School choice is now law of the land in Tennessee

By Bill Brewer

Diocese of Knoxville schools are feeling the impact of state-funded, school-choice scholarships, which are affecting all 10 campuses from Chattanooga to the Tri-Cities.

Diocesan schools, for the first time, are participating in a program that allows families to choose where their children attend school, and this month those schools began seeing the Tennessee Education Freedom Act in action. The new law creates 20,000 school-choice scholarships, half of which are awarded to families based on income and half of which are unrestricted.

Since classes began earlier this month, Diocese of Knoxville school leaders have been assessing the levels at which the new scholarships will make a difference on school budgets and enrollment.

When the General Assembly passed the Education Freedom Act in January, and Gov. Bill Lee signed the measure into law on Feb. 12, scholarships valued at $7,295 each were made available to students. The scholarships are being used at state-approved private schools beginning with the 2025-26 academic year.

No diocesan school has seen a more dramatic effect from the scholarships, commonly called vouchers, than St. Joseph in Knoxville.

“More than 50 percent of our kids received scholarships. We far and away have the highest percentage of kids getting the scholarships among diocesan schools. I give the credit to Andy Zengel. He was relentless in getting information out to families,” said Father Chris Michelson, president of St. Joseph School and special adviser to the president of Knoxville Catholic High School, referring to the principal of St. Joseph.

As the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship program was developed last spring, Mr. Zengel joined Diocese of Knoxville schools interim superintendent George Valadie and other diocesan school leaders in studying the program and what its impact on the schools would be.

They then disseminated as much information as possible among the schools and families interested in applying for the grants.

“Getting the word out to faculties and administrators at schools was important early on. George Valadie, our superintendent, was great with that. We also were blessed by former state Rep. Bill Dunn, who now works with the state Department of Education and was able to answer questions throughout the early days of the process. That was a great help,” Mr. Zengel said.

“All 10 schools in the Diocese of Knoxville have done very well with the Tennessee Education Freedom scholarships. I credit George Valadie for communicating everything we learned about the process. … He was the conduit to share that information with everyone so that we were all on the same page,” Mr. Zengel added.

At St. Joseph, Mr. Zengel led efforts to assist families with scanning documents needed for the scholarship application process, ensuring they knew exactly what the deadlines were to get into the scholarship portal. Similar exercises played out at other diocesan schools between Feb. 12 and May 15.

Response to the new program was overwhelming across the state. More than 40,000 families applied for the 20,000 scholarships. And according to Mr. Zengel, 33,000 people put in their applications in the first five hours that the online application site was open on May 15.

“Getting the word out, especially to our families here at St. Joseph, at Knoxville Catholic High School, and the other schools, to make them aware of this tremendous opportunity so that they could be ready to apply for the scholarships, was critical since it was a first-come, first-served scenario,” Mr. Zengel said. “At a small school like St. Joseph, 116 vouchers were approved for us out of 20,000 statewide. That is a tremendous ratio.”

St. Joseph’s enrollment for 2025-26 is 245.

The St. Joseph principal said 14 of the students receiving scholarships are new to St. Joseph. He pointed out that many of the North Knoxville school’s students who received scholarships have older siblings at Knoxville Catholic High School who also were given the grants.

Participation in the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship program by St. Joseph families has surprised Father Michelson and Mr. Zengel.

“In the beginning, I asked Andy how many he thought we would get, and he said 10 to 15. He asked me how many I thought we would get, and I was optimistic, so I said about 50, and of course we received 116. It was way more than either of us was expecting. That is $850,000. That is an influx of just a hair under $850,000 to St. Joseph School that we don’t have to bill for. It’s great,” Father Michelson said.

The school principal and the priest, who has served at St. Mary Parish and School in Oak Ridge and All Saints and St. Albert the Great parishes in Knoxville, noted that tuition at St. Joseph and all Knoxville-area diocesan elementary schools is $10,200 per student per year, adding that families of the Knoxville-area elementary schools who received scholarships will now pay $2,905 annually to make up the difference.

“We had families who applied for both qualified scholarships that are based on family income and unrestricted scholarships that aren’t based on income. We have a much higher percentage of vouchers that were granted to our qualified applicants. I think 57 percent of our approved vouchers were qualified vouchers. And about 85 percent of the families at St. Joseph who applied for vouchers received one. They were ready to go with the correct information, their documents were scanned and ready to go, and they had their alarms set leading to the window opening up online. I’m very proud of our community for their readiness,” Mr. Zengel shared.

