Chalkbeat

With an ally in the White House, Moms for Liberty renews its fight against a longtime target

2025-02-27T23:07:38+00:00

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In a small recording studio near Nashville, Tennessee, conservative activist Kelly Schenkoske urged an online audience of parents to scour school district websites for contracts that mention social and emotional learning.

“Social-emotional learning is far more than just kindness,” Schenkoske said. “It is a bait and switch.”

The bait, according to Schenkoske and other panelists at the recent Moms for Liberty training event, is small shifts in the school day to introduce students to lessons about virtuous qualities like empathy and compassion.

The switch, they said, is to make children sympathetic to what they see as progressive ideas, ranging from open borders and acceptance of homosexuality to gun control, action against climate change, and redistribution of wealth.

“You send your child with your value system, your own beliefs, and now they’re getting the government’s value system installed into them,” warned Schenkoske, who hosts a podcast from her California home about education and parent rights.

The two-hour training session was the first installment in Moms for Liberty U, an online course meant to drive conservative parent activism in the group’s continuing effort to sway local and national education agendas.

That it focused on social and emotional learning illustrates the staying power of conservatives’ concerns about schools’ role in addressing student well-being. These concerns stretch back years, even as research on SEL shows wide-ranging benefits for students.

Now Moms for Liberty has an ally in the White House, with President Donald Trump painting schools as centers of radical indoctrination and signing executive orders that seek to stamp out teaching about systemic racism and policies supportive of transgender youth.

The group’s future trainings will cover critical race theory, restorative justice, sex education, library content, Marxism, and more — topics that are under scrutiny by the new administration and more prominent in public conversation.

Tiffany Justice, a Florida mom, activist, and former school board member who co-founded Moms for Liberty, sees SEL at the root of everything. She hopes the administration soon will call it out by name too.

“It’s very hard to focus on learning math if we’re all talking about, you know, Johnny’s dog that died.”
Tiffany Justice, co-founder, Moms for Liberty

Parents who agree with the Trump administration can “take those executive orders, that messaging, and really make it come alive throughout the entire country,” Justice told Chalkbeat.

SEL use grew in schools after the pandemic

Social and emotional learning is an educational approach introduced in the 1960s to teach life skills designed to help children manage stress, treat others with respect and empathy, work cooperatively, and recognize and regulate their emotions.

The use of SEL tools has increased as educators seek to help students rebound academically and emotionally from disruptions to schooling and children’s daily lives after the COVID pandemic emerged in early 2020.

About 83% of principals reported last year that their schools use an SEL curriculum or program, compared with 73% in the 2021-22 school year and 46% in 2017-18, based on a nationally representative survey by RAND Corp. and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.

A cafeteria mural at a Tennessee school promotes kindness, a tenet of programs that emphasize social and emotional learning. The educational approach was introduced in the 1960s to teach life skills designed to help children manage stress, treat others with respect and empathy, work cooperatively, and recognize and regulate their emotions.

Educators say the pandemic deeply affected students’ mental health, contributing to higher rates of depression and anxiety. And national studies highlight an urgent need to provide kids with tailor-made interventions. An infusion of federal aid for education during the pandemic helped to fuel the growth in SEL adoption.

The programs vary in quality. But a large analysis of studies on SEL published in 2023 found a wide range of positive effects, including better academic performance, homework completion, and attendance, a major area of concern nationwide since the pandemic.

Though teachers sometimes complain that SEL is one more thing piled on their very full plates and could distract from pure academics, the analysis also found that programs led by teachers had more positive effects than those led by counselors or outsiders.

“It’s frustrating to see the science and impacts in schools and then to see the noise around the banning of SEL,” said Christina Cipriano, an associate professor at Yale University and lead author of the meta-analysis, which synthesized more than 400 studies over 13 years that collectively included half a million children.

Cipriano recalled a trip to Washington, D.C., to talk with policymakers about using science to make decisions, including about social and emotional learning. One Republican congressional staffer told her that their constituents would love everything about her work — except the name.

“You have a Control-F problem,” the staffer said, referring to the computer keyboard command that lets someone easily find a term in documents such as school district contracts to purchase SEL products and services.

Polls back that up. Large numbers of parents support the idea that schools should teach interpersonal skills and self-regulation, but far fewer react positively to the term “social and emotional learning.”

Another SEL backlash brews

Justice, now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with close ties to the Trump administration, described social and emotional learning as a “Trojan horse” that opens students to ways of thinking that run counter to what parents teach at home. For example, an emphasis on kindness might lead a student to feel pressure to use a transgender classmate’s preferred pronouns, she said, when that makes the first student uncomfortable and runs counter to their parents’ values.

That’s why Moms for Liberty U started its parent training series with a focus on social and emotional learning.

“We had to start here, because this is what opens the child up to the indoctrination,” Justice said. “It’s the programming mechanism that allows for gender ideology to come in, for critical race theory to come in.”

The training session, which was taped early this year, describes SEL as being tucked into dozens of programs and tools in common use in schools, from teacher-parent messaging platforms to programs designed to make recess a more positive experience. Panelists named surveys on youth well-being as another example of SEL.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice (far right) moderates a panel discussion during the organization's new national training program for parents on monthly education topics. The first session, recorded near Nashville, featured (from left) author Alex Newman, parent activist Kelly Schenkoske, and psychology professor Jennifer Kom.

Alex Neuman, a conservative author who appeared on the inaugural training panel, said the ultimate goal of SEL is “de-Christianizing education,” something he traces back to Horace Mann, the 19th century social reformer considered one of the fathers of public education.

Panelist Jennifer Kom, a psychology professor at Bethany Lutheran College in Minnesota, said SEL forces teachers to be therapists and leads children to disclose personal matters that can lead to bullying.

Their arguments were enough to convince Tennessee mom Genevieve Pahos to take her activism a step further.

Pahos was part of a small live audience at the taping. A Moms for Liberty chapter leader in Williamson County, south of Nashville, she already had heard many of the arguments against SEL, but she said the session inspired her to start filing more public records requests about SEL programs in her local districts.

“I learned a lot from some of the speakers,” she said, “about how to find out what’s really happening in our schools.”

Speaking to Chalkbeat after the training session, Justice said schools should stick to academics.

“Kids are sad sometimes; it’s OK to be sad sometimes,” she said. “But we need to help children be resilient and find their way through (sadness) by finding interest in life and success in school and giving them the confidence that they get from mastery of skills in the classroom.”

Put another way: “It ends up having kids marinating in their feelings all day. It’s very hard to focus on learning math if we’re all talking about, you know, Johnny’s dog that died.”

Researcher: Schools should include families in SEL programming

Even supporters of social and emotional learning are sometimes fuzzy on what SEL is and isn’t, Cipriano said, which can make it hard to have productive conversations across different viewpoints.

SEL is not therapy or a mental health intervention, she said. But done well, it might mean fewer children need mental health support down the road, just as teaching reading properly to all students might mean fewer students need special education services.

Building resilience — so that students can focus on academics even when bad things are happening around them — is one goal of SEL.

School leaders should think about what problems they want to solve and how they’ll support teachers, Cipriano said, not just adopt a social and emotional learning curriculum because it seems like the thing to do.

She’s working on a public database that she hopes will help school communities make better decisions about which curriculum or products to invest in. Users will be able to see what outcomes were generated by certain programs and the types of communities where these programs have been tried.

She sees lots of room for improvement — better teacher training, more rigorous reviews of existing curriculum, and better communication with parents.

“It seems to me that we have a real opportunity to engage families at the outset of implementation so they’re aware of what’s happening in the schools,” she said. “When you talk to parents and families about the strategies involved in social and emotional learning, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t want their child to be a good friend or have less test anxiety.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Here are the charter operators applying to open or run schools in Tennessee in 2026-27

2025-02-25T23:05:58+00:00

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Charter school operators have applied to open or run 13 schools in five Tennessee school systems beginning in the fall of 2026 amid the state’s rapidly changing school-choice landscape.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools received five applications by this month’s deadline — the most by any school system statewide, according to the state education department.

They include two from IOTA Community Schools asking for new 10-year charters to continue operating schools in its network that are set to exit the state-run Achievement School District next year.

And two aspiring charter operators are interested in opening Tennessee’s first-ever “opportunity” charter schools in Memphis and Nashville under a 2024 state law aimed at creating learning options for youth considered at risk of becoming disconnected from traditional public schools.

School choice options are expanding rapidly under policies pushed by Gov. Bill Lee and panned by critics who say they are destabilizing traditional public schools. Traditional public schools serve most of the state’s nearly 1 million students, including historically underserved groups.

The state is preparing to launch a universal school voucher program this fall to give up to 20,000 students taxpayer funds to pay toward private school tuition.

And a new charter school proposal from Lee would create ways for operators to bypass their local elected school boards and apply directly to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission for authorization to open more of the independently governed but publicly funded schools.

If that bill becomes law, some of its provisions could kick in with this year’s cohort of charter applicants.

The filings kick off application reviews by staff for each receiving school system, which will recommend to their school boards whether to approve or deny them this spring.

Based on that local feedback, rejected applicants can submit revised applications for another school board vote this summer. Applicants that are denied again can appeal that decision to the state commission to vote on this fall.

Last year, nine applicants met the state’s Feb. 1 deadline to submit proposals to open a charter school for 2025-26. Six were ultimately approved, including four on appeal.

In 2023, 14 operators applied, and six were ultimately approved, including four on appeal.

New legislation, new law could impact Tennessee’s charter sector

Under the governor’s new legislative proposal to revise charter school law, beginning this July 1, any school board whose decision to deny a charter application is overturned by the state three times within three years could be bypassed, allowing a charter operator to apply directly to the state charter commission for authorization during the next five years.

Also at play this year is the 2024 opportunity charter school law, pushed by House Speaker Cameron Sexton, to open new charter school campuses for middle or high school students who are considered at risk.

At least 75% of each school’s students would have to be documented as dealing with any of a range of challenges such as juvenile crime, substance abuse, chronic absenteeism, teen pregnancy, getting held back in several grades, dropping out of school, or experiencing abuse or neglect.

Opportunity charter schools would operate under different standards than traditional public schools or other public charter schools.

If their opportunity charter applications are approved, the Still I Rise Academy in Memphis and The Rock Academy in Nashville schools would not receive A-F letter grades in their first year of operation, based on rules approved in December by the state Board of Education.

After that, the state’s calculation to grade opportunity charter middle schools would place slightly more importance on academic growth than on student proficiency. And the state’s grades for opportunity charter high schools would emphasize college and career readiness.

Hillsdale-linked charter group didn’t apply again

Missing for a second straight year from the state’s list of charter applicants is American Classical Education, the group associated with Michigan’s Hillsdale College. Hillsdale made headlines in 2022 with Lee’s endorsement and invitation to its leaders to apply to open at least 50 charter schools across Tennessee that align with the governor’s conservative beliefs regarding civics and history.

American Classical withdrew its first three applications later that year amid public outrage over Hillsdale President Larry Arnn’s comment that teachers are “trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

In 2023, American Classical was approved to open two charter schools in Tennessee, one authorized locally in Rutherford County and the other approved by the state commission on appeal for Madison County.

Asked why the network didn’t seek new charters in 2025, board member Tricia Stickel told Chalkbeat that American Classical is focused on supporting its new Rutherford County school, which opened in La Vergne last August.

The Madison County charter, which in January received its second one-year delay to launch, is now scheduled to open for 2026-27 as American Classical seeks to hire a leader and secure a campus location.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee teachers should follow Trump’s ‘Gulf of America’ order, GOP leader says

2025-02-21T16:31:52+00:00

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A state Republican leader has introduced a resolution encouraging Tennessee teachers, especially geography teachers, to use the names Gulf of America and Mount McKinley when speaking with their students about map locations recently rebranded by President Donald Trump.

As a proposed resolution and not a law, the measure would not place any mandates or requirements on teachers if it’s approved.

State Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, filed his resolution Thursday and had amassed 19 co-sponsors, including Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, by the end of the day, ensuring its passage in the 33-member Senate.

Watson’s resolution follows Trump’s executive order renaming as the Gulf of America the body of water that for 400 years has been known internationally as the Gulf of Mexico. The order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — also reversed President Barack Obama’s 2015 executive order renaming Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the nation’s highest peak, as Denali, the site’s Native Alaskan name.

Republican lawmakers in Iowa already have advanced a bill that would require schools to change educational materials to map names that align with Trump’s “America First” worldview.

The Tennessee proposal reads: “We most heartily agree with President Trump that ‘the naming of our national treasures … should honor the contribution of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation’s rich past.’”

On Friday, Senate Democrats called the resolution a “distraction” to important education matters aimed at preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow.

“Everybody has a right to file resolutions if they think it’s important, but it’s not going to be one that I’ll support,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis.

Trump’s order has already sparked reflection, discussion, and debate among teachers, as well as mapmakers, journalists, and textbook publishers who seek to stay apolitical about map lines that are inherently political.

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, said his organization’s board has not taken a position so far or offered guidance to social studies teachers who are its members.

“Personally, I believe what teachers will do is what’s in the best interest of students,” said Finchum, a retired social studies teacher from Jefferson County.

“I don’t think they’re going to ignore the topic, but I also don’t think they’ll simply call it the Gulf of America and continue with the lesson,” he said. “In Tennessee, geography is primarily taught in middle and high school, so these students are old enough to have heard the words Gulf of Mexico. If you just call it the Gulf of America, some student is going to raise their hand.”

Tennessee, which overwhelmingly voted for Trump last fall and where Republicans have a firm grip on state government, has been an early adopter of laws stoking culture war battles around education in recent years.

In 2021, it became one of the first states to enact a law intended to restrict K-12 classroom discussions about race, gender, and bias. That law is being challenged in court by a group of teachers and the state’s largest teacher organization.

Under Republican Gov. Bill Lee, the legislature also has passed several laws leading to the purging of hundreds of library books from public schools, with titles involving race, sex, and the Holocaust among the most frequent targets.

And earlier this month, Watson introduced a bill that could allow school districts and charter schools to bar undocumented students from enrolling, potentially challenging a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitling all children to a public education regardless of their immigration status.

Sen. Bo Watson, a Republican from Hixson, chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly.

His latest resolution says the body of water between Florida and Mexico warrants renaming because of the gulf’s pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy.

Regarding the name of the nation’s highest peak in Alaska, the resolution cites President William McKinley’s leadership behind the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War and the nation’s rapid expansion, including the annexations of Puerto Rico, Guam, and Hawaii, during McKinley’s administration from 1897 until his assassination in 1901.

Informally, Alaskans have called the snow-covered mountain Denali, its Native name, for decades. President McKinley, who was from Ohio, never set foot in the state.

You can track the resolution on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Last schools in Tennessee’s shrinking Achievement School District seek to make their move

2025-02-21T00:33:23+00:00

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The operator of the last charter schools in Tennessee’s waning Achievement School District is seeking to continue managing them as part of their original school system in Memphis.

A decade ago, the State of Tennessee took over Kirby Middle and Hillcrest High schools due to low academic performance and assigned them to a charter management group called Green Dot Public Schools, now known as IOTA Community Schools.

The schools didn’t improve enough to exit the ASD on their own under a turnaround plan that was never meant to last more than a decade.

But now, with its 10-year contracts with the ASD soon to expire, IOTA has applied with Memphis-Shelby County Schools for new charter agreements to manage the two campuses in southeast Memphis beginning with the 2026-27 school year.

IOTA already is transitioning Wooddale Middle, the third and final Memphis school leaving the ASD, to reopen this fall under a new contract between IOTA and the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

Last fall, the commission authorized IOTA’s new charter after overturning the Memphis school board’s decision to deny its application to continue operating Wooddale.

Planning for the future of the Achievement School District’s last three schools — and its 1,352 students — foreshadows changes ahead for the state’s most ambitious and aggressive school turnaround model, which had 33 schools in its portfolio at its peak in 2016.

The initiative, created under a 2010 state law as part of Tennessee’s federal Race to the Top initiative, has been marred by painful takeovers of neighborhood schools, contentious handoffs to charter networks, and mostly abysmal student performance on state tests.

Last year, a proposal to eliminate the ASD passed the Tennessee Senate but a different version to revamp the program stalled in the House, even as several of the GOP-controlled legislature’s top Republican leaders acknowledged that the model has failed and should be replaced.

Gov. Bill Lee’s administration is expected to propose changes this year, but neither his office nor the state education department has said what that might look like.

Elizabeth Lane Johnson, the governor’s press secretary, confirmed Thursday that Lee’s administration was “working with stakeholders to consider legislation around the Achievement School District.”

A potential successor could be the likely expansion of a small pilot turnaround initiative that began in 2022 with five low-performing schools. It has received generally positive reviews.

The antithesis of the Achievement School District, the pilot model emphasizes collaboration over takeover and does not use charter management organizations to lead its turnaround work. Instead, low-performing schools partner with an independent turnaround expert and a locally appointed committee to create and implement an improvement plan emphasizing data, coaching, and making adjustments in real time.

In Memphis, Trezevant High School and Hawkins Mill Elementary have shown marked improvement under the pilot program with the aid of turnaround consultant Cognia.

Other schools still in the pilot are Jere Baxter Middle School in Nashville and Lincoln Elementary in Jackson-Madison County, both using Ed Direction as their turnaround consultant, with mixed results. Orchard Knob Middle, in Chattanooga, dropped out of the program before it started after Hamilton County school board members said an existing improvement plan was already working.

Fate of the last two ASD schools is uncertain

The future of the last two schools exiting the ASD will be decided this year after staff with Memphis-Shelby County Schools reviews IOTA’s applications and recommends whether to approve them.

Both campuses serve mostly students of color, more than half of whom are considered economically disadvantaged. According to the state’s most recent school report card, Kirby Middle made average progress for its students in 2023-24 and was graded an F by the state. Hillcrest High made below-average progress for its students and was graded a D.

If the Memphis school board denies IOTA’s applications, the network could appeal those decisions to the state commission, which has the power to transition more ASD schools from one state-run district to another state-run district — just as it’s in the process of doing with IOTA’s Wooddale Middle.

Adding to that discussion could be a new charter-friendly proposal from the governor to create ways for charter operators to bypass their local elected school boards and apply directly to the state commission for authorization.

If the legislature passes the governor’s bill, beginning July 1, any school board whose decision to deny a charter application is overturned by the state three times within three years could be bypassed, allowing a charter operator to apply directly to the state commission for authorization during the next five years.

Appealing to the commission isn’t a slam dunk, however. Since it began hearing appeals in 2021, the panel has sided with local school boards on half of their application denials.

State commission is familiar with ASD’s last charter operator

The commission already has one IOTA school in its portfolio.

Bluff City High School opened in Memphis in 2017 when IOTA was part of the Green Dot Public Schools network based in California. Last summer, the network’s charter schools in Memphis transitioned to IOTA, a new Tennessee-based network, after Green Dot ended its expansion efforts in Tennessee and Texas.

Asked Thursday whether she’d prefer to operate under the oversight of Memphis-Shelby County Schools or the state commission, IOTA Executive Director Jocquell Rodgers said she can’t compare them because the local district has never authorized one of the network’s schools.

Under Executive Director Tess Stovall, the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission has expanded its footprint and impact on Tennessee education.

“My goal has always been to forge a relationship with the local district because I believe we serve the same children,” Rodgers said. “But I will say that I’ve enjoyed working with the state charter commission. Their expectations are very clear, and our relationship has helped us build stronger processes as an organization and stronger academic outcomes for our students.”

For instance, when the commission put Bluff City High School on academic probation in 2022, the state was clear about necessary improvement steps, Rodgers said. Last month, in recognition of the school’s progress, the commission moved Bluff City off academic probation to a lesser intervention level.

The state Board of Education rated both the commission and Memphis-Shelby County Schools as “exemplary” in its most recent evaluations of charter authorizers in Tennessee.

The commission currently has six former ASD charter schools in its portfolio, most of which left the turnaround program under a 2021 state law letting higher-achieving ASD schools bypass their home districts to transition to the commission’s control:

Cornerstone Prep Denver
Cornerstone Prep Lester
Lester Prep
LEAD Neely’s Bend
Libertas School of Memphis
Promise Academy Spring Hill

All of those former ASD schools are in Memphis except LEAD Neely’s Bend, which is in Nashville.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Some Tennessee charter school applicants could bypass local districts under governor’s proposal

2025-02-13T23:52:04+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee is pushing for a major revision to Tennessee charter school law to create ways for operators to bypass their local elected school boards and apply directly to a state commission for authorization.

The legislature’s Republican majority leaders have filed a bill on behalf of Lee’s administration to create three new pathways for charter school operators to seek approval from the state:

Beginning July 1, any school board whose decision to deny a charter application is overturned by the state three times within three years could be bypassed, allowing a charter operator to apply directly to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission for authorization during the next five years.
Public colleges and universities could apply to the state commission to open a charter school for K-12 students.
An operator with at least one charter school that is authorized by a local school board or the state commission and that has been operational for at least one year could apply either to the local district or state commission to replicate its model to create one or more charter schools.

If the Republican governor’s bill passes the GOP-controlled legislature, the measure could further dilute local control over Tennessee’s charter sector, while giving the powerful 4-year-old commission even more authority to open and close publicly funded but independently controlled charter schools.

The commission, whose nine members are appointed by the governor, already has significantly expanded its footprint through an appellate process that allows the state to authorize and open charter schools when overturning a local board’s application denial. Another law allows better-performing charter schools in the state’s Achievement School District turnaround program to transfer to the state commission’s oversight, rather than returning to their home district.

The charter commission now oversees 25 charters, including seven that are scheduled to open in the next two years and one transferring from the ASD. Most are in urban Davidson and Shelby counties, but a few operate in suburban Madison and Rutherford counties.

Three of the schools were previously overseen by the state Board of Education before the state commission took over its charter responsibilities in 2021 under a 2019 law initiated by Lee.

The governor, who is one of the nation’s biggest charter advocates, pushed to create the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission to ensure that high-quality charter schools can open and ineffective ones are closed.

He initially wanted to give the new body the power to bypass local school boards altogether and open new charter schools directly. But he agreed to limit the commission’s authority after district leaders expressed outrage to their legislators about any measure that would circumvent local education control.

The commission has not been a rubber stamp for opening charter schools. Since it began hearing appeals in 2021, the panel has sided with local school boards on half of their application denials.

Gov. Bill Lee (center) poses in 2021 with original members whom he appointed to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission. Commissioners represent all three of the state's grand divisions.

However, the latest legislative proposal, if approved, would move the state closer to Lee’s original vision for the commission.

The first proposed pathway — allowing operators to bypass local boards if their denials have been repeatedly overturned — is viewed by charter advocates as an incentive for school boards to take their charter authorization process seriously.

“This bill supports fairness, transparency, and high standards for Tennessee’s successful public charter school community, upholding local input while ensuring districts fulfill their responsibilities,” said Elizabeth Lane Johnson, the governor’s press secretary.

Charter critics, meanwhile, characterize it as a way to pressure school boards into approving charter applications.

While districts would begin with a clean slate on July 1, a review of the last three years of the commission’s appellate decisions shows that Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, in Davidson County, has had the most denials overturned by the state, followed by Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Asked about the proposed changes to the state’s charter school law, a spokesman for Nashville’s school system said district officials do not typically comment publicly on pending legislation.

In Memphis, school board Chair Joyce Dorse Coleman told Chalkbeat that leaders of Memphis-Shelby County Schools are “carefully monitoring” the bill.

The Tennessee School Boards Association did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment.

Tennessee charter growth has been nurtured by out-of-state groups

In all, Tennessee has about 115 charter schools, most authorized locally by the board for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, with a total statewide enrollment of about 44,000 students, according to the Tennessee Charter School Center. Under a 2002 state law, Tennessee’s first three charter schools opened in Chattanooga, Memphis, and Nashville in 2003.

Along with funding from several Tennessee-based foundations, the state has seen an influx of money from out-of-state philanthropic groups to promote and support the sector’s growth in Tennessee. They include Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Charter School Growth Fund, and the City Fund. (The City Fund’s partners include two prominent figures in Tennessee education: Chris Barbic, founding superintendent of the charter-centric Achievement School District, and Dorsey Hopson, founding superintendent of the merged Memphis-Shelby County Schools district.)

Much of the money is distributed through the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, or SCORE, a nonpartisan education advocacy and research organization founded by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist in 2009. (Among SCORE’s grant recipients is the Memphis Education Fund, whose president and CEO, Terence Patterson, is a member of the state charter school commission.)

In its most recent report outlining SCORE’s goals for 2030, the organization listed three recommendations to bolster the state’s charter sector, including one to expand pathways for authorization to open new schools.

“The General Assembly should update state law to allow charter school operators to consolidate under a single authorizer when seeking renewal with schools under multiple authorizers,” the report said. “Further, the state should allow existing high-performing charter schools seeking to replicate and new charter schools seeking to meet a critical workforce need to choose their authorizer.”

The Tennessee Charter School Center also supports the governor’s legislative proposal, said CEO Elizabeth Fiveash.

“We appreciate the fact that the legislation continues to provide districts the first opportunity to review charter school applications,” Fiveash said, “but also provides increased accountability for districts that don’t meet their authorizing obligations.”

You can read the bill here and track its movement on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor expects a quick launch after signing universal school voucher law

2025-02-13T01:32:25+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee signed Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill into law Wednesday, officially kicking off the state’s push to roll out the program this year for up to 20,000 students.

With only about six months until the new school year, the state has a lot to do before eligible families can receive taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

The state Board of Education must develop and approve rules for Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Program. For instance, how can families appeal if the state denies them a voucher?

Tennessee’s education department will have to staff up — a projected 11 new positions — to oversee the program.

From bumpy road to fast track: How Tennessee’s universal school voucher law made it to the finish line

And perhaps most pressing, Lee’s administration must decide whether to seek a new vendor to automate application and payment processes for the statewide program, or use its current vendor, Indiana-based Student First Technologies, which manages the state’s two existing smaller school voucher programs.

Because the state’s 2023 contract with Student First requires the company to accommodate at least 20,000 users, the legislature’s financial analysts assumed the state would use Student First for the statewide program too.

But Lee said Wednesday that no decision has been made about a vendor, and he wouldn’t commit to ensuring that the state education department seeks competitive bids if it decides to pursue a new company.

“I’ll defer to the department on the procurement process,” he told reporters after signing the bill.

Last month, after the voucher bill passed during a special legislative session, the governor’s spokeswoman said the state was exploring its options.

“While we have had success with Student First Technologies, … our team has met with a number of experienced vendors to learn how other states have implemented universal school choice programs successfully,” said Elizabeth L. Johnson, Lee’s press secretary.

Tennessee bypassed the market leader when choosing its first voucher vendor

In 2023, Tennessee raised eyebrows by signing a $3.675 million, five-year contract with Student First, a young company with a small staff, modest cash flow, and no state-level experience managing education savings accounts.

The contract was signed after a competitive bid process, and after the state failed to reach terms with Florida-based ClassWallet, Tennessee’s first choice to run its education savings account program for Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby counties, as well as a smaller voucher program for students with disabilities. Within a year, Student First launched its electronic platforms in Tennessee.

But several other states using Student First say the company has not kept up with demand as private school voucher programs have expanded nationally.

Last fall, Arkansas terminated its Student First contract after the company failed to meet deadlines and created faulty platforms, according to that state’s education department.

In West Virginia, which awarded Student First a $10 million contract to manage purchases and payments for its education savings accounts, the system struggled to keep up as enrollment climbed.

Tennessee’s education department has not fulfilled Chalkbeat’s public records request, submitted last June, to inspect correspondence and other documents that would show how Student First platforms have performed, including the thousands of transactions that the company manages on behalf of the state with ESA participants.

Mark Duran, the company’s founder and chief executive officer, did not respond Wednesday to Chalkbeat’s request for comment.

Meanwhile, other companies in the school-choice marketplace are interested in pursuing a new contract for Tennessee’s statewide program, including ClassWallet, which scored highest in the 2023 competitive bid process and currently has voucher contracts with 12 states.

“ClassWallet would welcome the opportunity to bring our mission to Tennessee and maximize the impact of school choice for families and students there,” Jamie Rosenberg, the company’s founder and CEO, told Chalkbeat.

He added that ClassWallet has experience and capacity to launch a state-level education savings account program in a matter of weeks.

“Families tell states that our software is straightforward and easy to use,” he said Wednesday.

Governor is confident of a 2025 launch

Voucher opponents criticized Lee for including his proposal in a special legislative session in late January that also addressed disaster aid and immigration policies. But Lee argued that passage in early 2025 would be necessary to launch the voucher program in time for the upcoming school year.

Gov. Bill Lee is surrounded by students as he signs the Education Freedom Scholarship Act on Wednesday.

After signing the bill Wednesday, Lee said he told Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds to “get started on implementation.”

He wouldn’t speak about the details of a rollout, but said he’s confident of a 2025 launch.

“You’ve got to remember, we already have an education savings account plan in place in this state for our three largest school districts, so we have some expertise within the department in how to implement this plan,” Lee told reporters.

While no timeline was immediately available, the department will have to open the application window soon to determine which private schools will participate. Then comes the application window for families who want access to the vouchers, which provide about $7,200 toward the cost of private education services.

“We will partner with the State Board of Education as they promulgate rules and are collaborating with the state’s Central Procurement Office to explore all options to implement the program in compliance with state procurement laws and rules,” said department spokesman Brian Blackley.

Also at issue: How will the state confirm legal residency for participating students?

While the initiative is touted as a “universal” program for anyone in Tennessee — the family income limits disappear after the first year — Republican leaders included a provision in the law saying the state education department “shall deny” any school voucher application from families that “cannot establish the eligible student’s lawful presence in the United States.”

The provision appears to conflict with a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires states to offer public education programs to all children, regardless of their immigration status. The Tennessee program pays for private-school education, but it uses public funds.

“What’s most important to know,” Lee told reporters, “is that this language doesn’t change anything about the state’s obligation as it currently stands to educate children.

“But for this scholarship,” he added, “it’s only available to Tennessee citizens.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s annual address highlights civics education, jobs of tomorrow

2025-02-11T01:49:19+00:00

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Praising the Trump administration as leading a “revival of our nation’s founding principles,” Gov. Bill Lee called on Tennessee schools Monday to step up K-12 civics education with an emphasis on the principles of American exceptionalism.

To accomplish that, the Republican governor wants assistance from the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, which the legislature created with bipartisan support in 2022 to strengthen civic education and participation.

“This year, I am proposing funding to expand the institute’s reach and make sure Tennessee children — from kindergarten to 12th grade — learn about the founding principles that make America the greatest country on Earth,” Lee said near the close of his 2025 address to a joint session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Lee didn’t give specifics about how much he wants the institute to get or how the money would be spent.

Under Lee’s administration, the state has been roiled in political culture wars over what teachers can and can’t teach their students, and state law has come down on the side of restricting lessons on topics that lawmakers consider divisive, including enduring patterns of racism in America.

Tennessee was one of the first states to enact a law restricting instruction about race, gender, and bias. Numerous school boards also have banned hundreds of library books on those topics based on several state laws passed by the Republican-controlled legislature.

State budget proposal would raise minimum pay for teachers

This week’s address coincided with the release of Lee’s $59.5 billion proposed budget for state government for the year beginning July 1, including $7 billion for K-12 public education, an increase of nearly 3% over last year, and a $1 billion new investment in Tennessee roads.

Fresh from pushing through a costly universal school-voucher plan during a special legislative session, Lee called for another bump in pay for public school teachers, plus recurring funding to continue summer learning programs.

The minimum annual teacher salary would increase to $47,000 for the 2025-26 school year, up from $44,500 currently. Lee pledged in 2023 to gradually get teachers’ base pay to $50,000 by the fall of 2027, his last full year in office.

Still, Tennessee teachers are earning less than they were a decade ago, adjusted for inflation, and the state continues to trail most of the nation in student funding, according to the latest data from the National Education Association.

Lee’s spending blueprint includes extra money to support school systems that are experiencing high growth in enrollment, as well as those that are considered high performing based on more than half their schools receiving an A grade under the state’s 2-year-old evaluation formula, which emphasizes proficiency.

Lee calls for expanding career training, childcare

The governor’s address highlighted the importance of connecting today’s students with the jobs of tomorrow.

Lee wants to expand the state’s youth employment program and create a new “Tennessee Works” scholarship to cover all of the costs of attending one of the state’s 24 colleges of applied technology.

The governor said he also wants to find ways to make childcare more accessible and affordable in Tennessee, where infant care costs about the same as in-state tuition at a four-year public college. He promised “tens of thousands of new daycare spots” to help create a family-friendly workforce, but only specified an $11 million investment in the Boys & Girls Clubs, one of the state’s top childcare providers.

The address followed the end of a special legislative session in which Lee saw his full agenda pass for private school vouchers, disaster relief, and a crackdown on immigration.

Those items alone will add nearly $1 billion to next year’s state budget, during a time when state tax collections have slowed.

Democrats slammed Lee’s administration as building an economy for corporate and special interests instead of for working families who want more funding for public schools, among other things.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools needs state intervention, Republican lawmaker says

2025-02-01T00:20:56+00:00

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A Tennessee lawmaker wants Memphis-Shelby County Schools to come under the oversight of a state-appointed management board to address concerns about the district’s leadership, facilities, curriculum, and finances.

Rep. Mark White told Chalkbeat he intends to introduce legislation that would create a seven- to nine-member board, filled by Memphis-area residents who have expertise on those topics, that would oversee the local elected school board until the state deems the district has stabilized.

The Memphis Republican, who also chairs the House Education Committee, said he’s working on legislation modeled after a Texas law that allowed that state to take over Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school system, the nation’s eighth largest district, in 2023. The Texas Education Agency replaced Superintendent Millard House II, a former district administrator in Clarksville, Tennessee, with a new leader and an appointed board of managers comprising local residents.

Rep. Mark White is a Memphis Republican and chairs the House Education Committee.

But White said that, under his bill, the elected board for Memphis-Shelby County Schools would remain in place, “because they have a lot of duties to carry out, and there are a thousand moving parts to running a school system this large.”

He added, however, that the board would have to work under the management board’s supervision until state officials believe the district has stabilized.

“We’ve got to do something,” White said, “and we think this model will work.”

A spokesperson for Memphis-Shelby County Schools said Friday that the district had no comment about White’s draft legislation.

Earlier this week, MSCS board member Michelle McKissack told Chalkbeat that while she doesn’t want a state takeover, she also understands why some community members would be open to it. McKissack was one of the strongest defenders of former Superintendent Marie Feagins and sought to block her ouster.

“It’s always best for a school district to be left in the hands of the people who are locally in the district, who are right there with the folks,” McKissack said. “You always want to have local control when you’re talking about education.”

“But at the same time,” she said, “our local school board is not listening to the people who elected them. … I see where it’s coming from to a certain extent.”

Talk of a state takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools has swirled for weeks, even before the school board fired Feagins on Jan. 21 after a nine-month tenure marked by tense relations with some school board members.

Feagins enjoyed widespread support from within the district and community for shaking up the bureaucracy and aggressively shrinking central office staff, transferring many of the workers to understaffed schools.

The board fired her anyway, despite pleas from White, the Shelby County Commission, a couple of board members, and community leaders to hold off and try to work through their differences in order to avoid another prolonged search for a new superintendent.

On Monday, House Speaker Cameron Sexton told Memphis radio station KWAM that the state will take over the school system because of the leadership turnover. He called Feagins a “great leader” and pledged that the state will establish a different board “to get the schools back under control.”

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally agreed that the status quo is unacceptable.

“If the board cannot get its act together, and it is becoming very clear they can’t, the state will have to step in,” McNally told Chalkbeat in a statement.

State oversight or state overreach?

Democratic state lawmakers representing Memphis characterize any change in school board governance as “state overreach,” especially in a community where power, politics, and race have long loomed large in the relationship between the state and the public school district.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari said gutting the authority of a locally elected board would be an “attack on democracy,” while Sen. London Lamar said it would set a troubling precedent. Both called it a step backwards.

“Memphis-Shelby County Schools are making progress, despite being part of one of the most underfunded state education systems in the country,” Akbari said.

Last year, for the third straight year, the district earned the highest possible score for academic growth under the state’s accountability system, exceeding state expectations.

State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, who also represents Memphis, said the takeover talk reminds him of when the state took over dozens of Memphis schools for placement in the state-run Achievement School District beginning in 2012. The school turnaround initiative, which is likely to be shuttered by lawmakers this year, has been wildly unpopular and mostly unsuccessful in improving academic performance in low-performing schools.

“We failed children miserably with the ASD, and now we have the nerve to say we’re going to create ASD on steroids by taking a chainsaw to Memphis-Shelby County Schools? That doesn’t make sense,” Hardaway said.

White, while acknowledging the failures of the turnaround district, calls that comparison “apples and oranges.”

“That was more of an academic intervention that involved schools, classrooms, and teachers. This would be a management intervention,” he said.

White said he has met in the last week with Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, interim Memphis school Superintendent Roderick Richmond, and school board member Sable Otey, among others, to talk about community backlash over Feagins’ firing, and what should happen next. Earlier this month, the Shelby County Commission passed a resolution declaring no confidence in the school board.

White said that in drafting the bill, he’s conferred with Sexton’s staff and Sen. Brent Taylor, the Memphis Republican who will be the measure’s co-sponsor.

State takeover of Houston district is steeped in controversy

The Texas Education Agency appointed a nine-member board of managers and installed a new superintendent to oversee the Houston district beginning in 2023, reducing the elected board to an advisory body. The plan is to return the district to local control once the district meets established criteria.

The changes in Houston have been sweeping, and often divisive. According to The Houston Landing, the new state-appointed leadership redesigned teaching and learning, sought to tie teacher pay more closely to student test scores, boosted some teacher salaries by tens of thousands of dollars, and slashed spending on many non-classroom expenses.

While state test scores improved in 2024, critics of the takeover have pointed to high teacher turnover and question the long-term affordability of the turnaround plan, the Landing reported.

Others called the takeover the latest example of Republican and predominantly white state officials asserting power in heavily minority and Democratic-led cities.

Some Houston officials have called for an end to the takeover and an investigation into why and how it happened.

Tennessee lawmakers will be moving on to other business now that they’ve completed a special session that was headlined by passage of a universal school voucher bill. White said that his draft legislation would likely call for the change in Memphis governance to happen July 1, though it could be sooner.

“Some are calling this a takeover,” he said, “but I call it an intervention.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-based reporter Dima Amro contributed to this story.

How Tennessee’s expansive, expensive school voucher law made it to the finish line

2025-01-31T21:15:03+00:00

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and fellow school voucher proponents have finally claimed their ultimate prize: a state law that will ultimately allow for families all over the state, rich and poor, to use taxpayer funds to send their children to private schools.

The Education Freedom Scholarship Act, approved by the legislature in a special session of the legislature Thursday, will launch this fall with up to 20,000 students statewide, and continue to grow each year, with income limits disappearing after the first year.

In the special session, the bill sailed through committees stacked with voucher supporters, and cleared the House and Senate with comfortable margins. Lawmakers batted away amendments seeking to strengthen the bill’s accountability provisions and protections for disabled people.

But Tennessee’s embrace of school vouchers for all was never a foregone conclusion. Slimmed-down versions of the idea died many times in the legislature before one finally squeaked through on a controversial vote in 2019. A group of parents and local governments sued to block it, and the courts initially declared the plan unconstitutional.

The detractors and skeptics continued to push back on the plan when Lee proposed the expansive program in 2024, with more than 50 school boards on record opposing it. That bill stalled last year in the Senate finance committee.

Also, the research hasn’t supported the case for vouchers as a way to improve academic outcomes. Recent studies find little evidence that vouchers improve test scores. In fact, they’ve sometimes led to declines. Polls show that public support for vouchers in Tennessee is generally split.

Even now, after its passage, big questions loom about the cost of the statewide program, and whether it meaningfully advances the cause of school choice. The Education Freedom Scholarship Act is projected to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion over the next five years. And because of the high income thresholds, 65% of the vouchers will end up going to students who already attend private schools, the state projects.

Meanwhile, students of color, kids from low-income families, and those with disabilities are often left out of school choice programs due to the locations and supply of private schools, transportation challenges, and the high cost of tuition, national data shows.

So how did vouchers take on an air of inevitability in Tennessee, just a few years after they were staring down defeat?

It was a combination of political swings, judicial shakeups that led to a string of court victories, and a pandemic that ignited culture wars and shook faith in public schools. Also, credit behind-the-scenes lobbying and political maneuvers and heavy influence from out-of-state groups with deep pockets.

In 2019, for example, a questionable parliamentary move led to the passage of the limited program, prompting several calls for a federal investigation. Two years later, the death of a Tennessee Supreme Court justice, just months after hearing arguments in the case, tipped the high court’s balance of power, likely contributing to the ruling that upheld the law.

At the center of the effort was Lee himself, who was determined to get universal vouchers across the finish line before the end of his second term in 2027. The governor used hardball tactics and welcomed spending from deep-pocketed out-of-state groups seeking to influence the outcome. He also loaded the bill with more spending to mollify public school advocates, and bundled funding for his plan with money for disaster relief and immigration in the wake of Hurricane Helene and President Donald Trump’s election.

Below is a closer look at where the march to universal vouchers began, and how it arrived at its destination in Tennessee:

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Thomas Wilburn is the senior data editor for Chalkbeat. Contact him at twilburn@chalkbeat.org.

Project credits:

Photography and illustrations: Elaine Cromie
Editing: Krishnan M. Anantharaman, Tonyaa Weathersbee

Editor’s note: This project has been updated with developments from the 2025 legislative session.

Universal school voucher plan passes in Tennessee legislature

2025-01-30T19:41:18+00:00

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Tennessee lawmakers on Thursday approved Gov. Bill Lee’s universal private school voucher bill, creating a new funding track for educating K-12 students statewide.

The 54-44 vote in the House, where Democrats and some rural Republicans joined to oppose the program, came after four hours of debate, including dozens of failed attempts to add amendments aimed at strengthening accountability and protections for students with disabilities, among other things.

The Senate later voted 20-13 to pass Lee’s Education Freedom Act.

The Republican governor called the bill’s passage “a milestone in advancing education in Tennessee.” He is expected to quickly sign his signature education plan into law.

“I’ve long believed we can have the best public schools and give parents a choice in their child’s education, regardless of income or ZIP code,” Lee said in a statement.

His victory culminates the drive from voucher advocates who for decades watched their policy dreams come up short in the battleground state of Tennessee.

Under Lee’s administration, they’ve racked up a string of remarkable victories. But voucher critics blame intimidation tactics, political maneuvering, and heavy influence from out-of-state pro-voucher groups with deep pockets.

“It’s the best scam that money can buy,” said House Minority Leader John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat, after the historic votes.

Americans for Prosperity credited grassroots campaigns by pro-voucher groups that have reached hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans.

“We’ve been entrenched in the fight for educational freedom here for many, many years,” said Tori Venable, the group’s state director. “Tennessee families won today.”

Tennessee now joins a dozen states that have adopted similar programs allowing families, regardless of their income, to use public tax dollars to pay for alternatives to public education for their children.

President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order that frees up federal funding and prioritizes spending on school choice programs.

Lee said he hasn’t analyzed the executive order to see how it might affect Tennessee’s new program, financially or otherwise.

“But I think there’s opportunity there,” Lee told reporters during a news conference after the bill’s passage.

“The president wants to support states like ours who are advocating for school choice,” he said.

The new voucher program is scheduled to launch in the upcoming school year with 20,000 “scholarships” of $7,075 each to aid families toward the cost of a private education. Half of them will be for students whose family income is below a certain threshold — $173,000 for a family of four. Those income restrictions will be removed during the program’s second year.

About 65% of the vouchers are expected to be awarded to students who already attend private schools, with 35% going to students switching out of public schools, according to the legislature’s analysis of the proposal.

Democrats slammed the plan as “government welfare for the wealthy,” especially since private schools ultimately decide who they enroll.

“The students and the parents don’t have choice; it’s the school’s choice,” said Rep. Sam McKenzie, of Knoxville.

Already, students of color, kids from low-income families, and those with disabilities are often left out of school choice programs due to the locations and supply of private schools, transportation challenges, confusing admission policies, and the high cost of tuition, national data shows.

But one Republican lawmaker from Memphis cited high leadership turnover in the state’s largest school district, which serves a high concentration of minority and disadvantaged students and recently fired its superintendent after nine months on the job, as an example of why Tennessee needs to expand voucher access.

“If (Memphis-Shelby County Schools) had competition, they would do a better job of hiring superintendents, and they would focus more on educating the kids than they are on the raw politics and the power play that’s played out,” Sen. Brent Taylor said during debate in his chamber.

The votes came on the final day of a four-day special legislative session called by the governor to take up school vouchers, disaster relief, and immigration.

GOP leaders, who are firmly in control of the General Assembly, fast-tracked all three legislative packages.

The packages will cost almost $1 billion this year in a state that has seen its revenues drop because of tax breaks for corporations and businesses enacted in 2024 under another initiative from the governor.

The Education Freedom Act itself will cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion during its first five years, state analysts say. One provision allows the program to grow by 5,000 students annually.

In addition to providing some families with vouchers, the legislation will give one-time bonuses of $2,000 each to the state’s public school teachers; establish a public school infrastructure fund using tax revenues from the sports betting industry that currently contribute to college scholarships; and reimburse public school systems for any state funding lost if a student dis-enrolls to accept the new voucher.

But Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, said the initiative can’t be sustained without public education taking a hit. The legislature’s latest fiscal analysis projects a $45 million decrease next year.

“They said that they can run this brand-new program without any school system in the state losing any of its funding. We need to hold them to that promise,” Yarbro said. “But right now, there’s not enough money in the budget to do that.”

Results released this week of a major national test show that Tennessee students held their ground in math and reading in a year when average student test scores declined nationwide.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s school voucher bill barrels toward final votes in special legislative session

2025-01-30T00:32:15+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee’s private school voucher bill on Wednesday cleared the committee level in a special legislative session, setting the stage for votes this week by the full House and Senate.

As expected, the bill sailed Tuesday through education panels stacked with lawmakers who support policies that provide taxpayer funding to families to pay toward private education services.

The bigger test came later in finance committees, where a similar voucher bill bogged down last spring over disagreements within the Republican supermajority. It passed easily there too, with only a few GOP members from rural areas in opposition.

Lee’s Education Freedom Act, his signature education proposal, is scheduled to be debated Thursday by both full chambers, where the votes are expected to be tighter.

