, including a bill that would allow school boards to deny undocumented students education, in a direct challenge to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
“I can’t speak to how I feel about that, because that’s not been decided yet,” Lee said, adding that he was broadly supportive of addressing what he described as issues caused by illegal immigration, “including how they impact our education system.
Though he lacked details, the governor said ending the DOE would benefit Tennessee because more money would be spent at the state level.
“That’s more dollars directly spent on education services for children, and not on jobs in D.C.,” Lee said.
Asked if the state would have to replicate any of the administrative roles being axed in the federal department of education — or the “bureaucracy” described by Lee — the governor was unsure.
“We have no idea what’s coming,” Lee said. “We’ll know a lot more, probably after today, and then we’ll begin to plan to work with the federal government on being a good partner.”