The numbers appear to be strong across the diocese.

“Most everybody (the 10 schools) is pretty consistent. Between 25 and 35 percent of their students received the vouchers across the board. We (St. Joseph) probably are the anomaly percentagewise. I know working with Knoxville Catholic High School that it is right at 32 percent. So, right at 30 percent of the students in the diocese will have a voucher next year, which should have a profound impact on everyone in the schools. Knoxville Catholic got about 214 vouchers, which is about $1.6 million,” Father Michelson said.

Bishop Mark Beckman and the school leaders believe Tennessee’s scholarship program can have a significant impact.

“This has the potential to be a game-changer for our schools,” Mr. Valadie said.

As schools were entering the 2025-26 academic year, Mr. Valadie was crunching the diocesan-wide scholarship numbers, looking for trends among the 10 campuses and their nearly 3,600 students.

“We will have right at 1,100 students receiving a voucher,” Mr. Valadie said. “In our world, 54 percent of the students in our schools received universal scholarships and 46 percent received qualified scholarships. Half of the 1,100 students we know have financial need. One of two paths is there for them. Either we are already helping them with financial aid and the scholarships help us recoup some of that money and the schools can then provide that financial-aid money to another family, or maybe they weren’t receiving any financial aid at all but now have $7,295 that they can apply to their tuition bill.”

And of $144.2 million the state has earmarked for the scholarships, Diocese of Knoxville schools will receive more than $7 million.

Tennessee has 626 private schools. In 2021-22, some 960,000 Tennessee children, or 85 percent of all school-aged kids, were enrolled in public schools, according to the Sycamore Institute in a February 2025 report. In the 2024-25 academic year, 3,453 students were enrolled in Diocese of Knoxville schools, including pre-kindergarten.

Setting the record straight

Mr. Valadie, like Father Michelson and Mr. Zengel, has been a proponent of school choice. He is gratified that state political leaders have finally agreed that students from all corners of Tennessee can have the opportunity for a Catholic education. They would like to see the program expand even as it is in its first month.

“I think all of our schools, administrators, and pastors are hopeful that the program, first of all, will just stay in place and won’t be at the whim of the next political party that wants to go on a different path,” Mr. Valadie said. “We want to see it last a long time. We would like to see it last forever.”

“But even in the short term, even if it doesn’t last forever, the impact that it has had in one year is significant because our schools will benefit in excess of $7 million in tuition, making it possible for families to become part of the (Catholic school) system who haven’t been. It makes it easier for people who have been part of the system to be able to continue in the system,” he added.

Mr. Valadie is aware of the criticisms laid on the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship program. And he has heard the longtime arguments against school choice and the opinion that public schools are required to take all students and private schools can cherry-pick who they enroll.

He’s not buying it, not any more.

As a 48-year veteran educator and chief administrator of the diocese’s eight elementary schools and two high schools in Chattanooga, Kingsport, Johnson City, Oak Ridge, Farragut, and Knoxville, he has first-hand experience teaching students from all levels of ability.

“The bandwidth of struggling students who bring academic challenges is much, much, much broader than it used to be. It’s still not broad enough. We should do a better job,” said Mr. Valadie, referring to Catholic schools and the fact they enroll students from all walks of life and with all levels of academic ability. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to expand and take even more students who struggle. But we can’t take everybody because we’re not going to take somebody’s money and say we can do something we can’t do. But we are taking more academically challenged students than we did years ago.”

“Having said that, why shouldn’t a parent have the right to find a school that will serve their child and take their money there? Maybe it’s not our Catholic school. Maybe it’s this private school or that private school. Why not? Because parents know what their kids need most, and if it’s not us, then find the one that works best,” he added. “I think that’s what the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship program is trying to do.”

That doesn’t mean Mr. Valadie can’t share concerns about the new scholarship program that others have.

He would have liked families not already part of private schools and taking part in the scholarship program for the first time to be better informed about the private-school enrollment process.

“What I never saw come out, especially for those who don’t live in the private-school world, is there is an application process, and there is a getting-accepted process, and for some a financial-aid process, all of that with a private school.

I think some people mistakenly thought, ‘I have a voucher; I can take it wherever I want. I’m in,’ done deal,” Mr. Valadie said.

The former principal of Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga said parents looking at private school for the first time need to know that those schools have an application process and requirements that all incoming students must meet. He pointed out that first-time private-school parents may not realize specifics such as tuition is likely more than the $7,295 the state is providing per child, transportation to and from school is not provided, or uniforms are required.