If it passes, the initiative would mark a major change in K-12 education in Tennessee. It would create a new statewide schooling track, starting with 20,000 “scholarships” of $7,075 each.

To draw support from lawmakers worried about the impact to their public schools, the measure also would give one-time bonuses of $2,000 to the state’s public school teachers; establish a public school infrastructure fund using tax revenues from the sports betting industry that currently contribute to college scholarships; and reimburse public school systems for any state funding lost if a student dis-enrolls to accept the new voucher.

Only 15 of the state’s 144 districts are expected to receive such reimbursements, according to the legislature’s latest fiscal analysis of the bill.

An amendment added on Tuesday requires that, for public school teachers to receive the bonus, their school boards must adopt a resolution saying that they want to participate in the bonus plan. Sponsors said the change was intended to give local boards more autonomy over the funds.

The action on Lee’s proposal came as President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that frees up federal funding and prioritizes spending on school choice programs.

A day earlier, Trump applauded Tennessee’s Education Freedom Act.

“Congratulations to Tennessee Legislators who are working hard to pass School Choice this week, which I totally support,” the president said in his post.

Gov. Bill Lee and his wife, Maria, join Donald Trump to tour tornado damage in Middle Tennessee on March 6, 2020, during Trump's first term as president.

A subsidy or a civil right: Senators debate the bill’s purpose

The governor, who has framed school choice as “the civil rights issue of our time,” called lawmakers into the special session to take up vouchers, disaster relief, and immigration.

Republican leaders who control the General Assembly have signaled that they intend to wrap up that business in one week and pass three different legislative packages, as well as about $1 billion to pay for them.

The statewide voucher bill is the session’s most contentious issue, prompting philosophical debates Wednesday among members of the Senate Finance Committee about whom the proposed program is intended to help.

According to the state’s own analysis, about 65% of the new voucher recipients are expected to be students who are already in private schools, with the rest coming from public schools.

That projection may be low. In Arkansas, which approved universal vouchers in 2023 under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, more than 80% of last year’s enrollees had not attended public schools the previous year.

Tennessee’s bill would remove any family income restrictions for eligibility in the program’s second year. For the upcoming 2025-26 academic year, half of the vouchers would be available to students whose family income is no more than three times the federal threshold for receiving a reduced-price lunch, or about $175,000 annually for a family of four.

“It’s essentially giving a scholarship to people who can already afford to go to private school anyway,” said Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat.

By contrast, the state’s smaller existing school voucher program, approved by the legislature in 2019, restricts eligibility to public school students living in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, and whose families have significantly lower incomes.

Defending the governor’s universal voucher plan, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson challenged the suggestion that the measure amounts to a government-funded subsidy for affluent families.

Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican from Franklin, is his chamber's majority leader and sponsor of Gov. Bill Lee's Education Freedom Act.

“We’re not going to penalize people who’ve been successful,” said Johnson, the bill’s Senate sponsor. “We’re not going to penalize people who work hard and might do a little better than someone else. We want these to be universal, and that’s the ultimate goal.”

Johnson added that he “has a problem with deciding who’s rich and who’s not.” It depends, he said, on their family’s location and circumstances.

“This program is going to help families across Tennessee — 20,000 kids — get into a school that their parents think is a better option,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be based on income. It should be universal.”

Early research shows that small voucher programs limited to low-income students are more likely to have positive outcomes, while recent national studies indicate that vouchers have mostly negative or insignificant impacts on academic outcomes.

Long-term costs worry critics

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, sought to pin down the proposed program’s cost as it grows, especially since the 74,000 students who attend private schools in Tennessee would be eligible to apply for a state-funded scholarship.

State analysts expect all 20,000 vouchers will be awarded in the first year, allowing the state to expand the program by 5,000 participants each year, potentially doubling the program’s size by the 2029-30 school year. In the first five years, the program could cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion, the state’s analysts say.

“This is a long-term program, and we should think about the long-term costs,” Yarbro said.

He called out the explosive growth of Arizona’s voucher program, which became available to all students in 2022. The initiative has contributed to a $400 million shortfall in the state’s current budget.

Johnson said Yarbro’s concerns amounted to “scare tactics.”

Any growth in the program is “subject to appropriation” by the legislature, he said. “We’ll be back next year, and we’ll have a conversation about it.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

El legislador republicano que quiere poner fin a los arrestos migratorios en las escuelas

2025-01-29T17:02:20+00:00

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Aunque el senador estatal Todd Gardenhire es un republicano conservador de Tennessee, no comparte la opinión que tiene su partido en relación con los hijos de personas que ingresaron al país de manera ilegal. El legislador se opone a quienes celebran la política estricta del presidente Donald Trump contra la inmigración ilegal.

Desde 2012, cuando asumió el cargo, Gardenhire ha patrocinado diversos proyectos de ley para otorgar a todos los estudiantes de Tennessee acceso a la matrícula universitaria estatal, independientemente de su situación migratoria. Si bien respalda los vouchers escolares para escuelas privadas, se opuso al plan de vouchers limitados del gobernador Bill Lee en 2019, ya que excluía a los estudiantes indocumentados.

Este año, está patrocinando un proyecto de ley que busca excluir a los oficiales de seguridad escolar de una reciente ley estatal. Esta legislación establece que las agencias de policía deben avisar a las autoridades de inmigración federal al identificar a individuos que residen de manera ilegal en los Estados Unidos.

“Si consultas el Antiguo Testamento, es evidente: las Escrituras dejan claro que no se debe castigar a los hijos por lo que hicieron sus padres”, comentó Gardenhire.

“No debemos involucrar a los agentes escolares en políticas de control que provoquen temor en los niños y los alejen de la escuela”, agregó. “La escuela debe ser un espacio seguro para aprender y para recibir educación”.

El senador estatal de Tennessee, Todd Gardenhire, durante una reunión en el Ayuntamiento de Chattanooga escuchó atentamente a la comunidad. El republicano, es representante de Chattanooga y tiene bajo su distrito a una amplia comunidad inmigrante.

Pocas horas después de que el nuevo presidente asumiera el poder, el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional de los Estados Unidos eliminó una política de 30 años. Dicha política impedía a los agentes de inmigración realizar arrestos en áreas “sensibles”, como escuelas, iglesias y hospitales. En su lugar, la agencia emitió un memorando que establece que deberán actuar con “sentido común” en el cumplimiento de sus responsabilidades.

Según cómo se desarrolle, el cambio podría afectar a cada escuela en Estados Unidos y transformar la percepción pública de la política migratoria de Trump.

“Esto no afecta únicamente a las familias inmigrantes”, señaló Lisa Sherman Luna, directora ejecutiva de la Coalición por Derechos de Inmigrantes y Refugiados de Tennessee.

“Esto también afectará a los estudiantes que se preocupan por sus compañeros de clase y amigos, a los maestros que se preocupan por sus alumnos, y a los ciudadanos que se preocupan por sus vecinos”, dijo.

La organización cree que aplicar las leyes migratorias con arrestos en las escuelas o en sus alrededores, especialmente cerca de niños, sería una experiencia traumática y una distracción para los estudiantes y docentes.

“Considero que habrá un rechazo inmenso por parte de la gente, y podría ser un límite que ni siquiera los republicanos conservadores estén dispuestos a cruzar”, afirmó Sherman Luna.

En todo el país, se estima que 4.4 millones de niños nacidos en EE. UU. tienen al menos un padre sin estatus legal en el país, y unos 733,000 niños en edad escolar son indocumentados. En Tennessee, aproximadamente 12,000 niños en edad escolar son indocumentados.

La mayoría de los estadounidenses afirman que apoyan la deportación de inmigrantes que están ilegalmente en el país, pero muchos no están de acuerdo con el uso de medidas severas para cumplir con ese objetivo, según una encuesta de Axios-Ipsos realizada este mes. Por ejemplo, la mayoría se opone a las deportaciones rápidas que separan familias o a la deportación de inmigrantes que ingresaron ilegalmente al país cuando eran niños, según indica la encuesta.

Autoridades locales y estatales enfrentan las nuevas políticas migratorias

Las políticas del nuevo presidente parecen estar dirigidas a todas las personas que se encuentran en el país de manera ilegal, no solo a aquellas que cometen delitos mientras están en los Estados Unidos.

Esta semana, el Departamento de Justicia ordenó a los fiscales federales a demandar a los funcionarios locales que se nieguen a colaborar con la administración de Trump en la implementación de la agenda migratoria del presidente.

El gobernador de Tennessee, Bill Lee, ha llamado una sesión especial de la legislatura esta semana para tratar la aplicación de las políticas migratorias y otros asuntos. Tanto el gobernador como otros líderes republicanos quieren nombrar a un oficial estatal de control migratorio y penalizar a los funcionarios públicos que se resistan a las nuevas políticas de inmigración tanto a nivel federal como estatal.

Quienes abogan por las familias inmigrantes confían en que líderes conservadores como Gardenhire continúen respaldando en los asuntos educativos, en un estado donde los republicanos dominan la mayoría de los niveles de gobierno.

Gardenhire, de 76 años, con su carácter a veces brusco y otras poético, se ha convertido en un aliado inesperado de uno de los grupos estudiantiles más marginados históricamente en Tennessee. Su distrito abarca gran parte de la zona urbana de Chattanooga, así como los condados rurales de Bledsoe, Marion y Sequatchie.

“El senador Gardenhire tiene un fuerte sentido de los principios y representa a un distrito único, en el que la población de estudiantes inmigrantes está en aumento”, expresó Sherman Luna.

Hace una década, mientras ocupaba el cargo de directora de políticas de la coalición de derechos de inmigrantes más antigua del estado, Sherman Luna colaboró con Gardenhire en el proyecto de ley de matrícula estatal. Aunque fue aprobado en el Senado, le faltaron algunos votos en la Cámara.

“Tiene un enorme corazón por las familias inmigrantes”, expresó Sherman Luna. “Comprende no sólo la humanidad de estos niños y sus familias, sino también que el progreso del condado de Hamilton está ligado a nuestra habilidad para educar a los estudiantes, ayudándolos a graduarse y a convertirse en miembros productivos de sus comunidades”.

La Asociación de Sheriffs de Tennessee apoya la iniciativa de Gardenhire para excluir a los oficiales de seguridad escolar de la nueva ley. Dicha ley requiere que las agencias policiales asistan a las autoridades federales en la identificación, detención y deportación de inmigrantes indocumentados.

“El propósito de un oficial de recursos escolares es garantizar la seguridad en las escuelas y construir relaciones de confianza con los estudiantes y los profesores”, afirmó Jeff Bledsoe, director ejecutivo de la asociación. “Los niños no deberían temerle a sus SROs (oficiales de recursos escolares)”.

Por su parte, Gardenhire está estudiando de qué manera las nuevas políticas de inmigración podrían impactar en su propuesta de ley, mientras reflexiona sobre sus convicciones religiosas, morales y económicas.

“Me siento llamado a trabajar para educar a la mayor cantidad de niños posible, sin importar quiénes sean ni de dónde vengan, y a protegerlos”, expresó Gardenhire. “En el Día del Juicio, todos tendremos que responder ante alguien por cómo tratamos a los niños pequeños”.

Traducido por Flavia Melisa Franco

Marta Aldrich trabaja como corresponsal senior y se especializa en temas de la legislatura estatal para Chalkbeat Tennessee. Puedes contactarla en maldrich@chalkbeat.org

NAEP results: Tennessee students buck grim national trends on nation’s report card

2025-01-29T05:09:00+00:00

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Tennessee students held their ground on a major national test in a year when average student test scores declined nationwide.

Results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, released Wednesday, show that average test scores in Tennessee increased slightly in fourth and eighth grade reading and math, compared with 2022, though the gains were not statistically significant.

Tennessee’s latest post-pandemic results stood in contrast to declines seen nationwide and in many other states. And Tennessee students scored three to four points higher than the national average in math and one to two points higher in reading.

“Tennessee students did well relative to other states, and we did better than some of our neighbors,” Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said.

“We didn’t move backwards, we moved a little bit forward, and we expect to do better next year,” added state Rep. Mark White, of Memphis, who chairs a key House education committee and also serves on the NAEP governing board.

Math scores outpace reading scores

Tennessee has launched numerous initiatives aimed at bolstering early literacy, but the latest NAEP showed the state’s most dramatic improvements came in math.

In fourth grade math, 42% of students scored proficient or advanced, an increase of 6 percentage points from 2022. The state was one of 29 jurisdictions that posted scores similar to 2019, before the pandemic. Only Alabama had average scores higher than 2019. Nationwide, average scores are down three points, and 22 states had declines.

In eighth grade math, Tennessee’s proficiency rate also grew, while the national average declined. Tennessee was one of just two jurisdictions with similar scores to 2019. Average scores dropped 9 points.

In fourth grade reading, Tennessee was one of 47 states with no statistical change from 2022. Nonetheless, its scores were up slightly, whereas the nationwide average dropped by two points from 2022 and by five points from 2019.

The small increases in eighth grade reading scores were not statistically different from 2022 or 2019, but again, the small increase stood in contrast to nationwide averages that dropped 5 points since 2019. Tennessee also saw more notable increases in scores among higher-performing students in the 75th percentile.

The relatively strong showing in math, according to state officials, could be tied to the full return to in-person learning, which studies show is especially important for math instruction; Tennessee’s 2021 adoption of new math standards; and the subsequent rollout of math curriculum to align with those standards.

They expect that trend to continue with passage of a 2024 state law spotlighting more analysis of and support for math instruction.

Tennessee was an early adopter of pandemic-era interventions

Tennessee has been held up as a model both for how it managed federal pandemic relief spending — quickly steering money into tutoring, summer learning camps, and afterschool programs aimed at students who had fallen furthest behind — and for its intense focus on early literacy. State test results from 2024 show students there making steady progress since 2021.

The challenge now will be to maintain progress and deploy state funds to replace federal pandemic relief aid that expired last year.

“We still have that obligation at the state level to continue to support districts in as many ways as possible,” said Reynolds, the state’s education chief. She cited free professional development resources provided to school systems by her department as one example.

“Local school officials also knew that the money was ending, so they’ve been building in their own sustainability practices to keep the work going,” she said.

White, the state lawmaker and NAEP official, said the state’s controversial 2021 third-grade reading intervention and retention law was a key part of the mix. It pushed children whose families might have opted for summer breaks into summer learning programs and motivated schools to increase support for struggling readers.

“If a child is not reading proficiently in third grade, we want to really understand why and not just pass them on,” he said.

State officials already are digging into the latest NAEP data on how various student groups performed — to study how they can offer better support.

Tennessee’s growing population of English language learners saw across-the-board improvement, while students with disabilities showed slight decreases.

The national results track with test score trends from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, which in 2024 showed that students continued to improve from post-pandemic lows.

The alignment of national and state data is important, said Amy Owen, the state’s senior education policy director, because “it shows that our students will be able to compete with students from across the country when they look at post-secondary and career opportunities.”

“We’re seeing steady increases, which is significant when you think about where our kids were during COVID,” added Reynolds. “Our fourth graders were kindergartners then, our eighth graders were fourth graders.”

Memphis district opts out of separate NAEP assessment

Since 2018, NAEP has also released results for Memphis Shelby County Schools, one of roughly two dozen large urban districts participating in national math and reading tests through the Trial Urban District Assessment program, which is designed to help those districts measure student performance against districts in other large cities.

But last year, leaders of the Memphis district chose not to participate in the program.

White, who represents part of Memphis, said the lack of participation represented a “leadership breakdown” as the district cycled through superintendents.

“That’s sad that we don’t have their scores,” he said. “We can’t continue that trend.”

What is NAEP?

Not every Tennessee fourth-grader or eighth-grader took the national test when the federal government administered the assessments in early 2024.

NAEP tests a nationally representative sample of students in every state. In Tennessee, each of the four assessments was taken by about 1,700-1,800 students in 80-90 schools.

The results, published as the nation’s report card, allow comparisons across states and are an important marker for showing how students are doing over time.

The last three testing cycles happened in 2019, 2022, and most recently in 2024, providing an especially helpful comparison of what students knew before the pandemic and how much they have rebounded from COVID-related learning disruptions.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee GOP leaders aim to speed school voucher bill through special session

2025-01-28T03:29:52+00:00

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Tennessee lawmakers kicked off a special session on school vouchers, disaster relief, and immigration Monday, with GOP leaders signaling that they want to pass all three legislative packages and approve nearly $1 billion for them by Friday.

Meanwhile, hundreds of students from Nashville converged on the Capitol to demand that the legislature address guns and hate with the same urgency, just days after another deadly school shooting in their city.

That won’t happen.

Gov. Bill Lee called for the session and set the agenda. His Education Freedom Act is expected to dominate discussion, nine months after a similar proposal stalled in legislative committees.

The governor wants to spend $447 million next school year to provide vouchers to 20,000 families to spend toward private school tuition. The legislature’s financial analysts say the cost of the program, if approved, could top $1.1 billion during its first five years, with 65% of the vouchers going to students who already attend private schools.

The voucher vote is expected to be close in both chambers of the legislature, where a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans oppose the plan.

But on the session’s first day, the Republican-controlled House adopted rules to restrict debate time and expedite business, so that bills can reach the floor quickly after passing through a committee. During regular sessions, that process can take weeks and even months.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton also appointed special GOP-dominated committees to vet the bills and named Rep. Scott Cepicky, a voucher supporter from Maury County, to chair the education panel.

“The fix is in,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat who chairs his chamber’s caucus.

“If you paid any attention, you saw brand new committees formed, subcommittees eliminated, and unreasonable time limits on amendments put into place in the rules,” Clemmons said. “There is no way that the people of Tennessee are going to have their voice heard in the Tennessee House during the special session.”

Other Democrats remained hopeful.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro speaks about Gov. Bill Lee's school voucher proposal at a news conference held by the Tennessee legislature's Democratic caucus on Jan. 27, 2025.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, of Nashville, said Republican fiscal conservatives in the Senate could provide a check on the governor’s initiative, which he called “a new entitlement program” for wealthy families.

“This is going to be one of the biggest commitments of financial resources that Tennessee makes for the next generation,” Yarbro said. “It will limit what options we have, what investments we make across the board. And at its core, it is a giveaway to existing private school families.”

Voucher supporters make a big advertising push

While a recent Vanderbilt University poll indicates that Tennesseans are split on vouchers, the governor has maintained that most Tennesseans support his Education Freedom Act.

“It’s time for parents — not the government — to decide where their child goes to school and what they learn,” Lee tweeted Monday.

Lee and other voucher supporters have flooded the airwaves this month with TV and radio ads and social media messages to promote “school choice” through campaigns paid for by out-of-state pro-voucher groups such as the American Federation for Children and Americans for Prosperity.

He also has touted a letter of support for vouchers from seven mayors in northeast Tennessee, where Hurricane Helene caused hundreds of millions of dollars of flood damage last fall. The mayors said they were encouraged that Lee proposes to reimburse public school systems for any funding lost if students leave their public schools to use a private school voucher.

“This measure provides local districts with the stability needed to adjust to changes in enrollment without compromising the quality of education for students,” the mayors wrote.

And the president of the Club for Growth, another national pro-voucher group with deep pockets, warned Republican lawmakers that they could face the same fate as legislative incumbents in Texas and Tennessee who lost their primary races against well-funded opponents after resisting voucher proposals.

Voucher opponents have held rallies across the state in recent weeks to mobilize Tennesseans to contact their elected representatives in the legislature.

And ahead of the session, the chairman of a group representing Tennessee’s top business executives urged the legislature to make major changes to the bill.

David Pickler, a Memphis-area businessman who chairs the Tennessee Business Roundtable, said any statewide voucher bill should limit eligibility to students from lower-income families, require all recipients to take annual state tests to gauge their academic progress, and create open enrollment across all public school systems.

In an open letter, Picker said vouchers can’t deliver choice to families who can’t navigate the application process, who can’t afford private-school tuition even with a $7,075 voucher, or who depend on schools for food and other basic needs.

“For the hundreds of thousands of Tennessee K-12 students in those situations, their public school is their only real option,” he wrote.

Pickler also noted that most Tennessee jobs are filled by public school graduates, while private schools don’t teach career and technical education skills that many employers rely on.

Among the business group’s members is Lee Co., the family-owned HVAC business that the governor ran before he took office in 2019.

Students call for action against gun violence

Outside the Capitol on Monday, students said they were tired of gun violence in their schools and neighborhoods and chanted “Enough is enough!” “Save our kids!” and “Not one more!”

“I am 19 years old, I am a college student, and I am pissed off,” Jermaine Cole Jr. told the crowd. “We have to take time out of our day to come to this Capitol to meet with adults who are acting like children.”

Students and young adults rally for gun reforms during a demonstration outside the Tennessee State Capitol.

State Rep. Jason Powell, a Nashville Democrat, wrote Lee to ask that the special session include action on school safety, gun violence, and hate crimes. The governor did not respond, Powell said later.

“I am so angry, sad, emotional, disappointed that yet again, we are here to talk about another school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee,” Powell told the rally. “We continue to take no action when it comes to school shooting, gun violence, or now the hate that led to this.”

The 17-year-old student who shot and killed a 16-year-old student in the cafeteria of Antioch High School, before killing himself, was active on social networks that glorify mass shootings and trade hateful memes.

Sage Bowman, a sophomore at Nashville’s Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School, was among the throng of students who showed up at the Capitol. She hoped the showing will make lawmakers eventually revisit the state’s lax gun laws.

“Every day I go to school, I’m scared,” said the 16-year-old. “I just don’t want to be scared any more.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee universal school vouchers would cost at least $1.1 billion in first 5 years, state projects

2025-01-27T19:50:26+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee’s universal private school voucher plan, if approved by Tennessee lawmakers in a special session that begins Monday, would cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion during the first five years, according to a state analysis.

During the program’s first year in 2025-26, the cost would be about $350 million, based on the analysis released ahead of the session by the legislature’s independent fiscal review staff.

Those costs would include:

Nearly $146 million to provide vouchers of $7,075 each for 20,000 recipients to use toward their private education costs;
$198 million to pay public-school teachers one-time bonuses of $2,000 each;
$3.3 million to reimburse public school systems for funding they are projected to lose if students disenroll to use a voucher; and
$2.7 million to administer and staff the program.

After the first year, the program would cost more than $191 million annually, the analysis says.

However, the governor and the legislature’s GOP leaders are seeking even more funding for the program’s first year than the legislative analysis identifies, even as state revenues are down due to corporate tax breaks enacted last year by Lee’s administration.

Appropriation bills filed ahead of the session by Sen. Jack Johnson and Rep. William Lamberth, the majority leaders in their respective chambers, seek $447 million to launch the Education Freedom Act, including $226 million in recurring funds and $198 million in nonrecurring funds. The recurring funds figure includes the $144 million in unused voucher funds that the legislature set aside for the program last year before the bill bogged down in finance committees.

Disaster relief and enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are also on the agenda for the special session. Lee proposes to spend another $470 million on flood relief for northeast Tennessee, including $20 million to rebuild a high school in Carter County. Information released thus far does not specify funding for supporting the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Here are other notable assumptions and projections about the statewide voucher plan based on the analysis released by legislature’s fiscal review staff:

Student eligibility: Income limits would end after first year

Each voucher would pay $7,075 during the first year to up to 20,000 eligible students. (That’s $4,597 less than the average annual cost of private schools in Tennessee, which is $11,672 annually, according to tuition information gathered by Private School Review.)

It’s expected that all vouchers will be awarded, allowing the state to expand the program by 5,000 participants each year, potentially doubling the program’s size by the 2029-30 school year.

During the first year, half of the vouchers would be reserved for students whose families fall below an income limit that is set at 300% of the amount required to qualify for free or reduced-price meals, or $173,160 for a family of four. The other half would have no income restrictions.

Because of the high income thresholds, it’s assumed that 65% of the vouchers would be awarded to students who already attend private schools, with 35% going to students switching out of public schools. The 65-35 split is expected to continue in subsequent years.

It’s assumed that no student who is currently receiving a voucher through the state’s smaller education savings account and individualized education account programs will opt to participate in the new statewide voucher program, since their current benefits are higher.

Accountability: A choice of tests

While private schools accepting the new vouchers would have to give voucher recipients national or state tests annually, those schools are likely to opt for using national tests that they currently use instead of using the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, which is based on state academic standards.

Test results would be incorporated into an annual state report that the state comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability would deliver to the legislature’s education committees.

Incentives for public schools: Teacher bonuses, district reimbursement

An estimated 86,000 public school teachers would be eligible to receive the one-time bonuses during the current school year.

A proposed school building improvement fund for public schools would receive over $77 million annually, or 80% of tax collections from the sports betting industry, which currently go to lottery-funded college scholarships.

In the first year, 12 public school systems are expected to meet the state’s criteria to receive reimbursements from the state for funding lost when students disenroll to participate in the voucher program. In the second year, 15 districts are expected to qualify for the reimbursements.

The reimbursements would be completely paid for by the state, not from local governments.

Program administration: Current vendor likely to continue

Student First Technologies, the current vendor for the state’s smaller voucher programs known as education savings accounts and individualized education accounts, likely would serve the statewide program, too. The Indiana-based company’s contract runs through May 2028 and requires it to be able to accommodate at least 20,000 users.

In addition, the state expects to hire 11 people to administer the statewide program. The current ESA program has 22 employees providing oversight.

You can read the bill and track its movement on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Under Trump, immigration arrests at school could be a step too far for some Tennessee conservatives

2025-01-24T10:00:00+00:00

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State Sen. Todd Gardenhire is a conservative Tennessee Republican who credits his anti-abortion stance and support of gun rights for his recent reelection to a fourth term.

In recent years, he’s fended off attempts to tighten the state’s lax gun laws, pushed for a state law to curb “implicit bias” training for educators, and supported a border crackdown to keep people from illegally crossing into the United States.

But when it comes to the children of people who came to the country illegally, the Chattanooga Republican is a bit of an outlier, even as many in his party are cheering President Donald Trump’s aggressive push against illegal immigration.

Since taking office in 2012, Gardenhire has sponsored several bills to try to give all Tennessee students access to in-state college tuition, regardless of their immigration status. A supporter of private school vouchers, he voted “no” on Gov. Bill Lee’s limited 2019 voucher plan because he didn’t like how it excluded undocumented students from participating.

This year, he’s sponsoring a bill to exempt school-based officers from a new state law that requires law enforcement agencies to alert federal immigration authorities if they discover people are in the United States illegally.

“When you look at the Old Testament, it’s clear: Scriptures say you don’t punish children for what their parents did,” Gardenhire said.

“We don’t need to involve our school resource officers in any enforcement policy that makes children afraid to go to school,” he added. “School should be a safe place to learn and be educated.”

Tennessee State Sen. Todd Gardenhire listens during a meeting at Chattanooga City Hall. The Chattanooga Republican, now in his fourth term in office, represents most of the city and three surrounding rural counties.

Gardenhire is among some Republicans who believe that the schoolhouse door is a step too far for any measures aimed at mass deportation.

It’s an issue that could divide the GOP over whether to shield school communities or go all out on immigration enforcement, as Trump’s administration takes steps to deliver on his campaign promises.

Hours after the new president took office, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security rescinded a 30-year policy preventing immigration agents from making arrests in or near “sensitive” areas like schools, churches, and hospitals. Instead, an agency memo instructs its agents to use “common sense” in carrying out their duties.

Depending on how it plays out, the change could affect every school in America — and shift public opinion on Trump’s immigration agenda.

“This isn’t just about immigrant families,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition.

“It will affect students who are worried about their classmates and friends, teachers who are worried about their students, and citizens who are worried about their neighbors,” she said.

Her organization believes that enforcing immigration laws by making arrests in or near schools and children would be traumatic and distracting for all students and teachers.

“I think there will be immense pushback from the public, and it could be a step too far for conservative Republicans, too,” said Sherman Luna.

Nationally, an estimated 4.4 million U.S.-born children have at least one parent who is not in the country legally, and an estimated 733,000 school-age kids are undocumented themselves. In Tennessee, an estimated 12,000 school-age kids are undocumented.

While most Americans say they support deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally, many are uncomfortable with using harsh measures to accomplish that goal, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll this month. For instance, most don’t favor expedited removals that separate families, or deportation for immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, the poll says.

Local and state officials are navigating the new politics of immigration

The Trump administration’s quick moves on immigration have both the public and policymakers trying to understand the complexities of mass deportation. The new president’s policies appear to be aimed at all people who are in the country illegally, not just those who commit crimes while in the U.S.

This week, the Justice Department ordered U.S. attorneys to prosecute local officials who refuse to help the Trump’s administration carry out the president’s immigration agenda.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has called the legislature into a special session on Jan. 27 to take up immigration enforcement and other issues, including his statewide private school voucher proposal. This week, the Republican governor and GOP leaders unveiled a package of bills that, among other things, would appoint a state-level immigration enforcement officer and make it a crime for public officials to resist new federal and state immigration policies.

Advocates for immigrant families hope that conservative elected officials like Gardenhire will continue to support them on education matters in a state where Republicans hold firm control on government at most levels.

The 76-year-old Gardenhire — sometimes gruff, sometimes poetic — has become an unlikely ally of one of Tennessee’s most historically underserved student groups. His district includes most of urban Chattanooga, but also the rural counties of Bledsoe, Marion, and Sequatchie.

Gardenhire and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson listen during a Senate Finance Committee meeting on Feb. 15, 2022, in Nashville.

“Sen. Gardenhire is incredibly principled, and he represents an interesting district where the immigrant student population is growing,” said Sherman Luna.

Ten years ago, when she was a policy director for the state’s oldest coalition for immigrant rights, Sherman Luna worked with Gardenhire on the in-state tuition bill. It passed in the Senate but came up just short of the votes needed in the House.

“He’s got a big heart for immigrant families,” said Sherman Luna. “He understands not only the humanity of these children and families, but also that the success of Hamilton County depends on our ability to educate students so they can graduate and become successful contributors to their communities.”

The Tennessee Sheriffs' Association supports Gardenhire’s proposal to exempt school resource officers from the new law requiring law enforcement agencies to help federal authorities identify, detain, and deport people who are in the country illegally.

“The goal of a school resource officer is to keep schools safe and to build trusting relationships with students and faculty,” said Jeff Bledsoe, the association’s executive director. “Children shouldn’t be afraid of their SROs.”

As for Gardenhire, he’s studying how the new politics of immigration might affect his bill — while also reflecting deeply on his religious, moral, and economic principles.

Labeled a RINO — or Republican in name only — by far-right conservative groups, he describes himself as an old-school Reagan Republican, a “fixer” with an independent streak. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, in reappointing Gardenhire this month to chair the Senate’s powerful judiciary committee, called him a “strong conservative who understands the need for a tough-on-crime approach.”

“People can differ with me on these matters, and I respect that,” Gardenhire said regarding his advocacy for the children of immigrants at risk of deportation.

“I just feel called to work to educate as many children as possible, no matter who they are and what their backgrounds are, and to protect them,” Gardenhire said. “On Judgment Day, all of us will have to answer to somebody on how we treated the little children.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Another fatal Tennessee school shooting puts spotlight on security and gun control

2025-01-23T00:59:53+00:00

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Two more Tennessee students have died by gunfire at school in a state that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to fortify campuses — and done little to restrict gun access.

Police said a 16-year-old female student at Nashville’s Antioch High School died after being shot Wednesday in the cafeteria by a 17-year-old male student with a handgun, who then shot himself in the head and died. A third student was grazed in the arm during the shooting.

The shooting comes less than two years after a mass shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville prompted the state’s Republican supermajority to invest in more school-based safety officers, security upgrades, and allowing some public school teachers to carry guns.

This year’s legislative agenda, headlined by a special session called by Republican Gov. Bill Lee, is dominated by private school vouchers and enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

While some Democrats on Wednesday signaled a desire to take up school safety and gun reforms, it was unclear from the initial reaction whether Republicans who have firm control of state government will respond.

The latest shooting happened at approximately 11:09 a.m., prompting a lockdown at the 2,100-student public school in the southeast Nashville neighborhood of Antioch. Students later were transported by bus to a nearby hospital to reunite with their families.

“It is impossibly difficult to be here, once again, dealing with the devastation of gun violence in one of our school communities,” Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said at a news conference outside the school campus.

Tennessee has invested heavily in school security

Lee’s administration mostly sought to fortify school campuses in response to the 2023 shooting by a former student that killed three children and three adults at Nashville’s Covenant School.

The GOP-controlled legislature has rejected efforts by Democrats to tighten the state’s lax gun laws.

In 2023, lawmakers added $144 million annually to the state budget to pay for at least one school-based officer for every public school. Tens of millions of more dollars were invested to help public and private schools make security upgrades and bolster collaboration between schools and state homeland security agents.

Lawmakers in 2024 approved new school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; and increased safety training for school bus drivers, among other things.

Their most contentious debate was over a bill to let some public school teachers and staff carry guns under certain circumstances. Ultimately, the measure passed easily despite dramatic protests at the state Capitol by citizens wanting fewer guns in schools, not more. So far, few Tennessee school systems, if any, have sought to pursue that option.

Meanwhile, another 2024 law — to severely punish threats of mass school violence — has resulted in children being kicked out of school and arrested on felony charges, sometimes because of rumors and misunderstandings. The law is being challenged in court by several families who have filed lawsuits questioning its use.

This year, the governor has called the legislature into a special session beginning Jan. 27 to take up “public safety” measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration, a statewide private school voucher proposal, and emergency aid for flood-damaged parts of northeast Tennessee.

But Democrats said Wednesday that immigration and vouchers are distractions from the toll of gun violence on Tennesseans, especially its youngest citizens.

In 2022, firearms were the leading cause of death among the state’s children and teens ages 1-17.

“While we do not yet know all the circumstances of the shooting, we do know that a minor somehow accessed a handgun, walked into his school with that handgun and committed an unspeakable act of violence, ending his own life and the life of an innocent child,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus.

Antioch is the same neighborhood where Shaundelle Brooks’ son Akilah was killed during a 2018 shooting at a Waffle House restaurant. Brooks, who has become an outspoken advocate for gun control, was elected last fall to represent the area in the state House of Representatives. She was sworn in last week as the legislature convened a new two-year session.

“We are only one week into the start of our legislative session and already our state has been ravaged by another school shooting,” Brooks said Wednesday. “We must do better.”

The governor said on social media that he had been briefed about the shooting and was joining Tennesseans “in praying for the victims, their families & the school community.” Several GOP leaders in the legislature said they were waiting for more details from law enforcement.

States look for ways to protect America’s schools

Other states have taken a variety of approaches to respond to school shootings, often colored by which political party is in power.

Last month in Michigan, lawmakers approved a package of bills aimed at preventing violence in schools in the wake of the 2021 Oxford school shooting that killed four students.

Some of the legislation had bipartisan support, including bills putting more mental health support in place for students and creating standardized terminology for first responders and school staff to use during school emergencies. Others, such as a bill requiring districts to send home information about safe firearm storage, were pushed through by Democrats.

In Georgia, legislators are floating ideas to protect students in response to a mass shooting at high school last September, including revisiting a tax credit for gun safety devices that stalled last year. Other measures are expected to address student mental health and, as in Michigan, better communication between school districts and other government agencies.

The Georgia shooting, in Apalachee, raised major questions about how school systems and law enforcement share information, as well as the poor state of mental health safety nets. The alleged shooter had been investigated previously on suspicion of making online threats. His mother reportedly called the school warning of an “extreme emergency” that morning, but school officials were not able to find the student before the shooting started.

Lawmakers in Texas, another Republican-controlled state, mandated armed guards at every public school, panic buttons in classrooms, more staff training, and additional mental health support for students after the 2022 Uvalde shooting.

Recent school shootings also have focused more attention on how shooters obtain their weapons — studies find that most of them get them at home. Parents faced charges after shootings in Oxford, Michigan, and Apalachee, Georgia.

Nearly all public schools control access to their doors when kids are in the building with measures like locks and monitoring. Many now use a single point of entry. Around 60% of public schools also control access to their grounds when school is in session with barriers like a locked gate.

Around 45% of public schools had an armed police officer or other sworn law enforcement officer present at least once a week during the 2021-22 school year, the most recent federal data shows.

Two armed school resource officers were patrolling Antioch High School in Nashville when Wednesday’s shooting occurred, authorities said. Police said that by the time the two officers arrived at the cafeteria, the shooting was over and the shooter was dead.

The school will be closed for the rest of the week as Metro Nashville Public Schools arranges for grief counseling and other support for students and staff.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Trump names former Tennessee schools chief Penny Schwinn to serve as deputy education secretary

2025-01-18T21:49:55+00:00

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Former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn has been named to serve as deputy education secretary in the incoming Trump administration.

President-elect Donald Trump announced the pick in a post on Truth Social Friday evening. He described Schwinn as having a “strong record of delivering results for children and families.” He also misstated her name as Peggy Schwinn, rather than Penny.

Schwinn – who started her career as a Teach for America corps member in Baltimore, founded a charter school, and served in high-level administrative roles in several states and at the University of Florida – would bring extensive education experience to the role, in contrast with Trump’s education secretary pick, World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon.

“Penny is a true conservative with a brilliant mind for education,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee wrote on the social media site X. “Tennessee benefited from her service & now our country will.”

Schwinn served at the helm of the Tennessee Department of Education during a pivotal time when the state overhauled its school funding formula and its approach to literacy instruction amid the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her tenure was also marked by controversy, with high turnover in the education department and a no-bid contract to a company charged with managing the state’s incoming pilot voucher program. State lawmakers frequently complained that she launched new initiatives without appropriate consultation.

Schwinn fell afoul of cultural conservatives who felt she did not do enough to ferret out progressive approaches to teaching race and history in the state’s schools. A proposal to use federal money to conduct “well-being checks” on Tennessee children not in school alarmed parents’ rights advocates.

The conservative Tennessee Star on Saturday highlighted her affiliation with members of the “Never Trump” movement. Even some of her more moderate critics expressed surprise at the appointment.

“If anybody looked into her background, they would say she was not a fit for this administration,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee and a frequent critic of Schwinn during her time as state education chief. “So I didn’t see it coming. Whoever vetted her needs to be vetted.”

Throughout her career, Bowman told Chalkbeat, Schwinn “has been all up and down the ideological spectrum,” depending on who she was working for.

“I don’t dispute that she’s a hard worker,” he said. “Whatever agenda she’s given, she’ll put in the effort to do it.”

Trump staffing up education department he wants to abolish

There is significant uncertainty over the shape of education policy in the next Trump administration. As a candidate, Trump pledged to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and to remove “woke ideologies” from American classrooms. His campaign portrayed teachers as “groomers” recruiting children to change their gender and opposed policies that promoted inclusion for transgender students.

But neither of his two leadership picks so far, McMahon and Schwinn, have track records as cultural conservatives. McMahon has spoken in favor of private school choice, apprenticeships, and better workforce education. Since leaving the Tennessee education department, Schwinn has continued to advocate for improving literacy instruction.

In an op-ed in The 74 this summer with Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright, Schwinn advocated for the creation of a National Center for Advanced Development in Education at the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

Disseminating research and best practices is a major role of the federal department that Trump ostensibly wants to eliminate. Actually getting rid of the department would require an act of Congress, which seems unlikely. Since being elected, Trump has referred often to returning education to the states, which already control most aspects of education policy. Schwinn would bring the perspective of a state schools chief to her job.

Deputy and assistant secretaries of federal agencies can play a major role in shaping policy, particularly when the secretary, like McMahon, has limited experience. Observers are watching to see who Trump appoints to head civil rights enforcement within schools.

Schwinn’s tenure in Tennessee marked by victories, controversies

Schwinn joined the Lee administration in 2019 and served through 2023. At the time of her departure, she told Chalkbeat the pandemic represented her greatest challenge. Tennessee drew national praise for programs that targeted pandemic relief to students who suffered some of the worst setbacks.

“When we look at the last four and a half years and the pretty incredible challenges that we’ve faced in education across this country, I cannot think of a state that has shown more leadership than Tennessee,” she said at the time.

Schwinn’s career has been marked by a rapid rise since she started in Baltimore in 2004 with Teach for America, a program that places college graduates in high-needs schools and encourages its alums to pursue leadership roles in education. She later founded Capitol Collegiate Academy, a charter school in her hometown of Sacramento, California, where she still serves on the board of directors. Schwinn served briefly in leadership roles for Sacramento’s school district and Delaware’s department of education before becoming chief deputy commissioner of academics for Texas in 2016.

Protestors opposed to the Wit and Wisdom literacy curriculum used in some Tennessee schools confront Penny Schwinn during a 2021 tour to promote summer learning programs.

In Tennessee, she helped Lee deliver on a rewrite of the state’s 30-year-old education funding formula to let funding follow the student, and set aside more money for students with higher needs. She also shepherded several new initiatives, including a comprehensive plan to improve literacy, help students recover from pandemic learning loss, and expand grow-your-own teacher training programs.

But in her first nine months on the job, nearly a fifth of the education department’s employees left, mostly from resignations. She also frustrated lawmakers who said she rolled out initiatives and took administrative shortcuts without ample legislative input, review, or approval.

As Tennessee expanded its voucher program, Schwinn tapped a top aide with experience running similar programs in Florida.

Schwinn most recently served as vice president of the University of Florida, working with former Republican senator and university president Ben Sasse. Schwinn worked remotely from Tennessee in a new position connecting university programs and K-12 schools. After Sasse abruptly resigned his position in July 2024, Schwinn was not re-appointed.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor to call special legislative session on school vouchers, immigration policy

2025-01-15T16:01:43+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee announced Wednesday that he’ll call Tennessee lawmakers into a special session this month to take up his statewide school voucher proposal, as well as “public safety measures” to prepare for immigration policies under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

He also wants the legislature to approve a $450 million disaster relief package for Hurricane Helene flooding last fall in northeast Tennessee, including $20 million to rebuild Hampton High School in Carter County.

The session will begin on Jan. 27.

Lee said he will issue his official call and provide more details in the coming days.

The announcement comes just days before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, and one day after the 114th General Assembly convened a new session headlined by Lee’s Education Freedom Act.

Lee hinted last week that he might use a special session to fast-track the voucher legislation: He told reporters that he wants the universal voucher bill approved in early 2025 in hopes of starting a statewide program this fall to let more Tennessee families use taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

Disaster relief was expected to be part of a potential special session. Lee’s office said Wednesday that he’ll propose “immediate and budgetary action to support ongoing recovery efforts and allow for proactive preparation for future emergencies.”

Inclusion of immigration policy was somewhat of a surprise, however, even as Trump has pledged to order mass deportation of immigrants who are not in the country legally. Reports indicate Trump may do away with the federal government’s sensitive-locations policy that limited immigration enforcement in schools, hospitals, and churches, leaving those institutions to plan for ways to protect students and families.

In December, the governor tweeted that he had directed key state agencies to be ready on Day One of the Trump administration.

This will be the sixth special session called by Lee since he took office in 2019.

The most recent one, in August 2023, spotlighted public safety after an intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at Nashville’s private Covenant School earlier in the year. In their six days of work, lawmakers approved three bills designed to speed up background checks for gun buyers, provide free gun locks to Tennessee residents, and require an annual state report on human trafficking, but none to restrict access to guns.

Just as the public safety session drew protests over the state’s lax gun laws, the upcoming special session is expected to draw demonstrators to the state Capitol, especially over the governor’s voucher plan.

Lee proposes to offer 20,000 private school vouchers of $7,075 each in the first year. Half of them would be for families whose income is below a certain threshold — $173,000 for a family of four. The rest would be for any student, regardless of family income. Most of the restrictions would be lifted in the program’s second year, with plans to expand the program by 5,000 students annually.

Three big issues that could determine if Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gets his way on universal school vouchers

A similar plan collapsed in finance committees last spring over disagreements within the GOP supermajority, but this time, all of the legislature’s top Republicans are unified behind the governor’s plan.

“The majority of Tennesseans, regardless of political affiliation, have made it clear that they support empowering parents with school choice, and the best thing we can do for Tennessee students is deliver choices and public school resources without delay,” the governor said Wednesday in a joint statement with Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and majority leaders Sen. Jack Johnson and Rep. William Lamberth.

They also supported a spotlight on public safety measures, calling Trump’s election a “mandate to enforce immigration laws.”

Democrats said the governor’s call for disaster relief is long overdue for helping flood-ravaged counties in the rural, mountainous counties of northeast Tennessee. However, they reiterated their opposition to a truncated debate on expanding vouchers statewide, especially when such programs in Arizona, Arkansas, and Indiana are putting a financial strain on state budgets without improving academic outcomes.

“When we open up this can, when we put this into law, it’s not something we can go back from,” Sen. Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis, said at an impromptu news conference at the Capitol.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville, said school vouchers are a complex idea that should be thoroughly debated with public input.

“To try and rush this substantive and highly controversial policy through in a 3-day session, along with disaster relief and immigration policies, is an unconscionable attempt to keep the general public in the dark and prevent sunlight from shining on our legislative process,” Clemmons said.

The president of the state’s largest teachers organization agreed.

“While the General Assembly considers measures to support those recovering from a natural disaster, they should refrain from creating a man-made disaster,” said Tanya T. Coats, a Knox County educator who leads the Tennessee Education Association.

“Governor Lee should focus on helping our neighbors, not pushing his statewide voucher scheme backed by out-of-state special interests.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Vouchers, cellphones, recess: Education issues will dominate again as Tennessee lawmakers return

2025-01-15T00:29:38+00:00

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Tennessee’s 114th General Assembly gaveled in Tuesday with another GOP supermajority and an expectation from Republican Gov. Bill Lee to pass his universal school voucher proposal early in the session.

Lee’s statewide plan is expected to dominate legislative business for a second straight year, and the governor has hinted he may call a special session late this month to focus on it, as well as to discuss emergency aid for flood-damaged parts of northeast Tennessee.

But other proposals this year could affect public school students and families, too, even as sluggish tax collections will make it harder to launch and sustain expensive new programs.

Bills to require restrictions on student cellphone use in schools, improve school safety, and encourage wider access to child care have been filed, or are expected to be filed.

Legislation rejected by lawmakers in 2024, and back again this year, would establish programs to provide students with free breakfast and lunch, as well as free menstrual hygiene products for adolescent girls.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, of Culleoka, wants to significantly expand the amount of physical activity for elementary and middle school kids. The state currently mandates 15 minutes of daily recess for elementary schoolers, but no recess time for middle schoolers. His bill would require two daily 30-minute, unstructured, screen-free recess periods for elementary students — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — and at least one 30-minute recess period a day in middle school.

