When Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced his latest Education Freedom Scholarship proposal last fall, it included a $2,000 bonus for public school teachers.
It was the spoonful of sugar that was supposed to help the medicine go down.
Although the lion’s share of the budgeted scholarship money would go to pay for eligible students to attend willing private schools, the bonuses were a sort of “we haven’t forgotten you” gesture from the governor.
Most teachers and public school advocates saw it for what it was — an inducement of sorts — and many across the state said teachers shouldn’t take it.
“Any legislation that includes a bribe is bad,” Hamilton County Board of Education member Ben Connor said at a board meeting in December 2024. “When you recognize that your bill is so bad that every teacher just about in the entire state hates it, that you’ve got to put in a $2,000 bribe just to get them to kind of like it. It sucks.