Tennessee legislation · 114th General Assembly
Tennessee HB2277: AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4, Chapter 29 and Title 49, relative to education.
Status: Chaptered, May 27, 2026
Fiscal Summary STATE GOVERNMENTEXPENDITURESGeneral FundFY26-27$19,500FY27-28$19,500 OTHER FISCAL IMPACT For local education agencies and public charter schools that are currently paying to use a reading screener and that will be required to start administering the state-provided reading screener provided at no cost, a decrease in local expenditures will occur, the extent of which cannot be reasonably determined. Bill Summary This bill requires each public school, including public charter schools, to annually submit to the department of education, or a form developed by the department, a list of all local assessments administered to the students enrolled in the public school each school year, and the schedule for when each such local assessment is administered. The full text of this bill specifies information that must be included for each reported local assessment. For purposes of this bill, "local assessment" means a standardized test or assessment selected by an LEA or public school that is administered to students at the sole direction of the LEA or public school. This bill specifies that the following are not a local assessment: (1) A TCAP test or any other standardized assessment or screener administered to students by an LEA or public school pursuant to state law or any rule of the state board of education or the department of education; or (2) An assessment, test, assignment, project, or quiz that is administered only to students in certain classrooms at the direction of the classroom teacher for purposes of assessing student proficiency in a subject, branch of a subject, or in the curricula or instructional materials assigned to students in the classroom. This bill requires the department to compile the local assessment information reported by public schools and make the information available to the public
What the bill says
From the amended text:
Amendment No. 3 to HB2277 Bulso Signature of Sponsor AMEND S e n ate Bill No. 2403* House Bill No. 2277 by deleting Sections 6 and 7 and substituting: SECTION 6. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 49, Chapter 6, is amended by adding the following as a new part: 49-6-8201. Short title. This part is known and may be cited as the "Protecting Religious Liberty and Expression in Public Schools Act." 49-6-8202. Findings. The general assembly finds and determines that: (1) Nativists were deeply prejudiced against ecclesiastical organizations and especially the Catholic Church; (2) Nativists gave expression and force to these anti-Catholic animosities by advocating the notion of separation of church and state; (3) The idea of separation of church and state departs from the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of Tennessee and the religious liberty guaranteed by the United States Constitution by restricting not only government but also religion and by discriminating against churches and other ecclesiastical religion, in contrast to more individualistic spirituality; (4) Nativists promoted notions of generically "American" liberties, which flattened out the difference between state and federal rights, and which laid a foundation for the supreme court's decisions incorporating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause against the states; HA1156 (5) Nativists thereby inculcated the idea that states must conform to the so-called separation of church and …