Concern about decreasing physical activity and rising childhood obesity rates is behind a legislative proposal to expand recess time in most Tennessee public schools.

A bill by Rep. Kirk Haston, of Lobelville, aims to end required end-of-course state testing for high school students. Instead, the state would rely on the results of ACT, SAT, or other college entrance tests for school accountability purposes.

There also may be proposals to try to bolster reading instruction in kindergarten and first and second grades — part of the state’s continuing effort to raise reading proficiency among third-graders. Currently, 39% of third-grade students are considered proficient readers, based on annual state tests.

With turmoil in Tennessee’s largest school system, as some Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members seek to oust the superintendent after less than a year on the job, Rep. G.A. Hardaway filed a bill Tuesday that would create a process for recalling school board members.

And several legislative leaders believe the Achievement School District, the state’s most intensive school turnaround program, will likely be phased out through legislation after more than a decade of mostly disappointing results. Meanwhile, a smaller pilot school turnaround program that is showing some success could be expanded.

Culture war issues likely will play prominently in debates again in a state that has led the nation in banning school library books in recent years and was among the first to enact a law restricting what teachers can teach about topics such as racism, gender, and bias.

Already, Rep. Michael Hale, of Smithville, has a bill to allow and encourage public schools to display the Ten Commandments, along with certain historical texts such as the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution that are already allowed. Another measure, by Rep. Gino Bulso of Franklin, would require the parent, guardian, or legal custodian of a student who is not a lawful U.S. resident to pay tuition if the student attends public school. Such a measure would violate federal law preventing public schools from denying a free public education to children who were not legally admitted to the United States.

Republicans continue to maintain their stronghold on legislative politics, maintaining their supermajority status in the House with 75 out of the 99 seats, the same number the GOP held before last year’s elections. In the Senate, Republicans have 27 members while Democrats continue to have just six.

Nearly all members of the supermajority represent districts located outside of Memphis and Nashville, the state’s largest two cities.

Democrats will try for a second straight year to fend off Lee’s plan for universal private school vouchers and have issued a call to action to pass legislation that strengthens public schools — from salary increases for teachers to establishing a grant fund to pay for afterschool programs, mental health services, teacher training, and facility upgrades.

“Education is not a partisan issue; it’s a Tennessee issue,” said House Democratic Leader Karen Camper, of Memphis, in a statement.

Bills won’t be debated for several weeks in a session that’s expected to last through at least April. With a new General Assembly, organizational business comes first.

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton likely will announce committee assignments and chairs of those panels later this week, including pivotal education committees. Those appointments are important because committee leaders and members serve as the gatekeepers of legislation, deciding which bills advance and which ones don’t.

Closely watched will be a successor to former Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, of Bristol, who lost his Republican primary election last year.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Three big issues that could determine if Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gets his way on universal school vouchers

2025-01-10T23:23:48+00:00

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After the collapse of his statewide private school voucher proposal last year, Gov. Bill Lee is back with a similar plan to try to convince lawmakers that Tennessee students need another taxpayer-funded alternative to traditional public schools.

But while his new Education Freedom Act enjoys unified support among Republican leaders in both legislative chambers — a major difference from this time last year — it’s also generating many of the same concerns that contributed to the 2024 bill’s demise.

Complicating matters further are sagging tax collections that will make it harder to launch and sustain expensive new initiatives. Also, an existing smaller “pilot” voucher program remains under-enrolled in its third year, and the students in it are generally performing below their public school counterparts.

Lee, who is term-limited, has made the voucher policy one of his top objectives since taking office in 2019, and recently hinted that he may call a special legislative session to prioritize his proposal before lawmakers take up other business. The legislature would need to pass his bill in early 2025 to give his administration enough time to launch a universal program this summer, before the upcoming school year.

A recent poll conducted by Vanderbilt University shows Tennessee voters are mostly split over school vouchers.

Lee is trying to build public support, though, through statewide TV ads featuring him and paid for by the pro-voucher American Federation for Children, as well as radio ads paid for by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers of Kansas.

Standing between the governor and the realization of his universal voucher program in Tennessee are three big issues:

Long-term funding uncertainty for public schools

State officials have estimated that about half of voucher recipients in the program’s first year would come from public schools, with the rest already enrolled in private schools or new students entering kindergarten.

To quell anxiety about the financial impact on public schools, Lee’s legislation includes a “hold harmless” provision that essentially would reimburse school districts for any funding they stand to lose when a student leaves to take a voucher and go to a private school.

Also, voucher money would not come out of the state’s existing funding formula for public schools, but rather from a separate line item in the budget that already has $144 million in untapped funds appropriated by the legislature last year.

But laws — and budgets — can change from year to year, and put those pledges at risk.

Flanked by the General Assembly's Republican leaders, Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters at the close of the 2024 legislative session on April 25.

Under the legislation, it’s unclear how Lee intends to pay for reimbursements to public schools for the first year, and in future years, especially since participation is expected to grow.

A future governor and legislature could take away the reimbursements, particularly if overall tax collections continue to decline under Lee’s 2024 initiative to reduce corporate and business taxes in Tennessee.

At the same time, the state would be obligated to fund the new statewide education program for the foreseeable future. With Lee’s plan to add 5,000 vouchers each year, the program could direct up to $862 million in taxpayer funding toward private education costs during the first five years, according to an analysis by Ed Trust of Tennessee.

And because of the bill’s loose restrictions on who could receive the new vouchers, a large number of the program’s recipients are expected to come from families who already send, or plan to send, their children to private schools.

In Arkansas, which approved universal vouchers in 2023 under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, more than 80% of last year’s enrollees had not attended public schools the previous year.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on Nov. 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

In an effort to garner more support for the Education Freedom Act, Tennessee’s bill includes several financial benefits for public schools.

One would redirect 80% of sports wagering tax revenue now going to pay for college scholarships to instead help fund school building and maintenance projects across the state, especially for emergencies and for rural districts in counties designated as distressed or at risk.

But that’s only about $70 million annually and wouldn’t go far toward addressing the state’s $9.8 billion backlog of school facility needs. (Building a single elementary school can cost up to $60 million these days, while a new high school can cost significantly more.)

A second enticement would give every public school teacher a one-time $2,000 bonus. Many teachers who would be eligible to receive the money dismiss that proposal as a diversion tactic and believe the larger goal of Republican leaders is to eventually defund public schools.

Uneven standards for testing and accountability

The bill would require the new voucher recipients in grades 3-11 to take annual state or national standardized achievement tests to track the program’s effectiveness.

That’s a departure from the state’s existing Education Savings Account program that requires recipients to take the same state tests as their public school counterparts in math and English language arts, which provides an apples-to-apples comparison of educational outcomes.

The testing issue creates a quandary for Republicans.

Holding government accountable for how it spends taxpayer money is a conservative principle. But private schools are less likely to participate in a voucher program if they’re required to administer any state tests that are based on state-approved academic standards.

With Lee’s new proposal, supporters now say that national tests are good enough to gauge how students who take voucher money are doing.

In Tennessee, public school students in grades 3-11 are required to take annual state tests in math, English language arts, social studies, and science under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.

Detractors say that sets uneven standards of accountability for different groups of students whose education is being funded with the same taxpayer money.

To some extent, the existing pilot voucher program already has a differing measuring stick. Participating private schools aren’t evaluated like public schools are under the state’s new A-F school grading system to help parents gauge their effectiveness. Moreover, in issuing grades to public schools, Lee’s administration has elevated the importance of academic proficiency based on state test results. But for private schools receiving public funding through education savings accounts, it has mostly touted surveys showing high parental satisfaction in the program.

Lee has repeatedly said his priority is to give parents more choices and control over their children’s education.

Which students would be included, and excluded?

Voucher supporters use the language of “school choice” to promote the policy.

But private schools get to choose the students they enroll, not the other way around — potentially reinforcing discriminatory practices and widening educational disparities between affluent students and historically underserved groups.

Lee’s proposal, for example, includes no guarantees of services and accommodations for students with disabilities.

Unlike with public schools, students who attend private schools are not protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate education. Essentially, the federal law requires public schools to give those students specialized support and services determined collaboratively by school leaders and parents.

Lee’s proposal has no anti-discrimination language that would prevent schools from selectively admitting, or expelling, students based on criteria that may include color, disability, test scores, family income, religious affiliation, national origin, or sexual orientation.

State laws typically include anti-discrimination language regarding eligibility for education programs. Even Lee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law, which created vouchers for some students in Memphis and Nashville, and later in Chattanooga, requires participating private schools to certify that they will “not discriminate against participating students or applicants on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

The newest legislation isn’t so broad in its protections.

To satisfy far-right conservatives, for example, it specifically bars students who can’t show that they’re in the United States legally from participating in the proposed program. That would violate federal law and could set the stage for another protracted and expensive legal challenge to Tennessee voucher law.

Without the non-discrimination language, Lee’s voucher policy as proposed raises the risk not only that Tennessee’s schools will become more racially and economically segregated, but also that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars could flow to so-called segregation academies that were established in the 1960s and 1970s for white children during the desegregation movement.

Some of those schools still exist, although Chalkbeat has not analyzed which private schools in Tennessee fit that definition.

North Carolina built its school voucher program the same way that Lee has advocated for Tennessee. When it launched in 2014, the program was only for low-income families, but in 2023, state lawmakers expanded eligibility to students of all income levels and those already attending private school.

According to reporting by ProPublica, 39 schools that it identified as likely segregation academies have received taxpayer money from North Carolina’s voucher program.

You can read Tennessee’s voucher bill here and track its movement in the legislature here.

Correction: A previous version of this story said Americans for Prosperity paid for TV and radio ads promoting Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Act. The radio ads were paid for by Americans for Prosperity, while the TV ad was paid for by American Federation for Children, another pro-voucher group.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor hints at special legislative session on school vouchers, flood relief

2025-01-08T23:04:44+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee wants state lawmakers to take up his universal school voucher bill quickly in hopes of starting a statewide program this fall to let more Tennessee families use taxpayer funding to send their children to private schools.

And he may call a special legislative session this month to deal exclusively with his Education Freedom Act, plus emergency relief for flood-ravaged counties in northeast Tennessee.

“There’s nothing off the table,” Lee told reporters Wednesday in Nashville when asked about the likelihood of a special session.

The term-limited Republican governor said the two matters need to be addressed early this year and added that he is “finalizing a strategy and a plan.”

Lee is seeking to avoid a prolonged legislative battle like the one that led to the collapse of his 2024 universal voucher proposal in finance committees.

But he’ll need to act quickly.

The regular session of the 114th General Assembly is set to convene Jan. 14, with committee assignments and other organizational business first on the agenda. The legislature plans to pause its work for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, which Lee and many members of Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature plan to attend.

The week of Jan. 27 is a possibility for a special session, according to several sources.

In a clause that implies a sense of urgency or emergency, the Tennessee Constitution says the governor may convene a special legislative session “on extraordinary occasions” to address specific matters.

There’s no disagreement that northeast Tennessee urgently needs more state assistance after Hurricane Helene caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to public infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and schools, in late September.

But Lee’s critics say his voucher proposal isn’t the kind of priority that warrants an urgent special session.

“Using storm relief as a pretext to promote a voucher scheme is a disservice to our families and undermines the real challenges we face,” said Sen. London Lamar, of Memphis, who chairs her chamber’s Democratic caucus.

Rep. John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville, said Lee should have called a special session months ago to help Tennessee’s inland mountain communities battered by Helene’s storms, which killed 18 people in the state.

Instead, he “clearly and purposefully waited almost four months until he thought he had enough votes to pass his voucher scam,” said Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic caucus.

If Lee does call a special session, it’s likely that he believes he has the votes to pass a voucher policy that has been one of his top objectives since he took office in 2019.

Since recent legislative races delivered the governor a mix of wins and losses on the issues, his administration has been working to galvanize support for a revised plan.

The governor is touting his Education Freedom Act in 30-second ads paid for by the pro-voucher American Federation for Children and running in the state’s four largest TV markets before the legislature convenes.

Another group, Americans for Prosperity, which is affiliated with Kansas billionaire Charles Koch’s conservative advocacy network, announced Wednesday that it’s also starting to run radio ads supporting Lee’s proposal and featuring U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, a likely candidate for governor in 2026.

Meanwhile, a grassroots group of Tennesseans calling itself Public School Strong hosted a virtual town hall on Tuesday evening to rally opposition to the bill. The group plans to hold in-person forums and rallies Jan. 11-14 in Knoxville, Winchester, Memphis, Clarksville, Smyrna, and Chattanooga.

“It’s no surprise that everyday Tennesseans are not the ones asking for Lee’s entitlement program for the wealthy,” the group wrote in an organizational letter. “Instead, it’s out-of-state billionaire groups like Americans for Prosperity leading the charge by pouring millions upon millions of dollars into campaigns in our small towns and threatening our local elected leaders if they dare to side with their constituents.”

Lee’s latest proposal would provide of about $7,100 each to 20,000 students in the first year, half of which would be subject to income limits of three times the threshold to qualify for reduced price school meals, or about $173,000 for a family of four.

In 2019, the legislature passed Lee’s first voucher bill to create a smaller voucher program for students in Memphis and Nashville. At the time, the governor said vouchers were needed to give more educational choices to low-income students attending low-performing schools.

The new plan would eventually eliminate income limits and open up vouchers to students anywhere in the state.

You can read the new bill here and track its movement in the legislature here.

Correction: A previous version of this story said the American Federation for Children paid for radio ads supporting Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Act. Those ads were paid for by Americans for Prosperity, another group, while the AFC paid for a TV ad featuring the governor.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Attempt to oust Memphis superintendent sparks school funding threat and calls for a ‘reset’

2025-01-06T23:58:41+00:00

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Community backlash is mounting ahead of a pivotal decision this month on the fate of Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins.

The Shelby County Commission is set Wednesday to discuss whether to vote Jan. 13 for a resolution of “no confidence” in the school board after several members launched an effort last month to oust Feagins, who began in the role April 1 after a prolonged search.

A second resolution on the commission’s agenda would place a 90-day hold on the county’s recent $33 million allocation toward building a long-anticipated high school in the city’s Frayser community.

A parent advocacy group, meanwhile, has called on Feagins and the school board to work out their differences in private, while a prominent Memphis lawmaker says he is pursuing his own meeting with the board to “reset the conversation.”

The activity comes ahead of a Jan. 15 school board work session in which the board will revisit the case against Feagins, which Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman laid out in a resolution to terminate Feagins’ contract.

Feagins has forcefully denied any wrongdoing, and was expected to submit written responses to the board on Monday. Any vote to oust Feagins would need to happen at a board business meeting. The next one is set for Jan. 21.

At its December meeting, the board voted 5-4 to push its decision on Feagins to this month. Dorse-Coleman cast the deciding vote, saying she wanted to “keep it fair” and allow more time to review the facts.

The resolution contends that Feagins has been dishonest and difficult to communicate with, and that she mishandled or misrepresented district finances on three occasions.

Conflict draws in state officials

The drama in Memphis-Shelby County Schools has gotten the attention of state officials, too.

Rep. Mark White, longtime chairman of a House education committee in the state legislature, is seeking to meet this week with the entire school board and several other state lawmakers from Memphis.

“We need to dial down the temperature,” said the Memphis Republican. “There’s a lot of people in our community who are very upset by this situation.”

White said poor working relationships between Feagins and certain board members are distracting all of them from more important academic challenges facing Tennessee’s largest school system, such as low reading scores, chronic absenteeism, a high dropout rate, and a critical need for stronger workforce development in the Mid-South.

He said he’s not ready to introduce legislation that he drafted last year to give Gov. Bill Lee’s administration the power to appoint up to six new members to the nine-member Memphis board. However, that avenue remains an option, White said.

“It took 18 months to find this superintendent, and now some board members want to let her go while she’s still trying to learn the ropes and drinking from a fire hose,” White said. “You don’t disrupt an entire community and call a meeting to dismiss your superintendent without a clear definition of the grievances.”

Six board members with Memphis-Shelby County Schools meet with Rep. Mark White and other state officials on Feb. 14, 2024, at the Tennessee Capitol. White decided later against filing a bill to authorize the governor to appoint new members to the Memphis board.

Feagins has hired Memphis lawyer Alan Crone to represent her in the dispute, while the board has retained Robert Spence, another local attorney.

Nearly a year ago, the board voted to hire Feagins away from a leadership position at the Detroit Public Schools Community District, making her the first outside leader to direct Tennessee’s largest school system since it was created through a merger a decade ago.

According to her contract, she must be paid a severance of $487,500 if the board terminates her contract without cause. However, Dorse-Coleman has said the claims by her and several other board members justify a termination, meaning that Feagins would not receive a severance package.

Funding for new Frayser high school at risk

The “no confidence” resolution before the county body that oversees local funding for public schools is co-sponsored by Commissioners Amber Mills and Erika Sugarman. Mills is the sole sponsor so far of the second resolution, to withhold millions of dollars approved on Dec. 16 toward the $112 million cost of building a new high school.

“Firing a superintendent, no matter who they are, at the beginning of a critical project leaves the County Commissioners with no confidence … regarding the new construction of the Frayser High School and other actions,” the first resolution reads.

Mills said the resolutions are her attempt to make the school board think deeply before moving ahead with an ouster attempt that she said has “blindsided our whole community.” Freezing funding for a new Frayser school, she added, would be “just a pause” as the commission seeks “clear direction and accountability from school district leaders.”

“A lot of people love Dr. Feagins and are happy that she’s making changes,” Mills said.

School board member Stephanie Love, who voted against postponing the termination vote, said Monday she’s disappointed that the county commission has gotten involved. She said Mills, whose district overlaps Love’s, has not contacted her to discuss the matter.

“It’s unfortunate that another elected body would consider holding off on building a new school in my district,” she told Chalkbeat. “Kids are the most important thing to me.”

Love added: “I will vote my conscience (on Feagins’ future). We are not going to make everybody happy. The public is unaware of the things we have to deal with behind closed doors.”

Dorse-Coleman, the board chair, did not respond Monday to Chalkbeat’s questions about community backlash. But in a Dec. 26 statement, she said she and other board members have tried sharing their concerns with Feagins privately without success.

“She has a pattern and practice of not providing critical information and instead misinforming the Board Members,” Dorse-Coleman said. “I don’t think this is something we can overcome.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools board will discuss terminating Feagins as superintendent

2024-12-16T23:29:45+00:00

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The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board has called a special meeting for Tuesday evening to discuss terminating the contract of Superintendent Marie Feagins, who officially started in the position just eight months ago after a protracted search.

The board in February voted to hire Feagins away from a leadership position at the Detroit Public Schools Community District, making her the first outside leader to direct Tennessee’s largest school district since it was created through a merger a decade ago.

However, tensions emerged quickly between the board and Feagins over staffing issues and plans to close and consolidate schools as part of a sweeping facilities plan.

The special meeting — scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday — caught at least one board member off guard.

“I’m just as stunned as the public,” said Michelle McKissack, who represents District 1 and has been a strong supporter of Feagins. “I learned about this at about the same time as everyone else. There has been no discussion, at least with my presence there, to warrant this meeting.”

Other school board members could not be reached or declined to comment Monday night.

Another leadership shakeup could be a jarring setback for a district that took more than a year to choose and install Feagins and faces a series of significant academic and financial challenges.

It also could put the board at odds with community leaders, many of whom were glad to see Feagins taking steps to shake up a district they viewed as top-heavy and in need of significant reforms.

After Feagins started, tensions with the board developed quickly over her decision to eliminate around 1,100 positions over the summer, her allegations of overtime abuse by some district employees at a cost of $1 million, and her administration’s slowness to address air conditioning and other school building needs before the start of this academic year.

There were also missteps over school safety in August, just after the school year began, as Feagins narrowly avoided a walkout by school resource officers and accepted the resignation of the district’s new security chief just days after he started.

The relationships didn’t seem to improve after school board elections that replaced four of the board’s nine members.

Tensions grew over the facilities plan Feagins’ administration was developing to close or consolidate schools — a blueprint that likely would affect nearly every board member’s district.

There was also anger after the Memphis City Council rejected the district’s planned site to build a new high school in Cordova to replace Germantown High School under a 2022 agreement with Germantown and state officials. Several board members said Feagins should have leaned more on board members to lobby council members for the new site.

Feagins came to Memphis well aware of the risks of a strained relationship with board members. Her 2020 doctoral dissertation, Chalkbeat reported in May, noted that a lack of trust can prompt superintendent departures.

At a tense school board meeting on Oct. 21, after a brief discussion with members about building challenges, Feagins became emotional when board member Amber Garcia-Huett asked her what she was most proud of so far in her brief tenure.

Her voice breaking, Feagins said: “People — leaders who keep showing up every day, committed to something they can’t see.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

New Tennessee charter school law for at-risk students draws interest in Memphis and Nashville

2024-12-12T22:28:52+00:00

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Three aspiring charter operators are interested in opening schools in Memphis and Nashville under a new state law aimed at creating options for youth considered at risk of becoming disconnected from traditional public schools.

Labeled “opportunity” charter schools, the campuses would serve middle or high school students. At least 75% of each school’s students would have to be documented as dealing with any of a range of challenges such as juvenile crime, substance abuse, chronic absenteeism, teen pregnancy, getting held back in several grades, dropping out of school, or experiencing abuse or neglect.

The schools likely would put a greater emphasis on career and technical education and be built around trauma-informed and restorative practices and social and emotional learning.

They also would be held to different standards than other public charter schools in Tennessee that must show a certain level of achievement in order to remain open, as well as for traditional public schools that are evaluated under the state’s A-F grading system.

Next week, the state Board of Education is expected to decide exactly what those expectations will be. Tennessee’s education department has proposed exempting opportunity charter schools from receiving a letter grade during their first year of operation. In subsequent years, measurements of success would emphasize continuous enrollment and college and career readiness.

The aspiring operators — two in Memphis and one in Nashville — are among 17 groups that recently submitted letters to state and local education officials indicating their interest in applying by next Feb. 1 to open a charter school for the 2026-27 school year.

But it’s the opportunity charter school category that is new to the mix under the 2024 law sponsored by House Speaker Cameron Sexton of Crossville, a longtime charter advocate, and Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, both Republicans.

Interested operators for opportunity charter schools are:

An organization known as Memphis Mentors and led by teacher Carlos Shaw, which is exploring opening Memphis at Work Charter School to emphasize work-based learning in partnership with Memphis-Shelby County Schools;
A group led by businessman and attorney Anthony Canada that is interested in opening Legacy Day Academy in Memphis’ Frayser neighborhood, starting with grades 6-10, in partnership with Memphis-Shelby County Schools;
An organization formed by Middle Tennessee charter leader and school administrator Ahmed White that is interested in opening The Rock Academy of Nashville, starting with a ninth grade class and eventually serving as a full high school, in partnership with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools

None of the three groups expressed interest in opening a residential school, which is allowable under the new law but would be costly to operate. During legislative debates this spring, some critics questioned the wisdom of putting a large number of at-risk students together in a residential setting.

In addition, the state received no interest this year in the possibility of converting an existing charter or traditional public school into an opportunity charter school.

Many of Tennessee’s at-risk youth who have been suspended or expelled from schools for disciplinary problems currently attend alternative education programs run by their local school systems. Those are short-term placements until the students can move back to their traditional public schools.

Opportunity charter schools would provide a long-term option that is designed specifically around the needs of at-risk students.

“The intent of the legislation was to open the door for expert educators and community leaders to find better solutions for kids who are struggling in traditional school models, and that’s what’s happening in both Memphis and Nashville,” said Greg Lippman, CEO of New York-based Groundswell Network, a nonprofit group supporting local work on alternative education models across the nation.

Educators and community leaders attend a meeting in Nashville on May 8, 2024, to learn about alternative education options under Tennessee's new opportunity charter school law. (Photo by Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

Bobby White, the founder and CEO of Frayser Community Schools charter network and president of Leadership Memphis, expects wider interest in applying in 2026 to open opportunity charter schools in Memphis beginning with the 2027-28 school year. Educators and community leaders need more time, he said, to study the law and the state’s expectations, and to develop their plans.

Last month, White hosted a meeting at a church in the Raleigh-Frayser community as part of his work with Groundswell to identify potential charter leaders and neighborhoods in need in the Memphis area.

“I want people to dream it, vision it, then build it,” White told Chalkbeat on Thursday. “When our first opportunity charter schools open, they should be exemplars in our city. People should be wowed.”

He added: “There absolutely needs to be one school like this in every community that has high crime and high poverty.”

In all, Memphis-Shelby County Schools received the most letters of intent to open charter schools in the 2026-27 school year, followed by districts in Nashville, Hamilton County, Rutherford County, and Jackson.

Typically, about half of groups that submit letters of intent follow through and apply during the same charter cycle.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee panel still waiting to hear first book appeal under 2022 school library law

2024-12-11T12:00:01+00:00

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Two years after Tennessee lawmakers made it possible to ban books from school libraries statewide, not a single book challenge has been heard, let alone approved.

And no complaints are waiting to be considered, either.

Since early 2023, parents, students, and school employees have been able to challenge library content by submitting an online form to the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission.

But only three appeals have been filed with a commission that this year hired its first full-time staff at an annual cost of $500,000, in part to manage anticipated book appeals. All three appeals were withdrawn within a month.

“It’s been surprising,” said Commission Chair Linda Cash, about the lack of appeals before the state panel.

Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature passed Gov. Bill Lee’s school library law in 2022 to establish a local review process to make sure books and materials are “appropriate for the age and maturity levels” of the students who can access them.

A few months later, lawmakers approved a second measure creating an appeals system so that book complaints can go before the state’s existing textbook commission if the complainant isn’t satisfied with a decision by a local board or charter school. That law gave the commission unprecedented authority to ban certain books statewide, or to restrict them to certain grade levels in all Tennessee schools.

The school library legislation came after Tennessee emerged as one of the first states to restrict classroom discussions about race, gender, and bias. That the commission, two years in, has not considered any book ban complaints is evidence that school library debates are playing out locally instead of at the state level, with conservative parents getting mostly what they want.

Rep. Jerry Sexton, a Republican from Bean Station who co-sponsored the bill to create a book appeals process, said at the time that school libraries needed to be purged of content that he deemed as “pornographic” and “obscene.” His proposal also would have required schools to provide the commission with a list of books in their library collections.

When pressed on the House floor by Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville about what the state should do with any banned books, Sexton said: “I would burn them.”

But Senate sponsors, who originally wanted the textbook commission simply to develop library guidance for schools, were more measured about approving any legislation that could ignite a wave of book removals. The Senate and House ultimately approved a compromise bill to establish the appeals process, without requiring schools to submit lists of their library books to the state.

“I think these appeals to the state will be rare,” Sen. Mike Bell, a Riceville Republican, said at the time. “I can’t imagine it being more than a handful – five a year, 10 a year.”

To help with the appeals process, the commission hired its first full-time staff — an executive director, staff attorney, and administrative assistant.

Cash, the chairperson who lobbied for state funding to staff up, said the administrative help was needed and overdue, regardless of whether the commission received book appeals.

Linda Cash, who chairs the Tennessee Textbook Commission, is also director of Bradley County Schools and the state's 2025 Superintendent of the Year.

The unpaid, all-volunteer, 13-member textbook panel still has its core responsibilities of approving state textbooks and instructional materials and establishing contracts with publishers to guarantee availability to schools at the lowest price. (The body just completed the latest textbook adoption cycle to align classroom materials with Tennessee’s science standards. The panel will look next at textbooks for career and technical education, then social studies.)

As also required under the 2022 law, the commission last year issued library guidance, not only for itself as the state’s appellate body, but for school districts and charter schools to follow to make the local review process more consistent.

Cash, who is also the chief of Bradley County Schools, never expected the commission to receive a flood of library book appeals. But she anticipated the state panel would have acted on at least some after two years.

Instead, book banning action escalated at the local level after lawmakers voted this spring to expand the governor’s “age-appropriate” library law to prohibit materials that offend conservative sensibilities, especially related to sexual content and LGBTQ issues. The law now includes a broad checklist of the kinds of content deemed unsuitable, including nudity, descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, and excess violence.

As a result, at least 1,100 books were removed locally during the first few months of the academic year, according to a statewide survey of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians. Hundreds more have been pulled since the survey was conducted. Leaders with the librarians group believe those numbers are conservative.

The vast majority of the removals were handled preemptively by school officials and librarians without going through local complaint processes that had been in place for years. Those processes generally allowed students, parents, or educators to flag their concern with a school librarian and eventually take unresolved matters to the local school board that took into consideration a recommendation by an ad hoc review committee of educators and parents.

“I think that’s unfortunate,” Cash said of some unilateral book removals under the stricter library law.

The commission’s library guidance, issued in 2023, called for local schools to adopt and follow a thoughtful process for receiving feedback about library materials.

“We have professional librarians who do an excellent job of looking at books and bringing concerns before committees of educators and parents to screen them,” Cash said.

On the other hand, Cash believes the library laws have made school officials and librarians more attentive to the concerns of parents and increased scrutiny of book collections for age-appropriateness.

“Parents want to be heard and listened to,” she said. “When we don’t do that, I think that’s when we begin to have issues.”

Former Sen. Jon Lundberg, who co-sponsored the bill that ultimately opened the door to statewide book bans, said he’s not surprised that the textbook commission has yet to hear its first challenge of a local library decision.

“It wasn’t that bad decisions were being made about library books,” said the Bristol Republican. “We just decided to establish a process, in case there ever was a need.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Few third- and fourth-graders are being retained under Tennessee reading law, data shows

2024-11-22T01:14:36+00:00

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Some 60% of Tennessee third-grade students scored below proficiency in English language arts on 2024 state tests. Fewer than than 1% of them were retained under the state’s reading and retention law, and about 2.5% are no longer enrolled in public schools, according to new data.

Among fourth graders who had been promoted by receiving tutoring during the 2023-24 academic year under the same law, just over 1% were held back this school year, while at least 4% have left their public school.

The findings, presented by Tennessee’s chief academic officer to the State Board of Education on Thursday, show some of the effects of Tennessee’s 2021 reading intervention and retention law aimed at accelerating learning after the pandemic.

The controversial statute was pushed by Gov. Bill Lee, who said he wanted to draw a hard line to “stop the cycle of passing without preparation.” The legislature has since approved several revisions to loosen the policies and provide more pathways to promotion for students who don’t test as proficient readers.

State leaders are ‘encouraged’ by tutoring and summer program data

The big question is whether students are becoming better readers with the state’s interventions.

That includes summer programming, which began in each school system in 2021 to mitigate the effects of disruptions to schooling during the pandemic. About 121,000 students went that first year, and participation has leveled off to about 90,000 in subsequent years.

Chief Academic Officer Kristy Brown, in her presentation to the board, said attendance rates improved for recent summer programs, indicating that parents are finding value in them.

As far as academics, she said: “What we’re really seeing is the effects of decreased summer slide, or the lack of it, for students who are participating, compared to those who are not.”

Summer slide, referring to when students’ academic proficiency regresses during summer break, is a common phenomenon, especially for historically disadvantaged populations.

As for required small group tutoring, which younger students receive weekly during the school year if they don’t meet expectations on state tests, Brown said students testing in the bottom level, called “below” proficiency, are moving in the right direction.

In addition, almost half of the 12,260 fourth graders who received required tutoring in 2023-24 showed improvement as the year progressed. Over 14% of them scored as proficient on their TCAPs last spring, and nearly 33% met the threshold for showing adequate growth based on a state formula.

The data is the first available for fourth-graders who started receiving additional support after scoring below proficiency in the third grade.

“To finally have the numbers — to see that the needle appears to have been moved in a positive way like that — I was glad to see,” said Ryan Holt, a member of the state board.

Several other board members also said they were “encouraged” by the data.

Brown, the state’s academic chief, cautioned that gains can’t be traced at this point to any single part of the state’s reading interventions.

“It’s a combination of the things that we’ve done,” she said, “with professional learning for teachers, and summer programming, and tutoring, and those things customized for those students to see the gains that I think we’ve seen in Tennessee.”

Many educators and parents have been less enthusiastic.

The high-stakes testing was well-intended, they say, but it’s taken an emotional toll on many of Tennessee’s youngest students, affecting their self-confidence and their feelings toward school.

The legislature’s most recent revisions to the law were intended to give parents and educators more input into retention decisions.

Many students facing retention used alternative pathways to promotion

After the 2023-24 school year, most of the nearly 44,000 third graders who were at risk of retention used other pathways to promotion.

Nearly 27% were exempted for various reasons, including having a disability or suspected disability that impacts their reading; being an English language learner with less than two years of ELA instruction; and having been previously retained.

Over 4% retook the test at the end of the academic year and scored as proficient.

Others were promoted through a combination of tutoring and summer program participation.

For the 12,260 fourth graders who participated in tutoring last school year, over 14% scored as proficient on the state’s assessment in the spring.

Over 32% met the state’s “adequate growth” measure that’s tailored to each student. It’s based on testing measurements that the state uses to predict the probability that a student can become proficient by the eighth grade, when they take their last TCAP tests.

And nearly 44% of at-risk fourth graders were promoted by a new “conference” pathway that lawmakers approved on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. It allows the student to be promoted if their parents, teacher, and principal decide collectively that it’s in the child’s best interest.

Any fourth grader promoted to the fifth grade via the conference pathway must receive tutoring in the fifth grade.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee K-12 school building costs escalate amid competing political priorities for education

2024-11-21T01:12:56+00:00

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Tennessee needs to spend about $9.8 billion on repairs, upgrades, or construction to keep its K-12 public school buildings safe and conducive to learning, according to a new state report.

That’s an average of about $6,557 per student over five years, to complement the minimum of $7,075 that Tennessee spends annually per pupil to cover the cost of their education.

And while Tennessee’s nearly 1,700 traditional school campuses are generally in good or excellent condition, the report says more than half of the state’s 95 counties need to prioritize at least one costly capital project for their students, whether it’s building a new school, adding classroom space to an existing campus, or making upgrades across a district — things like new roofs, plumbing, and heating and cooling systems.

The findings, published Wednesday by the education research arm of the state comptroller’s office, aren’t surprising. They’re consistent with previous assessments of the state’s public infrastructure needs, including the most recent inventory conducted in 2022, which ranked education behind transportation and utilities as Tennessee’s costliest needs.

But the latest review by the comptroller’s office, which was requested by House Education Committee Chairman Mark White of Memphis, comes amid competing priorities for educating Tennessee students.

With rising construction costs, momentum has been building among state lawmakers to identify a new revenue source to help local governments and taxpayers shoulder the costs of school maintenance and construction. Those needs escalated in September when flooding from Hurricane Helene caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to roads, bridges, utilities, and schools in northeast Tennessee.

But the GOP-controlled legislature, which is responsible for passing an annual state budget, is facing pressure from Republican Gov. Bill Lee to create a statewide school voucher program. Lee’s Education Freedom Act would give tens of millions of dollars in public funding annually to families who want to send their children to private schools.

Lee’s latest private school voucher bill includes proposed new money for public school infrastructure, an attempt to gain support from public school advocates. In addition to giving a one-time bonus of $2,000 for Tennessee’s public school teachers, the bill would redirect 80% of tax revenues from Tennessee’s sports betting industry toward school building needs, especially for emergencies and the nearly 40 rural counties designated as distressed or at risk.

Meanwhile, state economists’ project declining or stagnant revenues next fiscal year, because Lee’s administration pushed through a $1.9 billion tax cut for businesses this spring.

Building needs are acute in Memphis and Nashville

In its separate infrastructure report released in January, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations identified 18 school buildings, including 11 in Nashville, that are in poor condition.

This week’s comptroller’s report said it would cost $2.3 billion just to upgrade schools from poor or fair condition to good or excellent condition.

The needs are acute in Memphis, which has some of the state’s oldest school buildings. Leaders there are struggling under the weight of a long list of maintenance and construction projects.

While no buildings in Memphis-Shelby County Schools are rated in poor condition, 45 are considered in fair condition. That means they are structurally sound but require maintenance or repairs to meet building code or functional upgrades to improve their use.

In addition, the Memphis district is trying to build two new high schools in Frayser and Cordova, but the $385 million price tag for both projects may put at least one of them in jeopardy.

“We can’t afford two new high schools right now,” school board member Amber Huett-Garcia said Tuesday night during a workshop where Superintendent Marie Feagins fielded questions about their status.

Huett-Garcia said the district is operating in a “fiscally constrained environment” that recently required leaders to reallocate $94 million for operational expenses that originally was intended for school maintenance.

“Our buildings are worsening,” she added, “and so my fear is that we end up with two half-built high schools.”

District seeks a new funding source for infrastructure

Whether it’s air conditioning problems in the summer, heating issues in the winter, or water fountains and intercom systems that don’t work in any season, Memphis school leaders say a new long-term funding source is imperative for addressing those needs.

Next month, the board is expected to include state infrastructure funding among its legislative priorities ahead of the Tennessee General Assembly session that begins Jan. 14 in Nashville.

To help defray school building costs, the board wants lawmakers to look into redirecting revenues from sales, use, and excise taxes; lottery revenue; or proceeds from the sale and use of state lands.

Feagins said Tuesday that her administration recently completed a yearlong, districtwide building assessment, which will be used for prioritizing all future capital projects.

Tennessee doesn’t set aside revenue for school facilities, as five neighbors do

The state already provides some funding for K-12 capital projects, including facility funding for charter schools, infrastructure stipends for fast-growing districts, and grants to improve building security and energy efficiency.

White, the Memphis lawmaker who asked for the comptroller’s review, also requested a rundown of how other states help local governments pay for school building projects.

Analysts cited three main ways: appropriations, financing assistance, and dedicated revenues.

“Tennessee leverages appropriations and financing assistance but does not specifically dedicate revenues to K-12 capital expenditures,” the report said.

Possible revenue sources include sales and use taxes; tax levies on the purchase of alcohol, nicotine products, and marijuana; as well as proceeds from lotteries or use taxes on timber logging, oil and gas extraction, and public land sales.

According to the Education Commission of the States, 19 states dedicate revenues for school-related capital projects. Five of those states — Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia — border Tennessee.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

List of nearly 400 purged library books is circulating among Tennessee school districts

2024-11-16T00:10:49+00:00

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One Tennessee school district’s list of nearly 400 books removed from library shelves, including titles by authors ranging from Dr. Seuss to Toni Morrison, is being used by other school systems as a possible template to follow.

Administrators for Wilson County Schools directed the district’s librarians to pull the books a month ago. This week, leaders with Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools sent its librarians the same list to consider when reviewing their collections.

A third large suburban district, Rutherford County Schools, instructed its librarians this week to remove around 150 titles — 51 of which overlap with the list in neighboring Wilson County.

The removal there came at the request of school board member Frances Rosales, who told Chalkbeat that she used the Wilson County list and reviews on the website Book Looks as the basis for her request.

The purges come under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 “age-appropriate” school library law, which lawmakers expanded this year to prohibit public school libraries from having books with “nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual content, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

Sponsors of the changes, enacted amid national “culture wars” fueled in part by pro-censorship websites, say their goal is to protect students from obscene content and give families more control over their children’s education.

But the changes have also created a climate of fear, confusion, and self-censorship for school leaders and librarians, prompting some to revise or ignore their own review processes and preemptively pull titles from their shelves.

Graphic novels and books containing LGBTQ+ topics for high schoolers are among the casualties, as are classics like Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” about a young African American girl who longs for blue eyes, and popular children’s picture books like David Shannon’s “No, David!” and Seuss’ “Wacky Wednesday.”

“This law was designed to catalyze book banning,” said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program. “We should not be surprised now that we are seeing the mass removal of books in response to this censorial legislation.”

Tennessee law likely faces a constitutional challenge

Tennessee’s original 2022 law, championed by the governor, required districts to publish the list of materials in their library collections and periodically review them to make sure they are “appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials.” Each community was to define what is considered age-appropriate based on local standards.

This spring’s revisions by the legislature added a definition of what’s “suitable” — including verbiage about sexual content, nudity, and violence that could be interpreted to prohibit literary classics like “Romeo and Juliet,” historical novels such as “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and encyclopedias containing photographs of nude statues.

The law is expected to be challenged in court over its vague wording, a lack of compliance guidance from the state, and the uneven way the law is being applied across Tennessee.

Among groups tracking its implementation are the ACLU of Tennessee and some publishing companies.

In Florida, several large publishers sued education officials there in August over a 2023 state law prohibiting sexual content in school libraries. They argued that the law had ignited a wave of book removals in violation of the First Amendment.

‘Creating an unofficial statewide book ban list’

A survey conducted this fall of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians found that more than 1,100 titles had been pulled statewide under the revised law during the first few months of the academic year.

“I’ve removed 300 books in the first month of school,” one librarian anonymously told the organization.

Since the survey, the number of titles pulled across Tennessee has ballooned “from a trickle to a tidal wave,” said Lindsey Kimery, a Nashville school library supervisor who is one of the group’s leaders.

“If Wilson County’s list is being shared around, and district leaders see it as a cheat sheet so that they don’t have to conduct their own reviews, it’s creating an unofficial statewide book ban list,” Kimery said.

A spokesman for the Clarksville-Montgomery district, which serves about 38,000 students near the Kentucky border, emphasized that Wilson County’s roster was being used “as a resource, not a mandate” for its own librarians.

“We are not directing you to immediately remove all of these titles from your library collection,” curriculum leaders told principals last week, according to talking points from the meetings that the district shared with Chalkbeat.

“However, we are providing this list as an example of books already vetted by Tennessee educators and strongly encouraging you and your library-media specialists to review the list and consider, if you have these titles in your collections, whether these materials violate state law.”

Books in violation must be removed, the principals were told.

In Rutherford County, where 150 books were removed this week, the school board voted Thursday night to give librarians time to review the titles and come back with a formal recommendation on whether they should be permanently removed or returned to the shelves.

“I don’t believe we intentionally have pornography in our schools, but I do believe that some books with questionable content have trickled in,” said Rosales, who told Chalkbeat that she “put a lot of thought and research” into her request to remove 150 titles.

She added, however, that “our librarians are experts, and we need to give them time to review these books and give us a report.”

Other school systems conducting library reviews reported that Wilson County’s list isn’t factoring into their work.

A spokesperson for Knox County Schools said the East Tennessee district is collaborating with its librarians and legal team to identify books for possible removal and will provide its schools with a list in the weeks ahead.

Below, you can view the list of books removed by Wilson County Schools.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor backs Trump plan to abolish U.S. Department of Education

2024-11-14T01:44:47+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday that he’d welcome closing the U.S. Department of Education under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, adding that states can do a better job of deciding how to spend federal dollars on students.

“I believe that Tennessee would be more capable than the federal government of designing a strategy for spending federal dollars in Tennessee,” Lee told reporters when asked about the prospect.

“We know Tennessee. We know our children. We know the needs here much better than a bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. does,” Lee said.

The Republican governor’s comments come as Trump assembles his cabinet after soundly defeating Vice President Kamala Harris last week to win a second term in office. As of Wednesday, he had not named his choice to be U.S. secretary of education.

During his campaign, Trump said one of his first acts as president would be to “close the Department of Education, move education back to the states.” The Republican Party’s platform also calls for shuttering the federal agency, as does the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

Tennessee’s governor called it “a great idea” to dismantle the agency, which was created under a 1979 federal law during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

“I think the federal bureaucracy that was built into the Department of Education starting in 1979 has created just that: a bureaucracy,” Lee said.

Tennessee has a template for spending federal funds

Trump has not provided a detailed plan for what would happen to federal funding or particular programs if the U.S. Department of Education were shuttered — a move that would require an act of Congress.

Lee suggested that education funding could be distributed to states similar to how Tennessee negotiated a Medicaid block grant waiver program with the first Trump administration, giving the state government more control over how it spent the money.

“We saved Tennesseans a billion dollars in taxpayer money over four years,” Lee said, “and we split the savings with the federal government.”

Federal funds typically make up about a tenth of a state’s K-12 budget. For Tennessee, that amounts to about $1.8 billion distributed to local districts for its public schools, most of which supports students from low-income families, English language learners, and with disabilities.

Lee said Tennessee would continue to spend that money to support its neediest students.

“I think that Tennessee is incredibly capable of determining how dollars should be spent to take care of kids with disabilities, to take care of kids that live in sparse populations, or with English as a second language,” he said.

Asked about the federal agency’s enforcement of civil rights protections — which some have suggested could pivot to the U.S. Department of Justice — Lee said the state would have a role in that work, too.

“The complaint process could and would still exist,” Lee said. “We would make sure that it happens in this state.”

Critics question the state’s commitment to special student groups

Tennessee doesn’t have a very good track record of educating and caring for its students who need significant additional support.

It was one of many states, for instance, that once had laws excluding children with disabilities from public schools. The premise was that those kids would not benefit from a public school education. Before the passage of a 1975 federal law establishing the right to a public education for kids with disabilities, only 1 in 5 of those children were educated in public schools.

Recently, the Tennessee Disability Coalition gave the state a “D” grade on its annual performance scorecard that includes education services.

Students with disabilities comprise a significant part of Tennessee’s public education system.

About a tenth of the state’s public school students use an individualized education plan, or IEP, that’s intended to ensure that the student receives specialized instruction and related services for their disability.

Federal laws protecting students with disabilities would remain on the books even if the education department went away, but it’s not clear how enforcement would work or what would happen to funding. The authors of Project 2025 suggested that funding be turned into something resembling a voucher and given to families.

Federal education funding has been hotly debated in Tennessee

Tennessee has gone further than any other state in recent history in exploring its relationship with the federal government.

A year ago, after House Speaker Cameron Sexton suggested that Tennessee should look into the idea, a legislative task force spent months studying the feasibility of saying no to federal dollars.

Citing testing mandates, Sexton had complained of federal strings attached to those dollars. And the governor voiced support for the panel’s work and complained of “excessive overreach” by the federal government.

But some critics said the bigger issue was the U.S. education department’s role in enforcing constitutionally guaranteed civil rights protections for students.

Ultimately, the panel’s Senate and House members disagreed about their findings and issued separate recommendations. The Senate report highlighted the risks of taking the unprecedented step of rejecting federal funding, while the House report recommended taking incremental actions to further explore the idea. Nothing specific happened in the ensuing months.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who served on the panel, said the Senate’s conclusions should give the governor pause.

“There are reasons why we have the U.S. Department of Education — to make sure that all kids have the opportunity to receive a public education and to have their civil rights protected,” Akbari said.

