New data shows 602 Hamilton County students are enrolled in private schools via Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program (EFS), with almost 50 of that number belonging to a Muslim school rooted in Islamic studies.
Gov. Lee told News Channel 9 that he believes the high demand for EFS points to the program’s success and is proof that it needs to expand. “In the first couple of hours, we had over 40,000 scholarship applications for 20,000 scholarships,” Lee said. “That tells us there is a great demand for this, and we should work to meet that demand. That’s the reason I believe we ought to expand scholarships this year, and I think the General Assembly leadership has expressed a desire to do so as well.”
Yet the governor also admitted there is not enough data to determine whether there are any significant problems that need to be addressed by the Department of Education before the program grows, despite his commitment to increase the availability of the program.
“We will obviously watch the data and see what impacts it has. The biggest impact for me is that parents get to decide- parents who otherwise didn’t have that choice or option for their kid, they now have it, and I think there’s no one better to decide the educational options for their children that those who raise those kids,” he said.