Mr. Valadie is aware there will be families who benefit from the scholarships who already have financial resources. Some of them were already paying full tuition and received the unrestricted or “universal” scholarships. He noted that another way the Diocese of Knoxville can benefit is if families who receive those universal scholarships donate some or all of the money they would have spent on tuition to a diocesan school or parish.

Still, he believes need is easily misunderstood.

“The criticism makes an assumption that those people don’t have a need. I think they do have a need. Just because you happen to cross the financial-barrier line that was set, your life might not be that dramatically different,” he said.

But he also recognizes that there are different levels of need, and the Catholic Church has an obligation to provide a Catholic education to as many students as possible regardless of income. To do that, the Diocese of Knoxville already offers financial assistance to school families who need a helping hand.

“We already award $6.8 million in financial assistance to students across our diocese, which comes from parishes, parishioners, alumni, parents, grandparents, and endowments. All of that is an attempt to help families do what we have been wanting to do: to have a choice and come to our schools,” Mr. Valadie said.

He emphasized that state scholarship money, as an unintended consequence, will aid in providing that diocesan financial assistance to other families in need. “And that is all in hope of spreading the mission, spreading the Word, evangelizing.”

“There is always a need for continued financial assistance for those in need. The state scholarships do not change that,” he said. “We are hopeful that the new program lasts and continues to spread. But that’s not where it is at the moment, so absolutely the financial need is there. We are very supportive of the process. We have followed Bishop Beckman’s lead in that regard about the desire to see families have choice.”

Father Michelson and Father David Boettner, rector of the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, who leads the diocese’s largest elementary school, recognize how financial aid in the diocese can benefit from the Tennessee Education Freedom scholarships. As more families participate in the state program, that makes diocesan financial assistance available to families who previously weren’t able to receive it.

“We redistributed about $90,000 from families who were going to get financial assistance from the diocese’s regional Catholic schools fund, and we were able to then take that and help others who had applied,” Father Michelson said.

Father Boettner explained that the financial impact of the scholarships on Sacred Heart Cathedral School is limited but still potentially very positive.

“Honestly, the financial impact on the school is kind of negligible because what it does is reduce a family’s liability for tuition. But the hope is that it frees up some dollars for them to maybe be more generous in their tithing or in their contribution to the school’s annual fund,” he said.

The cathedral rector shares the view that it’s a myth that the scholarships will keep money from going to public education.

“The thing people always forget is that sometimes it’s portrayed as taking funds away from public schools. That’s not really true. The funds follow the student. So, wherever these students are in school, the funds ought to follow those students. I really believe that if we are serious about public education in the sense of the whole public having a stake in the educational future of our children, then this is exactly the right direction to go because it allows parents to have the choice to say these are the values that I know will guide and direct my children so that they will understand and seek their ultimate purpose, which is salvation,” Father Boettner said.

He is all for the state scholarship program expanding.

“I’ve watched our families for so many years make such huge sacrifices to be able to send their children to Catholic schools. Even though the Tennessee Education Freedom scholarships don’t cover the full cost of tuition, what they effectively do is give our parents a little bit of breathing space and allow them to really know that they have the ability to see their children through Catholic schools all the way,” he said. “The other thing that I love is it has opened up the possibility for some of our new Catholic families to really take a second look and think that Catholic school is an option. It always has been, and we always will work with any family to make it affordable. But I think the scholarships have had the effect of encouraging more people to take a look at Catholic education and see it as a real, viable option for them.”

Mr. Zengel, who is a supporter of public education, is keen on dispelling myths surrounding school choice. He points out that state money for the Tennessee Education Freedom scholarships comes from gaming and the lottery, the same sources that fund the HOPE scholarships, and not property,  sales, or wheel taxes.

“There is this idea that we are taking away from public education. Public education is needed in our state and in our nation. It’s a good thing. We are not trying to take away from that. But we are encouraging families who pay their taxes to apply for this great benefit because it’s a good thing for us to do that,” he said.

What ifs and teacher pay

There is universal concern about the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship program not being resistant to shifts in the political process. And there is widespread support for state government maintaining its position that it will not micromanage the scholarships once they are awarded.