She noted that segregated schools existed less than 75 years ago across the nation.

“It’s unthinkable that we would move away from these very sacred and important protections, not just regarding race but gender, children with special needs, the handicapped community,” Akbari said.

Alexza Barajas Clark, who heads the EdTrust advocacy group in Tennessee, said the federal role in education is “to level the playing field for all students,” especially those from rural communities and low-income families or who have a disability.

“Let’s not lose focus about what is at stake,” Clark said. “At the center of every education policy decision is a student.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee teachers scoff at proposed bonuses linked to Gov. Lee’s school voucher plan

2024-11-13T11:00:00+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee, who’s trying again to enact his statewide private school voucher plan, is hoping to win over critics and skeptics with a $2,000 bonus for public school teachers. But many educators who would be eligible for the extra cash are dismissing it as a diversion tactic.

Some are calling Lee’s bonus offer an attempted bribe, or “hush money,” as he seeks to expand policies that provide public funding for students to attend private schools. Others say it’s insulting to teaching professionals who have spent their careers advocating for their students, and for more funding to support them.

“It’s a one-time bonus that’s basically asking us to sell out our public schools,” said Liz Marable, a longtime Memphis educator who is currently president of the United Education Association of Shelby County. “But we are not for sale.”

Details of the latest universal voucher proposal, reached during months of negotiations between the governor’s office and legislative leaders, emerged last week after Election Day. House and Senate Republican sponsors filed identical bills in an effort to avoid disagreements between the two chambers that killed their first attempts this spring in committees, even though Republicans held a supermajority in the legislature.

Some concerns that critics raised about the earlier bills apply to the new package, too. Among them: The program could create long-term funding uncertainty for public schools and set uneven standards for accountability through testing. It wouldn’t guarantee accommodations and services for students with disabilities and would bar undocumented students from participating, in violation of federal law.

The one-time bonus for approximately 86,000 public school teachers is new to the mix. It would cost about $172 million, which could itself be a concern during a fiscal year when state economists project declining or stagnant revenues.

The bonuses, and other public school benefits in the legislation, aren’t intended specifically to win over teachers, of course; they won’t get to vote on it. Rather, they’re aimed at winning over Republican lawmakers, mostly in rural Tennessee, who are wary of vouchers’ impact on their public schools.

These lawmakers have to answer to constituents in areas where public schools are often the only educational option, the largest employer, and the hub of their communities. Lee and Republican legislative leaders are betting that the bonus will make a vote for vouchers more politically palatable.

Lee’s Education Freedom Act also proposes new money to help local districts pay for school maintenance and construction. And it includes “hold harmless” language that pledges the state will reimburse school systems for any lost funding tied to students who withdraw from public schools to accept vouchers and attend private schools.

Educators interviewed by Chalkbeat said that they believe the promised reimbursements would be short-lived, and that the funding would be eliminated from future state budgets, ultimately draining resources from their public schools.

“Teachers aren’t fooled by the promise of a small bonus in exchange for a bill that would lead to public schools closing across the state,” said Tanya T. Coats, a Knox County teacher who is president of the state’s largest teacher organization, the Tennessee Education Association.

The one-year bonus would barely address pay disparities between teachers in Tennessee and those in other states. The average teacher in Tennessee made below $58,000, compared with $69,597 nationally, during 2022-23, the latest year for which national data is available, according to an analysis by the National Education Association.

The governor is budgeting next year to increase the state’s minimum salary for teachers from $44,500 to $47,000, in accordance with his plan to get base pay to $50,000 by the time he leaves office in 2027.

But critics say those increases aren’t rewarding experienced teachers, keeping up with inflation, or attracting high-quality candidates to the teaching profession, which is suffering from sagging morale.

Kathryn Vaughn has been a full-time teacher in Tennessee for 20 years and works two other jobs to make ends meet. She’s unimpressed by the idea of a $2,000 bonus, which likely would be closer to $1,400 after taxes.

The underlying goal of Lee’s voucher plan, she believes, is to defund public education.

“If you’re really serious about helping teachers, why not make some sort of systemic change to teacher pay to alleviate the starvation funding we’re operating under?” said Vaughn, an elementary school art teacher in Tipton County, near Memphis.

Linking benefits for teachers to school choice agenda

It’s not the first time the governor has sought to package benefits for teachers with more controversial education proposals.

In 2023, Lee pressed for a bill to guarantee gradual minimum pay boosts for teachers during his second term in office — and also to ban school districts from making payroll deductions for employees’ professional association dues. Teacher groups and many lawmakers objected to the tactic, but the bill eventually passed.

Similarly, Lee’s bonus proposal is tied to the creation of a statewide program to give $7,075 each in public funding toward the cost of a private education for up to 20,000 Tennessee students, beginning next fall.

Lee has pushed for more education choices for families, while also investing hundreds of millions of dollars in public schools, since taking office in 2019. He remains adamant that both policies can complement each other.

“This piece of legislation represents a commitment to education for all children in the state, and that includes public funding, teacher funding, parental choice,” said Lee, when asked by reporters last week why the voucher and teacher bonus measures aren’t decoupled so lawmakers can vote on them separately.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on Nov. 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

Other governors, especially in predominantly Republican states, have used a similar playbook when pressing for vouchers.

In Arkansas, for instance, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a 2023 law to increase beginning public school teacher salaries from $36,000 to $50,000, while also creating a statewide voucher program to cover the costs of private school tuition, homeschooling expenses, and other educational expenses.

Teachers fear that vouchers will hurt their students

Many Tennessee teachers are skeptical about the new proposal to give them a bonus, viewing it as a ploy to push a policy agenda that they say will ultimately hurt their profession, public schools, and students in general.

“Teachers I am hearing from are very insulted that the sponsor of this bill thought any devoted Tennessee teacher would be willing to erode the future of public education for a one-time, taxed bonus of $2,000,” tweeted National Teacher of the Year Missy Testerman, who works for Rogersville City Schools in northeast Tennessee.

Like Testerman, Siema Swartzel teaches students who live mostly below the poverty level. More investments in public education would help, she said.

“I don’t see how creating a voucher program and adding $2,000 to my bank account is going to make sure my kids have all the things they need to be good learners,” said Swartzel, who teaches music at an elementary school in Cleveland, near Chattanooga. “They are our future, and I’m very afraid that vouchers will interfere with that.”

In Clarksville, near the Kentucky border, Karel Lea Biggs doesn’t think vouchers, as they’re proposed, would end up benefiting any of her middle schoolers, many of whom are considered economically disadvantaged.

Under Lee’s proposal, half of the first year’s vouchers would be subject to limits based on family income, but those limits would still be high: three times the threshold to qualify for free and reduced price school meals, or about $173,000 for a family of four. The remaining 10,000 slots would have no income restrictions.

Lee’s administration acknowledges that many enrollees would be the children of parents who intended to send their children to private schools anyway, and already had the resources to do so.

Meanwhile, Biggs says her public school desperately needs more resources to support students experiencing post-pandemic anxiety and other mental health issues.

“A teacher bonus and vouchers,” she said, “just aren’t going to help my kids.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s new universal school voucher plan has GOP leaders on the same page

2024-11-06T23:05:34+00:00

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Seven months after Gov. Bill Lee’s first universal school voucher bill died over disagreements within the legislature’s Republican supermajority, GOP leaders were unified as they introduced new legislation Wednesday.

Senate and House majority leaders filed identical bills to create Education Freedom Scholarships that would give $7,075 each in public funding for a private education for up to 20,000 Tennessee students, beginning next fall. The proposal was the result of months of negotiations with the governor’s office.

Recipients in grades 3-11 would be required to take a national or state standardized achievement test to track the program’s effectiveness.

In an effort to garner support among public school advocates, the proposal calls for giving every public school teacher a one-time $2,000 bonus. It also would redirect 80% of tax revenues from Tennessee’s four-year-old sports betting industry to help pay for a growing backlog of school construction and maintenance needs, especially for emergencies and the state’s 38 rural counties designated as distressed or at risk.

The plan is still likely to face opposition from Republicans in rural areas, which typically don’t have access to private schools and could eventually lose funding for their local public schools. But in a statement, the governor said he looks forward to delivering on his promise for more education choices for parents.

“What we’re doing is taking the next step on a piece of legislation that we worked on last year, didn’t finish, worked on all summer, and now it’s ready,” he told reporters later. “So we’re committed to making sure that parents in this state have choices as it relates to where their child is educated.”

Lee also said he has no plans to call a special legislative session in January to deal exclusively with the voucher proposal before the legislature convenes for regular business on Jan. 14. He added, however, that he will “work with the legislature” on the best path forward for passing his plan.

Both Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton issued statements of support for the new proposal.

The bills were the first legislation introduced for the next General Assembly, signaling the governor’s intention to make the issue his top legislative priority for a second straight year.

The proposal arrived one day after pivotal elections in which vouchers were an issue in numerous legislative races across Tennessee and on the ballot in other states. In Tennessee, Republicans easily retained their grip on both legislative chambers and it appeared unlikely that vouchers were a major factor in the results.

Failed ballot measures in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska showed voters there appear wary of spending public dollars on private schools.

Tennessee Democrats criticized the new proposed legislation as out of touch with what’s happening across the nation.

“Even voters in red states rejected vouchers in every single place it was on the ballot yesterday,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat. “When states have fallen for this con job, like in Arkansas, around 95% of the vouchers go to families who already were paying for private schools.

“This plan would just transfer taxes paid by all Tennesseans to wealthier families in bigger cities,” Yarbro said.

“Same scam, different language,” added Rep. John Ray Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic caucus.

He said the testing provision is weak and gives participating private schools broad leeway about which national tests to use, while public schools continue to administer some of the most stringent annual state assessments in America.

“It’s giving these private schools taxpayer money and the freedom to do whatever they want. I wouldn’t call it real accountability,” said Clemmons, also a Nashville Democrat.

A revised bill was expected from Lee’s administration

Lee had vowed to return with another statewide voucher plan for 2025 when his 2024 proposal sputtered in committees this spring after Senate and House negotiators couldn’t agree on the details.

Contributing to the impasse were disputes about testing requirements for private school voucher recipients and public school students; the House’s desire to add massive funding incentives for public schools including building maintenance and teacher benefits; and the insistence of the Senate’s bill’s sponsor to create a statewide open enrollment program for public schools.

The latest bill ditched the open enrollment provision after Sen. Jon Lundberg of Bristol, the education committee chairman who sponsored the 2024 bill in his chamber, was defeated in his Republican primary race in August.

The state already has $144 million set aside for the program in this year’s budget — a consolation prize to Lee, who said the money showed the legislature’s clear intent to approve a universal voucher bill in 2025.

Last month, the governor declined to dip into that pot of untapped money or the state’s record-high rainy day fund of $2.15 billion to help clean up widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Helene flooding in northeast Tennessee. Instead, he rolled out a loan program to help impacted counties with cleanup costs until federal emergency funding arrives.

Meanwhile, the governor kicked off his annual budget hearings this week to hear from the heads of state agencies as his administration fashions the state’s next spending proposal.

Economists have predicted either declines or near zero growth in Tennessee’s overall tax collections in 2025, leaving fewer resources for new initiatives or existing priorities.

Details are finally unveiled

Specifically, the voucher proposal would offer state-funded scholarships for students attending state-accredited private schools in Categories I-III, which require teachers to hold a bachelor’s degree and be certified to teach certain subjects. Students attending independent or church-related home schools would not be eligible to participate.

The first 10,000 scholarships would be reserved for families at or below 300% of the income limit to qualify for free or reduced price lunch, those who have children with disabilities, or students who are eligible for the state’s current Education Savings Account voucher program.

The public funding they receive would be tax-exempt.

Students with disabilities would not be guaranteed individualized education plans, as they are in public schools.

Sponsors say the bill also guarantees state funding for each school district will not decrease if students leave their public schools to participate in the voucher program.

“After countless hours of conversations with parents, teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders on the best path forward, this bill strikes the right balance,” said House Majority Leader William Lamberth, of Portland.

But Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic caucus, called the proposal an affront.

“It’s offensive to me that we’re tying school construction dollars and teacher pay yet again to a voucher scam,” he said. “We should be doing those things anyway. And our education policies should be designed to benefit student outcomes and ensure our students have an opportunity to succeed in life, not fulfilling promises to special interests.”

EdTrust of Tennessee, an advocacy group that seeks to improve education equity, took issue with any suggestion that the new plan won’t affect public school funding or performance.

“Tennessee’s public education system has made great strides, scoring our highest graduation rates to date, and seeing marked improvement in student achievement after the pandemic,” the group said in a statement. “Diverting funds now risks unraveling this progress, affecting rural and underserved communities most severely, where private school options are limited or nonexistent.”

The governor successfully pushed for a 2019 law to create a smaller voucher program in Nashville and Memphis, which has since expanded to Chattanooga. The program has 3,550 enrollees in its third year, still below the 5,000-student cap, according to data from the state education department.

The state comptroller’s first report to lawmakers on that “pilot” program’s effectiveness is due Jan. 1, 2026.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s costly, disruptive school turnaround work didn’t help students long term, says research

2024-11-01T10:00:00+00:00

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New research shows middle school students exiting Tennessee’s two primary school turnaround models experienced few educational gains in high school, raising new questions about the much-scrutinized strategies.

In fact, there’s evidence that assignment to a school operated by the state-run Achievement School District, the more ambitious and aggressive of the two models, generally worsened high school test scores.

And assignment to a middle school campus in the Innovation Zone, a locally run school improvement program in Memphis and other cities, led to worse math scores in high school.

Neither initiative made a significant dent on ACT scores or high school graduation rates. Data related to attendance, chronic absenteeism, and disciplinary actions wasn’t encouraging, either.

The research, published by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute, offers the biggest indictment so far of the Achievement School District, where most students didn’t show short-term gains either.

And it fills a crucial gap in data about the Innovation Zone, where early achievement gains faded as middle school students moved on to non-iZone high schools that offered fewer interventions and support.

“Our findings suggest that reform policies may need to be designed in a way that is connected across school levels to support students throughout their K-12 educational experience,” the paper says.

Long-term effects of school turnaround reforms have been understudied

Both of Tennessee’s turnaround programs launched in 2012 during the Obama administration’s push for systemic reforms to improve teaching and learning in America’s public schools.

But so far, most research on their effectiveness has focused on short-term results such as annual standardized test scores.

The latest analysis looked at how students performed in high school after attending a turnaround middle school up through the 2017-18 school year. It’s based on data from test scores, attendance, chronic absenteeism, disciplinary actions, dropouts, and graduation.

The research should inform imminent state and local decisions about changes to turnaround work across Tennessee. It also has national implications for reforms aimed at making swift and dramatic improvement to persistently low-performing schools. The models pioneered in Tennessee, with Memphis as their hub, overlap with ongoing turnaround work in states such as Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and North Carolina.

Such reforms have received billions of dollars in federal funding through the Race to the Top competition and school improvement grants, plus from philanthropic groups. Their success is especially important to students of color and from low-income families, who are disproportionately served by those campuses. These students also experienced the largest decreases in student achievement as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lam Pham, who led the research team’s work in Tennessee, said a major takeaway is that school improvement work needs to broaden its focus beyond raising annual test scores.

Lam Pham

“Educators respond to the accountability system that’s set for them, which in this case was test scores,” said Pham, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University.

“If we’re thinking about how to model this in the future, yes, we want improved test scores, but we also want a better schooling experience for our students,” he continued. “Our accountability systems need other measures so that educators respond more holistically to improving long-term student outcomes.”

The paper also suggests a more comprehensive approach that supports students’ social-emotional learning, engages surrounding neighborhoods, and includes resources like mentoring, mental health services, out-of-school programming, and family assistance.

Tennessee’s school takeover district was controversial from its outset

The Achievement School District, the most controversial of Tennessee’s two turnaround programs, introduced dramatic changes to school governance by removing chronically low-performing schools from their local school systems in Memphis and Nashville.

The state placed them in its own district and typically used a charter management organization to relaunch the campuses. The thinking was to remove bureaucratic oversight and give school leaders flexibility to adapt staffing and curriculum to individual school needs.

Students and parents line a Memphis street in 2015 to protest the proposed takeover of Sheffield Elementary School by the Achievement School District. The state-run district later removed the school from its takeover list for 2016-17.

The ASD is still in operation, though significantly smaller.

As charter operators have cycled out of their 10-year contracts, the initiative has shrunk from a peak of 33 schools serving more than 10,000 students in 2016 to currently three Memphis schools with a total enrollment of 1,300 students.

Many lawmakers, including top Republicans who have stuck by the model, acknowledged earlier this year that the ASD has mostly failed.

“This new research just confirms what we’ve known for some time — that we need to be doing something different,” said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who sponsored legislation to phase out the ASD and shift its schools to state-approved but locally managed intervention models.

The legislation passed in the state Senate this year but not in the House, where Rep. Antonio Parkinson, also a Memphis Democrat, advocated for a different approach that would turn the ASD into a school improvement resource hub for the entire state.

Akbari plans to reintroduce her legislation in January.

“We really need to get on the same page and get this one done,” she said, “because ultimately it’s the kids who suffer.”

Under federal education law, the state can’t close the ASD without replacing it with a new rigorous improvement plan for its “priority schools” that are academically in the bottom 5%.

This week, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Education said the agency “will continue working with the General Assembly and the governor’s office to evaluate the best way to serve students in priority schools as we finalize next year’s legislative agenda.”

Locally run iZone fared better initially

The Memphis iZone, which remained under the control of the local school district, also gave its principals charter-like autonomy over staffing and curriculum but offered an extra hour of instructional time every school day and additional pay for educators.

The model has operated in the state’s four largest cities, with the largest program by far in Memphis. It began there with eight schools under the leadership of turnaround specialist Sharon Griffin and a team of coaches, then peaked in size this year with 36 schools.

The iZone showed early promise in improving student test scores. But its gains began to stall by 2015 as its portfolio of schools grew quickly, partly to stave off ASD takeovers. Funding became more difficult to sustain, and the churn of iZone leadership was another challenge.

But perhaps most significant was the limited supply of teachers who are rated as highly effective and willing to transfer to and remain with low-performing schools.

“It’s a pitfall we see in many turnaround models in many places,” said Pham, the researcher. “There are usually strong plans for improvement, but virtually no plans for sustaining and growing and expanding.”

One reason might be that federal school improvement grants that helped launch such programs lasted for only three years.

“As soon as you take your foot off the pedal on school turnaround, the gains go away.”
Lam Pham, assistant professor, North Carolina State University

“When you get one of these grants to start with, you’re not thinking about eventual expansion. You’re thinking about whether it’s going to work in the first place,” Pham said.

The iZone is now being phased out of Memphis-Shelby County Schools as part of a district-wide reorganization under its new superintendent, Marie Feagins. She hired Roderick Richmond, an early iZone architect, to work with low-performing schools but offered few details about the kinds of resources they would receive.

“It may be time to reassess the iZone,” said Akbari, the state lawmaker, “but I would like to see the model as the foundation for what comes next for school improvement work in Memphis-Shelby County Schools. This model was working. But it matters who’s at the wheel and how much support that leader is getting from the district.”

Human capital is the most important factor in turning schools around

Low-performing schools that relaunched under both the ASD and iZone replaced their principals and at least half of their teachers as part of coordinated, schoolwide changes aimed at achieving swift and dramatic improvements in student performance.

The changes didn’t translate into higher test scores at ASD schools, where researchers surmise that the reforms “likely disrupted the schools’ staffing, culture, and daily operations” and created “instabilities in students’ instructional experiences” without adding effective interventions and support.

But the changes at iZone schools told a different story in the program’s early years.

Its leadership recruited highly effective principals and teachers with a long tenure and a track record of success to staff the turnaround schools. And they rewarded them with sign-on, retention, and performance bonuses, plus compensation for the added hour of instruction.

Principal Rodney Rowan works in 2015 with reading teachers on instructional strategies at Cherokee Elementary School, an iZone school in Memphis that posted big gains in student test scores that year.

“Staffing is the most expensive part of schooling, and you get what you pay for,” Pham said. “If I were going to invest in one thing to really improve low-performing schools, it would be the teachers and principals — first to get them there, then to support them well and keep them there.”

Unfortunately, the Memphis iZone model changed through the years, probably contributing to its students’ achievement fade in high school, Pham said.

“It’s also possible,” he said, “that the improvement that students experienced during middle school just wasn’t big enough to last into high school. Or students may just need more time under these interventions. Middle school only lasts three years.”

Another factor: the pandemic. The sudden rush of overwhelming needs in lots of schools systemwide diverted attention and resources away from low-performing schools.

“As soon as you take your foot off the pedal on school turnaround, the gains go away,” Pham said.

He said the disappointing long-term data shouldn’t take away from early successes by both programs, whether boosting test scores or creating a sense of urgency to improve education in a city that also struggles with widespread intergenerational poverty. It’s a position echoed by some local education advocates.

“You have to remember that the circumstances were dire in 2012, with so many of our schools in the bottom 5%,” said Terence Patterson, CEO of the Memphis Education Fund, which helps coordinate local philanthropic work.

“I would make the case that the ASD wasn’t a failure,” he continued. “As a whole, the ASD certainly didn’t perform as we had hoped, but there were pockets of success, several schools did have gains, and many students benefited.”

Patterson has called school turnaround “heavy, hard heart work” that doesn’t result in magical outcomes, but offers lessons for the future. Among them: the need for collaboration at all levels and a greater emphasis on interventions and wraparound supports like social-emotional learning across the K-12 continuum.

“We’ve learned a lot together,” he said. “We also know that there are things we can do better.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s high school graduation rate sets another record high

2024-11-01T00:26:31+00:00

Tennessee has set a state record for high school graduations for a second straight year.

About 92.1% of public school students in the Class of 2024 graduated on time this spring, surpassing the previous year’s record by 1.5 percentage points, according to data released Wednesday.

The latest milestone comes two years after Tennessee’s graduation rate returned to pre-pandemic levels after a three-year slide amid COVID-related disruptions to schooling and mirroring national trends.

Before that, Tennessee had logged a decade of incremental increases in the graduation rate totaling more than 4 percentage points under a workforce and economic development initiative prioritized by former Gov. Bill Haslam.

“The achievement reflects the dedication of our district leaders, educators, and families working together,” said Lizzette Reynolds, education commissioner under Gov. Bill Lee.

In all, 78 out of the state’s 147 districts improved their graduation rates, including all four large urban school systems.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the state’s largest district, increased its rate to 83.4%, up 1.9 percentage points. Among Hispanic students there, the rate surged 7.5 percentage points to 80.2%.

Nashville’s rate jumped by 4.5 percentage points to 85.7%, while Hamilton County’s went up 3.7 points to 93.2%. The rate for Knox County Schools was 93%, up by 1.1 points.

English learners saw a 12-point increase in their graduation rates statewide, from 67% to 79%.

On Thursday, state Democratic leaders pointed out that the record-high rates came after a $4.5 billion federal emergency investment in Tennessee’s K-12 schools amid the pandemic, plus targeted state increases for student funding.

“Together, these resources helped our schools deliver on their promise to educate every child, regardless of background or zip code,” said Sen. London Lamar of Memphis, who chairs her chamber’s Democratic caucus.

“However, with the end of this emergency federal support, Tennessee will again rank among the bottom ten states in per-pupil funding," Lamar warned. “As a result, we risk losing the momentum we’ve worked so hard to build.”

Earning a high school diploma has long been an important marker of student achievement. High school graduates not only generally earn more money during their lifetime than those who drop out, but also tend to lead longer and healthier lives, according to the American Public Health Association.

Below, you can look up to see how your district did.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from Sen. London Lamar of Memphis.

Tennessee is gearing up for another private school voucher debate. Here’s what we know.

2024-10-22T22:02:30+00:00

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A new universal school voucher proposal will be the first bill filed for Tennessee’s upcoming legislative session, signaling that Gov. Bill Lee intends to make the plan his No. 1 education priority for a second straight year.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson said this week that he’ll file his chamber’s legislation on the morning of Nov. 6, the day after Election Day. He expects House Majority Leader William Lamberth will do the same.

The big question is whether House and Senate Republican leaders will be able to agree on the details in 2025. The 114th Tennessee General Assembly convenes on Jan. 14 as Lee begins his last two years in office.

During the 2024 session, the governor’s Education Freedom Scholarship proposal stalled in finance committees over disagreements about testing and funding, despite a GOP supermajority, and even as universal voucher programs sprang up in several other states.

Sponsors in the Tennessee House, where voucher programs have had a harder time getting support from rural Republicans and urban Democrats, attempted to woo votes with an omnibus-style bill that included benefits for public schools, too. But Senate Republican leaders balked at the scope and cost of the House version.

On Monday, Johnson gave a voucher update to school board members in Williamson County, which he represents, on the development of new legislation.

Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson speaks with school board members in Williamson County, which he represents, on Oct. 21, 2024, in Franklin.

Similar to last year’s proposal, the new bill would provide about $7,000 in taxpayer funds to each of up to 20,000 students to attend a private school beginning next fall, with half of the slots going to students who are considered economically disadvantaged. By 2026, all of Tennessee’s K-12 students, regardless of family income, would be eligible for vouchers, though the number of recipients would depend on how much money is budgeted for the program.

“The bill is not finalized, but we’re all working together with the governor’s office to come up with a bill we all can support,” Johnson told Chalkbeat after the presentation.

Testing accountability is among chief issues to settle

Johnson said the Senate’s 2025 bill will again include some type of testing requirement for voucher recipients — either state assessments or state-approved national tests — to gauge whether the program is improving academic outcomes.

However, the Senate bill will eliminate a previous provision that might have allowed public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it. That policy proposal had been included at the insistence of Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, a Bristol Republican who lost his reelection bid in the August primary.

Lamberth, the House leader, did not respond this week to multiple requests for comment about his chamber’s plan, which in 2024 had no testing requirement for voucher recipients. Instead, the House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students, including replacing high school end-of-course assessments with ACT college entrance exams.

The House bill also included numerous financial incentives to try to garner support from public school advocates. One idea was to increase the state’s contribution to pay for public school teachers’ medical insurance by redirecting $125 million the governor had earmarked for teacher salary increases.

Timeline: How private school voucher movement gained momentum in Tennessee before hitting a bump

Johnson told school board members the governor is planning a “substantial” increase for public education funding in 2025 but didn’t specify how much or for what.

“I think we’re going to have some things in there that will be great for all public education,” he said when asked later about including costly incentives such as teacher medical insurance funding. “Whether it’s in that (voucher) bill or if it’s in a separate bill is a great question. We will see. I don’t know the answer.”

Williamson County school board rescinds earlier anti-voucher resolution

Johnson told board members in his home district that he expects “nominal” impact to Williamson County’s two suburban school systems south of Nashville, if the bill passes the legislature in 2025. Most enrollees, he said, would be in urban areas that have more low-performing schools and private school options.

Later Monday, Williamson County’s board, including four newly elected members whose campaigns were supported by a conservative out-of-state political action committee, voted 10-2 to rescind a resolution passed by the previous board opposing Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act.

The governor is from Williamson County and graduated from a public high school there in 1977. So it was significant when his local board voted in March to join more than 50 other school boards across Tennessee on record against his signature education proposal.

But Dennis Diggers, a new board member, argued that it was appropriate to revisit the issue given the recent election, and proposed rescinding the resolution.

“Four of the six candidates who won their election ran publicly for more than six months on this issue, so it was out there,” Diggers said. “I am not going to deny the parents in Williamson County the chance to help their kids.”

Meanwhile, a Tennessee policy organization that supports vouchers released a new poll showing 58% of the state’s voters are more inclined to support a candidate who supports letting parents collect public funding to choose where their child is educated, including public, private, charter, or home schools. The Beacon Center poll did not use the word “vouchers” in its question to voters, which tends to poll worse than language about “school choice.”

School voucher voter polls vary wildly in Tennessee

Universal vouchers would mark a major expansion of vouchers in Tennessee, where lawmakers voted in 2019 to create education savings account options for students in Memphis and Nashville. That targeted program, which has since expanded to the Chattanooga area, has 3,550 enrollees in its third year, still below the 5,000-student cap, according to data provided by the state education department.

A spokeswoman for the governor said his administration continues to work with both legislative chambers on a “unified” universal voucher bill to kick off discussions for the 2025 session. She also noted that $144 million remains in this year’s state budget for the program, even though lawmakers didn’t approve the bill.

“We remain grateful for the General Assembly’s continued commitment to deliver Education Freedom Scholarships to Tennessee families by keeping funding for last year’s proposal in the budget,” said Elizabeth Johnson, the governor’s press secretary.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

State renews charter for Wooddale Middle School, overturning Memphis board decision

2024-10-18T14:25:05+00:00

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The operator of Wooddale Middle School, a Memphis charter school exiting the state turnaround district, will continue managing it after a state panel overturned a decision by Memphis-Shelby County Schools to deny its application.

The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission followed the recommendation of its executive director, Tess Stovall, in approving the application by IOTA Community Schools, formerly known as Green Dot Public Schools.

The 7-1 vote on Thursday came despite a recommendation by the commission’s own review committee to deny the application based on shortcomings in IOTA’s plan for academics and operations, as well as the performance of other schools in the network’s charter portfolio.

Arlandra Parker, who oversees charter school development for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, also argued that Wooddale had shown “inconsistent academic performance” for nearly a decade under the management of Green Dot/IOTA during its time in the state’s Achievement School District turnaround program, or ASD.

But Stovall said her review of the record tells a bigger story.

While acknowledging Wooddale’s mixed academic performance, she said the school has shown improvement in the past two years and generally outperforms nearby middle schools operated by the local district.

“I do not have confidence that, if responsibility for operating the school is shifted to Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Wooddale students will perform any different than the students at the other zoned middle schools,” Stovall wrote in her analysis.

Commissioner Terence Patterson, who is also CEO of the charter-friendly Memphis Education Fund, said the dearth of high-quality middle school options around Wooddale should factor into the state panel’s decisions on charter appeals, especially for Memphis schools transitioning out of the ASD.

“To even consider giving the option of running the school back to a district that has four neighboring schools with single-digit proficiency, I would almost view as negligence,” he said, referring to proficiency rates on state standardized tests.

Chairperson Chris Richards, a retired FedEx executive who also represents West Tennessee on the commission, cited concerns that Memphis-Shelby County Schools recently shuttered its Innovation Zone, another school turnaround program that could have provided Wooddale with additional resources and support when returning to its home district.

“We’re facing great uncertainty (about) the support of the local district, and that bothers me a lot,” she said, adding “that kind of support makes the difference between whether kids can get to school or not.”

The vote was the clearest example so far that the commission is willing to look beyond the state’s established metrics for scoring a charter school application, leaning instead on members’ views of whether approving it is in a community’s best interest.

It was also the third time in seven appeals that the commission has overturned the Memphis school board’s denial of a charter application since the legislature created the appellate entity under a 2019 law.

Last year, the commission approved an application from Capstone Education Group to continue operating Cornerstone Prep Lester as it prepared to exit the ASD at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

The commission also sided last year with Empower Memphis Career and College Prep, which is planning to open a K-8 charter school in the fall of 2025 focused on career and technical education in the city’s Orange Mound community.

In her analysis, Stovall said approving IOTA‘s application was in the best interest of Wooddale’s 450 students, the local district, and community. But she also identified challenges.

Wooddale’s chronic absenteeism rate is significantly higher than nearby middle schools, and there’s no guarantee that Memphis-Shelby County Schools will lease or sell the campus in the city’s Parkway Village area to IOTA.

Bluff City High School, another IOTA Memphis school that is already under the commission’s oversight, has been on charter probation since 2022, based on its failure to meet academic performance standards. The school’s charter is up for renewal under the commission in 2026-27.

IOTA has two remaining ASD schools — Hillcrest High and Kirby Middle — whose charter agreements with the state will end after the 2025-26 school year, creating uncertainty for the network in the next few years.

“While I do have some concerns when reviewing the amended application for Wooddale, the evidence of the entire record demonstrates to me that Wooddale is offering a higher quality option to families in the Parkway Village area,” Stovall said.

The commission also voted this week to uphold Rutherford County Schools‘ denial of a charter to Novus Smart Academy, as well as Nashville school board’s denial of a charter to Nashville School of Excellence.

But it overturned the Nashville district on three applications and approved charters for LEAD Southeast Elementary, Nurses Middle College, and Encompass Community School.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools now have 30 days to reach mutual agreements with the respective charter networks for authorization. If that doesn’t happen, the state commission becomes the default authorizer.

Visit here to see the outcomes of all charter appeals to the commission.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor‘s note: This story has been updated to include the commission’s decisions on more 2024 charter appeals.

How Tennessee’s largest school system is stepping up its literacy work

2024-10-16T22:04:00+00:00

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Superintendent Marie Feagins is embracing a “back to basics” approach to reading instruction as Memphis-Shelby County Schools seeks to improve student test results that rank near the bottom statewide and nationally.

The foundation of Feagins’ literacy plan is high-quality curriculum and consistent daily instruction focused on phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension, plus giving students more opportunities to engage with texts.

“It just means that we’re getting back to fundamentals when we talk about teaching and learning in our schools and our classrooms,” Jared Myracle, the district’s new executive director over literacy, told school board members Tuesday during a work session.

The strategy isn’t a departure from the district’s embrace in recent years of the movement known as the “science of reading.” That approach, which is grounded in an explicit, systematic teaching of phonics, puts more emphasis on sounding out words.

But with 78% of students in Tennessee’s largest school system scoring below proficiency on state tests for English language arts in 2023-24, district leaders say, there’s an urgent need to intensify literacy work for its 106,000 students.

“To put it very simply, we’re talking about ensuring our students are able to decode or break down what words say, and then when they put them back together, to actually understand what they’re reading,” Myracle said.

Feagins declared that “literacy is the foundation of all learning” when she hired Myracle in June for a cabinet-level position focused exclusively on that need. A 20-year educator, Myracle most recently served as chief academic officer of Jackson-Madison County Schools, also in West Tennessee.

In his first report to school board members on what he’s doing to improve literacy, Myracle said a key element of this year’s professional development sessions for educators has been to place more responsibility with students, so that “the brain doing the work is the brain doing the learning,” as opposed to students passively listening to a teacher standing in front of the class.

“We’re asking teachers to begin every class with a literacy-based focusing activity so that students have consistent opportunities to practice building those muscles day in, day out. They also end their class with a literacy-based closing activity,” Myracle said of the reading, writing, or speaking exercises.

With just a few minutes of such activities at the start and end of every class, he said, “students have over 1,500 additional opportunities in a school year to exercise those muscles. And that’s the type of repetition that adds up.”

Myracle acknowledged that reading comprehension is challenging in Memphis, where a high concentration of students live in poverty and aren’t exposed to many enriching experiences outside of school.

According to the state report card, 55% of students are considered economically disadvantaged in Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Jared Myracle

“It’s not that students who come from low-income families can’t read, or can’t learn to read,” Myracle said. “It’s just that they oftentimes have knowledge deficits that take longer to fill than their more highly advantaged peers.”

The district has shared literacy “toolkits” with parents, supplementing the tens of thousands of books given away annually by Literacy Mid-South, as well as assistance from numerous other nonprofit partners.

“It’s very important, and it accelerates students’ learning, if they read on the same topic multiple times,” Myracle said.

Memphis students have long trailed the rest of the state on state and national reading assessments, prompting numerous initiatives through the years. This spring, the district improved to a 22.4% proficiency rate after logging post-pandemic lows on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, still significantly behind the statewide proficiency rate of 39%.

But school board members were encouraged by Tuesday’s presentation.

“This is good stuff,” Stephanie Love told Myracle, before asking him about the major differences between the district’s work now and last year.

He cited a bigger focus on using materials adopted for English language arts classes and stepping up daily literacy instruction. It’s also important to give the plan adequate time and support to work.

“Sometimes we get distracted in education by bright and shiny objects and we want to chase other initiatives that aren’t at that instructional core,” Myracle said.

“The commitment that we’re making is that we’re going to stay focused on these things at the middle of the instructional core to improve achievement and to improve the literacy rates of our students.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Governor says Tennessee has money for both Hurricane Helene recovery and universal school vouchers

2024-10-11T19:24:00+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee said Hurricane Helene’s massive destruction in northeast Tennessee, plus a growing backlog of public infrastructure needs statewide, won’t prevent his administration from pursuing a universal private school voucher program during his final two years in office.

He also suggested that there’s no need to tap into the $144 million set aside for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act to beef up the state’s disaster response. That money currently is not being used, because his proposal stalled in the legislature this year.

“We don’t have to choose one or the other,” Lee said Thursday during a media briefing about the state’s emergency response and recovery work.

Ongoing and potential new initiatives like statewide vouchers remain possible, he said, because of strong fiscal management by the state in the last 20 years.

“We have resources. We have an economy. We have the ability to invest in … infrastructure and education both,” Lee added.

The governor sought to quell suggestions from some lawmakers that state leaders rethink Tennessee’s budget priorities, not only to help northeast Tennessee recover from potentially $1 billion-plus in damage to its public infrastructure, but also to address a growing backlog of at least $68 billion needed statewide to improve roads, bridges, water systems, schools, firehouses, and more, according to the state’s latest assessment.

One of his administration’s top priorities is to give public funding to any family across Tennessee who wants to send their children to private school. This summer, Lee said his office was crafting a new bill after his 2024 proposal stumbled in legislative committees this spring due to disagreements among Republicans.

Last week, Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican and voucher supporter who chairs a House education committee, said the state’s new first priority should be “taking care of our neighbors in East Tennessee” and helping them recover from the deadly storm.

“Can we do universal vouchers, too? I don’t know,” White continued. “But East Tennessee has got to be our top focus.”

On Thursday, Lee said his administration is already prioritizing recovery and rebuilding for the region.

He announced a $100 million fund to help 13 hurricane-ravaged counties remove debris and repair water and wastewater systems immediately. Those counties eventually can seek reimbursements from the federal government to repay the fund, but need no-interest loans up front, Lee said.

On Friday, the chairperson of the House Democratic caucus issued a scathing critique of the governor’s plan to loan counties money, instead of providing state funding outright to supplement federal assistance. He also criticized Lee for tapping shared state-federal Medicaid funding to provide the loans.

“Gov. Lee has established a solid reputation for fiscal mismanagement and callous decision-making during his term, but this loan program beats anything I’ve ever seen,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville.

Clemmons said the state should be pulling from its reserves, or the unused $144 million voucher allocation, to provide disaster assistance.

Schools have been closed since the storm flooded the rural, mountainous region in late September, washing out roads and bridges, damaging drinking water and wastewater systems, and battering school campuses.

In addition to overseeing repairs, school officials have been revamping bus routes for the return of students, many of whom already had fall breaks planned for October. Daily bus commutes likely will lengthen to more than an hour for many children. At a Carter County high school that’s expected to be declared a total loss, students will be relocated to a former school building that houses district offices.

Meanwhile, officials with the state education department said they are working with local school leaders to provide flexibility and assistance to school systems affected by Helene.

That may involve granting waivers so schools can provide more instruction remotely than normally allowed, or to reduce the required number of instructional days. The state also will work with districts as needed regarding fall high school and ACT testing, a spokesperson said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a response from House Democrats.

With all of Tennessee’s hurricane damage, will funding priorities change for schools, vouchers?

2024-10-08T20:07:39+00:00

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One high school took in 4 feet of water and is expected to be declared a total loss. Other campuses in northeast Tennessee sustained roof, water system, and other damage — including food that spoiled in refrigerators after the power went down. School bus routes have been thrown into disarray by mangled roads and bridges.

Officials across the region are still assessing Hurricane Helene’s damage to schools and their surrounding communities, but a few things are becoming clear: The already massive repair needs for Tennessee school buildings and other public infrastructure are about to grow. And with a long and costly recovery ahead, state leaders will need to rethink some of their top budget priorities — possibly including Gov. Bill Lee’s desire to extend private school vouchers statewide — to figure out how to pay for them.

“I’m not sure when we’ll be back in school,” said Mischelle Simcox, superintendent of Johnson County Schools.

Late last week, her team was trying to figure out how to revamp transportation in a district where 75% of its 2,000 students rely on buses to get to six rural schools.

“Many of our highways are just gone, and a lot of bridges are out,” she said. “We’ve been through blizzards. We’ve been through COVID. But in my 26 years as an educator, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

There is money available. Tennessee’s current spending plan, for instance, includes $144 million for Lee’s universal school voucher proposal — funding that’s sitting unused since the bill stalled in the legislature in April.

The state’s rainy day fund, now projected to reach a record-high $2.15 billion, is another potential source. That money is set aside in case of economic downturns or emergencies. But lawmakers have historically been protective of the pot because it contributes to Tennessee’s good bond rating, which also helps local governments get lower interest rates when borrowing money.

In addition, there may be unclaimed funding from $1.5 billion the legislature allocated this year to give certain tax refunds to businesses, which have until Nov. 30 to submit their claims.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican and voucher supporter who chairs a House education committee, is ambivalent about which source or sources to tap. But he is adamant that the state should reevaluate its priorities.

“Our first priority now has got to be taking care of our neighbors in East Tennessee and helping them recover from this storm damage,” White said.

“Can we do universal vouchers, too? I don’t know,” he continued. “But East Tennessee has got to be our top focus.”

Eight hard-hit counties due to receive federal aid

The hurricane blew ashore in Florida on Sept. 26, then dumped more than 40 trillion gallons of rain on the Southeast in less than a week, battering inland communities that typically are safe from tropical storms. At least 230 people have died, including 15 Tennesseans, with many people still missing.

Eight mostly rural, mountainous counties suffered the brunt of the record-setting rainfall in East Tennessee — Carter, Cocke, Greene, Hamblen, Hawkins, Johnson, Unicoi, and Washington. They’ve already been approved to receive federal disaster aid, with philanthropic help promised by entities ranging from nonprofit organizations to entertainer Dolly Parton, an East Tennessee native.

The ultimate cost of recovery to state government could exceed $1 billion.

Transportation officials project it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars just to repair state-owned bridges, and they expect months of road closures. For many students, bus detours could lengthen their daily commute by hours.

In Carter County, where Hampton High School flooded, the school board voted in an emergency meeting last week to relocate its 400 students to the district’s central office building, a former school. But with the abandoned campus located in a flood plain and help from insurance providers unlikely for a rebuild, school leaders were preparing for a long, arduous recovery.

Most schools in the region weathered the storms better, but still sustained damage, including roofs to repair, buckled parking lots, and lots of downed trees, debris, and mud to clean up.

Many campuses where electricity and water have been restored are serving as community resource centers, providing food, shelter, and laundry and showering services to displaced families, especially since some schools were already planning closures for fall break.

The cafeteria of Mountain City Elementary School is serving as a food and supply distribution center for families affected by Hurricane Helene flooding in Johnson County, Tennessee.

A group of education and philanthropic leaders have established the Northeast Tennessee School District Disaster Relief Fund, with 100% of the proceeds going to assist school districts hardest hit by Helene.

Tennessee was already behind on school building needs

Before the hurricane hit, Tennessee already had a statewide backlog of school building needs through 2027, estimated to cost nearly $10 billion. It’s part of a $68 billion inventory of public infrastructure needs that also include roads, bridges, utilities, and firehouses, according to the state’s latest assessment.

For local officials seeking to transform their communities through education, keeping up with school upgrades is especially important. A growing body of evidence asserts higher-quality facilities translate into better academic outcomes for vulnerable children, plus higher property values for communities that surround improved school buildings.

Rep. David Hawk, a Greeneville Republican whose district was affected by the floods, has tried for a decade to direct recurring state funds to brick-and-mortar education needs. Helene’s aftermath, he said, further highlights the challenges faced by city and county governments, which mostly use property and sales tax revenues to pay for school facilities.

“Right now in Upper East Tennessee, we’re focused on immediate needs, but our long-term needs will not be a quick fix,” Hawk said. “We’ll be coupling state and federal dollars to achieve what needs to be done. I hope one day we’ll be able to use recurring state dollars to fund the schools and roads and bridges and water and sewer infrastructures that need to be upgraded.

“The needs are everywhere,” Hawk said.

On Tuesday, Tennessee Democrats launched a previously planned“Rocky Top, Not Rocky Roads” campaign aimed at modernizing the state’s transportation systems and relieving traffic congestion amid climate change that’s fueling natural and environmental disasters.

“We have got to stop being so reactive in our state, “ said Sen. Heidi Campbell, of Nashville, while Rep. Ronnie Glynn, of Clarksville, called for “intelligent, sustainable solutions.”

How the storm could shift the voucher debate

Touring damage in Cocke County last week, the governor said his administration was working on a plan specifically to assist students.

“We’ve got to think outside the box,” Lee said, “not just respond in the way that we know how to respond, but go above and beyond that, recognizing that these kids need to be in school, and they need to be fed, and they need to be educated, and they need all the services that come with that.”

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with first responders in Cocke County on Oct. 3, 2024. The East Tennessee county was one of the state's hardest hit areas with flood damage caused by Hurricane Helene.

Voucher opponents say thinking outside of the box should include reallocating untapped voucher funding from the current state budget to help storm-ravaged schools.

The $144 million allocation was Lee’s consolation prize after Republican disagreements derailed his universal voucher proposal in legislative committees in April. The conflict stemmed partly from worries that offering school vouchers statewide, regardless of family income, could bust the state’s budget, similar to Arizona’s experience after it pioneered one of the nation’s largest school voucher programs in 2022.

But hours after Tennessee lawmakers adjourned this spring, Lee said money they budgeted for his proposed Education Freedom Scholarship Act showed their “clear intent” to pass universal vouchers next year when the General Assembly reconvenes.

JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee and a frequent voucher critic, said “the optics are horrible” to leave such funding in place as Tennesseans toil with a natural disaster. The state’s juvenile justice system, he noted, is also under intense statewide strain this fall because of hundreds of school threats, mostly on social media, with some local officials pleading for more juvenile detention space.

“We don’t have an obligation to fund private schools under our state constitution, but we do have an obligation to fund public schools,” Bowman said. “If the choice is between vouchers and rebuilding our state and keeping our kids safe, there’s no really no choice.”

“We’ve been through blizzards. We’ve been through COVID. But in my 26 years as an educator, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Mischelle Simcox, superintendent, Johnson County Schools.

White, a longtime lawmaker from Memphis, agrees the legislature should revisit its financial priorities, though he’s not ready to identify what should stay and what should go.

His district is on the opposite end of the state from Helene’s destruction but lies along the New Madrid Fault seismic zone, a source of tremors and historic earthquakes affecting seven states.

