Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee told Fox News Digital that he believes President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory signals success for a second school choice bill introduced to the state Legislature this week after his first proposal failed this year.

Lee said he agreed with Trump’s promises to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, reflecting the president-elect’s concern that the federal bureaucracy is becoming entrenched in gender and racial ideology rather than learning.

“I think it’s a good idea to dismantle Department of Education federally. And I strongly believe that policy at the state level should be handled by states, as states know best,” Lee told Fox News Digital. “In this case, states absolutely know best. We know best in Tennessee what our children need and how to best educate our children. The parents of this state should be given a greater say in how their children are educated, and that will happen if the federal Department of Education is dismantled and these funds are delivered to states to be used more efficiently and effectively.”

Lee said the political environment on the ground in the state is not what it was months ago when the first school choice bill failed in the state Legislature. Since then, the election has seen a wave of pro-school choice candidates win at the state level, and Trump succeeded in his bid for the White House.

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Gov. Bill Lee discusses the devastation from Hurricane Helene at the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency on Oct. 2, 2024, in Nashville. (Mark Zaleski/The Tennessean/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

“President Trump has long believed that school choice is important to the people of this country and that educational freedom is something that all Americans should have. He’s talked about it. He’s campaigned for it,” Lee said. “One thing is very clear about what happened last week. And President Trump is very clear about what his policy is, and the American people were very clear that they accept that policy last week. They, with a strong mandate, said we like that we We want him to carry out these things and that President Trump has a significant understanding and a clear understanding and is the leader, frankly, on the issue of school choice.

Lee’s new school choice law, titled the Education Freedom Act of 2025, was introduced jointly to the state House and Senate on Wednesday.

Withdrawal from financing already approved by the state legislaturethe bill would allow the state Department of Education to award up to 20,000 scholarships — valued at about $7,000 each — for the next school year to be spent on tuition, tutoring, technology and research costs. The first 10,000 scholarships would be set aside for low-income students whose parents might not otherwise be able to afford to send their children to institutions other than the public schools in their district.

Democrats have painted school choice as disenfranchising low-income students, but Lee said he feels the opposite.

“Every child is unique. Every child has different learning styles. Every child has a different life situation. And every family should have the opportunity to choose the best path for their child,” the governor said. “In particular, I don’t think that only the wealthy families who can afford a private option, that those families should be the only ones and those children should be the only ones who have that option to choose.”

President-elect Trump has outlined his Cabinet nominations. (Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Often opponents will say school choice initiatives hurt public schools. I think it’s just the opposite,” Lee said. “This legislation that we’re actually bringing forward is an education policy initiative. It’s not just an Education Freedom Scholarship bill. It includes historic funding for public schools, bonuses for teachers, for public school teachers. We will include along with this legislation a teacher pay raise plan that will put us in the top 15 states for teacher pay raises in the country.”

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Lee noted that about 30 states already have school choice, 12 of them have universal school choice, and several of those states have passed their initiatives in recent years.

“Americans are growing in numbers, and now the majority of Americans, as evidenced by recent elections, have come to believe that school choice is the way of the future,” Lee said. “It’s the answer to challenging the status quo. It’s the way to take America’s rankings and educational outcomes that used to be the top in the world from way down the list in terms of other countries back to the outcomes that we hope for this country.”

“This is a way to challenge and change and bring innovation into an education system that has become stale and bloated and bureaucratic,” Lee said. “And we’re seeing it happen across America. We think it’s going to happen in Tennessee. It’s an incredibly important moment in our country for parents’ rights and for the future of children and their education.”

Lee said his schooling growing up in Tennessee took place before the U.S. Department of Education was formed in 1979.

“We knew how to do it then. We know how to do it now,” Lee said, explaining that Tennessee created a funding formula that “uniquely recognizes the needs of children with disabilities, with dyslexia and with English as a second language.” We know how to fund education for children in Tennessee. We know much better than they do in a bureaucratic institution like the federal Department of Education. i think President Trump is absolutely right. I think it’s a great idea.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee looks at a section of Interstate 26 over the Nolichucky River that collapsed during a flood in Erwin on Oct. 1, 2024. (Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

“As governor, I would welcome the partnership with President Trump to allow states to choose and decide how best to spend education dollars for their children,” he added.

If Trump goes through with eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, experts expect the process could take years.

With Cabinet nominations underway, Fox News Digital asked Lee who he would like to see as Trump’s education secretary and whether the governor would consider throwing in his own name.

“What I will say is and what I hope is that whoever takes this job is looking to work their way out of a job,” Lee said. “It takes the right kind of leaders who really understand, and I think, really understand how states can work and how problematic for states federal bureaucracies are. Governors understand that. There are a lot of people who would be well qualified for this, but the next person must hope to get out of a job.”

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After the devastation of Hurricane Helene, the governor said the new school choice bill would also provide state dollars from its sports game revenue to the construction and maintenance of public school facilities. The bill also offers $2,000 one-time bonuses to every teacher in the state and promises supplemental funding for school districts affected by enrollment declines.

“We can have the best public schools in America,” Lee said. “We can devote the right amount of money and the right amount of focus. We can strengthen and support our public schools in an unprecedented way and provide freedom and opportunity for parents and choices. At the same time, they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they should not be it. We should improve the educational opportunities for every child in our state and will do so through this legislation.”