“My only concern with the process, and this goes back to when it was first introduced last year, is this: the way the law has been written has been really thoughtful about how each private school, Catholic schools can preserve their mission and not be beholden to the state and the whims of politics. My hope is that will continue to be a priority of our legislators as we move forward. It is very easy to work with the Department of Education in that regard. It is not trying to come in and run our school. It is not trying to dictate changes in our curriculum or school mission. That is a huge priority for the Diocese of Knoxville. We are not going to be beholden to some other entity outside of the Church,” Mr. Zengel said.

He and Father Michelson expressed apprehension about school choice and the scholarships becoming a political football in Nashville in years to come.

“I agree with that. What happens in three years when we’ve come to rely on it. We’ve gotten used to it. They (parents) have gotten used to it. Then you go back to your families and say tuition is going to cost you $7,295 more. It would be hugely difficult to go back now. The more years that go by, the harder it is going to be to reverse back, especially if we go to a smaller percentage increase in tuition because of the vouchers and then the vouchers go away, then we are way behind. That is the big fear out there. Will they change the law to dictate some things that we couldn’t live with or it goes away?” Father Michelson said.

Another twist is the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress this summer that includes a significant provision for school choice. The federal law establishes a federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, effectively creating a national school-voucher program that would allow eligible students to use scholarships for educational expenses, including private-school tuition, tutoring, and other qualifying education costs.

States must choose whether to participate in this income-based program or not, and it remains to be seen if Tennessee will take part. The federal scholarships are available only to students in participating states. The program is set to begin on Jan. 1, 2027.

Mr. Valadie noted that the federal program potentially is another opportunity for families who aren’t participating in the Tennessee Education Freedom scholarships to take part in school choice.

In the meantime, Mr. Valadie, Father Michelson, Father Boettner, and Mr. Zengel are celebrating school choice in Tennessee and what that means for Catholic education in the Diocese of Knoxville.

The two priests already are assessing the effect on teacher salaries.

“The vouchers are going to have a long-lasting, profound impact. Generally, in the last few years we have reached the point where we had to have a 6 percent tuition increase to be able to give teachers a 6 percent salary increase. We’re hoping that maybe as a result of the vouchers it’s a 2 percent tuition increase and a 6 percent salary increase for teachers so we can keep getting our teachers closer to where they need to be in salary and not put as much of a burden on families,” Father Michelson reasoned.

That sentiment is being shared by other diocesan schools.

“What we have done this year is let all of our parents who received the scholarships know that anything they donate back to the school we want to put 100 percent toward our teacher salaries to really continue bringing our teacher salaries up to a higher level,” Father Boettner added about Sacred Heart Cathedral School.

St. Joseph is typical of the 10 Diocese of Knoxville schools. Balancing the annual budget is challenging and the schools rely on development efforts like fundraisers to help income equal expenses. Father Michelson said St. Joseph had to raise about $500,000 from development activities in the last school year to maintain its budget. He noted that $475,000 of that amount came from fundraisers.

The Tennessee Education Freedom scholarships can potentially free up money for more giving to schools and parishes, providing much-needed relief for budgets.

All agree the bottom line is evangelization and salvation, bringing Jesus and His Word to students in the classroom.

Mr. Valadie cited St. John Neumann, who was dedicated to Catholic education and recognized that Catholic schools were crucial for preserving the faith and identity of Catholic children.

“I believe the saying that if you want to grow the Catholic Church, grow the schools,” he said. “There is a wealth of studies and statistics that demonstrate the impact that Catholic schools have on faith and lifelong churchgoers and lifelong contributors to the Church. Those numbers have existed for years and will continue to exist.”

If school choice and state scholarships or vouchers can help further this mission, the Diocese of Knoxville is all in.

“As a system of 10 private schools, I think we did a phenomenal job of educating our families and educating as many people as we could. I wasn’t really sure how it would go, but I knew it had the potential to make that kind of difference for us. We went after it from an educational perspective as hard as we could. Our principals and pastors worked like Trojans to get the information out,” Mr. Valadie said.

And regardless of how the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship program plays out, all involved in Catholic education in East Tennessee—from Bishop Beckman to families—see school choice as a blessing.

“I don’t think that we’ll ever wish that it would have never started. I don’t think we’ll ever feel that way because right now, today, there are families benefiting, wherever they choose to go to school,” Mr. Valadie said. “Is it conceivable that political winds change and it’s taken away 15 years from now, and will it cause hardship? Yes. Will it eliminate us? No. I like our history, 2,000 years’ worth. This is not going to be the end all or be all. I don’t think we’ll ever regret having this opportunity.”