“If Memphis had an earthquake, I would hope the state’s No. 1 priority would be helping Shelby County and any other counties affected in our region of the state,” he said.

“We’re all Tennesseans.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

‘Beloved’ and five other library books banned by one of Tennessee’s largest school systems

2024-09-20T03:58:42+00:00

In one of Tennessee’s book banning hot spots, the Rutherford County Board of Education voted Thursday to remove six books from high school libraries, including Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the horrific realities of American slavery.

Also removed were Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” a coming-of-age novel in which a supporting character is gay, and “Wicked,” Gregory Maguire’s popular retelling of the classic “Wizard of Oz” tale.

But Sherry Shahan’s “Skin & Bones,” which delves into eating disorders, failed to get enough votes for removal and will stay on high school library shelves in Rutherford County Schools, a suburban district south of Nashville with about 50,000 students.

The votes came amid a politically charged national climate and debates in Tennessee over what constitutes age appropriateness versus censorship.

Tennessee legislators recently revised Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 school library law to expand the definition of what books are prohibited. The goal, they said, is to ensure the materials are appropriate for the ages and maturity levels of the students who can access them.

But instead of holding public votes on questionable material as Rutherford County’s board did Thursday, the revised law has created confusion for librarians and school leaders, prompting many to quietly pull controversial books from the shelves. A recent survey of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians found that more than 1,100 titles have been removed statewide under the changes, with more under review.

Rutherford County’s board voted one by one on seven books under review at the request of board member Caleb Tidwell, who cited “sexually explicit” content that he believes crossed the line of local community decency standards.

The votes came in a packed meeting room after two hours of public comment and debate, with more than a dozen citizens speaking both for and against Tidwell’s proposal. Some who opposed the books read several passages aloud.

Also removed were two novels by Sarah J. Maas, “Queen of Shadows” and “Tower of Dawn,” and Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing.”

The decisions came after several board members expressed confusion over which state laws and policies to follow in making their decisions: the state’s criminal obscenity law that calls for review of the material as a whole, or the revised school library law that prohibits sexual content either “in whole or in part.”

Members also voted against considering a compromise from Stan Vaught, a newly elected board member who proposed creating mature reading areas within school libraries requiring parental approval for access. The seven books in question would be placed there, he said.

The ACLU of Tennessee, which sent a Sept. 16 letter urging board members to keep all seven books, said Thursday’s votes represented the viewpoints of a vocal minority who wants to ban books that address race, racism, LGBTQ+ rights, and marginalized groups.

'Beloved' is Toni Morrison's haunting novel about sexual violence and the brutality of American slavery. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.

“Rutherford County students will pay the price and be at a significant disadvantage compared to their peers across the state and the U.S. who have access to these materials and are developing the critical thinking skills needed for college and beyond,” Kathy Sinback, the organization’s executive director in Tennessee, said in a statement.

But Tidwell, who called for the books’ removal, said the decisions were a “win for the protection of minors,” and he hinted that more library books will be reviewed.

“While there is likely more work to do, tonight was a step forward,” he said after the meeting.

The district already removed 29 titles earlier this year, as well as one last year, Mike Curato’s “Flamer,” a graphic novel about a gay teenager struggling with his identity.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which character in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” identifies as gay.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Under Tennessee’s stricter school library law, some books quietly disappear

2024-09-17T22:09:26+00:00

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Jennifer Edwards was a teenager in Arizona when she first read “Beloved,” Toni Morrison’s haunting novel about sexual violence and the brutal realities of American slavery.

“It had a profound effect on me,” she said, citing the empathy, historical understanding, and critical thinking skills the book imparted.

Now a mother of two sons and living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Edwards wants teens in her community to have access to her all-time favorite book.

But under a recently revised state law broadening the definition of what school library materials are prohibited, her local board of education is set to vote Thursday on whether to pull the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and six other books with mature themes from the shelves of Rutherford County Schools.

“Banning books is not OK,” Edwards told the board last month as it began reviewing the materials. “Just because you don’t like what the mirror shows you doesn’t mean you put the mirror down.”

This week’s vote comes after the district, south of Nashville, already removed 29 books from its libraries this year under a previous policy, part of a wave of purges on campuses across Tennessee and other states.

How the ‘age-appropriate’ debate is altering curriculum

In Tennessee, that wave started under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 school library law requiring periodic reviews of catalogs to ensure materials are appropriate for the ages and maturity levels of the students who can access them. Librarians and teachers had to publish their inventories of book collections online for parents to view. Early removals included books about marginalized groups, including people who identify as LGBTQ+, and descriptions of slavery and racial discrimination throughout U.S. history.

This spring, scrutiny escalated. Republican lawmakers added a definition of what’s “suitable” and, based on the state’s obscenity law, prohibited any material that “in whole or in part contains descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

In the absence of state guidance on how to interpret the changes — What constitutes excess violence, for instance? Are photographs of nude statues allowed? What about Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet”? — some school boards like Rutherford County’s are putting questionable material to a vote. Educators in many other districts are quietly culling their shelves of certain books.

“Yes, there is some subjectiveness to it, but there’s also a line. We need to determine what the line is, and then hold it.”
Caleb Tidwell, board member, Rutherford County Schools

A recent survey of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians found that more than 1,100 titles have been removed under the changes, with more under review. One librarian anonymously reported pulling 300 titles at a single school since the start of the academic year. Only a sixth of the organization’s members responded to the survey.

“We may never truly know the level to which books have been removed from school libraries in Tennessee,” the organization said in a statement, noting that large-scale removals may cause some libraries to fall under the state’s minimum standards for collection counts.

“A literal interpretation of this law may have the unintended consequences of gutting resources that support curriculum standards for fine arts, biology, health, history, and world religions, to name a few, especially in high schools, where AP curriculum and dual enrollment courses require more critical texts,” the group said.

Lindsey Kimery, one of the organization’s leaders, said the law’s rollout has created “chaos and confusion” for school librarians.

“Some librarians have received guidance from their central office; some have not,” she said. “Some boards are updating their policies for handling book challenges to align with the law’s changes. Some districts have interpreted the law to mean they should preemptively go through their collections and pull anything they think has one of the prohibited topics in it.

“It’s all over the map,” Kimery added.

‘Phantom book banning’: Censorship in the shadows

The quiet censorship is being noticed by First Amendment advocates, from the ACLU of Tennessee to Julia Garnett, who graduated last spring from Hendersonville High School in Sumner County, north of Nashville.

Garnett started a free speech club at her high school during her senior year. Now a freshman at Smith College in Massachusetts, she is the youth spokesperson for the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, Sept. 22-28.

Last week, she searched her alma mater’s online library catalog to look for books by Sarah J. Maas and Ellen Hopkins, whose popular young adult novels are frequently challenged or banned due to their mature themes and sexual content.

None were listed.

“They used to be there, but they’ve disappeared,” said Garnett. “I call it phantom book banning, where libraries are being censored, but not in a public way. I think that’s what scares me the most.”

The law is vulnerable to a federal challenge on First Amendment grounds, said Kathy Sinback, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee. The statute’s vagueness, a lack of compliance guidance from the state, and the uneven way the law is being applied across Tennessee are among issues that open the door to a lawsuit.

“But we’d love to see the legislature fix the problems next year without having to pursue litigation,” Sinback said. “We’d like to see it made constitutional in a way that will ensure our children have access to the literature they deserve.”

Legal precedents support students’ First Amendment rights

The House sponsor of the law’s recent revisions, Rep. Susan Lynn of Mt. Juliet, did not respond to emails asking if she’d be open to revisiting the law. Some of her critics worry the goal is ultimately to take a legal challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a majority.

The Senate sponsor, Joey Hensley of Hohenwald, said he believes the law is constitutional.

“I’m always open to making laws better,” he said, “but I don’t think this interferes with people’s First Amendment rights, and I’m personally not hearing about problems with it. The law’s intent is simply to ensure public schools do not give children access to materials that are not appropriate for their ages.”

Sen. Joey Hensley, of Hohenwald, co-sponsored 2024 legislation to identify what school library materials are prohibited, and to require local school boards to act on book complaints within 60 days.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said higher courts have consistently sided with First Amendment advocates on challenges to content in school libraries, even as efforts to ban books in public schools and libraries reached an all-time high in 2023.

The school library is supposed to be a place of voluntary inquiry — a safe space for students to explore ideas under the supervision of adults instead of alone on their cellphones.

“This gets to the core of the First Amendment,” she said, “the idea that libraries are a marketplace of ideas, and elected officials should not be able to dictate their contents.”

“Students are not just students; they are citizens.”
Ken Paulson, director, Free Speech Center, Middle Tennessee State University

But it’s also possible that another school library case could someday reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Two book ban cases from Iowa and Texas are already making their way through the federal courts.

Current legal precedent stems from the high court’s 1982 ruling involving a school board in New York state that wanted certain books removed from its middle and high school libraries. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against the board and held that “the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom.”

Justice William Brennan wrote that while “local school boards have a substantial legitimate role to play in the determination of school library content,” the First Amendment doesn’t give government officials the power to ditch books because they don’t like them or disagree with their viewpoints.

Ken Paulson, director of the Tennessee-based Free Speech Center and a former editor-in-chief of USA Today, also cites the importance of a 1969 Supreme Court ruling establishing that students have constitutional rights, too.

The case involved students in Des Moines, Iowa, who wore black armbands to their public school in silent protest of the Vietnam War. The court sided with the students.

“Because someone is 12 or 14, we sometimes think they don’t have constitutional rights,” Paulson said. “But they do, and they’re surprisingly robust. Students are not just students; they are citizens.”

Middle Tennessee district is a book ban hotspot

In Murfreesboro, a college town that is home to about 50,000 students in Tennessee’s largest suburban K-12 district, most titles removed so far were in high school libraries. They generally were contemporary young adult novels containing sexual content and other mature themes, from child abuse and suicide to substance abuse and LGBTQ+ issues.

The books were flagged as “sexually explicit” material by school board member Caleb Tidwell and removed this spring without going through the district’s library review committee that includes a principal, teachers, librarians, and a parent.

Rutherford County Board of Education is scheduled to decide Sept. 19 whether to remove seven more books from local school libraries.

Xan Lasko, who recently retired as a high school librarian in Rutherford County, said the directives she received from Superintendent James Sullivan bypassed the district’s usual review process for handling complaints. Instead, Tidwell cited a provision of board policy requiring the immediate removal of sexually explicit material. Sullivan concurred, according to their email exchange obtained from the district through a public records request from Nashville TV station WSMV.

Tidwell, a Republican who was reelected to the school board in August, said he made the requests on behalf of individuals who have expressed concerns but who feared retaliation from the media and individuals in the district.

In his opinion, all of the materials in question violate both the state’s obscenity law and local board policy. Most, he said, have “education value near zero, or very low.” For those that provide historical context, other books that go into those topics — but without sexually explicit language — are available.

“It’s a very contentious topic,” said Tidwell, who has three school-age children. “But if we focus on the content, most of this stuff is pretty clear. Yes, there is some subjectiveness to it, but there’s also a line. We need to determine what the line is, and then hold it.”

Lasko, the former librarian, said that’s what librarians and educators do.

“My biggest issue is that a small number of people were making the judgment to curtail what students are able to read using a vague law,” said Lasko, who now chairs the intellectual freedom committee of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians.

“We have master’s degrees in library science. We know what we’re doing,” she said. “But a lot of times, we weren’t being consulted.”

New library policy diminishes the role of librarians

In advance of this week’s vote on Tidwell’s latest request to remove more books, the board revamped its library materials policy to add language from the revised state law. It also eliminated the 11-member review committee appointed annually by the board to consider book complaints.

Instead, materials that district leaders deem to be in violation of the state’s obscenity law are to be immediately removed from all school libraries and then reviewed for a final decision by the board.

A second avenue for removal — through complaints filed by a student, parent, or school employee — also requires a board vote after receiving recommendations from the principal and superintendent and a review by an ad hoc committee.

“Before,” said the ACLU’s Sinback, “there was a thorough process where every person on the review committee had expertise and would read the book. They’d look at the questionable content but also the overall quality of the material and how it could impact kids exposed to it in both a positive and negative way.”

Now, she said, the decision rests completely with board members.

The changes concern school librarians like Brian Seadorf, who oversees the collection at Blackman High School in Murfreesboro. He asked board members and parents to “just talk to us” if they have concerns about certain books.

“We are educators, we are parents, we are grandparents. … We are good people,” Seadorf told the board on Aug. 22.

Angela Frederick, a Rutherford County resident and school librarian in a neighboring district, added: “The titles you’re considering removing are for older students approaching adulthood. It is developmentally appropriate for teenagers to mentally wrestle with difficult topics. It is also excellent preparation for higher education. Shielding them from books like these does not prepare them for anything but ignorance.”

For Edwards, the Rutherford County parent who also spoke to the board, she’s most upset that “Beloved” is on the chopping block, even though she knows it’s a deeply sad and painful book to read. (Morrison, who died in 2019, said she was inspired to write the novel based on the true story of an enslaved woman, Margaret Garner, who killed her own daughter in 1856 to spare her from slavery.)

“Just because you don’t like what the mirror shows you doesn’t mean you put the mirror down.”
Jennifer Edwards, parent

“I remember it took me several weeks to finish ‘Beloved’ when I was 15, because I had to put it down every few days,” recalls Edwards, now 42. “I had to have time to process what I was reading.”

“But to restrict literary genius,” she continued, “it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: A previous version of this story attributed a quote from Rutherford County resident Angela Frederick to librarian Brian Seadorf. This version corrects the misattribution.

Federal review of Memphis school district cites dozens of cases of alleged sexual harassment and assault

2024-08-30T19:17:13+00:00

Memphis-Shelby County Schools violated federal civil rights law by not adequately responding to complaints of sexual harassment and assault of students over a three-year period, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced on Friday.

The office said that the state’s largest school district has agreed to a number of corrective steps to resolve the office’s compliance review, which began in March 2020.

According to the agency, district documents reflect reports that teachers or substitute teachers sexually assaulted students in seven incidents across three school years at all school levels in the district: elementary, middle, and high school. District documents reflect 53 more cases of reported staff-to-student sexual harassment, not including sexual assault, as well as a total of 88 cases of student-to-student sexual harassment during the same time period, the OCR said.

The violations occurred over three years starting in 2017-18, according to the OCR’s letter to Superintendent Marie Feagins, who took the helm of the district earlier this year.

Those records and witness interviews “reflect clear district violations” of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, and raise “serious concerns” about the district’s response, which is subject to the same law, the OCR said.

“Students in the Memphis-Shelby County School District deserve the safety and freedom from discrimination that Congress promised them in Title IX, and the District now commits to fulfill its Title IX obligations to these students,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said in a statement. “The Office for Civil Rights will monitor the school district in the coming years to be sure it complies with Title IX.”

A statement issued later Friday by the MSCS media relations department said the district is “committed to ensuring the safety, dignity, and equal educational opportunities for all students” and recognizes the importance of Title IX compliance. The administration is addressing issues identified by OCR while “actively collaborating to establish corrective actions regarding past reports,” it said.

The school board, meanwhile, is in transition and without a chairperson as four new members were sworn in on Thursday.

“Any time a person is violated, the school board is very concerned,” Stephanie Love, who was reelected to the board this month, said Friday. “I want to talk to the superintendent and our general counsel to see what we can do to right the ship.”

The Office of Civil Rights, which according to its letter to the district began its investigation in March 2020, determined that the district violated Title IX by:

Not having a designated Title IX coordinator for substantial portions of the office’s compliance review period.
Not coordinating its response to reports of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, through its Title IX coordinator as required during the time that a coordinator was designated.
Not involving the Title IX coordinator in the majority of sexual harassment files reviewed for the investigation, including not involving a Title IX coordinator in any of the incidents involving staff.
Not maintaining a nondiscrimination statement and harassment policies that comply with Title IX.
Not fulfilling the Title IX obligation to maintain records sufficient for the district or for the Office of Civil Rights to make compliance determinations, including inconsistent reporting to the office for its Civil Rights Data Collection and for the compliance review itself.

The OCR’s 20-page letter to the district says files generally showed that staff members overseeing employee relations approached the cases primarily as personnel matters, focusing on whether the accused employee violated a school board ethics rule or engaged in conduct that implicated state laws regarding education, rather than on whether there was a potential Title IX violation.

The OCR spotlighted one case in particular involving an elementary school teacher who was ultimately convicted of soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor and who was reported to have encouraged boys and girls to touch each other inappropriately during class, in addition to other alleged misconduct.

The agency said the record does not reflect any involvement of the Title IX coordinator in investigating the teacher’s conduct, any support provided by the district to affected students to ensure their equal access to education, or any notice to the parties regarding any district determination under Title IX.

The resolution agreement requires the school district to take a number of steps, including: to adopt and publish a compliant notice of nondiscrimination; revise its policies; review all sexual assault cases from the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years to make sure each were resolved or, if not, take steps to do so; conduct district staff training; survey parents and students on how sexual harassment in schools is handled; and “designate, train, and publicize the contact information” for its Title IX coordinator.

The district has taken some steps already. In the budget for the 2024-25 school year, the district general counsel’s list of priorities start with two bullet points.

One is to “establish a strong team” to handle Title IX issues and revise policies and workflows as appropriate.

The second: to implement training in student and employee civil rights “to ensure compliance with duties to respond to, investigate, and decide complaints” concerning federal laws.

Eric Gorski is Chalkbeat’s managing editor for local news. You can reach him at egorski@chalkbeat.org.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Amid big shifts, Memphis school district’s enrollment is up, but still short of projections

2024-08-28T22:09:59+00:00

Enrollment in Memphis-Shelby County Schools is ahead of what it was at this time last year, but lags projections for the school year amid significant changes in the composition of the district.

As of this week, 109,636 students were enrolled in Tennessee’s largest district, 1,446 more than a year ago, according to a presentation to the school board Tuesday from Superintendent Marie Feagins.

But that’s below the district’s projected enrollment of 111,983, which includes students in the district’s 54 charter schools.

More than 2,300 students who were expected to attend district schools haven’t shown up.

The enrollment update comes amid big changes in local education, including the shift of nearly a thousand students in three campus schools that were operated by the University of Memphis under a contract with the Memphis district. Under a new state law authorizing the creation of innovative school districts, those schools are now in their own university-run school system.

Meanwhile, the district expected to absorb students from five school buildings that moved this summer from charter operators back to the Memphis district’s control after 10 years with the state-run school turnaround program known as the Achievement School District.

Three of those ASD campuses — Humes Middle, MLK College Prep High, and Memphis Scholars — are now shuttered. MSCS officials have encouraged their students to attend other local schools.

School board member Kevin Woods said MSCS likely would have had fewer students enrolled this year without the ASD transitions.

“I think you’re sharing the narrative that the district has more students, the district is still trending in the right direction,” he told Feagins during his final meeting before departing the board after 13 years in office.

“But we do have students that simply are still not showing up,” he added.

Feagins has made enrollment and attendance two of the top priorities of her new administration after taking over as the district’s leader this spring.

Last week, through her initiative dubbed “Hey Neighbor!” she went door-to-door to track down students who have not shown up since the academic year began on Aug. 5.

“Come on and open the door for me. It’s your superintendent. I want to make sure you’re OK,” she said during one of her visits, shown on a video posted on social media.

Under the initiative, she said, her team has knocked on more than 600 doors in areas of Memphis with the most no-shows. The goal is to help families reconnect with their schools so their children are back in class.

Woods praised Feagins for knocking on doors, but reminded the community that “it’s everybody’s job” to get kids in school.

“Continue to lean in on friends, folks in churches. Somebody know where these kids are, right?” he said.

Board member Kevin Woods listens during a Memphis-Shelby County Schools board meeting on Oct. 24, 2023. Woods, who has served on the board since 2011, leaves his elected office this month.

Feagins’ presentation also showed an increase of more than 1,100 pre-K students over this time last year.

Charter school enrollment as of Tuesday was 19,624, nearly 900 students more than this time last year.

She reported that average daily attendance is 95% so far this year. But the district has historically struggled with chronic absenteeism, defined as a student who misses 10% or more instructional days in one school year, or about 18 days.

In the 2022-23 academic year, according to the most recent data released by the state, the Memphis district’s chronic absenteeism rate was 28%, equating to nearly 29,000 students.

That means significantly less learning time.

Research suggests that chronic absenteeism puts students at greater risk of negative outcomes that include dropping out or developing poorer reading skills.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

National teacher of the year urges teachers to ‘find their voice’ as experts in their profession

2024-08-26T23:24:49+00:00

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The Tennessee educator chosen as the nation’s teacher of the year is calling on America’s 3.5 million teachers to “find their voice” on behalf of students as many states seek to censor teachers, ban books, and push voucher policies that send taxpayer funding to private schools.

Missy Testerman, who just ended her tenure as Tennessee’s teacher of the year, said that bigger educational priorities demand attention: air conditioners are breaking down in aging school buildings as a new academic year begins; federal pandemic relief funding is running out to pay for tutoring and summer learning programs; and school communities are struggling to provide mental health support, especially for their most marginalized students.

“When we find our voices, we find our own way to stand in the gap for kids. It is not enough to just shut our classroom doors and teach,” Testerman said in her video address to the nation, released this month by the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Testerman, who officially began as her profession’s top ambassador in July, is on leave this academic year from her job at Rogersville City School, where she teaches English language learners in her rural Appalachian town of 4,500 people. Her new role includes traveling to more than 150 speaking engagements or appearances before organizations spanning education, business, health, and government.

Among her messages: Teachers are experts in their field.

“Your governor is not an education expert. The legislature is not filled with education experts,” she told Chalkbeat. “If you want an expert on education policy and outcomes and what works for students, ask your teachers, your administrators, your director of schools.”

That message has resonated at her talks, where she’s routinely greeted afterward by a line of educators waiting to thank her.

“It’s hard to do a profession where you are the expert, but you’re often not treated as such,” she said. “Sometimes, we need to be reminded.”

Testerman spoke with Chalkbeat on Friday before ceding her title as Tennessee’s teacher of the year to the 2024-25 honoree, Bryan Kerns, a math and fire management instructor at Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport.

In many ways, Testerman said, Tennessee epitomizes the challenges faced by educators she’s met across the nation, many of whom feel like they’re walking on eggshells just to keep demanding jobs that pay a modest salary.

While she applauded a focus on early literacy and significant investments in vocational and technical education under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, she said other policy changes during the last six years have been more of a burden.

A 2021 state law limits what public school teachers can say about race, gender, and bias in the classroom and interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in the state’s academic standards. A group of Tennessee teachers is challenging that law in federal court.

Tennessee’s 2022 school library law, billed as a way to ensure materials are age-appropriate, quickly expanded so that a state panel can ban certain books statewide, based on local complaints. This year, lawmakers added a definition of “suitable” that makes it easier to remove materials, including many stories about Black people or those identifying as LGBTQ.

Also this year, the legislature passed a law requiring public school employees to out transgender students to their parents and debated a bill designed to ban LGBTQ+ flags in schools. Testerman called the second proposal, which failed to pass, a distraction.

“From my standpoint, there are so many problems facing schools — I’ll give you a list,” she said. “But that’s not one that I think we need to waste a lot of time on. Let that be a local decision.”

Meanwhile, Lee’s administration is pushing for a statewide voucher program that would let any Tennessee family use taxpayer money toward private school tuition, regardless of their family income.

“Tennessee is currently in the bottom tier of states in per-pupil funding for public education, and increasing that should be our focus,” said Testerman.

“Right now, however, there’s a $144 million placeholder in our state budget for a voucher program that didn’t even pass,” she continued. “It’s disheartening for teachers to know this money is sitting there doing nothing while their students have so many needs.”

Testerman said the money could be used instead to fix broken air conditioners in Memphis schools, hire more mental health professionals in her own school system, and replace outdated Chromebook laptops in suburban Williamson County near Nashville, one of the state’s most affluent districts.

“If Williamson County is seeing these kinds of financial problems,” she said, “you can imagine what’s happening in urban and rural districts in East and West Tennessee that don’t have the tax base to raise funds the traditional way.”

While it often feels like her profession is under attack, Testerman said she’s inspired by the educators she’s met across America as she advocates for higher compensation and respect for them.

“This job can feel heavy,” she said. “Teachers are facing student behavioral and mental health issues at a scale they’ve never seen before. We have no idea what kids go home to. But we can make the seven hours that they’re with us happy. We can use those hours to deliver academic content in a way that prepares them to move on and hopefully create a good life.”

“We are hope givers,” she said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school leaders grapple with school safety, air conditioning issues

2024-08-21T03:07:38+00:00

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The superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools wants to allay concerns about safety in the new school year after narrowly avoiding a walkout by school resource officers last week and accepting the resignation of the district’s new security chief just days after he started.

“I give you assurance … that our district is fine,” Marie Feagins told school board members Tuesday evening after a tumultuous week in which she and the board agreed to give the district’s 125-plus officers significant raises.

Feagins also reported that air conditioning problems that caused a dozen schools to close early on Aug. 5, the first day of classes, also impacted student health as the heat index climbed to 106 degrees.

“We have had some asthma-related incidents and a couple of seizures,” she said. “And so that still remains at the top of mind for us.”

Feagins added that technicians have completed a third of the 1,393 work orders received in August to troubleshoot air conditioning issues across the district’s 165 buildings.

But the maintenance issues are severe, she said of the $1 billion backlog in Tennessee’s largest school system, and the district’s building maintenance division is short-staffed. The district recently increased pay for its technicians, partly because of workforce competition from Ford Motor Co.’s electric truck assembly plant under construction in nearby Haywood County.

The troubling reports came amid sometimes tense exchanges between the district’s new leader and school board members in one of their final meetings before four new members are scheduled to be seated in September following this month’s elections.

But they agreed about the importance of completing Whitehaven High School’s $9.5 million STEM lab, as the board unanimously approved $2.3 million for the job. The construction project, which broke ground in April and also is funded with private dollars, has been delayed three months because of a lag in disbursing money that had been promised earlier by the district’s interim leader, Toni Williams.

The vote to disburse $1.3 million that previously had been approved, plus another $1 million to cover the cost of a storm shelter required by building codes, prompted cheers from Whitehaven teachers and community members, some of whom spoke during the meeting.

“This is a slam dunk; we should have already done this,” said Wayne Hawkins, a teacher at Whitehaven.

Board members also voted unanimously to have the school system’s attorney report from now on to the elected board instead of to the superintendent — a change in organizational structure they said is needed to maintain independence and avoid conflicts of interest.

School safety was front and center last week as school resource officers threatened to walk off the job just days before the district’s annual football jamboree. Last year, gunfire broke out during two games.

But Feagins reported that no major incidents occurred during this year’s three-day jamboree that featured 67 middle and high school teams and attracted more than 6,000 spectators.

She and other board members thanked officers for ensuring a safe environment. A week earlier, they settled their dispute with SROS over pay and other issues.

But Feagins acknowledged missteps in hiring George Harris as her executive director of safety and security without conducting a more thorough background check.

Harris was recruited from Detroit Public Schools Community District, where Feagins previously was an administrator and he was a lieutenant in the department of patrol operations. After school board member Stephanie Love emailed Feagins and other board members on Aug. 16 about allegations that Harris had misappropriated funds during his time in Detroit, Harris resigned from his new job the next day, citing “personal reasons.”

“I own that I made the offer to the individual based on the information that I had,” Feagins told the board.

She said she’s open to policy changes to strengthen the background check process for filling such jobs as she looks to replace Harris in what she called “a very important role.”

Love responded: “I agree we need to strengthen policies so this will never happen again.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee law to let teachers carry guns in schools caused a ruckus, but has drawn little interest

2024-08-14T19:36:28+00:00

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Josh Arrowood carries his .22-caliber handgun most everywhere he goes in his rural Tennessee community — to church at Freewill Baptist, at the Food City store where he shops for groceries, and in the Greene County Courthouse, where he serves as a commissioner.

A new state law that passed this spring would let him, under certain conditions, carry the gun at his workplace, too — South Greene Middle School in Greeneville, where he teaches world history to sixth graders. And Arrowood, who’s had a handgun permit for 15 years, is open to doing so if it can provide an extra layer of security against a school shooting.

“I was in high school when Columbine happened,” he said, recalling the 1999 massacre at a Colorado high school. “And I remember kids putting things like a bat or a baseball in their backpacks so they could try to protect themselves if a shooting happened in their school.”

A gun, at least, “gives a teacher a chance if there’s an armed intruder,” he said.

But between concerns about his personal liability and ambivalence about the new law from local school leaders, he won’t be carrying his pocket-size gun to class this school year.

And because of the way Tennessee’s new law was written, he said, “I don’t expect anybody to take advantage of it.”

Indeed, for all the protests and discord over the legislation before it passed, there’s little talk among school districts or educators about using the option to arm teachers or staff as the new academic year begins. Not a single school system has indicated that it’s planning or working to train employees to carry a gun voluntarily under the new law, according to dozens of school and law enforcement officials contacted by Chalkbeat.

Then again, no one can be sure, since the law doesn’t require local officials to report whether they are deploying the option in any of their schools. And any documents that kickstart the program at the local level aren’t open to the public.

Josh Arrowood, a sixth grade teacher at South Greene Middle School in Greeneville, Tennessee, has had a handgun permit for 15 years. He is open to carrying his gun at school.

But the law does lay down a set of conditions for a teacher to be able to carry a gun in school, including a training requirement, a mental health evaluation, and a signed agreement between the superintendent and principal, plus written authorization from local law enforcement.

And there’s another big hurdle: a provision that assigns teachers sole liability for anything that might go wrong with their gun, including an accidental shooting, or their failure to prevent a tragedy.

The tepid response to the law signals a disconnect between educators and lawmakers on whether more guns in schools make them safer, or could accidentally cause more harm. There’s concern about shifting even more responsibilities to teachers, turning schools into prison-like environments, and unwittingly disrupting an educational climate that should be welcoming and supportive. Tennessee’s urban communities are especially desperate to get guns and gun violence out of their schools.

School shootings spur efforts to arm teachers

After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in Newtown, Connecticut, where a shooter slaughtered 26 people, including 20 children, dozens of states introduced legislation to arm teachers and staff. More than 30 states now allow it under certain conditions, according to the Giffords Law Center, which tracks gun laws.

In Tennessee, which has some of the nation’s most permissive gun laws, the legislature passed a 2016 law to let some school employees carry a gun in certain rural counties to try to bolster security at remotely located schools without an armed school resource officer. But efforts by local law enforcement to obtain liability insurance to train school staff proved to be a stumbling block.

Former Rep. David Byrd, a Waynesboro Republican and retired school principal who sponsored the measure for Wayne and Pickett counties, said he still supports the strategy, but is not aware of any school employee who has carried a gun under that law.

In 2018, after another mass school shooting killed 17 people and injured 17 others in Parkland, Florida, Rep. Ryan Williams began his annual quest to revise and expand the law across Tennessee.

A Republican from Cookeville, about 80 miles east of Nashville, Williams said he was motivated, in part, by concern about his own two children who, at the time, attended a 2,400-student public high school with one school resource officer and dozens of potential points of entry. He argued that teachers need “more than a stapler” to protect their students and themselves if locked in a classroom with a shooter in the building.

But each year, Williams faced resistance from top law enforcement organizations such as the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol. They worried that teachers carrying guns could lead to even more gun-related deaths or injuries in a state that already has a higher-than-normal rate of accidental shootings.

Then came the deadly 2023 shooting at Nashville’s church-run Covenant School, where a shooter murdered three children and three adults before being killed by police.

Mass protests erupted, with thousands of students, parents, and educators flooding Tennessee’s Capitol to demand tighter gun laws and reduced access to guns.

Among other things, they wanted to roll back a 2021 law that lets the majority of Tennesseans carry a loaded handgun in most public places without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety. And they sought laws that would keep guns away from people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis.

The Republican-controlled legislature, however, went a different way, rushing to adjourn after prioritizing measures to further fortify the state’s K-12 campuses. A $230 million investment in school safety paid for security upgrades at public and private schools alike, and most significantly, included funding to place a full-time SRO in every public school across Tennessee.

Against that backdrop, Williams resurrected his bill to let Tennessee school employees voluntarily carry guns under certain conditions.

His co-sponsor, Sen. Paul Bailey, argued the law was needed to provide an armed presence on every campus, especially in rural areas that serve a third of the state’s students. On the Senate floor in April, the Sparta Republican said nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools still didn’t have an armed SRO, partly due to a shortage in the profession.

It’s hard to know whether those numbers were accurate, or still are. Under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, the state stopped sharing school security data publicly.

Williams revised their bill to tighten the standards for who could carry and under what conditions — satisfying the state’s law enforcement groups which, for the first time, took a neutral position on the bill this year.

Carrying a gun would be allowed only if the local school superintendent, principal, and law enforcement official agree. A school employee who volunteers to carry must hold an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Gun control advocates sit in the balcony of the Tennessee House of Representatives on April 23, 2024, to protest legislation to let school employees carry handguns if they meet certain requirements. The bill passed, and Gov. Bill Lee signed it soon after.

Liability provision for armed employees could be a barrier

However, even for school employees who can meet those conditions, taking a gun to school became significantly less attractive under one more provision.

The law makes the armed employees solely liable for how they use, or fail to use, a handgun in school. Meanwhile, if a civil lawsuit is filed, the statute shields the school district and local law enforcement agency from having to pay monetary damages.

Liability is now part of the discussion for anyone dealing with the prospect, or the aftermath, of a school shooting. In addition to the pursuit of stricter gun laws, litigation and even criminal charges have become part of the healing and recovery process for survivors, family members, and community leaders seeking to hold people beyond the shooter accountable for anything that may have contributed to the bloodshed.

After the 2022 rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, for instance, families of the 19 victims sued police over the botched response, and also reached a $2 million settlement with the city, including the promise of higher standards and better training for local officers. In Oxford, Michigan, families of four high school students killed in a 2021 shooting there accused the school district of negligence in a lawsuit, and prosecutors charged the parents of the young shooter for failing to keep a gun away from him.

Liddy Ballard, state policy director at Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, said Tennessee’s liability provision should be a red flag for any school employee interested in carrying a gun. Her group opposed the law and lobbies instead for gun safety legislation that is proven to reduce gun violence, such as extreme risk protection orders and expanded background checks, both of which Tennessee lawmakers have rejected.

“This bill is outright dangerous,” Ballard said, “but state lawmakers knew that from the beginning. Why else would they include an immunity clause for local education agencies that dissolves accountability when a teacher’s firearm is misused or falls into the wrong hands?”

The state’s two largest teacher organizations, which also opposed the legislation, agree that placing the liability burden solely on individual educators is a non-starter — or at least should be.

“As teachers consider the risks of carrying a firearm on school grounds, they need to know that it is unlikely they could obtain insurance coverage that would offer them any sort of protection should a claim be made against them,” said Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association.

Secrecy is another pillar of the law.

In an effort to deter potential intruders who wouldn’t know which adults at school might have a gun, the law is built, in part, on the idea of confidentiality. Its provisions provide a veil of secrecy if a school superintendent and principal sign a written agreement to implement the policy — and anonymity for the person they authorize to carry or possess a firearm on school grounds.

Parents don’t have to be notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a concealed handgun, nor do educators if someone in their building is armed besides a law enforcement officer.

A district’s required notification to local law enforcement officials is not open for public inspection, nor are any other documents, files, or records related to carrying a weapon on school grounds under the law.

“The way it’s set up, there’s really no way to know” how many faculty or school staff members are carrying a gun, said Jeff Bledsoe, executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association. “It’s up to the local level to decide.”

Rep. Ryan Williams (center) speaks with law enforcement, security, and teacher group representatives after his original bill to arm teachers advanced out of a House education subcommittee in 2019.

Memphis school district says no. Some others aren’t saying.

Before and after the law was enacted, numerous local officials, particularly in the state’s largest cities and towns, announced they would not seek to arm school employees. Most said they already have a trained law enforcement officer in each of their schools.

“Schools are for learning, and emergency situations should be handled by trained officers,” said Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr., in a joint video announcement with Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins and interim Police Chief C.J. Davis in May. Memphis has long struggled with the presence of guns around its schools and neighborhoods.

Feagins said it more bluntly in their announcement: “We will not allow teachers to carry guns in our schools.”

But some school leaders, especially in the state’s rural areas, have been less vocal in recent months about their plans.

“Most districts don’t want anything to do with this policy,” said Gary Lilly, executive director of the state superintendent organization.

“A few have said maybe, just to keep their options open,” he added. “You can make the case that not announcing your plan is a way to keep bad guys from knowing either way, so there’s a bit of a deterrent.”

For some that are holding off, it may just take time for local officials and school employees to evaluate whether to take advantage of the law.

“This is all new, so some folks may be waiting and watching,” said Bledsoe, who leads the sheriffs’ organization.

Williams, the House sponsor, said he’s not surprised at the cool early reception, including in his own district, given that Tennessee is a diverse state with unique local needs and cultures that take time to sort through.

“Unfortunately, if we do have another active shooter in our state and something happens close to home, I think people would reevaluate their stance and consider doing it,” he said.

JC Bowman, who leads Professional Educators of Tennessee, has a different concern.

“My fear is that we’re opening up a Pandora’s box,” Bowman said. “What happens if our state budget gets tight? Will we starve our school safety money for SROs and turn to this?”

South Greene Middle School in Greeneville, where Josh Arrowood teaches. Once, at a school basketball game, he said, a parent came out of the stands and pulled a knife on a coach. No one was injured, and the parent left before the school’s SRO arrived on the scene, but “in situations like that, you never know,” he said. He is open to carrying his handgun at school.

For Arrowood, who also has three school-age children, the issue is keeping kids safe at school in his rural corner of northeastern Tennessee.

Two years ago at a basketball game at his school, for instance, a parent came out of the stands and pulled a knife on a coach. No one was injured, and the parent left before the school’s SRO arrived on the scene, but “in situations like that, you never know,” he said.

Arrowood said he’s never had to use the gun he usually carries when he’s out in his community. “The goal is to never have to draw it,” he said.

He wouldn’t hesitate to use it at school, though, if he were allowed to carry it there and an armed intruder got inside, especially if something happened to the school’s SRO.

“Around here, people are used to guns. They’ve grown up with them. They’re hunters,” Arrowood continued. “But some people also fear guns, and a healthy fear of guns is a good thing. I guess it’s a balance.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org

School voucher supporters get wins, losses from Tennessee’s Republican voters

2024-08-02T20:41:13+00:00

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In many ways, Tennessee’s fiercest GOP legislative primary races amounted to a referendum on Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher proposal to provide public funding to any K-12 student toward a private education.

On Thursday, Republican voters delivered the governor a mix of wins and losses on the issue.

And the wins likely were aided by a slew of negative campaign ads targeting anti-voucher candidates and funded by millions of dollars from out-of-state groups supporting the policy.

The money, along with the governor’s endorsements of pro-voucher candidates, appeared to have paid off in two out of three open House seats in Montgomery and Williamson counties. Only in Blount County, near Knoxville, did Lee’s pick lose as retired Maryville teacher and football coach Tom Stinnett defeated attorney Jason Emert.

Numerous legislative incumbents who were considered Lee’s key voucher allies also won their primaries, but there were two big exceptions.

Sen. Jon Lundberg, who sponsored the Senate’s version of a statewide voucher bill this year, was defeated by Bobby Harshbarger, a pharmacist who is the son of U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee. And John Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican and voucher supporter, lost his primary contest to former Clinton Police Chief Rick Scarbrough.

The governor had actively stumped in Upper East Tennessee for Lundberg, who chairs the powerful Senate Education Committee. Lundberg’s voucher bill would have required recipients to take some type of national test to track the program’s academic outcomes. It also would have allowed public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

In addition, Lundberg co-chaired a task force last fall looking into the feasibility of Tennessee rejecting federal education funding. He and other Senate members ultimately issued a report highlighting the risks of such an unprecedented move, effectively shutting down the discussion this year.

Ragan, who served on the House Education Committee, is known for sponsoring socially conservative education legislation, including the 2019 law restricting what teachers can say about race, gender, and bias, as well as numerous anti-LGBTQ bills.

Rep. John Ragan, a Republican from Oak Ridge, listens to Rep. David Hawk, a Republican from Greeneville, during a 2022 House education committee meeting.

This week’s election results come after school choice groups spent at least $4.5 million on primary contests to promote pro-voucher candidates, according to a tally by The Tennessee Lookout. The governor, who has vowed to bring his voucher bill back to the legislature, said he was OK with that infusion of outside cash into Tennessee politics.

Most of the money came from the School Freedom Fund, a super PAC tied to Club for Growth funder and New York-based investment billionaire Jeff Yass. The same group spent $8.8 million this year in Texas to defeat 10 incumbent Republican candidates who opposed Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher plan.

Among Tennessee lawmakers toppled with the aid of negative campaign ads was three-term Republican Sen. Frank Niceley, of Strawberry Plains, who opposed the governor’s voucher plan. Also defeated was state Rep. Bryan Richey, of Maryville, who voted against the bill in committee and was running for the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Art Swann.

On Friday, School Freedom Fund President David McIntosh trumpeted those defeats and the PAC’s $3.6 million investment in five legislative races.

“Make no mistake,” McIntosh said in a statement. “If you call yourself a Republican and oppose school freedom, you should expect to lose your next primary.”

The stage is now set for another round of campaigning, this time for the Nov. 5 general election against Democratic candidates who are unified in their opposition to vouchers but have struggled to be heard since the GOP gained a supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly in 2010.

Half of the legislature’s Senate seats and all 99 in the House will be on the next ballot. While some won’t be contested, Democrats view vouchers as an opportunity to turn several seats.

And every vote matters in the tight battle over vouchers.

The governor’s universal voucher proposal was stymied in the legislature this year, even with a Republican supermajority and Lee making it his No. 1 legislative priority. An unlikely coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans kept the bill from reaching either floor for a vote.

Hoping to change the calculus when the newly elected legislature convenes in January, Lee took the unusual step this summer of endorsing Republican candidates who support vouchers over others who don’t.

Here’s are the outcomes in some of the mostly closely watched legislative primary races related to education:

Senate

District 2: For the open seat vacated by Swann, Tom Hatcher, the Blount County court clerk, defeated Republican Rep. Richey.
District 4: Lundberg, the Senate Education Committee chair, lost to Harshbarger, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Harshbarger has expressed skepticism about Lee’s voucher plan.
District 8: New Tazewell businessman Jessie Seal defeated the incumbent, Niceley, a voucher opponent. He will face Democrat R.E. Ellison.
District 18: Incumbent Ferrell Haile, a Gallatin Republican who sits on the Senate Education Committee and serves as speaker pro tempore, easily defeated conservative activist Chris Spencer in another high-dollar Senate race. He will face Democrat Walter Chandler.

House of Representatives

District 13: Republican incumbent Robert Stevens, of Smyrna, a member of the House Education Committee, defeated Murfreesboro City Council member Jami Averwater. He will face Democrat Jonathan Yancey.
District 15: Democratic incumbent Sam McKenzie, who also serves on the education panel, defeated Knox County Commissioner Dasha Lundy. He will face Republican nominee Justin Hirst.
District 20: In the open Blount County seat vacated by Richey, Stinnett, the retired teacher, defeated Jason Emert, former chair of the Young Republican National Federation, and Nick Bright, a cattle farmer. He will face Democrat Karen Gertz.
District 24: Incumbent Kevin Raper, a retired educator from Cleveland, defeated Troy Weathers, a former Bradley County school board member. Both Republican candidates have spoken out against vouchers. Raper will face Democrat Andrea Chase.
District 33: Ragan, the incumbent, lost to Scarborough, the former Clinton police chief. Scarbrough will face Democrat Anne Backus, a retired project manager at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.
District 60: In the open seat vacated by Democratic Rep. Darren Jernigan of Nashville, Democrat Shaundelle Brooks, who became a gun control activist after her son was killed in Nashville’s 2018 Waffle House shooting, defeated financial consultant Tyler Brasher. She will face pro-voucher Republican candidate Chad Bobo, who was endorsed by the governor and served as an aide to House Speaker Cameron Sexton. Bobo defeated Christopher Huff of Old Hickory.
District 64: Incumbent Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Culleoka Republican and a lead sponsor of this year’s House voucher bill, defeated Maury County Commissioner Ray Jeter, despite calling the governor’s original statewide voucher bill “terrible” during a candidate forum a week before the election. He will face Democrat Eileen Longstreet.
District 65: Candidate Lee Reeves, a real estate attorney and investor, narrowly defeated Williamson County Commissioner Brian Beathard, as well as Michelle Foreman, a former GOP state executive committee member. Reeves will face Democratic candidate LaRhonda Williams.
District 68: Candidate Aron Maberry, a Clarksville pastor and school board member endorsed by Lee, defeated retired Army pilot Greg Gilman, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Smith, and former county Republican Party co-chair Carol Duffin. Maberry will face Democrat Garfield Scott.
District 73: Incumbent Rep. Chris Todd, of Humboldt, defeated former longtime Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris, of Jackson. Todd was endorsed by the governor and favors vouchers, while Harris expressed concern about the policy’s financial impact on local public schools and also refused donations from special interest groups. There is no Democratic contender for the seat.
District 77: Republican incumbent Rusty Grills, of Newbern, defeated Dyer County Commissioner Bubba Cobb, a retired educator who is against vouchers. There is no Democratic contender for the seat.
District 83: Rep. Mark White, the longtime chairman of a House education committee, will face Democrat Noah Nordstrom, a teacher with Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Both ran unopposed in the primaries.
District 96: In the open seat vacated by Democrat Dwayne Thompson, Democrat Gabby Salinas narrowly defeated Telisa Franklin and three other challengers. A researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Salinas faces no Republican opponent in November and will head to the statehouse in January.
District 97: Incumbent Rep. John Gillespie, of Memphis, defeated Christina Oppenhuizen, a small-business owner. He’ll face Democrat Jesse Huseth in what’s expected to be a tight race.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board approves 2 charter applications, denies 1

2024-07-31T02:27:50+00:00

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An all-girls charter school proposed for downtown Memphis and supported by the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies’ foundation can open for the 2025-26 school year, as can a K-8 charter school planned for Northeast Memphis.

But one other application from a newly rebranded charter operator didn’t fare so well with Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

The school board on Tuesday followed the recommendation of district staff and approved the application by Grizzlies Prep, which already operates an all-boys charter school downtown for 300 students in grades six through eight.

