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Tennessee public schools could soon be required to teach the “success sequence” – that the keys to future success are to graduate high school; enter the workforce or pursue postsecondary education; marry, and then have children. The state joins others around the country introducing legislation around the controversial education idea.
The state House approved the bill, 73-20, on Monday, sending the legislation to Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s desk for his signature. The Tennessee Senate previously passed the bill in a 25-5 vote.
Educators would be required to teach the success sequence as part of family life education beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
Utah’s governor recently signed similar legislation into law. Several states, including Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, and Ohio, have introduced bills related to the success sequence this year.
The success sequence was popularized in the early 2000s by researchers who argued this life path yields better economic prospects in adulthood. Critics have argued that it places a burden on individuals rather than structures that drive poverty, like access to quality education, housing, and infrastructure.
Research from conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute in 2021 found that 76% of U.S. parents support teaching the sequence.
A 2020 report contracted by the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration broadly found an association between these individual milestones – education, full-time employment, and marriage before children – and lower poverty rates. However, the report found more research is needed as to whether the sequence causes this success. The report also found relatively few studies that examined the sequence as a whole.
More recently, the success sequence has become a touchstone in conservative-leaning education policy circles, promoted by charter school founder Ian Rowe, a senior fellow at AEI. U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s first official K-12 school visit was to Rowe’s charter school in New York City in March.
Much of the bill’s language matches model legislation from The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that published Project 2025, a policy plan built to reshape the U.S. government.
Republican Rep. Gino Bulso of Brentwood sponsored the bill.
“It’s demonstrated that the nuclear family is the best antidote that we have in society to avoiding poverty,” Bulso said during earlier debate on the bill.
Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn of Nashville attempted to add language to also teach economic barriers that can prevent students from completing the sequence, but the amendment failed to be considered.
“What you are trying to do refuses to acknowledge the diversity and plurality of the human experience,” she said. “(This bill) ignores the real barriers that people face, including me, a millennial woman.”
