In an exclusive interview, Blackburn expressed support for removing tuition requirements for out-of-district students and charter school funding.

Lee said demand warrants the investment in what’s expected to be a tighter budget year to expand the number of scholarships to 40,000.

State Representative Justin Jones, D-Nashville, represents a district that touches four school clusters with some of the highest performing public charter schools in Nashville.Those charters in east and southeast Nashville include a dozen that outscored the average grade district run public schools received in their cluster on the state’s School Letter Grades assessment. The remaining public charter schools scored equal to the cluster average and 40 percent of the Reward schools in these four clusters are charters.