The Memphis Grizzlies Preparatory STEAM School for Girls will focus on science, technology, engineering, art, and math to try to address the underrepresentation of women — and particularly women of color — in those fields. It’s on track to become the city’s second all-girls charter school and the third one in Tennessee.

Without comment, the board ignored staff’s recommendation to reject the application of Journey Community Schools, formerly known as Aspire. The 5-1 vote means Journey Northeast Academy can open in the city’s Sycamore View area.

However, the board sided with staff by denying the bid of Green Dot Public Schools, which recently rebranded as IOTA Community Schools, to continue operating Wooddale Middle as it transitions back to Memphis-Shelby County Schools from the Achievement School District, a state-run turnaround program for low-performing schools.

IOTA has 10 days to appeal the decision to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

If the decision stands, IOTA has one more year to operate Wooddale Middle. Superintendent Marie Feagins promised a “deep review” of how to strengthen the school.

It was an especially busy meeting for school board members ahead of Thursday’s elections to fill five of their nine seats — and the first day of school for Memphis students on Aug. 5.

Without discussion, the board voted to end its contract with the University of Memphis to run its Campus Schools program in partnership with the district. That paves the way for the university to form its own K-12 school system under a new state law that encourages the creation of innovative school districts.

The contract had been for the university to operate its three K-12 schools on the university’s campus through 2026. But the board opted to end that long partnership at the urging of several state lawmakers.

Backers say the new arrangement positions the program to open more university-run K-12 schools in Greater Memphis and leverage an academic model that has generated some of the best results in Tennessee.

Feasibility studies and community conversations are already under way to determine an expansion plan.

The board also approved plans to return two additional schools to Memphis-Shelby County Schools from the beleaguered ASD.

Caldwell-Guthrie Elementary will rejoin its home district as a pre-K-8 school emphasizing STEAM skills. Among those enrolled will be students from Humes Middle School, another state-run school that closed at the end of last school year after a decade in the ASD. It had a hundred-year track record of serving Memphis students, including a young Elvis Presley who graduated when it was Humes High School.

Another ASD campus, Florida Kansas, which previously was operated by Memphis Scholars under a charter agreement with the state, will return to the MSCS district but no longer educate students. Its enrollees are moving to Riverview K-8.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor OK with outside money for pro-voucher candidates

2024-07-30T01:11:20+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee says he is OK with outside groups spending big on Tennessee legislative races featuring candidates who support his universal private school voucher plan.

Last month, the Republican governor took the unusual step of wading into local races and endorsing some Republican candidates in Thursday’s primary election based on their voucher positions.

“We have a really smart electorate, and I believe in the power of people to sort through the information, as long as it’s accurate,” Lee said on Friday after speaking at a workforce development event in rural Perry County, west of Nashville.

But some local officials say money from groups such as American Federation for Children, Americans for Prosperity, and the School Freedom Fund is bringing misinformation into several key races.

“The fact that out-of-state interest groups would spend that much money in a local House seat election should give us all concern,” says a July 23 letter to Williamson County voters from retiring Rep. Sam Whitson and four local city and county mayors.

The outside groups – which are not required to disclose their donors — are paying for mailers, television commercials, and other ads seeking to influence voters who will pick a successor for Whitson, a four-term Republican lawmaker who opposes vouchers. Similar special interest group activities seek to favor pro-voucher candidates in other parts of the state.

The tension comes as voters prepare to pick Republican and Democratic nominees to run for the statehouse on Nov. 5 before a critical legislative session for the future of Tennessee’s education system.

The governor, who wants to give public funding to any family statewide who wants to send their children to private school, says his administration is already crafting a new plan after his 2024 bill stumbled in committees during the recent legislative session.

“It’s a process that takes several months, but we’re working on it right now,” Lee told Chalkbeat in Perry County.

He did not provide details but promised “a commitment to universal school choice.”

Lee also pledged to “fully vet the program’s cost” when asked about recent comments by Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican voucher ally from Maury County, who called the governor’s education scholarship proposal a “terrible” plan that would have plunged Tennessee into dire financial straits.

“That’s a part of this process,” Lee said of studying the proposal’s financial feasibility.

Lee’s slate of preferred GOP candidates include Lee Reeves, a Williamson County real estate investor and attorney who supports private school vouchers, over fellow Republicans Brian Beathard and Michelle Foreman.

Beathard, who chairs the Williamson County Commission and opposes the governor’s plan, has been endorsed by most top locally elected leaders in the Republican enclave south of Nashville. Mailers and ads funded by outside groups have depicted him as anti-conservative and supportive of higher taxes and labor unions.

But Beathard’s supporters are pushing back.

“All of us are used to some ‘puffing’ and exaggerations when it comes to political mailers, but the negative messages aimed at Brian Beathard cross the line of decency,” says the letter to voters from Whitson, the outgoing Republican legislator, and other local officials.

They say some of the campaign materials include misleading policy statements, innuendo, and outright lies, as well as manipulating photos to distort Beathard’s appearance. The letter did not give specific examples.

Chalkbeat did not immediately receive responses from leaders with several organizations behind the ads. A spokesman for the School Freedom Fund, a pro-voucher group tied to Club for Growth and New York-based investment billionaire Jeff Yass, asked for specific examples but did not respond directly to the claims.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s comparison of school choice to civil rights ‘deeply offensive,’ Democrats say

2024-07-17T21:42:42+00:00

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In one of the battleground states of the Civil Rights Movement, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is drawing heat for his description of school choice as “the civil rights issue of our time.”

Lee, who chairs the Republican Governors Association, made the comparison Tuesday during a four-minute speech to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as he attacked the Biden administration’s record on education, border security, inflation, and farm policies.

“They attacked parental rights. Republican governors fought back for a parent’s right to choose their own child’s education,” Lee told delegates. “President Trump was right when he said that school choice is the civil rights issue of our time.”

Back in Tennessee on Wednesday, the state Senate’s Democratic Caucus issued a joint statement calling Lee’s assertion “not only misleading but deeply offensive.”

“Tennessee has a proud history of leading in the fight for civil rights — from the lunch counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides to school integration and labor rights,” the caucus said. “To label a policy that promotes segregation and inequality as a civil rights issue is a grave disservice to the legacy of those who fought for justice in our state.”

The verbal scuffle comes as Lee pushes for a universal school voucher bill, a key school choice policy, in Tennessee. It would provide taxpayer funding to pay toward private school tuition for any student who wants it, anywhere in the state, including those from middle-class and wealthy families.

Lee’s proposal collapsed in committees during the recent legislative session, but he’s vowed to bring it back in 2025. To try to change the outcome, he recently endorsed Republican legislative candidates who support vouchers in their primary races over fellow Republicans who oppose the policy.

With school choice as a pillar of his own campaign platform, Lee easily won two terms in office in a state that went from blue to deep red in recent decades. But the results of various voter polls on vouchers vary wildly in Tennessee, and opponents charge the policy amounts to social welfare for the wealthy.

“The true civil rights issues of our time are those that uplift and support all children, regardless of their background. Private school vouchers do the exact opposite,” the Senate Democratic caucus said.

But Republican voucher supporters say they’re needed to put parents in charge of their children’s education. Expanding parental rights and school choice is part of the Republican Party’s 2024 platform, which delegates approved on Monday.

Tennessee has a long and blemished record on civil rights issues.

In 1920, it became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the landmark 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave millions of women the right to vote.

In 1960, at the height of the movement to abolish legalized racial segregation and discrimination, a group of college students including Diane Nash formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Nashville. The chairman was a young John Lewis, a student at Nashville’s Fisk University, who went on to become a civil rights icon and longtime congressman from Georgia before his death in 2020.

And the Rev. James Lawson Jr., who died last month at age 95, was the apostle of nonviolent protest who trained civil rights activists in Tennessee to withstand brutal responses from white authorities.

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Memphis to march with sanitation workers in their fight for equality, dignity, and respect. Instead, he was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, which today is the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The Tennessee portion of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail spotlights 14 churches, schools and other landmarks that played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century, where many civil rights leaders and supporters were killed or targeted because of their struggle for freedom.

Lee’s office did not respond Wednesday when asked whether his comparison of school choice to civil rights was appropriate.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor bets big on school vouchers with primary endorsements. Will it work?

2024-07-11T11:00:00+00:00

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At the Halfway Market in Franklin, Tennessee, where locals come for a good hamburger and friendly conversation, Republican Brian Beathard works the crowd as a candidate for a high-profile legislative seat ahead of a pivotal session on the future of the state’s education system.

By most standards, Beathard should be a shoo-in to replace departing state Rep. Sam Whitson, a four-term Republican lawmaker who’s retiring this year.

Beathard (pronounced BETH-ard) has served on the Williamson County Commission since 2010 and, as its current chairman, has a record of advocating for government efficiency, competence, and conservatism in a predominantly Republican community.

He’s been endorsed by top local leaders, including Whitson, three mayors, and a retired sheriff.

And he’s the only one of three Republican candidates for the District 65 seat who has continuously lived and worked for more than 25 years in the affluent suburban county south of Nashville.

But when Republican Gov. Bill Lee handed out endorsements in key statehouse primary races last month, Beathard got bypassed because of his stance on a single issue: private school vouchers.

Lee is betting big on a policy in which he’s had major victories during his nearly six years in office, but has still fallen short of his ultimate goal: taxpayer funding for private school tuition for any Tennessee student who wants it — including those from middle-class and wealthy families — all under the banner of “school choice.”

The governor’s universal voucher proposal stalled in the legislature this spring, even with a GOP supermajority. Now, in anticipation of a do-over, Lee is taking the unusual step of using his bully pulpit to endorse certain Republican candidates over others.

A proponent of local control, Beathard — like Whitson — opposes the governor’s plan, especially for Williamson County, home to two of the state’s top-performing public school districts.

“Our schools are our oceanfront property, so we should take a hard pause on anything that could negatively affect our students, our schools, our property values, or our ability to attract business,” Beathard said of Williamson County, where such big companies as Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors, Mars Petcare, and Tractor Supply Co. have their U.S. headquarters.

From left, Brian Beathard, Michelle Foreman, and Lee Reeves appear at a candidate forum in Franklin on June 6, 2024, as they campaign to succeed state Rep. Sam Whitson, a retiring lawmaker who opposes private school vouchers.

The governor, who also is from Williamson County and graduated from a public high school in Franklin, instead is backing real estate investor and attorney Lee Reeves, who moved to Tennessee five years ago from Texas. Reeves, who serves on a local zoning appeals board, supports school vouchers, as does candidate Michelle Foreman, a former member of the state’s Republican executive committee.

Whoever wins the three-way Republican primary on Aug. 1 is likely to succeed Whitson.

And Lee is eager to replace voucher opponents like Whitson with supporters to achieve his top policy priority.

Governor is ‘taking a risk’ by wading into contested primaries

After his universal voucher proposal collapsed in committees over Republican disagreements about the specifics, the governor pledged to vet GOP legislative candidates this election year based on his school choice agenda.

“I’ve said a lot of times I get engaged in elections, and I get engaged in candidates,” he told reporters in May, promising to “understand who I can be most supportive and most helpful to.”

He’s following the playbook of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who successfully used school choice as a litmus test to remove anti-voucher Republican candidates from races, enabling Iowa to pass universal vouchers in 2023 and positioning Texas for a potentially similar outcome next year.

“The governor already put his reputation on the line to get vouchers through this spring and it didn’t work, so now he’s playing hardball. But he’s also taking a risk.”
John Geer, political science professor, Vanderbilt University

But if Lee’s endorsees lose their primary races to candidates like Beathard, the governor may find it even harder to push his education agenda through the legislature in 2025 as he enters his last two years in office, accelerating his lame duck status.

“The governor already put his reputation on the line to get vouchers through this spring and it didn’t work, so now he’s playing hardball,” said John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University.

“But he’s also taking a risk,” Geer continued. “If some of these candidates who didn’t get his endorsement survive, they’ll be even more entrenched” against vouchers.

According to Beathard, Lee and members of his staff didn’t speak personally with him about his position before announcing which candidates he was backing.

A small-business owner who supported Lee’s campaign for governor, Beathard is not completely opposed to vouchers, but wants local officials to be able to make the final call — a deference that wasn’t part of Lee’s 2019 education savings account law that imposed vouchers on Memphis and Nashville over the opposition of most local officials.

“My ears are open if there were a local option so Williamson County can opt out and counties that need that policy can opt in,” Beathard said.

Brian Beathard, center, speaks with citizens following a candidate forum on June 6, 2024.

Pro-voucher interests have the governor’s ear

Lee’s endorsements in his home county, as well as a handful of other state legislative races, generally mirror those announced earlier by Americans for Prosperity, a pro-voucher group affiliated with Kansas billionaire Charles Koch’s conservative advocacy network.

“We plan to put the full weight of our grassroots efforts behind each of our policy champions,” said Tori Venable, the group’s Tennessee leader, when rolling out several slates of endorsements in May.

A large amount of money is also coming into the state from pro-voucher interests.

The American Federation for Children launched a Super PAC for the 2024 elections cycle with at least $10 million to support pro-voucher candidates in state legislative races nationwide.

“If you’re a candidate or lawmaker who opposes school choice and freedom in education, you’re a target. If you’re a champion for parents, we’ll be your shield,” said Tommy Schultz, the group’s national CEO and its former spokesperson in Tennessee.

That’s just one of the concerns of Whitson, the departing state representative.

“The governor’s endorsement in District 65 opens the door for dark money from out of state to get into this campaign, simply so our governor can try to secure one more vote for his voucher program,” Whitson said.

Another voucher vote likely would be close in Tennessee’s House

Lee, who cruised to victory in two elections after campaigning to give parents more education choices for their children, appeared to have enough Senate votes to pass a statewide voucher plan this year, but couldn’t rally the House’s GOP supermajority to do the same.

His 2019 proposal to create a voucher program for Tennessee’s two biggest urban areas squeaked through the legislature after then-House Speaker Glen Casada held the voting board open for 38 minutes to convince Rep. Jason Zachary, of Knoxville, to change from “no” to “yes.” That controversial parliamentary maneuver remains a source of bitterness on both sides of the aisle, according to Whitson.

“There’s still a lot of fallout from that vote,” Whitson said. “But ethically and morally, I consider my ‘no’ vote on that day to be the best vote I ever cast.”

Timeline: How private school voucher movement gained momentum in Tennessee before hitting a bump

Supporters say universal vouchers would put all Tennessee parents in charge of their children’s education by making private schools a more affordable option.

Critics like Whitson say the policy would destabilize public education, bust the state’s budget, and further segregate schools by race, income, and students with disabilities, setting the stage for discrimination lawsuits against the state and various participating private schools.

“A lot of Republicans feel like the governor is putting us in a bad position with his voucher plan,” Whitson said. “And many are also disappointed at his tactic of injecting himself in the primary races.”

With Senate leaders in the background, Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters on April 25, 2024, at the close of the legislative session. He vowed to bring his private school voucher proposal, which stalled in committees, back to the Tennessee General Assembly in 2025.

Scott Golden, who chairs the state Republican Party, said Lee has been talking about his passion for school choice since he first ran for governor eight years ago. Lee also has a right, he said, to campaign for issues that are important to him.

“We see it all the time on the national level. Elected officials are free to make their voices heard during an election cycle, just like anybody else,” Golden said.

Hendrell Remus, who chairs the Tennessee Democratic Party, has a different take.

“The governor is willing to tear his Republican caucus to shreds in order to pass one item on his agenda,” Remus said. “But I think voters will step up and reject the candidates who Gov. Lee is trying to prop up. It’s an opportunity for Democrats.”

It’s unclear how the governor’s endorsements will play out this election year. Results of voter polls on vouchers vary wildly in Tennessee.

But for Lucetta Mannion, a Republican voter in Williamson County, Lee’s backing of a pro-voucher candidate helped to bring the issue to her attention — and steered her toward Beathard’s camp.

“I’ve done my research,” said Mannion, whose five grandchildren have attended local public schools. “Our schools are excellent, and I see no reason to have a voucher system for our children. If Brian wins, it will be one more vote in the legislature against it.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Misguided Tennessee policies, not students, are root of classroom discipline problems, report says

2024-06-21T11:00:00+00:00

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Tennessee schools are increasingly punishing and excluding special education students with behavioral issues instead of providing them with evidence-based interventions to support their academic and behavioral growth, a new report says.

And it’s not the fault of teachers, school staff, or the students themselves, the author says.

In its report, released Friday, the Tennessee Disability Coalition blamed state policymakers for setting priorities and adopting policies that are ineffective at best, and likely harming thousands of the state’s most vulnerable students.

As a result, the coalition says, educators are using “ineffective, dangerous, counter-productive, and rights-violating practices” in the classroom.

The criticisms come after Tennessee enacted a string of increasingly stringent laws aimed at tightening discipline in the classroom — from the 2021 Teacher’s Discipline Act empowering teachers to remove chronically unruly students to a 2024 law requiring a one-year suspension for students who assault teachers at school.

Such policies, the report says, disproportionately affect students with disabilities, particularly those with behavioral issues, thereby restricting their educational opportunities.

“These policies not only sweep students with behavior needs into more restrictive settings, alternative school placements, and the juvenile justice system, they cast a net over other marginalized communities, including students of color and students in poverty,” the report says.

Jeff Strand, the coalition’s public policy director, said recent Tennessee laws also show a lack of understanding about special-needs students with behavioral challenges, leading to policies that are poorly suited to address the root causes of disciplinary issues.

“Good teachers know behavior issues are a child’s cry for help,” said Strand, a former special educator who authored the report. “What we’re doing in Tennessee is only making the problem worse.”

Specifically, the report calls out a shortage and high turnover of special education teachers; systemic gaps in training and support for special and general education teachers and administrators on the needs of students with behavior issues; a trend toward punitive and exclusionary practices; and a lack of student access to effective school-based supports and therapies, including enough school psychologists, counselors, speech-language pathologists, and board-certified behavior analysts.

Families say educators are under-trained and overwhelmed

Chris and Angela Powell’s family has experienced gaps in school services firsthand as parents of a child with autism and ADHD.

They describe their son Charlie as intelligent, caring, and kind. But his behaviors — whether shouting out answers, failing to complete worksheets, or fighting — often resulted in lost recess, hours in the principal’s office, or even being physically restrained or placed in a padded room during his first few years of elementary school in Williamson County, south of Nashville.

“These are invisible disabilities, and his behavior was his form of communicating. But he was being excluded and punished based on his disability,” said Angela Powell, now a special-needs advocate. “His general education teachers didn’t seem to understand how to work with children who have needs like ADHD or autism.”

The Powells say Williamson County’s two school districts lacked qualified therapists and other specialized support staff, leaving teachers with few tools to tackle classroom misbehavior. Charlie eventually was placed on homebound instruction, receiving his lessons in a home setting and missing out on the opportunity to attend school with his non-disabled peers. Now 12, he is being homeschooled.

“If the richest district in Tennessee can’t help my son learn,” said Chris Powell, “I shudder to think what families deal with in the other 94 counties.”

Meanwhile, the report identified only three of the state’s 10 largest teacher training programs — at the University of Memphis, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and University of Tennessee-Chattanooga — as offering more than two courses on teaching students with disabilities.

Also, while the state recently switched to a new K-12 education funding formula to provide more resources for students with higher needs, such as students with disabilities, the change did not require that districts designate such extra funds for special education services.

And while the state promised to inject an extra $1 billion annually in the K-12 funding pool, Tennessee remains in the bottom fifth of states in per-pupil funding.

Exclusion policies gave way to inclusion movement

Tennessee was once one of the many states that had laws formally excluding children with disabilities from public schools, on the premise that those kids would not benefit from a public school education. Before the passage of a 1975 federal law establishing the right to a public education for kids with disabilities, only 1 in 5 of those children were educated in public schools.

The expanded Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 marked the advent of the inclusion movement and the belief that children with disabilities, with some individualized support, can thrive in educational settings with their non-disabled peers.

But despite clear research on the benefits of inclusion for students with disabilities, surveys show general education teachers feel ill-prepared to work with them and struggle especially with special needs students with behavioral issues.

In Tennessee, about a tenth of the state’s public school students use an individualized education plan, or IEP, intended to ensure that the student receives specialized instruction and related services for their disability.

But according to data from the state education department, those same students receive a disproportionate share of formal disciplinary actions that include in-school and out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and transfer to alternative settings. In 2021-22, the most recent school year for which data are available, 12.5% of students with disabilities were removed from their classrooms, even though federal law limits excessive exclusionary discipline.

In addition, informal exclusionary disciplinary practices — which are difficult to quantify — are almost exclusively directed toward students with disabilities, the coalition says. They can include directing parents or guardians to take the student home for the day, inappropriate homebound placement, excessive use of threat assessments, inappropriate use of in-school suspension, and exclusion from school transportation.

Pending review of the report, a spokesperson for the state education department declined to comment on its assertions.

The leader of Professional Educators of Tennessee, which lobbied for the Teacher’s Discipline Act, acknowledged the challenges and nuances of disciplining students, especially those with special needs.

“We have seen since the pandemic an increase in mental health issues. That is why we at Professional Educators of Tennessee have worked hard to get additional funding for mental health in Tennessee,” said Executive Director JC Bowman.

He added that he’s open to new ideas that “ensure classrooms are safe and orderly, and every child has an opportunity to learn.”

The state comptroller is looking into the “informal removal” issue, also called “off-book suspensions.” Its Office of Research and Education Accountability has commissioned a report, which is expected to be released later this year, to better understand the use of informal removal, which often violates the rights of students with an IEP.

Strand says both pathways — formal and informal — can allow schools to avoid developing effective plans to correct bad behavior so they can stay in class and learn.

He recommends that Tennessee parents learn as much as they can about the rights of children with disabilities, including those with behavioral issues.

The coalition is hosting a free webinar at 5:30 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, June 25, on Facebook.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee fourth graders show big gains on state literacy tests as third graders hold steady

2024-06-13T17:50:48+00:00

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Tennessee fourth graders showed significant improvement on state tests for English language arts, while third grade scores were mostly steady after achieving historic gains last year, state officials said Thursday.

Fourth-grade proficiency increased by 2.9 percentage points to an overall rate of 46.4%, while third-grade proficiency improved by a half percentage point to 40.9% on tests used by the state to gauge reading levels under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

The rates are the highest since the state raised its academic standards in 2010 after receiving an “F” in 2007 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for low academic expectations and for truth in advertising on its K-12 public education performance.

The state education department also reported fewer fourth graders scored “below expectations,” the bottom category for gauging proficiency.

However, the third grade scores put about three-fifths of those students at risk of being held back under Tennessee’s 2021 reading and retention law. Most of them still may advance, however, based on do-over test results and participation in various intervention options.

Last year, of the 60% of third graders who fell short of the state’s proficiency benchmark, only 1.2% were held back due to interventions, exemptions, and an appeals process.

In Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the state’s largest district, officials reported students made gains in both pivotal grades, with the most pronounced improvement by third graders.

ELA proficiency went up 3 percentage points to 26.6% for third graders and by 1.8 percentage points to 28.5% for fourth graders. But new Superintendent Marie Feagins said the improvements weren’t enough.

“Literacy is the anchor to the success that our 110,000 students deserve to experience,” Feagins said in a statement. “Thus, these data further support the need to direct more district resources directly to classrooms, with a target emphasis on a comprehensive literacy approach at every grade level.”

In a news release, Gov. Bill Lee credited the state’s comprehensive literacy strategy, including early investments in tutoring to help struggling readers improve after the pandemic disrupted schooling in 2020. Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds praised the hard work of students, educators, and families.

“As we continue our work to ensure that all Tennessee students can read at grade level, we remain committed to supporting teachers and empowering families with multiple pathways to achievement so every student can thrive in their academic journey,” Lee said.

The education department did not publicly release the data behind its report as it usually does. Spokesperson Brian Blackley said it will be published soon but could not give a specific date.

Impacts on retention decisions are uncertain

Data on how many third and fourth graders will be held back as a result of the scoring won’t be released until late summer before school starts, under tougher retention policies approved by the legislature after the pandemic.

“There are a lot of different pathways for student promotion, and some of those haven’t even occurred yet,” Blackley said, citing summer learning programs and third grade TCAP retakes that are still being scored.

A parent, guardian, or educator of a third grader who scored just below proficiency also can submit an appeal to the education department until June 28 based on certain conditions.

For students completing fourth grade who are at risk of retention, the state is to release its calculations by July 1 on whether they showed enough improvement to advance. If not, the parent or guardian must meet with their child’s teacher and principal to make that call. But many educators and parents have already been meeting to discuss those options and make plans.

A summer learning camp is in session at Rocks Spring Elementary School in Kingsport, Tennessee.

Low literacy rates have long bedeviled Tennessee

Third grade is considered a critical year for reading, because literacy is foundational to all subsequent learning. But reading scores have historically been mostly stagnant in Tennessee, with only about a third of the state’s third graders meeting the law’s high threshold for proficiency based on state tests.

For several decades, the state tried various strategies to move the needle, and with limited success.

After the pandemic, the state invested $100 million in COVID relief and federal grant funding to provide school systems with optional reading resources and support.

And during a special session called by Lee in 2021 to address pandemic-related learning losses, the legislature passed several laws to jumpstart the state’s literacy work. Among them: prioritizing reading improvements and investments in grades K-3, creating new tutoring and summer school programs, training teachers on the “science of reading,” including an emphasis on phonics, and — most controversial of all — strengthening retention requirements for grades 3 and 4 based on the results of TCAP testing in English language arts.

After getting significant pushback from parents and educators, lawmakers have revised the state’s retention laws several times to allow more students in those grades to advance.

Last month, the governor signed legislation to let each fourth grader’s parents, teacher, and principal decide collectively whether a student should be held back due to a second straight year of low reading scores, even after a year of tutoring.

The department expects to release statewide and district-level TCAP data in all testing subjects by the end of the summer.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

School voucher voter polls vary wildly in Tennessee as many legislative candidates skirt the issue

2024-06-13T11:00:00+00:00

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While Gov. Bill Lee’s universal school voucher proposal is clearly a key issue this election year, there is less agreement on where Tennessee voters stand on the contentious education policy, incentivizing many state legislative candidates to avoid discussing the matter.

Numerous voter polls have generated wildly different results this year, depending on which organization was behind the survey and how the questions were asked.

As a result, rural Republican candidates, whose legislative votes would be pivotal in deciding the issue, aren’t generally trumpeting their positions on what would amount to a major policy change.

And when they do comment, the candidates are choosing their words carefully by using the language of “school choice” over “vouchers,” even though they’re essentially the same thing when it comes to letting parents use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.

The divergent poll results, based on representative samplings of voters, underscore that vouchers remain a hot-button education issue as Tennesseans try to understand a complex idea that was the most divisive of the recent legislative session.

Supporters say the statewide voucher proposal, which the governor vowed to bring back to lawmakers next year after it failed to reach the Senate and House floors in April, would put parents in charge of their children’s education by giving them more choices. Critics say it would destabilize public education, bust the state’s budget, and further segregate schools by race, income, and students with special needs.

Now in his second term, Lee has characterized GOP support across Tennessee as solidly favoring his proposal, which is especially important in a red state where the winner of the Republican primary typically wins the general election.

The Republican governor, who campaigned on the promise of giving parents more education choices for their children, recently told Fox News that school choice is “a very popular idea among Republican primary voters.” He added that voters support it “by an overwhelming margin.”

“Legislators understand that; they know their voters want this,” Lee said.

But while vouchers have steadily gained support through the years, surveys of voter attitudes don’t necessarily bear out Lee’s claim.

Three pro-voucher groups — The Beacon Center, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Federation for Children — released findings early this year declaring broad support for expanding school vouchers in Tennessee as they sought to build momentum ahead of critical voucher votes in the General Assembly.

During the same period, the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers organization and a voucher opponent, released results of its own poll showing only 30% of Republican primary voters supported the governor’s plan.

Most recently, Vanderbilt University’s poll found Tennessee voters evenly split on the matter.

When asked if they approve of the policy, 45% were in favor of vouchers, 46% opposed them, and 9% said they neither supported nor opposed the idea.

“These results show that vouchers remain a controversial issue,” said John Geer, the Vanderbilt poll’s co-director and a distinguished professor of political science.

“It is a complex and complicated topic,” he added. “That makes the issue difficult to measure in a poll.”

The uneven findings of various polls stem, in part, from how the questions were framed.

For instance, Americans for Prosperity asked voters: “Governor Lee is proposing a school choice program that will enable parents to take back control over $7K of their education tax dollars to educate their child in a private or home school environment if they choose to, giving parents more control over how and where their children are educated. Do you agree with the program Governor Lee is proposing?”

More than 70% responded ‘yes.’

By contrast, the TEA’s survey asked a series of questions delving into the structural and financial impacts that universal vouchers would have on the state’s public education system.

Among them: “Other states that have enacted statewide vouchers saw that 95% of students who benefitted were from wealthy families who had the resources to send their children to private schools or already attended private schools, mostly in rural areas, instead of providing resources to middle-income families and students from across the state. Does knowing this make you more or less likely to support school vouchers?”

More than 70% responded that they were less inclined to support the policy.

The Vanderbilt poll, which also examined issues such as abortion, vaccines, and gun control, was conducted this spring, soon after the legislature adjourned.

On vouchers, Vanderbilt pollsters asked: “Do you support, neither support nor oppose, or oppose Tennessee giving all parents tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their school-age children to attend private or religious schools of their choice, instead of attending local public schools?”

“We don’t have an ax to grind, so we tried to be as straightforward as we could,” said Geer.

John Geer

About 49% of responding voters also said they were likely to use vouchers if they became available, and 50% said they would not. By a wide margin, Republicans who support former President Donald Trump were the group most likely to use them, while only 26% of Democrats said they would take advantage of the option.

“The outcome of the poll on vouchers was very partisan in nature,” Geer said.

That partisan lens, he added, was more significant than whether the voter lived in a rural, urban, or suburban district, where access to private schools varies significantly.

“I think it’s another statement about our political climate and the polarization of our country. We really weren’t able to get past the partisanship,” he said.

This year’s uneven polling results may help explain why many rural Republican candidates aren’t discussing vouchers or promoting where they stand on the issue when seeking to secure their party’s nomination. In suburban and urban districts, which are home to more private schools, both Republican and Democratic candidates are more likely to weigh in or use vouchers as a campaign issue.

“Rural Republican legislators got some pushback over the governor’s voucher proposal, so I can understand why they would skirt the issue with primary voters,” Geer said. “I can understand why they would just say: ‘I’m for public education because that’s what’s important to my rural district.’”

Debby Gould, president of the League of Women Voters in Tennessee, said legislative candidates can easily cloak their voucher stance by saying they support public education, especially since the House’s 2024 voucher bill bundled the creation of a statewide voucher program with public school reforms.

“That muddied the waters a bit, but voters deserve a clear answer to whether they plan to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on universal vouchers,” Gould said.

“Vouchers aren’t a secondary election issue,” she added. “Gov. Lee has said it’s a priority for his administration, so it will be front and center next legislative session.”

All 99 seats in the state House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Aug. 1 is Tennessee’s primary election day, with early voting July 12-24. The general election will be on Nov. 5.

You can find more voter information on the Secretary of State’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee textbook commission hires first staff to prepare for school library book appeals

2024-05-29T11:00:00+00:00

Tennessee’s all-volunteer textbook commission is gearing up to consider new challenges to school library books after state lawmakers broadened the definition of what materials are prohibited.

Two years after the Republican-controlled legislature gave the commission broad new appellate powers to decide ultimately which books students can and can’t access in public school libraries, the panel has yet to receive its first case for review.

But that is expected to change. And for the first time, the commission will have its own full-time staff to support its growing workload, led by a recently retired school librarian from Crossville who formerly served on the commission.

Lee Houston, who has 30-plus years of experience as an elementary school teacher, coach, and librarian, became the body’s executive director in March.

The panel also hired an administrative assistant in early May and is seeking a full-time attorney.

With a potential flood of book challenges and appeals in a state that’s one of the nation’s leaders in banning books, Gov. Bill Lee and the legislature have budgeted $500,000 for the commission to staff up, plus another $55,000 for operational expenses, to help manage the significant expansion of its mandate.

Linda Cash, the commission’s chairperson, said the dedicated support is critical, especially as book complaints work their way through local school boards.

“We expect to start seeing some of those trickle up to us,” said Cash, superintendent of Bradley County Schools.

“I think everybody on the commission will take this very seriously and understands the weight and magnitude of any decision,” she added.

Books that some parents find objectionable could be removed statewide

Amid a nationwide backlash to the racial-justice movement that began in 2020, Tennessee was among the first states to pass laws aimed at restricting what teachers can discuss in the classroom and reviewing what books are available to students.

How the age-appropriate debate is altering curriculum in Tennessee and nationwide

Themes about race and systemic racism, disparaged by hardline conservatives as “woke ideology,” were among early targets. But the range of censored content has widened to include narratives about sexual violence, LGBTQ+ topics, and transgender identities.

The American Library Association reports 350 titles were challenged in 2023 in school libraries or other public libraries across Tennessee.

The organization does not disclose where those challenges occurred, since much of the data comes from confidential reports from libraries. But based on various news reports, districts in McMinn, Roane, Rutherford, Sumner, Wilson, and Williamson counties, as well as Collierville near Memphis, have been hot spots.

And the number of book challenges is likely to increase based on recent revisions to Tennessee’s age-appropriate materials law sponsored by Rep. Susan Lynn of Mt. Juliet and Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald.

The 2022 law, which the governor pushed for, requires schools to periodically screen their library materials for “age appropriateness,” based on local standards and community input. A second law, which also passed in 2022, directs the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission to rule on appeals of local decisions about individual books and gives the panel authority to ban them statewide.

This year, during the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers added a provision allowing a complainant to take a book challenge straight to the state commission if a school board doesn’t address a complaint within 60 days.

More significantly, the revised law defines what’s “suitable” for library collections in K-12 schools and classrooms. It flags any material that “in whole or in part contains nudity, descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

Previously, the law required library materials to be appropriate for the age and maturity levels of students who could access the materials, as well as consistent with the educational mission of the school.

Supporters of the laws say they are protecting children and older students from age-inappropriate, sexually explicit material and exploitation. But critics say the goal is censorship — and that the changes will violate First Amendment freedoms.

Either way, the broadened definition puts a young-adult novel at risk of being banned for even a single paragraph referencing sexual excitement. A children’s picture book such as the Caldecott Award-winning classic “No, David!” could be pulled because one page shows the naked backside of a mischievous boy running down a street.

The 1929 novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” could be targeted for its detailed descriptions of physical and mental trauma suffered by soldiers during World War I. So could Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” which portrays brutal and abusive sex as a tool of power when early America allowed slavery.

“They’ve tweaked the definition of their own law by not including that the work has to be considered as a whole, or that it’s protected if it has serious value, whether literary, artistic, political, or scientific,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

“This is effectively banning complex works of literature that are read and used in 11th- and 12th-grade classrooms for students preparing for higher education or to enrich their own education,” she said, adding that “this might close off a whole wealth of literature that deals with difficult topics that, for instance, are part of study plans for the AP English test.”

Former librarian will lead commission’s work

Even before taking on book challenge responsibilities, the state textbook commission, whose 11 volunteer members are appointed by the governor and speakers of the Senate and House, had a full plate. Its primary task has been recommending new lists of textbooks and instructional materials for approval by the State Board of Education based on Tennessee’s ongoing revisions of its academic standards.

Currently, the commission is in the middle of the textbook adoption cycle for new science materials, a process that takes up to 18 months.

“It’s daunting and important work,” said Cash, the panel’s chairperson, “because it affects all public school students and teachers across Tennessee.”

In 2022, when the panel was given its new appellate powers over book challenges, Cash pleaded for funding to hire full-time staff as the commission missed its first big deadline to publish compliance guidelines under the new law. The legislature subsequently allocated funding so that the body no longer has to rely on the state education department for administrative help.

“We are very thankful for these positions,” Cash said.

Rep. John Ray Clemmons, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, said Republicans have essentially created a new layer of government bureaucracy.

“It was a bad idea to start with, and now they’re throwing a half million dollars at it,” said the Nashville Democrat. “And for what? There’s nothing more undemocratic than pulling books off the shelves of public schools.”

Lee Houston speaks during a meeting of the Tennessee Textbook and Quality Materials Commission on Nov. 18, 2022, as Chairperson Linda Cash listens. Houston, who was a school librarian at the time, stepped down from the commission in March to become its first executive director.

Houston, the panel’s first executive director, worked most recently at Brown Elementary, a public school in Cumberland County, which is represented by House Speaker Cameron Sexton. In 2022, Sexton appointed her to the textbook commission, where at one of her first meetings, she argued for a rule to require that each commissioner read an appealed book in its entirety before voting.

“Context is important,” she said at the time.

In a recent interview with Chalkbeat, Houston said she expects that her new job, with an annual salary of $105,000, will focus largely on the textbook adoption process.

“We have no book appeals before us right now,” she said. “But as a commission, we will uphold the law.”

School librarians feel under attack

For school librarians across Tennessee, the latest statute revisions look like government censorship and overreach as they find themselves caught in the crossfire of national culture wars, fueled in part by pro-censorship websites like Book Looks and Rated Books.

“Do challenged books still go through due process? Or are we just supposed to pull them if they include a picture of Michelangelo’s naked statue of David?” asked Lindsey Kimery, a leader with the Tennessee Association of School Librarians.

As the library supervisor for Metro Nashville Public Schools, she considers Tennessee’s recent school library laws an affront to her profession. And she is concerned they are creating a climate of fear, especially in rural school systems without a library coordinator.

“I worry we’ll see more soft censorship there, the quiet removal of books, because there’s not someone with school library experience at the district level who has a voice at the table when it comes to dealing with these challenging times,” Kimery said.

Meanwhile, she said, librarians are “holding tight” until district-level attorneys can provide legal guidance.

“If librarians proactively remove a lot of books, we could see challenges related to censorship. If we don’t, I expect some individuals or groups will try to test the process to see what they can and can’t do,” she said. “Some school districts may just elect to let the complaints go directly to the state to deal with.”

“No matter how you slice it,” she added, “it’s bad.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Governor signs Tennessee law letting parents, educators make final 4th-grade retention decisions

2024-05-21T21:19:19+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation Tuesday to let each fourth grader’s parents, teacher, and principal decide collectively whether a student should be held back due to a second straight year of low reading scores, even after a year of tutoring.

The Tennessee law also requires more tutoring for public school students who advance to the fifth grade but didn’t test as proficient readers or show adequate growth by the end of fourth grade toward goals that are individualized for each student.

The changes will ease anxiety, and potentially provide extra resources, for thousands of students who are on the verge of completing fourth grade but at risk of being held back due to their performance this spring on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

And it comes as the state education department began releasing preliminary test score data to districts this week to help families of third and fourth graders know where their students stand.

“It’s definitely a relief,” said Nashville mom Carly Fair, after the bill was signed into law. Her daughter was one correct answer short of automatic promotion to the fourth grade on last year’s TCAP.

“Testing tells us something, but it doesn’t tell us everything,” she continued. “I’m thankful parents are now invited to the table to decide with their child’s teacher and principal what is best for each individual student.”

Under Tennessee’s previous reading and retention law signed by Lee in 2021, state officials projected about 6,000 students were at risk of having to repeat fourth grade next school year, with no additional learning supports planned for them. Those students had opted last year for yearlong tutoring in the fourth grade to avoid being retained in third grade.

But on the last day of the 2024 legislative session, lawmakers voted to revise retention policies for fourth graders who continue to pull low scores in English language arts on their TCAPs. They directed the student’s parents or guardian to meet with the teacher and principal to discuss whether it’s in the child’s best interest to be promoted or held back. Majority will rule.

The governor, who has supported a more aggressive retention stance, did not comment as he signed the law. But earlier this month, Lee acknowledged tensions about relaxing the state’s literacy requirements for promotion.

“What’s most important to me is we enact legislation that allows for the success of children,” he told reporters on May 6. “One of the worst things that we can do for that child is to push them into the fourth and fifth grade if they can’t read. It almost ensures their failure. We’re trying to ensure success for children.”

Lee signed the highly anticipated law nearly two weeks after lawmakers sent him the bill on May 10 — and just one day before it was set to become law without his signature. By contrast, the governor signed a controversial bill to let some public school employees carry handguns on the same day he received that legislation on April 26, which was the day after the legislature adjourned.

The timing for the latest signing was an administrative matter, according to his spokesperson.

“The governor reads every bill that reaches his desk, and there are a lot to get through at this time of year,” said Elizabeth Lane Johnson, his press secretary.

It’s the second straight year Lee has signed off on revisions to the 2021 reading law, which authorized new summer school and after-school tutoring programs to help students catch up from the pandemic, while also strengthening retention policies for the two pivotal early grades.

Last year, when the statute’s tougher retention provision kicked in for third graders, lawmakers widened the promotion criteria to include both TCAP and benchmark test results, and ordered the creation of rules for appealing retention decisions.

Ultimately, only about 900 third graders, or 1.2% were retained in 2023 — not significantly more than in an average school year — after many families took advantage of the state’s intervention and appeals processes or received an automatic exemption, such as for students who have a disability or suspected disability that affects reading.

Now that the policy is officially revised for fourth graders, school and classroom leaders can relay promotion information to parents with more certainty, said Gary Lilly, executive director of the state superintendents organization.

“I think people are relieved that there is a path forward for so many fourth graders,” Lilly said, “and the fact it gives teachers, parents, and principals a voice in the process to determine what is best for each student.”

He continued: “I give a lot of credit to parents who reached out directly to legislators and school leaders about the anxiety their families were experiencing. It helped them to understand that this was a major issue for a lot of Tennesseans, just a year after they had experienced anxiety over the same law as it relates to third graders.”

Last week, in anticipation of Lee signing the law, the state education department published a tool to help families of third and fourth graders understand various pathways for promotion.

“As districts and schools begin to have essential conversations with families of students who are not yet proficient, we will continue to provide resources and supports so they can make informed decisions about their student’s education,” Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said in a statement.

For students completing fourth grade who are still at risk of retention based on their preliminary scores, the state is to release its calculations by July 1 on whether they showed enough improvement to advance. If not, the parent or guardian must meet with their child’s teacher and principal to make that call. But many educators and parents have already been meeting to discuss those options and make plans.

The next few weeks will be especially busy for third-grade families and teachers.

Under Tennessee’s promotion timeline, the state was scheduled to report preliminary scores for third graders to districts by May 20 so they can begin communicating and planning with families about whether students will be automatically promoted to fourth grade or, depending on their scores, what their promotion options are.

Third graders scoring below proficiency in English language arts can retake their TCAPs between May 22 and 31. A parent, guardian, or authorized educator of a student who scored just below proficiency can submit an appeal to the education department between May 28 and June 28 based on certain conditions.

Additionally, third graders who scored “approaching expectations” on their TCAPs can be promoted if they scored at or above the 50th percentile on a separate reading screening test, as long as they also get tutoring throughout the fourth grade.

You can find more information about retention and promotion policies for third and fourth graders on the state education department’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a parent’s comment.

Teachers can challenge Tennessee law limiting instruction on race, gender, and bias, judge rules

2024-05-09T21:45:13+00:00

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Tennessee teachers can move forward with their lawsuit challenging a 3-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

The Nashville judge also sided with educators over questions of whether they have legal grounds to sue the state, plus whether the federal court is the appropriate jurisdiction to take up complaints about the 2021 state law.

And in a 50-page memorandum to explain her single-page order, Trauger was frequently critical of the statute, which restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the Republican-controlled legislature deemed cynical or divisive. She also cited shortcomings of related rules, developed by the state education department, to outline the processes for filing and investigating complaints, appealing decisions, and levying punishment that could strip teachers of their licenses and school districts of state funding.

“The Act simply invites a vast array of potentially dissatisfied individuals to lodge complaints based on their understanding of those concepts and then calls on the Commissioner [of Education], as a sort of state philosopher, to think deeply about what equality, impartiality, and other abstract concepts really mean and enforce the Act accordingly,” Trauger wrote in her May 2 memorandum.

Meanwhile, educators are at the mercy of the personal biases of authorities, which is “exactly what the doctrine of unconstitutional vagueness is intended to guard against,” she said.

The so-called prohibited concepts law was among the first of its kind in the nation that passed amid a conservative backlash to the racial-justice movement and protests prompted by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Among its prohibitions are classroom discussions about whether “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

The law’s defenders note that it permits an “impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history,” or as Rep. John Ragan, the House sponsor, described it: “facts-based” instruction.

But teachers say they don’t know how to be impartial when teaching about the theories of racial superiority that led to slavery and Jim Crow laws. The resulting confusion has influenced the small but pivotal decisions they make every day about how to prepare for a lesson, what materials to use, and how to answer a student’s question, ultimately stifling classroom discussion, many critics of the law assert.

Last July, lawyers for five public school educators and the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teacher organization, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Nashville.

The suit says the language of the law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective. The complaint also says the statute interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in state-approved academic standards, which dictate other decisions around curriculum and testing.

Trauger, who taught school for three years before entering law school, suggested that the ambiguity could lead to a lack of due process for educators under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“That does not mean that a law has to be wise or perfect or crystal clear, but it must mean something concrete and specific that a well-informed person can understand by reading its text,” she wrote in her memorandum.

Kathryn Vaughn, a Tipton County teacher who is among the plaintiffs, called the judge’s decision an important early step in the legal challenge.

“I’m thrilled that the judge listened to our concerns as educators and seemed to understand that this law puts teachers in an impossible position,” she told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office, which filed a motion for dismissal last September, declined to comment on the new development.

The judge set a June 17 scheduling meeting with attorneys in the case to discuss how to manage the litigation going forward.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show the state attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Where Tennessee lawmakers landed on vouchers, guns, AI, and other education issues in 2024

2024-04-29T10:00:00+00:00

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Tennessee’s legislature is done for the year after a session marked by political infighting over private school vouchers and emotional debates about whether teachers and staff should be able to carry a gun in public schools.

The statewide voucher proposal fizzled after the Senate and House couldn’t agree on the specifics. Gov. Bill Lee quickly pledged to come back next year with another plan.

The bill to arm some school employees easily passed, defying dramatic protests at the state Capitol, a year after a Nashville school shooting in which three children, three adults, and the intruder were killed.

“This was a session of good, bad, and ugly,” Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari said after the legislature adjourned on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, some really really bad bills ended up passing,” the Memphis Democrat added.

Republican leaders hailed the four-month session as a success.

“We accomplished things that will benefit the people of this state,” the governor told reporters minutes after the gavel fell.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters at the close of the 2024 legislative session on April 25. He's flanked by the General Assembly's Republican leaders.

He cited the passage of a “historically important budget” that includes a consolation prize of $144 million for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act, in case it passes in future years. The failed voucher proposal seeks to give taxpayer money to any family who wants to send their children to private schools, regardless of their income.

“That shows a clear intent that we believe in this concept and that we expect that to get done next year,” Lee said.

By the end of the week, the governor had signed the bill to let some school employees carry guns, which took effect immediately.

The new law marks the biggest expansion of gun access in Tennessee since the killings at The Covenant School. Last year, the legislature appropriated $140 million to help place an armed officer in every public school, but many districts, especially in rural areas, haven’t been able to hire an officer for every campus.

“Districts have the option to choose,” Lee said earlier, arguing that some school systems need to let some employees carry a concealed handgun.

Protesters stage a "die-in" on the rotunda floor at the Tennessee State Capitol outside of the House chambers on April 23, 2024, after state lawmakers passed a bill to let certain teachers and school staff carry handguns in schools.

Legislation at the intersection of schools and guns

Lawmakers sorted through some 230-plus education bills filed in time for this year’s session — about 300 if you count those left over from last year in the two-year General Assembly. They ultimately passed about 70 that directly affect K-12 education.

For the second straight year, they made tweaks to a 2021 reading and retention law to address what many called unintended effects for students in grades three and four. Under a compromise approved on the last day of session, parents and educators of fourth graders will now have input on whether their students get held back because of low reading scores on state tests.

The legislature rejected tighter gun laws sought by Democrats and gun control advocates, and continued instead to pass legislation aimed at fortifying campuses. Among the initiatives: new school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; increased safety training for school bus drivers; and guidelines to digitize school maps so first responders can access school layouts quickly in an emergency.

A rare bipartisan bill increases the penalty for anyone who threatens to commit an act of mass violence on school property or at a school-related activity.

Another measure, which Lee has signed into law, requires public schools to teach children age-appropriate firearms safety concepts as early as pre-kindergarten. The video-based training is to begin in the 2025-26 school year and, among other things, will instruct students who find a firearm that they shouldn’t touch it and should notify an adult immediately. The bill bars parents from opting their children out of the training.

So-called culture war issues played prominently again

One new law requires public school students to watch a video on fetal development produced by an anti-abortion group, or something comparable. Another measure will require public school employees to out transgender students to their parents. But a bill designed to ban LGBTQ+ flags in schools failed in the Senate amid concerns of a legal challenge based on First Amendment rights.

Tennessee’s age-appropriate materials law, championed by Lee in 2022 to cull certain titles from school libraries, now includes a definition of “suitable” materials for certain ages and maturity levels. And if a local school board doesn’t address a book complaint within 60 days, the complainant can now take the issue straight to the state textbook commission.

Another GOP bill that passed seeks to make sure that material related to “sexual activity” is excluded from the state’s mandatory family life curriculum for students in kindergarten through the fifth grade.

Meanwhile, legislation sponsored by Democrats directs the state education department to develop a program that public schools can use to teach students the skills of nonviolent conflict resolution.

Lawmakers exit the House of Representatives at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville on April 25 after adjourning their two-year session.

Social media and technology also were on the minds of lawmakers.

They signed off on legislation requiring minors to have parental consent to create social media accounts.

In addition, school districts, charter schools, and higher-education institutions must develop and implement their own policies on the use of artificial intelligence in the classroom, if they haven’t already done so. Those policies could include restricting or outright prohibiting the use of AI.

Amid that discussion, one bill requires that Tennessee history be taught in fifth grade. Having that issue codified in state law settles, for now, a debate that erupts whenever the state revises its academic standards for social studies.

Memphis was the focus of more legislation

Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brent Taylor, both Memphis Republicans, drafted several proposals aimed at education in their community.

The legislature passed one bill allowing the University of Memphis to create its own K-12 school district and expand its innovative University Schools model beyond campus borders. University officials said they’ll launch the district this fall, even as they’re still in talks with Memphis-Shelby County Schools about their contract that runs through fall 2026.

Another proposal — giving the governor the power to appoint up to six new members to the board of Memphis-Shelby County Schools — was never heard in committees after White agreed to hold off and work with the existing board and the district’s new superintendent, Marie Feagins, on an improvement plan.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson D-Memphis, has sought for years to shut down the Achievement School District.

A Democratic-sponsored proposal to end the Tennessee Achievement School District, the state’s sputtering takeover and turnaround initiative, passed out of the Senate but not the House. Rep. Antonio Parkinson, the sponsor there, pulled the legislation on the last day of session when White sought to amend the bill. Still, the ASD continues to shrink on its own as its 10-year contracts with charter operators end.

An effort to expand a separate pilot school turnaround project — which started in 2021 in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga — failed to clear budget committees.

Lawmakers passed House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s charter school proposal to create new alternative education options for Tennessee’s at-risk youth. The plan opens the door to residential charter schools, a concern of disability advocates who warned against any measure that could lead to the institutionalization of youth or commingling distinct student populations facing varying issues such as substance abuse, juvenile crime, chronic absenteeism, and teen pregnancy.

Sexton trumpeted his and other charter school legislation headed to the governor’s desk. One bill rewrites state law governing vacant and underutilized public school properties to give charter operators the “right of first refusal” to purchase those public assets.

“This session did more than it’s ever done in our history to continue to put (charter schools) on a path to give parents the choice and alternative to traditional schools,” Sexton said.

A tighter budget meant fewer education initiatives

Passing a budget for state government is the legislature’s only required constitutional duty, and the task was more challenging this year as tax revenues flattened and federal COVID relief funding ended.

Still, Republican lawmakers approved a $1.9 billion package of tax cuts and refunds to corporations and businesses.

Representatives on the floor of the Tennessee House in 2022

They ultimately approved a nearly $53 billion spending plan that allocates an additional $126 million to raise the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500. The goal is to get to $50,000 by the 2026-27 school year.

Also included is $8 million to hire more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. Another $15 million in non-recurring funds will help charter school operators pay for school facilities and maintenance.

But the legislature killed efforts to hire more school-based nurses and counselors, reimburse teachers for some of their child care expenses, and provide free feminine hygiene products in high schools, as well as separate proposals by a Democrat and a Republican to make school meals free for all students. It also said no to a bill to use tax revenue from Tennessee’s growing sports betting industry to offer child care scholarships to low- and middle-income families.

When the 114th General Assembly convenes next year, it will look somewhat different after this year’s elections. All seats of the 99-member House of Representatives and half of the Senate’s 33 seats will be on the ballot.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Bill Lee says he’ll sign bill to let some Tennessee teachers and staff carry guns in schools

2024-04-26T01:34:18+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee said Thursday he will sign legislation to let some teachers and staff go armed in Tennessee public schools.

“Districts have the option to choose,” Lee told reporters after the legislature adjourned for the year. Some school systems, he added, need that option.

His decision comes despite calls from teacher and gun control groups for the governor to veto the bill, as well as concern that parents won’t be notified if their child’s teacher is armed. In nearly six years as governor, Lee has advocated for parental rights on education matters such as curriculum and library materials.

The impending law becomes one of the most significant public safety actions in Tennessee since an intruder shot and killed three students and three staff members a year ago at a private Christian school in Nashville.

Partisan votes in the GOP-controlled legislature advanced the bill this month despite mass protests at the state Capitol seeking stricter gun laws in the wake of the massacre at The Covenant School.

Since Tuesday’s dramatic House vote sent the bill to the governor’s desk, many of the state’s largest districts, including in its four urban counties, have announced they will not use the option if the bill becomes law. They say their campuses generally have a trained law enforcement officer on duty.

“I think meeting … general threats to an environment with another threat to an environment is not something that we want to participate in,” said Marie Feagins, the new superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Rural districts, where it’s more difficult to hire school resource officers for every school, are more likely to use the option, according to Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville and Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta, the bill’s sponsors.

Under the legislation, carrying a gun would be voluntary, and allowed only if the local school district and law enforcement agencies agree to the policy. The school employee carrying the gun would have to possess an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Meanwhile, the bill’s passage has put Tennessee in the national spotlight, drawing criticism from gun control groups such as Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, and Sandy Hook Promise, founded by family members of the 20 children and six adults killed in a 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“The Tennessee legislature has just dishonored all who were killed at the Covenant School shooting last year by choosing to promote the proliferation of firearms in classrooms,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, after the House vote. “There is no evidence to suggest that arming teachers will keep children safe from gun violence. Multiple teachers were armed at Covenant Day School, yet that was not enough to stop six children and school employees from being murdered.”

Tennessee Democrats, who voted against the bill, expressed disappointment that the governor plans to sign the bill.

“This legislation is an affront to every parent, to every Tennessean,” Sen. Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis. “We appropriated a record amount of dollars to fund SROs in every school. But instead we’re leaning into this type of policy.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Changes to Tennessee’s 4th-grade reading law pass after compromise on retention policy

2024-04-25T22:01:13+00:00

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Parents of Tennessee fourth graders would have input on whether their children get held back because of low reading test scores, under compromise legislation that’s headed to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk.

The legislation also provides additional tutoring to students who advance to the fifth grade, even if they didn’t test as proficient readers or show adequate improvement in grades three and four.

The Senate and House agreed on the provisions Thursday to address longstanding concerns about Lee’s 2021 reading and retention law, which threatens to hold back an estimated 6,000 struggling fourth-grade readers.

Under the current law, which Lee proposed, fourth graders who don’t score well enough on state tests have to repeat fourth grade, and receive no additional learning supports and resources during that year. But legislators said that wasn’t their intent when they voted to strengthen retention requirements for third- and fourth-graders during a special session to deal with disruptions to schooling from the pandemic.

The governor signaled later that he will sign the bill.

The legislature’s vote came on the final day of a 2024 legislative session that began in January — and nearly two weeks after students began testing under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, which the state uses to determine reading proficiency.

Educators and families called the timing of the bill’s passage ironic, given that lawmakers have received pushback about the law for several years.

“They could have saved many fourth-grade students and their parents a whole lot of anxiety if they’d passed this earlier,” said Michael Ramsey, an instructional coach for Grainger County Schools, near Knoxville.

Different versions of the bill passed last week out of the House and Senate. When neither side backed down, they turned to negotiators to reach a compromise.

Both chambers were in agreement about directing the child’s parent or guardian to meet with the teacher and principal to discuss whether it’s in the child’s best interest to be promoted or held back. But on Thursday, negotiators added that the parent won’t make the final call. The majority will rule.

The final bill also sets TCAP scores as the only promotion criteria, and tutoring as the only required intervention for advancing.

Tennessee 4th graders await test scores — and outcome of debate that could hold back thousands

The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Gary Hicks of Rogersville, would have let schools take into account the results of a local benchmark test too. And it would have allowed families to choose between participating in a summer learning program or tutoring in fifth grade if promoted.

But in a concession, the Senate, where the bill was sponsored by Dawn White of Murfreesboro, agreed to drop its insistence that the changes take place for only two years. That provision likely would have required lawmakers to revisit the law in 2026.

This is not the first time the legislature has revised the law.

Last year, when the statute’s retention provision kicked in for third graders, lawmakers widened criteria to include both TCAP and benchmark test results to determine which third graders are at risk of being held back.

Third grade is considered a critical year for reading because literacy is the basis for all subsequent learning.

But there’s a growing consensus among Tennessee policymakers that third grade is too late to identify and help struggling readers.

Last month, in a rare action, the state Board of Education approved a resolution asking the legislature to refocus the state’s intervention efforts on grades as early as kindergarten.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with Lee signaling he’ll sign the bill.

Tennessee 4th graders await test scores — and outcome of debate on policies that could hold back thousands

2024-04-24T22:11:11+00:00

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Carly Fair, who has three children in Tennessee public schools, took on the role of an unpaid mom-lobbyist at the state Capitol this year on behalf of families like hers who have a fourth-grade child at risk of being held back under a 2021 reading law.

The law was well intended, she believes: If children are behind on their reading skills in grades three and four, they need tutoring and individualized attention to help them catch up.

But the law also says students in those critical early years may have to repeat a grade if they don’t score as proficient in English language arts on their annual state test, or show adequate growth as defined by the state.

“It feels like we’ve been in a pressure cooker for two years,” said Fair, whose daughter was one correct answer short of automatic promotion on last year’s state tests known as the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

“It was a real blow to her self-confidence,” Fair recalls about her daughter, then 8. “There were a lot of tears.”

Many third graders like Fair’s were able to advance to fourth grade last fall by attending a summer learning camp or receiving tutoring this school year.

But now, their families are waiting anxiously for the results of this spring’s TCAP assessment. If those students don’t demonstrate enough improvement, the law requires them to be held back — without receiving more tutoring or extra learning supports next year.

They’re also watching to see if lawmakers pass legislation to address what they believe are shortcomings in the statute — and outright missteps when it comes to thousands of struggling readers who took advantage of interventions to get promoted.

“The shocking part to me was they get no services, they get no tutoring, they get nothing, other than just retained in fourth grade,” Sen. Dawn White, a Murfreesboro Republican, told lawmakers earlier this year.

White is co-sponsoring legislation to revise the law to give fourth-grade parents a bigger say about retention decisions, and to provide additional learning services for students whose reading skills continue to lag.

She was among legislators who voted for the law in 2021 during a weeklong special session called by Gov. Bill Lee to address pandemic-related disruptions to schooling. The statute, which Lee pushed for, created summer learning camps and tutoring programs that have been popular with most families.

But Tennessee’s new retention policies, which started with last year’s class of third graders, have been controversial.

About 900 third-graders, or 1.2% from that class who took TCAPs, were retained last year. That’s significantly less than earlier projections after many families took advantage of intervention options and an appeals process.

For Memphis 3rd graders, threat of retention has hovered since kindergarten

This year, the state education department projects about 6,000 fourth graders could be retained — without the promise of additional supports.

That, Fair says, seems contrary to the law’s intent, which is to identify struggling readers, then to give them the tools they need to improve.

“TCAPs should be used as an alert system to assemble a team to determine where a student is,” she said, “and then to develop a plan to get them where they need to be.”

Sponsors of this year’s revision bill seem to agree.

Details stand in the way of an agreement

The Senate and House disagree about some specifics and appear to be headed toward a conference committee to try to negotiate a compromise before the legislature adjourns this week.

The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Gary Hicks of Rogersville, allows schools to take into account both TCAP scores and the results of a local benchmark test when determining whether a student is improving enough. If they aren’t, the student’s parent or guardian must meet with the teacher and principal to discuss whether it’s in the child’s best interest to be promoted or held back. If advancing, the student must take advantage of a summer learning program or tutoring during the fifth grade.

The Senate bill, sponsored by White, uses only TCAP results to determine whether the student is improving enough. While it allows parents and educators to jointly decide whether a student can be promoted, it requires tutoring throughout fifth grade, not summer learning, as the required intervention. And it puts the policy in place for only two years.

“We don’t want to come back and go through this all over again in two years,” Hicks, the House co-sponsor, told Chalkbeat after his chamber refused to concur with the Senate version.

But Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, a Bristol Republican, likes the idea of putting a time limit on the changes. He was against relaxing the retention policy in the first place.

“We drew a line in the sand a few years ago,” Lundberg said, “and it’s a good line.”

Policy decisions trickle down to students

For Fair, whose child attends an elementary school in Nashville, following legislative debates about the issue has been a learning process. Last year, she began attending committee meetings at the state Capitol. Over the months, she’s met with lawmakers, members of the State Board of Education, and even representatives of the governor to talk about her family’s experience.

While officials have been accessible, “the disconnect from reality and how this affects people can happen pretty quickly,” she said.

Fair continued: “The emotional and relational toll that this can have 9- and 10-year-olds is pretty great. I don’t know if high schoolers experience this much pressure with their ACT and SAT tests.”

For now, she and other parents of fourth graders are watching for legislative developments and waiting for TCAP scores. Fair’s daughter took her assessment last week.

“She walked into it a little nervous, but brave,” said Fair. “I’m so proud of her.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bill to let some teachers and school employees carry guns heads to Tennessee governor’s desk, despite protests

2024-04-23T23:54:26+00:00

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Protesters screamed “blood on your hands!” then lay down on the floor of the Tennessee State Capitol as if they were victims of gun violence, after lawmakers passed legislation Tuesday to let some teachers and staff carry guns at school.

In between, House Speaker Cameron Sexton paused business in the House of Representatives and ordered state troopers to clear the spectator gallery of protesters.

The 68-28 vote came one year after an intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school, prompting mass protests by gun control advocates and ongoing calls for tighter gun laws.

But instead of restricting gun access in one of America’s most gun-friendly states, the GOP-controlled legislature is sending Republican Gov. Bill Lee a bill that would expand it.

Gun control advocates were angry.

“They’re going in the wrong direction,” said Marley Mello, a 15-year-old Nashville student. “Guns are the problem, not the solution.”

Lisa Bruce, a retired Tennessee principal, called it a “Band-Aid to cover a gaping wound.”

“I could maybe get on board with it if we were already doing common sense measures to reduce gun violence in our state,” she said. “But this feels like a huge leap.”

After the bill's passage, students shout in protest in the rotunda of the Tennessee State Capitol.

The bill’s Republican sponsors have said the legislation is needed to provide an armed presence on every Tennessee school campus, especially in rural areas. Nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them, due to a shortage in the profession.

On the House floor, Rep. Ryan Williams, of Cookeville, emphasized that carrying a gun would be voluntary, and allowed only if the local school district and law enforcement agencies agree to the policy. The school employee carrying the gun would have to have an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Republican lawmakers voting for the measure liked that local officials ultimately could decide whether the policy works for their community.

“I trust my local law enforcement. I trust my director of schools. I trust my teacher,” said Rep. Brock Martin, of Huntingdon.

But Democrats said the effort was misguided, shortsighted, and dangerous.

“We’re going to give somebody a little pop gun to go against a weapon of war. It does not work, folks,” said Rep. Bo Mitchell, of Nashville.

Tennesseans would be better served, Democrats argued, if the legislature passed laws requiring safe storage of firearms and background checks, as well as to temporarily remove guns from any person who is an imminent risk to themselves or others — all proposals that have been defeated by Republicans in charge.

The vote came after an hour of debate in which Democrats tried unsuccessfully to change the bill to exclude their counties, ensure parents are notified when their child’s teacher is armed, or remove a clause that shields districts and law enforcement agencies from civil lawsuits over how a school employee uses, or doesn’t use, a gun.

On Monday, one parent at Nashville’s Covenant School, where the shooting occurred on March 27, 2023, delivered a petition signed by more than 5,000 Tennesseans asking lawmakers to vote the bill down.

“While we all want safe schools and an end to gun violence, arming teachers with guns is not the way,” wrote Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose 5-year-old son was enrolled in Covenant’s preschool.

Another Covenant parent, Mary Joyce, called the bill “ludicrous.”

“Had my daughter’s teacher left the classroom to pursue the shooter, a classroom of 9-year-olds would have been left to protect themselves,” Joyce said.

Jeff Bledsoe, the executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, told Chalkbeat he expects few teachers to carry a gun if the bill becomes law. More likely candidates, he said, are school staff members who have a military or law enforcement background.

His organization opposed the legislation in 2019 when Williams sponsored a similar bill. However, it is neutral on the current bill after working with the sponsors to add more requirements before a person can carry a weapon at school.

Alison Beale, a mother and former teacher, is among spectators escorted by state troopers from the House gallery at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 23. Beale, of Hendersonville, is a Democratic candidate for the House.

Two weeks earlier, the bill easily cleared the Senate, where spectators also were ejected from the gallery after defying warnings from Lt. Gov. Randy McNally to stay quiet.

The governor has signaled he likely will sign the measure into law.

“I’ve said for many years that I’m open to the idea, but the particulars are important,” he told reporters last week.

An advocate for parental rights, the governor declined to comment on the bill’s intent to block a parent from being notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a gun.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s universal school voucher plan is dead for now, governor acknowledges

2024-04-22T16:34:26+00:00

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In the end, the gulf between competing school voucher bills in Tennessee’s legislature was just too wide to cross.

Gov. Bill Lee acknowledged Monday that his push to create a statewide program — which had been on the ropes for more than a month — was dead for the year after Republican leaders in the Tennessee House and Senate were unable to break through disagreements about testing and funding.

“While we made tremendous progress, unfortunately it has become clear that there is not a pathway for the bill during this legislative session,” Lee said in a statement Monday.

The Republican governor vowed to return with another plan next year and added that he’s disappointed for families “who will have to wait yet another year for the freedom to choose the right education for their child.”

The proposal’s failure hands Lee one of the biggest defeats of his administration, now in its second term.

It also signals that for all the momentum vouchers have in Tennessee — including a string of victories in the courts and legislature — Lee’s statewide proposal remains a divisive policy because of its potential to destabilize urban, suburban, and rural public school districts, and add a new burden on state and local finances.

For now, Tennessee has only its targeted voucher program in three urban counties, which provides taxpayer funding to 2,095 students to pay toward private school tuition, plus a smaller voucher program for students with certain disabilities.

As part of his broader school-choice agenda, the governor wanted his new voucher program to eventually become available to every K-12 student across Tennessee, regardless of their family income, and lawmakers took up two vastly different bills from the House and Senate.

But the chambers deadlocked on two issues, according to Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, the Bristol Republican who worked with House Republican leaders for weeks to try to reach a compromise.

First, in addition to creating a new private school voucher program, the more expansive and expensive House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students.

“We had worked really hard to get those measures into place,” Lundberg said, “and believe it would be a step backward for our state.”

Second, the House version proposed increasing the state’s contribution toward public school teachers’ medical insurance coverage from 45% to 60% — and paying for it with funding earmarked for teacher raises.

That funding pathway closed last week when the legislature approved a 2024-25 budget that retained the $125 million that Lee had set aside to increase the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, as promised last year by the governor.

“Ultimately, the House and the Senate had looked at education freedom scholarships through two different lenses,” Lundberg told Chalkbeat on Monday. “We looked at it as school choice legislation. The House looked at it as a way to achieve both school choice and education reform.

“Our perspectives were just so different that we could not come together at the end,” he said.

Timing and cost were factors

As lawmakers entered what’s likely the final week of the 2024 session, they worried about the timing of creating an expensive new program in the midst of flattening revenues and during an election year in which most of their names will be on the ballot.

The voucher program would have been expected to grow over time, likely subsidizing tuition for families who would have chosen private schools anyway. In the program’s second year, according to financial analysts, the Senate version’s projected cost was $287 million, while the House version was projected to cost $384 million.

In addition, more than 50 Tennessee school boards were on record opposing the plan. And the research shows little recent evidence that vouchers improve test scores.

The hurdles were especially problematic in the House, where voucher proposals have historically been harder to pass. To win more votes in that chamber, GOP leaders added enticements aimed at public school supporters to reduce testing time for students, require fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and give districts extra money to help with their building costs, as well as more funding for teachers’ medical insurance costs.

On Monday, House Speaker Cameron Sexton framed the debate as helpful for future talks even though it didn’t produce a consensus this year.

“Universal school choice came closer to a full vote than it had ever been in the past,” Sexton said in a statement. “We will continue working until all parents have the same opportunity to use their tax dollars to choose the best school for their child.”

Democrats, who were united in their opposition to vouchers, said the governor’s proposal ultimately crumbled because many Tennesseans pushed back on a plan that generated more questions than answers.

“From the start, the governor’s proposal was heavy on talking points and light on the substance of how it would work and how much it actually would cost,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville.

“The funding and the accountability pieces were always going to be the sticking points,” he added, “because voucher proponents really want the funding without the accountability.”

Even as voucher supporters quickly promised to try again next year, groups representing the state’s teachers hailed the governor’s loss as a win for Tennesseans.

“Governor Lee’s proposal was poorly written, arriving late in session, and had zero accountability in the plan,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.

The leaders of Arlington Community Schools near Memphis, who issued a fiery statement in December denouncing Lee’s voucher plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, said they were pleased by the legislation’s defeat — and troubled that the governor is already talking about next year.

“He hasn’t even taken a day to understand why his signature bill failed,” said Superintendent Jeff Mayo. “That tells me he doesn’t care to listen to our concerns. The end game is to ultimately usher vouchers into Tennessee to fund private schools, despite the lackluster evidence that it will actually help students.”

School voucher opponents were among protesters who rallied at the state Capitol in Nashville on April 17, 2024. By Marta W. Aldrich

Voucher policies have advanced under Lee

For years, school voucher advocates had watched their policy dream come up short in Tennessee before racking up a string of victories after Lee took office in 2019 amid significant turnover in the GOP-controlled legislature.

Lawmakers passed a bill on a narrow, controversial vote in the House of Representatives during Lee’s first year in office to help create an education savings account program.

The targeted program rolled out in 2022 in Memphis and Nashville for students from low-income families attending low-performing schools. Voucher opponents challenged the law in court and had some early legal wins, but the Tennessee Supreme Court declared the law constitutional in 2022.

After the program’s accelerated rollout and the addition of Hamilton County during its second year, the governor took another big step: proposing a separate statewide Education Freedom Scholarship program to launch this fall with up to 20,000 students, and eventually to eliminate all the geographic and family-income restrictions.

Dueling bills from the House and Senate easily advanced through education committees, but stalled for four weeks in finance committees before the governor accepted defeat.

In his statement Monday, Lee reiterated his reasons for pressing ahead, adding that he’s “never been more motivated.”

“It’s very simple,” he said. “This is about every Tennessee student having the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their ZIP code or income level, and without question, empowering parents is the best way to make sure that happens.”

Later Monday, he told reporters he will campaign for his voucher plan this year as he speaks with Tennessee voters and Republican lawmakers up for reelection.

“I won’t stop,” he said, “because I believe in kids, and I believe in their future and ... the freedom that families should have to make choices.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis reporter Laura Testino contributed to this report. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee budget keeps $144 million for statewide school voucher program that’s still in limbo

2024-04-19T01:03:18+00:00

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Tennessee lawmakers approved a state budget Thursday that includes $144 million to create a statewide school voucher program that Republican leaders say they’re still working to pass.

The money is in place in case the GOP-controlled House and Senate find a way to reconcile vastly different proposals for the voucher program, which would provide taxpayer funding toward private school tuition for up to 20,000 students. The universal voucher bill, called the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, is Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s top education priority.

But as lawmakers aim to wrap up their 2024 session by next week, the passage of the budget limits options for negotiators seeking to convince House members to compromise on their more expansive — and expensive — voucher bill.

To convince mostly rural representatives who are hesitant about taking funding away from their local school districts for private school vouchers, the House measure also seeks to give public schools $75 per student for building construction and maintenance, as well as money to increase the state’s contribution toward teachers’ medical insurance coverage from 45% to 60%, among other enticements for public school supporters.

Voucher bills stuck in finance committees

Meanwhile, the dueling voucher bills languished in finance committees for a fourth straight week without action, making the proposal’s chances for passage increasingly dim.

Still, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said it was “premature” to declare the bill dead, as several news reports have done.

Until the legislature adjourns, “it’s still alive,” he told reporters.

McNally said the Senate is poised to approve its voucher bill, which unlike the House’s version requires recipients to take some type of annual test to show their academic progress. The measure, which is sponsored by Majority Leader Jack Johnson and has 17 Senate co-sponsors, also calls for open enrollment across public school systems.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, whose chamber is more divided over the voucher plan, was reserved in his enthusiasm but pledged to keep working on a deal.

“At the end of the day, it’s an administration bill,” Sexton told reporters. “Until (Gov. Lee) tells us to stop negotiating and working with the Senate, then we’re going to continue to do that.”

Democratic lawmakers have been united in their opposition to either bill — and are staying vigilant as the legislative session enters its final week.

“I’ve seen legislation pass at 2 in the morning that we thought was dead for the year,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, who has served in the General Assembly since 2013.

“Anything can happen; anything has happened,” she added.

Base teacher pay will rise

State revenues are down, one-time federal COVID relief funding is running out, and money is tighter this year after years of budget surpluses.

Against that backdrop, the House and Senate voted along mostly partisan lines to approve a nearly $53 billion state government budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The spending plan injects an extra $261 million in the state’s K-12 education system, almost half of which will go toward raising the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500.

“It keeps us on track to bring our base salary for our teachers to $50,000 a year by fiscal year ‘26-’27,” said House Finance Committee Chairperson Patsy Hazlewood, a Republican from Signal Mountain.

Nashville Democrats tried to add numerous budget amendments in both the House and Senate.

Rep. Aftyn Behn and Sen. Heidi Campbell sought to double the number of seats in the state’s pre-kindergarten program by reallocating the $144 million in voucher money. Rep. Bo Mitchell proposed scuttling $15 million in non-recurring funds set aside to help public charter school operators pay for school facilities and maintenance. And Rep. John Ray Clemmons proposed doing away with the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission and investing its funding instead in the state’s K-12 education funding formula.

The amendments were easily defeated.

Democrats also criticized a measure that includes up to $1.95 billion in tax breaks and refunds for businesses, but little tax relief for working families or new investments for impoverished Tennesseans.

“Because of the refusal of this body and our government to address poverty to help the poor and the marginalized, we are continuing to deal with a deficit, not only financially but morally in this institution,” said Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat who voted against the budget.

Hazlewood, the House finance chairperson, countered that the state’s poverty rate has gone down over the past decade. She characterized Tennessee as a “middle-class family” that has to spend its dollars carefully and is prioritizing programs that benefit education, families, safety, health, and social services.

House Finance Committee Chairperson Patsy Hazlewood, a Republican from Signal Mountain (center), discusses highlights of the state's 2024-25 spending plan on April 18, 2024, during a question-and-answer session with reporters. She is flanked by House Speaker Cameron Sexton (left) and House Finance Subcommittee Chairman Gary Hicks (right).

Peppered with questions about what would happen to the $144 million for vouchers if the new program isn’t approved, she said the money can’t be reallocated without the legislature’s approval.

“If there’s no bills (approved) that address that, any monies unspent remain in the budget. We may need those other monies when we come back in next year,” Hazlewood said, adding that the voucher funds also can’t be spent by the governor through an executive order.

Tennessee already has several smaller voucher initiatives. A program for students with disabilities launched in 2017, and the state education department rolled out a targeted pilot program for low-income students in Davidson and Shelby counties in the fall of 2022. It has since added Hamilton County and has 2,095 students enrolled in all three counties.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee statewide school voucher plan stalls as legislature enters final weeks

2024-04-12T00:11:45+00:00

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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s push to create a statewide school voucher system is running out of time as Republican lawmakers work to reconcile significantly different proposals and iron out disagreements over student testing requirements.

After sailing through education committees and building early momentum, the bill has stalled for three weeks in finance committees — without public discussion.

GOP leaders hope to complete the 2024 session by April 26. That leaves two weeks to approve a state budget, decide on dozens more bills, and seek consensus on one of the biggest education proposals of Lee’s administration.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg of Bristol and House K-12 Subcommittee Chairman Kirk Haston of Lobelville have been key players during weeks of private negotiations.

“We’re still working on it,” Lundberg said Thursday as he emerged from the Senate chamber. He declined to take questions from reporters.

Privately, several Republican lawmakers have told Chalkbeat the governor’s statewide voucher plan is sputtering and may not have the votes needed to pass in their respective chambers, especially if negotiators tinker too much with the original proposals.

But publicly, the governor and GOP leadership sound hopeful.

“It feels like they’re close,” Lee told reporters after the legislature recessed for the week. “I’m very encouraged.”

Asked about sticking points, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said the Senate wants to make sure voucher recipients take some type of annual state-approved test that can be used to compare and rank students in order to gauge the program’s academic effectiveness. The House version has no state testing requirements for students who accept vouchers.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton said his chamber is “adamant” that any school choice-related package includes a provision to reduce student testing in public schools. He also indicated that the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, an education research and advocacy group known as SCORE and founded by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, is being consulted as negotiations progress.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton and House Majority Leader William Lamberth speak with reporters as the legislative session enters its final weeks.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations this week,” Sexton said about talks between the House and Senate. “So we’re hopeful we can get there.”

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act, projected to cost $144 million in its first year, would provide taxpayer funding to up to 20,000 K-12 students to pay toward private school tuition. The governor has set aside that amount for the program in his proposed budget.

The Senate’s version also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House’s larger and more expensive version includes a long list of enticements aimed at public school supporters, including reducing testing time for students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts extra money to help with their building costs.

Democrats in the legislature oppose school vouchers, even while supporting many of the public school provisions in the House bill.

Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons said he’s glad to see the bill’s progress slow, but added that Democrats are staying vigilant as the two-year session moves toward adjournment.

“Deals get cut late at night,” said the Nashville lawmaker. “I would encourage citizens of Tennessee who truly value public schools to sleep with one eye open.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers are anxious to head home during an election year. All 99 seats in the House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Until the session ends, incumbents can’t begin accepting campaign contributions. And Republican members in both chambers don’t appear interested in taking a stance on the controversial voucher bill during an election year if the measure is unlikely to succeed.

More private talks by Republican leadership are planned for the weekend.

The bill is scheduled to be taken up Monday by the Senate Finance Committee and Tuesday by the House Finance Subcommittee. McNally, the Senate’s leader, said the outcomes there will signal the proposal’s chances.

“One of the keys will be as it moves through the finance committee in both houses,” McNally said. “I think if you see that, you probably know that things are going fairly well.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s at-risk youth could see a new education option under charter school bill

2024-04-10T14:00:00+00:00

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A proposal to create new education options for at-risk youth in Tennessee is drawing interest from charter school networks, both inside and outside the state.

Labeled “opportunity” charter schools, the campuses would serve middle and high schoolers dealing with a range of challenges, such as substance abuse and juvenile crime, chronic absenteeism, teen pregnancy, getting held back in several grades, or being at risk of dropping out.

“We’re very interested in the proposal, because it’s directed at a lot of students we already serve,” said Jocquell Rodgers, executive director of Green Dot Public Schools in Memphis, which views the network’s Hillcrest High School campus as a good candidate to become an opportunity charter school. Green Dot’s charter contract to run Hillcrest ends in 2026 under the state’s Achievement School District, or ASD, which appears to be on its way out.

Rodgers likes that the Republican-sponsored bill calls for the state education department to develop different expectations for opportunity charter schools. Those measures likely would focus on college and career readiness instead of academic proficiency.

“It’s very hard to get some of our students to proficiency, which was the promise of the ASD. But we can give them job training and workforce development and make sure they’re on track to graduate, get a job, or go to college or a trade school,” Rodgers said.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools views alternative education programs — for students who are struggling to attend and succeed in traditional public schools — as a growth area for the sector, especially if accountability expectations are adjusted. Nationally, charter schools already serve 42% of students who are enrolled in alternative education campuses.

Under the legislation by House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, enrolling in an opportunity charter school would be a matter of choice. At least 75% of the school’s students would have to be classified as at risk, and the school also could include a residential setting.

That would be significantly different from most of Tennessee’s current alternative education schools, which were created as mandatory short-term learning programs for students who were suspended or expelled from their traditional public school.

“It has worked in some other states,” Sexton told reporters recently about his charter school proposal. “We think it gives us another public option that could help kids in bad situations.”

Not everyone is on board with the idea.

Even some Republicans are wary of the prospect of opening the door to residential charter schools — a new type of publicly funded but independently run school of choice — or the potential of commingling at-risk student populations on one campus.

And leaders of traditional public schools say they’d prefer to meet the needs of at-risk students in existing local settings. They just need additional money to hire more teachers, counselors, behavior specialists, and social workers, they say, not new programs that divert funding from their school systems.

“We’ve said time and again that districts want to provide our students with more behavioral and mental health supports,” said Gary Lilly, executive director of the state superintendents organization.

Despite those tensions, the opportunity charter school legislation has advanced quickly since sponsors introduced it last month.

Last week, it passed the full Senate 19-7 along mostly partisan lines. It’s scheduled to be taken up Wednesday by the House’s finance subcommittee.

Sexton’s bill is narrower in scope than his 2023 charter proposal

A longtime charter school advocate, Sexton introduced a much broader charter bill last year that riled up the home school community and quickly stalled. That legislation proposed charter schools to serve home school students, in addition to a charter boarding school component.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, answers reporters questions on April 4, 2024, at the state Capitol.

It also would have allowed operators to apply directly to the state-appointed charter commission without going through local school boards, prompting pushback from leaders of traditional public schools.

This year, Sexton’s proposal removed any reference to home schools. And operators would have to apply directly to the local district for authorization. As under current law, they could appeal to the state charter commission if their application is rejected locally.

“We’re hopeful,” Sexton said last week when asked about the prospects for this year’s bill. “We tried to pass it last year. We had some opposition. We worked through some issues, and I think now we’re in a pretty good place on the House side.”

Proposal goes beyond temporary placement

Tennessee already has hundreds of alternative education schools and programs, mostly through local public school systems.

State law requires at least one alternative school or program for grades 7-12 in each district to serve students who are suspended or expelled, until they can return to a regular school setting. School systems have the option of creating alternative programs for students in grades 1-6. And some districts also have choice-based schools or programs to provide an alternative path for students who, for whatever reason, don’t fit well into a traditional school environment.

Sexton’s opportunity school legislation takes cues from charter school laws in dozens of other states, including California, Florida, New York, and Texas.

“It’s not a temporary placement like under Tennessee law, where students are mandated to attend for a period of time. It’s a choice, where the school becomes a student’s new home school to try to go and learn,” said Greg Lippman, a former California charter leader who recently founded the New York-based Groundswell Network to support local work on alternative education models across the nation.

Last fall, Lippman was in Memphis to talk with educators and nonprofit and community groups during a gathering organized by Bobby White, founder and CEO of the Frayser Community Schools charter network.

And next month, Groundswell will convene a national conversation at Nashville’s Belmont University to discuss school models to serve youths who are overaged and undereducated, involved in the juvenile justice system, foster kids, or facing other educational barriers.

Lippman said that his group is not the source of Sexton’s legislation but that he supports it, as does the Tennessee Charter School Center.

“Many states have a more expansive definition of alternative schools than under Tennessee’s current model,” he said. “It’s not surprising that the speaker’s office would find interested partners with expertise in this area.”

Funding would come through TISA

Under the bill, opportunity charter schools would receive funding through Tennessee’s new K-12 education formula known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. The formula allocates more funding for students with higher needs, and the money follows the student to the school where they’re enrolled.

That’s a concern for the bill’s detractors, who say that dividing a finite amount of funding and resources for the same population of students won’t lead to better outcomes.

“Diverting funds to charter schools only rips funding from educational institutions that are constantly exploring ways to meet the needs of all students,” said Mary Jo Holmes, board president for the Tennessee Alternative Education Association.

“What will a charter school do that is better serving than current practices?” she asked, noting that Tennessee’s alternative education approach is based on collaboration among parents, educators, and disciplinarians.

“It is a team decision, not a menu item,” Holmes said.

Connor Grady, a spokesman for Sexton, said that, in addition to TISA funding, opportunity charter operators could partner with philanthropists or apply for federal grants, just as traditional schools and districts can.

Asked for examples of potential opportunity charter operators, Grady listed Goodwill’s Excel Center and groups in Colorado and Massachusetts.

Haile, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate, has said he doesn’t expect many opportunity charter operators to create residential schools due to the cost of such an endeavor. But it’s an option under the bill.

For Rodgers, the Green Dot charter operator in Memphis, the goal is to continue to do “transformation work” in a city with a large number of at-risk youth.

“Memphis-Shelby County Schools doesn’t have enough alternative schools to serve its own population, so maybe this could be a win-win,” Rodgers said. “It’s an opportunity for us to work together to address a big challenge in our community.”

You can track the bill’s status on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Amid clamor from protesters, Tennessee Senate passes bill to arm some teachers

2024-04-10T00:44:08+00:00

Amid outbursts from gun control advocates in the spectator gallery, Tennessee’s GOP-dominated Senate passed a bill Tuesday to allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns in public schools.

The vote was 26-5 vote along partisan lines.

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally ordered the gallery cleared of protesters after issuing several warnings before the vote, but many of them refused to leave, despite the urging of state troopers and warnings that they could be arrested.

Some held up signs that said “We’re still here” and “1 year later, are kids safer?” referring to Nashville’s Covenant School shooting, in which an intruder killed three children and three adult staff members on March 27, 2023.

Others chanted “Vote them out!” and “Let them teach!” as it took nearly 15 minutes to resume debate.

“People were damn mad,” Nashville mom Carol Buckley Frazier told Chalkbeat later.

“Some wonderful amendments were introduced to try to craft something better out of a horrific bill, but every one of them got tabled by the Republican supermajority. We just couldn’t believe it,” said Frazier, who came to the state Capitol to show her opposition to the bill.

A group of parents from The Covenant School were also in the balcony but were allowed to stay. Wearing school colors or with ribbons pinned to their chests, they have had a steady presence on Capitol Hill since the shooting to meet with legislators, attend committee meetings, and advocate for gun reforms.

The legislation still awaits a vote by the full House. If it passes there, Tennessee will be on the verge of enacting a law that most teachers and parents oppose.

The latest results from the annual statewide poll conducted by the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy found that school safety is one of parents’ top education concerns, but significantly fewer parents said yes when asked if schools are safer when teachers are armed.

However, some rural lawmakers have sought the measure for a decade to help districts that can’t place an armed law enforcement officer on every campus, most recently due to a shortage in the profession.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, lays out specific conditions before any school employee could carry a concealed handgun if they’re not a law enforcement officer.

First, the local district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to pursue such a policy.

Second, interested teachers and school staff who have an enhanced handgun permit would have to complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and an FBI background check. That training would have to be renewed every year that the teacher was carrying.

Parents would not be notified if their child’s teacher is armed. And one provision of the bill shields districts and law enforcement agencies from potential civil lawsuits over how a teacher or school employee uses, or doesn’t use, a handgun under the proposed law.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat, noted the irony of any legislation blocking a parent from being notified about a gun in their child’s classroom, given the many GOP-backed laws passed in recent years to restrict curriculum and library materials under the banner of parental rights.

And Sen. London Lamar, another Memphis Democrat, gave an impassioned speech while holding her 8-month-old son.

Sen. London Lamar, D-Memphis, holds her infant son as she speaks against legislation that would allow some Tennessee teachers and staff to go armed in public schools.

“I’m upset. My child is at risk under this bill,” Lamar said. “This bill is dangerous and teachers don’t want it. Nobody wants it.”

Bailey, the Senate sponsor, said the provision about not notifying parents is intended as a deterrent to potential intruders who would not know who is armed and who isn’t.

Any liability for an accident would be borne by the teacher who chooses to carry a weapon under the law, he said.

Sen. Ken Yager, a Kingston Republican, spoke in favor of the bill.

“We are not trying to shoot a student,” he said, “but protect a student from an active shooter whose sole purpose is to get into that school and kill people.”

But Claire Jones, a Williamson County mom and hospice nurse who was at the Capitol on Tuesday, saw it differently.

“When you ask for stricter gun legislation and they actually loosen the laws, that feels intentional,” said Jones, who is running as a Democrat for the House seat currently occupied by Republican Rep. Gino Bulso.

“How did we come from a tragedy like Covenant to this point?” she asked.

You can track the bill’s status on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bill to let some teachers carry guns advances in Tennessee. Parents wouldn’t be notified.

2024-04-03T00:19:56+00:00

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Legislation to let some public school teachers carry handguns advanced Tuesday in the Tennessee Senate as the Republican-controlled legislature quashed new attempts to tighten the state’s lax firearm laws following last year’s mass school shooting in Nashville.

The bill, which still faces votes before the full Senate and House, would let a teacher or staff member with an enhanced permit carry a concealed handgun at school after completing 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, as well as passing a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

The local district and law enforcement agency would decide whether to let faculty or staff carry a gun under the bill co-sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, both Republicans.

But parents would not be notified if their student’s teacher is armed, which runs counter to the GOP’s emphasis on parental rights and notification on education matters such as curriculum and library materials.

“The director of schools, principal, and the chief of the local law enforcement agency are the only ones notified of those permitted to carry,” Bailey told senators, “and they are not to disclose if someone is or is not permitted to carry on school grounds.”

The 7-1 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee comes as Tennessee’s legislature continues to pass measures aimed at fortifying school campuses rather than restricting gun access in one of the most gun-friendly states in America.

Last year, after a shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, the legislature allocated $230 million and passed laws to upgrade school facilities, pay for a school resource officer for every school, and ensure school doors remain locked.

Gov. Bill Lee later called lawmakers back for a special session on public safety. But none of the bills that passed specifically addressed concerns about easy access to guns that were raised by the March 27 shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, where a 28-year-old intruder, who police said was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder,” used legally purchased guns to shoot through the glass doors.

This year, bills moving through the legislature would require age-appropriate gun safety training for school children as young as kindergarten; change school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; create a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; increase safety training for school bus drivers; and set guidelines to digitize school maps so first responders can access school layouts quickly in an emergency, among other things.

Meanwhile, Democratic-sponsored legislation to restrict gun access by broadening background checks and promoting secure firearm storage have met swift defeats. Earlier on Tuesday, one House panel dismissed, without discussion, a bill seeking to ban semi-automatic rifles in Tennessee.

School safety is one of the top three education concerns of Tennessee parents, but significantly fewer parents agree that schools are safer when teachers are armed, according to the latest results in an annual poll from the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.

Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat who voted against the measure, said more guns aren’t the solution to stopping gun violence.

“I do not think that it is the responsibility of teachers in our state, who have taken the oath to educate our children, to now become law enforcement officers,” she said.

Lamar also expressed concern about one provision to shield districts and law enforcement agencies from potential civil lawsuits over how a teacher or school employee uses, or fails to use, a handgun under the proposed law.

Organizations representing Tennessee teachers and school superintendents prefer policies that place an officer in every school over any that could arm faculty.

But Bailey told the Senate panel that nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools still don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them.

Law enforcement groups have struggled to recruit enough candidates because of inadequate pay, occupational stress, and changing public perceptions about the profession.

“Everybody’s got a shortage right now, but it’s been going on for years,” said Lt. Kyle Cheek, president of the Tennessee School Resource Officers Association.

Cheek, who oversees school-based deputies in Maury County, said equipping a teacher for school policing would require extensive training beyond a basic firearms course. And it would raise other concerns too.

“Who takes care of the teacher’s class if they’re going to check out a security issue?” he told Chalkbeat. “It’s a huge responsibility.”

The advancement of Bailey’s Senate bill means the measure likely will face votes this month in the full Senate and House before the legislature adjourns its two-year session.

The House version cleared numerous committees last year, but Williams did not pursue a vote by the full chamber after the Covenant tragedy prompted gun control advocates to stage mass protests at the Capitol.

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee Senate passes bill to do away with the Achievement School District

2024-04-02T00:27:56+00:00

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A proposal to shift low-performing schools from Tennessee’s sputtering takeover and turnaround district to other state-approved but locally managed intervention models passed unanimously Monday in the full Senate.

The bill, which is awaiting action in the full House, seeks to phase out the Achievement School District, the state’s most ambitious and aggressive school improvement model, by the end of 2025-26 school year.

It also would strip the state education commissioner’s authority to take over neighborhood schools that are performing academically in the bottom 5%. Under the ASD, the state typically assigned those schools to charter operators to run.

In place of the ASD, the bill would create a school improvement model designed to foster more collaboration between the local district and the state education department.

Tennessee’s education chief would have authority to direct a local district to choose from three turnaround approaches — under a charter operator, a public university, or an independent turnaround expert — for each of its low-performing “priority” schools.

The turnaround work would be locally managed, but with state oversight. For starters, the state would have to approve local districts’ turnaround choices.

“The ASD has not worked for some time, which we can all agree (on),” said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who is co-sponsoring the legislation with Rep. Antonio Parkinson, also of Memphis.

“This will put the control back in the hands of the locals,” she said on the Senate floor.

The bill is one of several legislative proposals seeking to address the failures of the ASD, created under a 2010 state law as part of a package that helped Tennessee win a $500 million federal grant in the Race to the Top competition.

Parkinson’s companion bill has similar goals.

Meanwhile, GOP leaders in the House are pressing for a massive private-school voucher bill that includes a provision to phase out the ASD on July 1, 2026.

All three measures advanced this year after several top Republicans in the GOP-controlled legislature acknowledged that the state-run district isn’t working and should be replaced.

Not only did removing struggling schools from local governance fail to improve student outcomes, but most ASD schools also performed no better than low-performing schools that received no intervention, according to researchers. Among the challenges, the state-run district struggled with high teacher turnover and significant community backlash, especially in Memphis, which became the hub of the ASD’s work.

The ASD, which had a peak of 33 schools in 2016, continues to shrink, especially since 2022, as schools began to complete their prescribed 10 years under the model. Currently, 13 schools are left in its portfolio, the last of which will complete their charter contracts at the end of 2025-26 school year.

“We’ve got to do something different,” Akbari said before Monday’s vote. “This bill would create a partnership between the local district and the state education department to make sure priority schools are receiving meaningful interventions that give it a chance for turnaround.”

How much those interventions might cost is unknown. School turnaround work is expensive, but the legislature’s fiscal analysts said the cost will depend on which turnaround methods and contractors are used for the work.

Akbari and Parkinson have been working with the education department to develop a new school turnaround strategy that doesn’t include the heavy-handed takeover tactics that put the ASD at odds with the districts that previously ran the schools, and their communities.

They also want to keep Tennessee in compliance with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires each state to have a rigorous improvement plan for schools that are struggling the most.

Some details of Akbari and Parkinson’s companion bills differ. For example, Akbari’s proposal could apply to any of the state’s approximately 95 priority schools, at the direction of Tennessee’s education commissioner.

Parkinson wants to create a hub of school improvement tools for any Tennessee public school to access, no matter how much it falls short or in what area. He wants to avoid adding negative labels to schools beyond existing state or federal designations that are based on their overall achievement, or the achievement gaps among certain student groups.

“You kill the esteem of the school, the teachers, the students, parents, when you label a school as being part of the ASD, or whatever you want to call it,” Parkinson said. “The fact that our state already gives priority designations to schools is enough.”

Even so, Parkinson said his and Akbari’s proposals “aren’t that far apart,” especially on the most important issues.

“There will be no state takeover under either version,” he said. “That’s been a dismal failure for our state. In the process, we’ve wasted over a billion and a half taxpayer dollars. And we’ve fallen short when it comes to some precious years in the lives of ASD students.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee bill to ease reading law’s retention policy for 4th graders clears first hurdle

2024-03-20T01:56:23+00:00

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State lawmakers advanced legislation Tuesday that would put fewer fourth graders at risk of being held back this year under Tennessee’s 2021 reading law.

Similar to changes passed last year to address worries about the state’s tough new retention policies for third graders, the proposal seeks to widen criteria for determining which fourth graders could be held back if they aren’t deemed proficient readers, or aren’t showing adequate growth.

The current policy bases those decisions on the results of state tests this spring in English language arts under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP. Under the proposal that advanced Tuesday, on a unanimous vote by the House K-12 subcommittee, results from a second locally adopted benchmark test could be considered, too.

And if the student doesn’t show enough improvement under either test, the school’s principal and teacher must meet with the parent or guardian to decide whether the child should be promoted or held back. If advancing, the student must receive academic interventions that could include summer learning programs and tutoring during fifth grade.

The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to take up the bill on Wednesday.

Projections show thousands of students could have to repeat fourth grade this year, even after participating in state-funded tutoring and summer learning programs.

Lawmakers have gotten pushback from families and educators about retention policies that began affecting last year’s third graders and this year’s fourth graders under the 2021 literacy law. Backed by Gov. Bill Lee, that law passed during a weeklong special legislative session to address pandemic-related learning disruptions.

Last year, due to the intervention options and an appeals process that many families used, only about 900 third graders, or 1.2% from that class who took the test, were retained because of low reading scores.

But currently, no such alternatives are available for this year’s struggling fourth-grade readers.

“This bill is going to give us some alternative pathways to get from fourth grade to fifth grade,” said Rep. Gary Hicks, the Rogersville Republican co-sponsoring it with Sen. Dawn White, a Republican from Murfreesboro.

The House’s massive school voucher bill, which advanced Monday with a positive recommendation from the chamber’s Government Operations Committee, includes one public school provision to add several pathways to address the fourth-grade retention quandary. But since the Senate’s voucher bill is strictly about school choice, there’s no guarantee that any public school provisions will remain if both versions pass and legislative negotiators have to reach a compromise.

Rep. Mark White, the Memphis Republican who chairs the House Education Administration Committee and is helping to shepherd the voucher legislation, praised Hicks for offering up an option.

“If the omnibus bill doesn’t make it, we don’t want to be left hanging with the fourth-grade retention issue,” White told Chalkbeat earlier. “It’s just in case the other one falters.”

Gary Lilly, executive director of the state’s superintendent organization, said parents and educators have been hopeful for a “legislative fix” to give more options to fourth-grade families.

“As written, we knew the law would put a lot of students in a bad situation,” Lilly said. “Certainly, a lot of legislators agree that something needs to be done. This way retains academic supports for students, but it still allows them to progress to the next grade, provided there’s agreement that it’s in the best interest of the child.”

You can track the bill on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

University of Memphis could become its own K-12 school district under new legislation

2024-03-11T23:26:06+00:00

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The University of Memphis, which operates three high-performing schools for K-12 students on its campus, could become its own school district under new legislation from two Republican lawmakers from Memphis.

Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brent Taylor want the elementary, middle, and high schools on the college campus to come under the supervision of a university-led district and shift out of the purview of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the state’s largest school system.

Under their proposal, the university also could create more schools, including using charter operators, without having to go through MSCS, with which the university has a contractual arrangement. Those new schools could be located throughout Greater Memphis.

White, who plans to introduce the proposal Tuesday in the House K-12 education subcommittee, said he wants to give the university authority to replicate school models that are generating some of the best academic results in Tennessee. While none of the schools have an academic requirement for entry, all three recently received A grades and reward-school designations from the state for student growth.

But a statement Monday from Memphis-Shelby County Schools suggested the district wants to keep its current arrangement.

“We value our longstanding partnership with the University of Memphis and believe Campus School, University Middle School, and University High School are important parts of the district’s educational options,” the statement said. “We look forward to continuing our partnership.”

Proposal envisions a new university-led governance system

The legislation, called the Innovative School District Act, seeks to introduce a new school governance model using public universities to scale up proven innovations in K-12 teaching and learning. The new pathway would remove oversight by traditionally elected school board members who represent the community’s voice in public education. The measure could have statewide implications if other universities pursue the same track.

Under the legislation, Tennessee’s education commissioner could approve a university-based K-12 school system. School governance would be handled by the university’s board of trustees, which also could appoint several of its members as a committee to perform the functions of a school board.

Not just any higher education institution could seek to become a school district, though. The university would be required to have a comprehensive doctoral program and operate a collection of training schools that offer clinical teaching experiences and mentoring for future educators beginning with pre-kindergarten. Such institutions also typically conduct and publish research on effective teaching techniques.

Currently, the University of Memphis, which serves students from pre-K through high school, is the state’s only public university that meets that standard. In addition to its three campus schools, the university partners with Porter-Leath, one of the city’s largest providers of preschool services, to operate an early childhood academy in the city’s Orange Mound neighborhood. Several other Tennessee universities operate training or laboratory schools, but do not serve the full continuum of students from pre-K through graduation.

White, who chairs the House Education Administration Committee, has talked for years with leaders at the University of Memphis about ways to expand its K-12 work. After opening a high school in the fall of 2022, the university warmed to the idea.

“We did not pursue this legislation,” said Sally Parish, the university’s associate vice president for educational initiatives. “Chairman White approached us about scaling our academic model and our academic success to serve more children. We now have a full compendium of pre-K through 12th grade, and the timing feels right.”

Students concentrate on their classwork at Campus Elementary School, one of three schools operated by the University of Memphis on its campus near midtown Memphis.

Why the shift would matter for MSCS

If the legislation becomes law, the shift to a university-based school system would not be immediately noticeable. While Memphis-Shelby County Schools is their district of record, campus schools already contractually operate under the oversight of the university’s board of trustees. The university has its own policies and procedures, employs all of the schools’ teachers and staff, and provides classroom facilities.

But Memphis-Shelby County Schools, one of Tennessee’s lower-performing districts, would not be able to report the high-achieving campus schools’ scores as part of its own academic data.

Eventually, the university wants to expand beyond its ZIP code.

“One of our challenges is that we have more children on our waitlist than we have in our schools,” said Parish, who oversees the university’s campus schools. “We know there’s a local demand; we just haven’t been allowed to meet it. Our contract with the district caps enrollment at 1,050 students.”

The enrollment cap was part of the contract approved by Memphis’ school board in 2021 to allow the university to open a high school recently on campus to prepare students for college and career. The university’s elementary school opened in 1912 and serves over 400 students. University Middle was founded in 2019 as a project-based STEAM school and serves about 270 students.

School leader sees a chance to diversify enrollment

Campus school programs have faced criticism for not reflecting the diversity of Memphis, where 64% of residents are Black, and nearly a fourth are deemed impoverished. The student population of Memphis-Shelby County Schools is 93% Black and 57% economically disadvantaged.

According to the latest state data, Campus Elementary School’s student population is 24% Black and 7% economically disadvantaged, while students at University Middle School are 48% Black and 10% economically disadvantaged. The state’s demographic data is not yet available for University High School.

Parish believes that with more autonomy and the ability to recruit charter operators to open schools in other parts of the city, the university can diversify its K-12 population and create academic tracks that are more responsive to local workforce needs.

Currently, she said, about 20% of the schools’ students are the children of university faculty and staff; 30% are from families who live within a 2-mile radius of the university; and the rest from the larger Memphis community.

“We’re not shying away from serving a diverse community,” Parish said. “We serve children in every single local ZIP code, but we don’t provide transportation to get to the university, and that’s a barrier that we want to eliminate. Currently, we’re limited in how we can serve students based on what the district allows.”

Having the ability to authorize charter schools would help the university expand to other parts of Greater Memphis, she added.

Tennessee now has 141 traditional school systems operated as city, county, or special school districts. Any of them can authorize a charter school under a 2019 law that created the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

The Tennessee Charter School Center, which advocates for charters, is not the driving force behind the new legislation but is consulting with its sponsors.

“What’s most important to TCSC is ensuring that any authorizer in Tennessee is high quality, follows national best practices, and is evaluated by the Tennessee State Board of Education,” said Elizabeth Fiveash, the group’s chief policy officer. “We are working with the sponsors to make sure that is reflected in their proposed language.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee universal school voucher bill clears two more legislative hurdles after contentious debate

2024-03-07T03:30:14+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal to create a statewide school voucher program easily cleared its first Senate hurdle Wednesday, but took a split vote and five-plus hours of often contentious debate to pass out of a House committee.

The legislation — the most ambitious and controversial education plan of Lee’s five-plus years in office — passed 7-1 out of the Senate Education Committee, with the panel’s lone Democrat casting the dissenting vote.

In the House Education Administration Committee, the measure advanced 12-7, including four Republicans voting against it in the GOP-controlled legislature. Passage came even as Maryville City Schools Director Mike Winstead, a 2018 finalist for National Superintendent of the Year, called vouchers “a bitter pill, maybe some would say a poison pill” that he believes will destabilize K-12 education across Tennessee in the long run.

“You can coat that with a lot of good things and make it go down a little easier,” Winstead testified before the panel. “But in the end, we’re being asked to ingest a poison pill.”

Meanwhile, supporters pounded on the theme of parental choice.

“This is about parents finding the best learning environment for their students,” said Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds.

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act must clear more committees in each chamber before it can be voted on by the full House and Senate. The House bill now heads to that chamber’s government operations committee, while the Senate bill will be heard next by its finance panel.

Both proposals would start a new voucher program this fall with up to 20,000 students who could use taxpayer funding to attend private schools. Lee wants the program opened up eventually for any K-12 student, regardless of their family income.

The pieces of legislation remain vastly different, however, both in cost and scope.

The Senate bill, starting this year at $95 million and jumping to $333 million in the program’s second year, requires voucher recipients to take some type of tests that can be used to compare and rank students, but not the same rigorous standards-based tests that public school students have to take under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, known as TCAP. The legislation also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House version, starting at $398 million and growing to $425 million in the program’s second year, has no testing requirement for voucher recipients. It includes a long list of enticements aimed at public school supporters, including reducing testing time for students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts an extra $75 per student — or about $73 million in all in the first year — to help with building costs.

Rep. Chris Hurt, a Halls Republican who voted against the bill, expressed concern that the public school measures could get “stripped out” of the final legislation if Senate and House negotiators head to a conference committee to work out their differences.

And Rep. Charlie Baum, a Murfreesboro Republican who sits on the House Finance Committee, worried about the proposal’s high cost. He noted that Tennessee’s government faces a $400 million shortfall in its current budget.

Rep. Charlie Baum, a Murfreesboro Republican, flagged the high cost of the House voucher bill during a committee meeting but eventually voted for the measure.

“I understand that we’re adding the additional sections to make the bill more enticing, maybe to sweeten the pot,” said Baum, who later voted for the measure. “But it seems like in order to pass a $140 million freedom accounts [voucher] bill, we’re spending an additional $350 million” for public schools.

Baum asked sponsors to consider separate bills to vote on the private school voucher and public school provisions based on their costs and merits. But Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Maury County Republican who is carrying the bill for House Majority Leader William Lamberth, declined.

The voucher proposal, Cepicky said, was the right “vehicle” to address long-standing challenges for public educators.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson balked at that statement though. The Memphis Democrat said lawmakers have the power any time to create legislation to address matters related to public education.

“For some reason, we’ve chosen to create a lemon,” said Parkinson, seizing on the same automotive analogy. “And that vehicle now has all of these great options that are in it, but is tied to four flat tires.”

The House debate waded into the potential for voucher money going to undocumented students or to private schools teaching atheist, Satanic, or Muslim curriculum.

Questions also were raised about whether federally required services for students with special needs would lead to new federal regulations on private schools that accept vouchers. There was little discussion, however, about whether voucher recipients with special needs would receive adequate services from private schools.

Chairman Mark White, a Republican from Memphis, also received complaints from several people who weren’t allowed to testify.

While two people each spoke for and against vouchers, pro-voucher voices included Robby Starbuck, a video director and conservative political activist, and Walter Blanks Jr., a spokesperson for the American Federation for Children advocacy group. White declined to hear testimony from voucher opponents Eric Welch, an elected school board member from Williamson County, and Matt Steinhauer, a Franklin pastor and parent.

In the other chamber, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat from Memphis, questioned why the Senate bill doesn’t require voucher schools to be held to the same accountability standards as public schools, including TCAP tests, Tennessee’s third grade retention law, and the state’s new A-F designations for schools.

“If the majority of students in that [private] school who are taking these public dollars are performing poorly, will the school face any action based on what’s written in this legislation, where they can no longer accept students who have these vouchers?” Akbari asked.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, who drafted the Senate’s version, responded no.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee contributed to this report.

Tennessee reading law’s retention policies should start as early as kindergarten, state board says

2024-03-04T23:54:55+00:00

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Tennessee’s top education policy board is urging Gov. Bill Lee and state lawmakers to refocus efforts to identify and help struggling readers on students in lower grades — as early as kindergarten — rather than waiting until third or fourth grade to intervene.

In a rare action, the state Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution Monday asking elected officials to revisit the state’s 2021 literacy law, which targeted third and fourth graders and strengthened retention rules for students who score poorly on state tests.

Over the past three years, the board has been working through the details and challenges of implementing the controversial law, which passed during a special legislative session called by the governor to address pandemic-related learning disruptions.

The law created popular summer learning camps and tutoring programs. It also included less popular provisions increasing the likelihood that third and fourth graders could be held back a grade eventually if they don’t perform well enough in English language arts under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

Third grade, when Tennessee begins to give its students TCAP tests, is a critical year for reading proficiency, because literacy is considered key to all later learning.

The board’s request for the state to reconsider the law’s retention provision is based in part on new tools that Tennessee teachers are using to identify reading problems before the third grade.

“Retaining students in grades K-3 rather than grades 3-4 will ensure that students who are in the most need of additional reading support will have access to foundational literacy skills instruction at a critical point in their foundational literacy development should they be retained,” the resolution reads.

While years of research shows the overall costs and benefits of retaining students are unclear, the general consensus among researchers and educators is that the earlier a struggling student is retained, the better the outcomes for that student.

“Third grade is too late,” Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds told the board last month when members asked whether Tennessee’s reading law is targeting the right age group.

Additionally, Tennessee students in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade now take three tests annually to screen them for potential reading challenges. Data from those tests wasn’t available when the 2021 law passed, but it could be used now to trigger key supports, interventions, and retention decisions earlier in a student’s academic career, the resolution says.

Ryan Holt, who represents Nashville on the board and wrote the resolution, said the law had a good intent but needs a “course correction.”

Executive Director Sara Morrison agreed. “It pushes us in the right direction as a state to look at those earlier grades and use data responsibly to make decisions earlier than third grade, but allows for that backstop to remain in third grade where we have that consistent TCAP measure,” she said.

Thousands of third graders were at risk of being held back last year because of their TCAP scores, but ultimately only about 900 third graders, or 1.2% were retained — not significantly more than in an average school year — thanks to intervention options and an appeals process that many families took advantage of.

The law also requires this year’s fourth graders to be held back if they don’t score as proficient, or show “adequate growth,” on their TCAPs.

Officials are projecting that the fourth grade retention number will be significantly higher than the third-grade rate, because the law allows for fewer exemptions for those students.

Just weeks ago, the state board approved a complex formula for what constitutes enough improvement for fourth graders — but not before several members questioned whether the law is targeting the right age group.

“I just want to encourage us to keep moving in the direction of working with teachers who would say the earlier, the better. Let’s not wait,” said Larry Jensen, a board member from West Tennessee.

Board Chairman Robert Eby, from Oak Ridge, said the body’s decision Monday to send a message to elected officials falls in line with its duty to develop and maintain a master plan for K-12 public education.

“We don’t pass many resolutions,” Eby said. “I think it shows the importance we’re putting on this issue.”

Asked about the board’s resolution, a spokeswoman for the governor reiterated the law’s intent, supports, and impacts.

“Beginning in kindergarten, students have access to high-dosage tutoring and summer school programs that reinforce proven phonics-based instruction,” said Elizabeth Lane Johnson, Lee’s press secretary. “Parents and teachers can track their students’ progress through regular reading screening tests, so they can determine the right path forward based on the unique needs of each student.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee GOP leaders optimistic about universal school voucher prospects after first week of debate

2024-03-01T21:40:10+00:00

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Republican leaders sounded optimistic about the prospect of passing some kind of expanded school voucher program, even as they stared at three markedly different proposals during the first week of public debate in Tennessee’s legislature.

All three pieces of legislation — one from Gov. Bill Lee, one from the Senate, and one from the House — have two things in common.

First, they aim to start a statewide voucher program with 20,000 students and eventually allow any K-12 student to use taxpayer funding to attend a private school.

Second, they’re expensive: Lee’s proposal would cost an estimated $144 million in its first year, while the projected price tag for the Senate’s version is $333 million and the House’s is $425 million, according to the first reports by the legislature’s financial analysts.

Beyond that, there are big differences in scope and approach.

The governor’s seven-page plan, called the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, does not require participating students to take annual tests to measure whether the plan leads to better academic outcomes.

The Senate’s 17-page version, from Majority Leader Jack Johnson, requires voucher recipients to take some type of tests, approved by the state Board of Education, that can be used to compare and rank students. It also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House’s 39-page proposal, filed Monday by Majority Leader William Lamberth, has no testing requirement for voucher recipients. The omnibus-style package also includes a slew of enticements for supporters of public schools, such as reducing testing time for their students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts an extra $75 per student — or about $73 million in all in the first year — to help with building costs.

Even with numerous legislative hurdles to clear before pivotal votes could happen on the House and Senate floors, the leaders of both chambers talked Thursday about the possibility of letting negotiators resolve their differences in a conference committee.

“Most of the time, the conference committee can work things out,” Lt. Gov. Randy McNally told reporters Thursday after the legislature had finished its business for the week.

“I don’t think either side is just locked in stone,” Lamberth added later.

Meanwhile, the governor told reporters he wasn’t worried that the Senate and House were starting out with very different approaches. He characterized his own proposal as simply a “framework” to get the discussion rolling.

“The encouraging part for me is there is an agreement that everyone wants to get school choice done,” Lee said. “The core tenets are the same. That’s how the legislative process works.”

House Republican leaders angered some within their own party by bringing their measure up for its first vote on the day after filing the massive package.

“This bill was dropped in our lap last night at 5 o’clock,” Rep. Todd Warner, a Chapel Hill Republican, said Tuesday as the measure was debated in the K-12 subcommittee. " We have not had the proper time to vet this bill, to go through it. There are lots of unanswered questions.”

But after two-plus hours of discussion, with representatives from the governor’s office in the room and a designee from House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s office available to break a tie vote, if necessary, the bill cleared its first legislative hurdle 6-2. Warner and Rep. Sam McKenzie of Knoxville voted no, and two other members did not vote. Rep. Kirk Haston, a Republican and public school official from Perry County who chairs the subcommittee, voted yes.

Lamberth, the majority leader from Portland who is sponsoring the House bill, said members were given ample time to review and discuss the bill.

“We will also have at least six or seven weeks before it will be on the House floor,” he said. “Nobody’s rushing any of this.”.

The next votes are expected on March 6 in the House and Senate education committees. If the measures clear those panels, they would head to the chambers’ finance committees and face a tougher audience because of their cost, especially in future years as the program grows.

Tennessee already has a nearly $378 million budget shortfall through the first six months of the current fiscal year, and Lee’s proposed budget would slash corporate business property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The state’s largest teacher organization also charged that the House bill aims to use money allocated for teacher raises to pay for other parts of the bill.

“The harm this voucher proposal would cause every district in the state cannot be offset by the other components included in the legislation,” Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said in a statement on Friday.

Another financial concern is that the program would increasingly take on the cost of educating students who would have gone to private schools anyway.

Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, while answering questions this week before the House panel, said more than half of the students enrolled in Tennessee’s current voucher pilot program in Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby counties had never previously attended public schools. That’s because they enrolled as kindergartners, moved in from out of state, or took advantage of a revision in the 2019 law that opened up applications to families who might have been eligible while Lee’s Education Savings Account program was being challenged in court.

You can track the legislation and view a summary of differences in various proposals in an analysis by The Education Trust of Tennessee.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board appointment bill on hold amid talks with state lawmakers

2024-03-01T11:00:00+00:00

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A state lawmaker is giving the Memphis-Shelby County school board time to devise an improvement plan before pursuing legislation to empower Gov. Bill Lee to appoint up to six new members to the locally elected body.

Rep. Mark White said he has spoken with several current board members and the district’s incoming superintendent, Marie Feagins, since Chalkbeat reported in early February that he’s consulting with the state attorney general’s office on a school governance bill aimed at his home county.

“I’ve told them you’re going to have to manage the district better, and they indicated that they understood,” White said during a recent interview in his office at the state Capitol.

The Memphis Republican wants the board to deliver an action plan to him in March, before the legislature is expected to adjourn in April. The plan, he said, should include how district leaders are addressing challenges with literacy, truancy, graduation rates, teacher recruitment, underutilized school buildings, and a backlog of building maintenance needs, among other things.

MSCS building strategy is in the works. See which schools may be affected.

“Our city is begging for change when it comes to education, and I want to know that this school board has a plan,” said White, who chairs a House education committee.

If the board doesn’t deliver, White plans to file his legislation in the next few weeks.

Several board members have said White’s proposal smacks of state overreach — but they want to collaborate with the lawmaker, who is also locally elected, to advance the school district’s work. Still, there’s confusion about exactly what White wants and when he wants it.

“We do have to come up with those agreements or deliverables that he’s talking about,” said board member Mauricio Calvo, who tried unsuccessfully in January to get the board to set priorities for its next superintendent.

“It’s not just because he is saying that. It’s because we want to get to better outcomes for children, for students,” Calvo continued.

Althea Greene, the board’s chair, did not respond to Chalkbeat’s questions about the status of the talks. She sent a statement through the board’s external communications firm saying, in part, that “we are currently in the process of engaging our community with Rep. White regarding his plan.”

White has cited prolonged frustration with the board’s leadership. His legislation would keep the board’s current elected members, but add others through Lee’s appointments based on recommendations from local officials and stakeholders.

The East Memphis lawmaker met with six of the district’s nine school board members, including Greene and Calvo, during a previously scheduled Feb. 14 meeting at the Capitol, which he called “very productive.”

Six school board members for Memphis-Shelby County Schools pose with Rep. Mark White and Sens. Raumesh Akbari and Brent Taylor during a meeting at the Capitol on February 14, 2024.

Days after, White spoke by phone with Feagins, a Detroit school leader picked by the board in February to be the next leader of the state’s largest school system. Her selection came in spite of White’s 11th-hour request that the board keep interim Superintendent Toni Williams and delay hiring a leader for a second time.

Michelle McKissack, another school board member at the Capitol meeting, is hopeful for more discussions with state officials that include Feagins. More specifically, she wants to understand White’s expectations.

“I would love to have a meaningful meeting with Rep. White,” she told Chalkbeat Thursday, “but I have no idea what his plans are.”

Feagins, who is scheduled to start her new job by July 1, impressed board members during interviews with booklets that included her review of the Memphis district. (Chalkbeat’s request for these public records has not yet been filled.)

Though she does not yet have a contract, Feagins was introduced at Tuesday’s board meeting and has been meeting this week with Memphis leaders. She is also building a plan for her first 100 days on the job, according to a press release from the board’s communications firm.

White has emphasized the need for urgency and expects to meet with Feagins next week to “get better communications.”

The Feb. 14 meeting with school board members included two other state lawmakers representing Memphis: Democratic Sen. Raumesh Akbari and Republican Sen. Brent Taylor. Taylor is listed as the Senate co-sponsor of White’s proposed legislation.

“We all want the same thing: for our kids to read and write and compete on a national and international level,” Akbari said.

“But the elephant in the room was the pending legislation,” she continued, “and I suggested that we set that aside because I don’t think it’s necessary. School board members are elected by the people, and their constituents should hold them responsible.”

White agrees.

“The best fix would be if the citizens of Memphis elect some strong school board members,” he told Chalkbeat. “Five seats are up [for election] this year. We shall see.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Massive House proposal is third universal school voucher bill before Tennessee lawmakers

2024-02-27T03:18:19+00:00

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Three school voucher proposals now before Tennessee lawmakers would create a new statewide program that eventually could open eligibility to all K-12 students, regardless of family income.

But the similarities end there.

The latest version, filed Monday by House Majority Leader William Lamberth, of Portland, has no testing requirements for students who accept public funding to attend private schools. Gov. Bill Lee’s version doesn’t either, but Senate leaders say that approach is a non-starter.

The House plan also would make it easier for middle-class families to access the program during its first year than under the two versions filed last week.

Proposals by the governor and the Senate would reserve the first 10,000 slots for families who are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level. But the House version would bump that to 400% of the poverty level, which equates to $124,800 for a family of four — a departure from Lee’s 2019 Education Savings Account law aimed at low-income families who attend low-performing schools in three urban areas.

The biggest difference, however, is in the House’s sweeping attempt to address a plethora of long-standing concerns by public school officials in a bill purportedly about school choice.

From complaints about overtesting of students to the cost of health care insurance for public school teachers, the 39-page proposal devotes far more pages to existing public school policies than new ones for vouchers.

Last week, House Speaker Cameron Sexton called the upcoming omnibus-style bill an “all-encompassing approach” that’s based on feedback from public school leaders during recent months.

“It’s not just about choice; it is about K-12 education,” Sexton said.

But Democratic leaders vowed that no members of their outnumbered party will support any of the voucher proposals, even if some include policies that they’ve fought for in the past for public schools.

“They’re trying to buy votes,” said Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville. “They’re just throwing in everything they can to try to get enough votes to pass this voucher scam.”

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who leads the Senate, said he’d “probably rather stick with the issues at hand” instead of expanding the bill’s scope beyond vouchers.

The legislation could be taken up Tuesday by a House subcommittee and Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee. But GOP leaders say it will be weeks before any votes are held.

Non-voucher proposals for public schools under the House bill include:

Reducing testing time and possibly pivoting from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program to a different “statewide standardized assessment.”
Increasing the state’s coverage of the cost of medical insurance for teachers and staff from 45% to 60%.
Phasing out the Achievement School District, the state’s turnaround district for low-performing schools, on July 1, 2026.
Adding several pathways beyond those outlined in a 2021 literacy law for fourth graders to get promoted if they don’t score proficient on this year’s TCAP in English language arts.
Reducing the number of required evaluations for higher-performing teachers.
Extending to eight years the validity of practitioner and professional teacher licenses.
Allowing high school students to take career readiness assessments instead of retaking the ACT exam.
Increasing the funding weight for small school systems from 5% to 8% under the state’s new K-12 funding structure known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act.
Reducing the frequency of student screenings through the state’s learning intervention program known as RTI.

Much of the disagreement over universal vouchers centers on the voucher program’s cost and how much private schools should be held accountable for results if they accept taxpayer money.

All three pieces of legislation would offer 20,000 vouchers this fall. But the House legislation stipulates that the program would increase by 20% annually if funding is available, while Lee wants to open it up to any student in the second year.

The governor proposes to give each recipient $7,075 this fall, which would cover about 62% of the average $11,344 cost of attending a private school in Tennessee, according to Private School Review.

Legislative staff released an initial financial analysis Monday showing the governor’s program would cost $144 million next fiscal year, which Lee has included in his proposed budget; $346 million the following year for an estimated 47,000 participants; and then exceeding that amount in subsequent years when “the liability to the state could significantly grow.”

Fiscal agents said over 1.12 million students would eventually be eligible to participate, including 155,650 students currently attending nonpublic schools.

“Due to the universal nature of the program, it is assumed that students already attending private school will seek the additional funding through the EFS Program,” the analysts wrote.

The analysts also noted that none of the legislative proposals include a plan to help offset an anticipated decrease in local revenue for public schools as students pivot to private schools.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmakers are increasingly ready to ditch the Achievement School District. What’s next?

2024-02-23T11:00:00+00:00

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After a decade of painful takeovers of neighborhood schools, contentious handoffs to charter networks, and mostly abysmal student performance, Tennessee’s Achievement School District appears to be on its way out.

Several of the GOP-controlled legislature’s top Republicans are acknowledging that the state’s most ambitious and aggressive school turnaround model has failed — and should be replaced eventually with a more effective approach.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to push for legislation designed to end the so-called ASD, created under a 2010 state law aimed, in part, at transforming low-performing schools.

“I expect we will move in a different direction,” Sen. Bo Watson, the powerful chairman of his chamber’s finance committee, recently told reporters.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson

The Hixson Republican called the charter-centric school turnaround model an “innovative” idea that fell flat, at least in Tennessee. It would be foolish, Watson added, to keep spending money on an initiative that isn’t working and already has cost the state more than $1 billion — a sentiment echoed by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton.

But if the legislature decides to shutter the ASD and Gov. Bill Lee signs off, important questions remain about how Tennessee will support thousands of students in its lowest-performing schools.

How quickly will the shutdown occur?
What will happen to ASD school communities? Currently, the district serves 4,600 students in 12 schools in Memphis and one in Nashville.
Will the state honor remaining contracts with charter operators, the last of which end in 2026?
What statewide improvement strategy will replace the ASD for schools in the state’s bottom 5%? Ninety-five schools currently fall in that category and many have undergone a variety of interventions, with limited success.
And will the U.S. Department of Education approve the change as part of Tennessee’s plan for complying with the 2015 U.S. law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA?

In order to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education funding to support Tennessee students and schools, the state is required to have a rigorous improvement plan for schools that are struggling the most. Since Tennessee’s ESSA plan was approved in 2017, the ASD has served that purpose.

The turnaround district “serves as our most intensive intervention for priority schools,” declares the 401-page plan, the state’s guiding document for K-12 accountability policies. It also commits Tennessee to making school turnaround a priority.

“Students can’t wait,” the plan says. “Schools that have been historically underperforming and are not showing adequate growth must have state intervention.”

Brian Blackley, a spokesperson for the state education department, said scrapping the ASD would require two things: a change in state law and an amendment to Tennessee’s ESSA plan.

If the legislature changes the law, ESSA revisions are doable, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education.

“Tennessee has the ability to make changes to the design and structure of its local educational agencies, including the Achievement School District, without first seeking approval from the U.S. Department of Education,” the spokesperson told Chalkbeat.

That said, because the ASD is central to Tennessee’s federal accountability plan, the state would have to submit an amendment to the federal government, and “the department will work with the state as needed,” the spokesperson said.

The process likely would take months, since a period of public engagement on potential changes is required.

ASD brought high hopes, hard lessons

While the ASD’s demise has been looming, its birth was filled with hope when Tennessee passed the First to the Top Act, a sweeping education reform package that was the cornerstone of its winning federal Race to the Top grant application.

Taking cues from the successful turnaround of schools in New Orleans and using tens of millions of federal dollars to pay for the rollout, Tennessee’s new law created a state-run district with the power to take over struggling schools and recruit charter management organizations to run them, giving those operators autonomy to design and implement plans for curriculum, instruction, and school leadership. KIPP and Green Dot Public Schools were among national networks that signed on, and the model inspired several local charter groups to form and join the work.

Unlike incremental academic gains associated with school improvement, school turnaround calls for dramatic gains in a short period of time. Founding ASD leaders set an extraordinarily ambitious goal: to move those schools from the bottom 5% to the top 25% of performers within five years.

But the large academic gains never came.

Removing schools from local governance didn’t improve student outcomes. In fact, most ASD schools performed no better than low-performing schools receiving no intervention, according to researchers.

High teacher turnover was a constant challenge, and it became increasingly hard to recruit high-quality charter networks to do school turnaround work.

Community backlash was also significant, especially in Memphis, which became the hub of the ASD’s work and has a long history of charged racial dynamics. ASD critics viewed the takeover of neighborhood schools — and introduction of charter operators who often came from out of state — as another example of racism and reckless social engineering.

The level of poverty in Memphis was another major challenge.

“I think that the depth of the generational poverty and what our kids bring into school every day makes it even harder than we initially expected,” founding superintendent Chris Barbic told Chalkbeat in a 2015 interview. “We underestimated that.”

Chris Barbic, a former charter school leader in Texas, was the founding superintendent of Tennessee's Achievement School District.

The ASD has been shrinking for awhile

The state-run district had a peak of 33 schools after taking control of its last four campuses in Memphis in 2016.

While there’s been no official decision on its future from lawmakers or new recommendations from Lee’s administration, the ASD has been unwinding on its own, especially since 2022, as schools began to complete 10 years under the model.

Originally, the state promised to return ASD schools to their home districts in better shape than when they left. But that policy changed over time, and now there are multiple ways to exit, and even remain a charter school, depending on academic performance.

Some non-charter ASD schools began returning to Memphis-Shelby County Schools, while three charter schools pivoted to the oversight of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, another state-run entity, after showing enough improvement to exit on their own. The Memphis district also regained control of a charter school and placed the campus in its own turnaround program known as the Innovation Zone, an initiative created in part to keep the ASD from taking over more schools.

As for remaining ASD campuses, the charter contracts for operators of seven schools are scheduled to expire this summer; two schools after the 2024-25 school year; and four schools at the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year.

But the pandemic complicated an already complex exit process by disrupting state testing. ASD leadership also turned over frequently and downsized staff in the summer of 2022. The chaotic unwinding has put thousands of students, families, and school staff in limbo.

Of the contracts expiring this year, for instance, only two charter schools are set to continue operating in Memphis. Journey Coleman will stay with Journey Community Schools through a new agreement with the Memphis district, while Cornerstone Lester Prep will continue to be run by Capstone Education Group through the state-run charter school commission.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools plans to close MLK College Prep High School, currently run by Frayser Community Schools, and those students are still deciding where they’ll attend school in the fall.

Fairley High School, which lost its bid to remain with Green Dot Public Schools, is expected to return to MSCS oversight. Green Dot has other schools still in the ASD, and the network’s executive director in Tennessee, Jocquell Rodgers, expects their charter contracts will be honored.

“Has it been emotional? Absolutely,” Rodgers said of the lengthy unraveling.

School turnaround work is a difficult and time-intensive process that requires constant engagement with families and the community, Rodgers said. Ideally, there should be collaboration with the local district, she added.

“It is extremely important to bring something to people that they really want, but at the same time, really help them understand what they need,” Rodgers said.

If not the ASD, then what?

Tennessee has doggedly stuck with the ASD, even as its performance has been mostly lackluster.

But January’s abrupt departure of Bren Elliott, Tennessee’s first statewide turnaround superintendent who was hired last August after a three-year search, cast doubts about the future of the state’s school improvement work, especially regarding its most intense intervention tool.

And GOP leaders such as Sexton, the speaker of the House, fueled speculation by hinting that a mechanism for closing the ASD could be part of upcoming legislation for creating a new statewide school voucher program.

There’s little consensus, however, on a replacement strategy for supporting struggling school communities — a requirement under federal ESSA law.

RELATED: School turnaround lessons from Memphis zero in on the need for collaboration at all levels

Rep. Antonio Parkinson and Sen. Raumesh Akbari, both Memphis Democrats, have proposed legislation to prevent the state-run district from taking over more low-performing schools. Instead, the ASD would become a resource hub for school improvement work across Tennessee.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson has been one of the ASD's most vocal critics.

But the measure, which has cleared two key House committees, may not meet ESSA’s standard for a comprehensive school turnaround strategy. Akbari said this week that she’s working on changes before introducing their proposal in Senate committees.

Sen. Ferrell Haile, a Republican from Gallatin, has pointed to Tennessee’s small school turnaround pilot project, approved by the legislature in 2021, as one possibility. Two private vendors, Georgia-based Cognia and Ed Direction of Salt Lake City, Utah, are working with two schools in Memphis, two in Nashville, and one in Chattanooga, as part of the five-year initiative.

But it’s uncertain whether that program can scale statewide. And while four of the schools have shown promise, Hamilton County lawmakers say it hasn’t gone well in Chattanooga. They are shepherding a bill to pull Orchard Knob Middle School before the pilot ends in 2025.

Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, who has the authority to take over more schools and place them in the ASD under current law, has not commented publicly about the district’s future, or a potential new strategy.

If the legislature lets the state-run district run its course through the 2025-26 school year, when charter contracts expire for its last four schools, her department would have more time to develop a plan. The agency would then work with the U.S. Education Department to revise Tennessee’s ESSA plan accordingly.

One important step, according to federal ESSA guidance, is to give the public opportunity to comment on the proposed revision. And educators who are doing turnaround work hope state leaders will take their observations to heart.

Bob Nardo was an early ASD staff member who left to operate Libertas School of Memphis, one of the state-run district’s few success stories.

Just because the ASD didn’t work, he said, doesn’t mean the state should walk away from trying to address persistent challenges that led to its creation. Nardo believes one question should be central to discussions when developing a new plan.

“Are the most vulnerable and at-risk children in our society getting the best opportunity to transform their lives?”

Nardo worries the state could shift to piecemeal interventions, such as grant programs aimed at small-scale improvements, that wouldn’t be as effective as a comprehensive, schoolwide turnaround strategy.

“We have to confront the paradox here that this is both a critically needed and indispensable type of work,” Nardo said, “with the sobering reality that most efforts have not been successful” in Tennessee and across the country.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

Whether to test private school students is key difference in dueling voucher proposals in Tennessee

2024-02-21T23:41:17+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee and Senate leaders unveiled dueling proposals Wednesday to bring universal school vouchers to Tennessee. House leaders are expected to release a third version later this week.

Testing accountability stands out as a key difference in multiple amendments filed as part of a Republican campaign to eventually give all Tennessee families the option to use public money to pay for private schools for their children. The Senate plan also calls for open enrollment across public school systems.

Lee’s seven-page plan does not require participating students to take annual tests to measure whether his Education Freedom Scholarship Act leads to better academic outcomes. The governor has said that parental choice provides ultimate accountability.

The Senate’s 17-page proposal requires recipients in grades three-11 to take some type of norm-referenced tests approved by the state Board of Education, which could include state tests that public school students take under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

Assessments must include a third-grade test in English language arts and an eighth-grade test in math; the grades are considered benchmark years for learning those skills. Eleventh-grade recipients would also have to take the ACT, SAT, or a similar exam to assess their readiness for continuing their education after high school.

“The testing component is critical,” Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg told Chalkbeat. “We have a responsibility to share with Tennesseans how this is working.”

The developments show divisions at the state Capitol, despite a GOP supermajority, about key details of the biggest education proposal of Lee’s tenure, even before legislative debate begins in public. Lundberg’s committee is scheduled to take up the issue next week.

The governor wants to start with up to 20,000 students statewide this fall and eventually open up the program so any K-12 student can use a $7,075 annual voucher, regardless of family income. His earlier Education Savings Account law, which squeaked through the legislature with a historic and controversial House vote in 2019, targeted students from low-income families in low-performing schools in Memphis and Nashville but remains underenrolled, even with the addition of Hamilton County last fall.

Cost is expected to be a major hurdle for Lee’s voucher expansion plan in a state that prides itself on being fiscally conservative.

Tennessee government has a nearly $378 million budget shortfall through the first six months of its current fiscal year, according to a revenue report released last week.

Even so, Lee’s proposed $52.6 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year includes $144 million annually for vouchers and $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas, all while slashing corporate business property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Over the weekend, Republican Rep. Bryan Richey, of Maryville, told a local town hall that, although he supports statewide vouchers, he expects to vote against this year’s proposal over budget concerns and the lack of accountability provisions.

The Daily Times reported that Richey compared the upcoming legislative process to baking a cake as he urged his constituents to engage early with lawmakers while the proposals are in committees.

“Once the ingredients are in the batter and it’s all mixed up, we’re not going to be able to go in there and pull the egg back out or get the oil out,” he said.

Lee’s proposal did not look markedly different from draft legislation that was inadvertently filed in the Senate in late January due to a miscommunication, then pulled a short time later. Vouchers would be funded through a separate scholarship account, not the funding structure currently in place for public schools.

RELATED: Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out.

But the Senate version aligns funding with the state’s new public school formula known as Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. And it would allow students to enroll in any school system, even if they’re not zoned for it.

“We want open enrollment so you can transfer anywhere,” Lundberg said. “It’s not just for private schools. The funding follows the student.”

House leaders have been huddling for weeks with key stakeholders to get their feedback for an omnibus-style amendment that’s expected to come out on Thursday.

“I look forward to reading the House proposal, but there are obviously already major discrepancies,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, who has been in some of those meetings.

“I really don’t see how these versions can be reconciled this year,” added Bowman, a voucher critic. “If they’re hell-bent on doing this, they need to at least take the time to get it right.”

But a statement from the governor’s office said the various proposals show “an encouraging amount of engagement in this process.”

“The governor has repeatedly emphasized that the Education Freedom Scholarship Act is a framework, built upon the foundation that parents should have choices when it comes to their child’s education, regardless of income or ZIP code,” the statement said.

The bills are sponsored by Senate and House majority leaders Jack Johnson of Franklin and William Lamberth of Portland. You can track the legislation through the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s reading law gets pushback again as thousands of students could repeat fourth grade

2024-02-16T01:58:33+00:00

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Tennessee’s comprehensive pandemic-era literacy law, which last year provided several interventions to help struggling third grade readers advance to the fourth grade, offers no such escape hatches for those same students to avoid retention this year if they don’t show “adequate growth” under the 2021 law.

Now, as the State Board of Education prepares to vote Friday on what constitutes enough improvement for fourth graders who are at risk, state lawmakers are getting pushback from families whose students could be held back if they score poorly on state tests this spring, even after taking advantage of state-funded tutoring and summer learning programs.

At least 5,000 students are projected to fall in that category, according to the state education department. But some estimates put that number higher.

“I think we’re going to put so much pressure on these kids that it’s going to be a real mess,” said Sen. Rusty Crowe during a legislative hearing Wednesday.

The Johnson City Republican wants to revise the 2021 law so that students and parents who are engaged with their teachers in the learning process don’t get punished. He and Rep. Chris Hurt, a Halls Republican, have introduced legislation to let a struggling fourth grade reader’s teacher, principal, and parents decide collaboratively whether to retain the student based on multiple measures, not just state test results for English language arts under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.

It’s uncertain whether the General Assembly is willing to revise the law again, especially after making several tweaks last year to widen the criteria for holding back third graders.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg repeatedly has said Gov. Bill Lee’s literacy law sets reasonable and appropriate expectations in the state’s long drive to improve reading proficiency.

“We’ve moved the needle from 30% to 40% proficiency [for third graders], but 40% still isn’t acceptable,” the Bristol Republican said at a January legislative hearing.

State board is required to define ‘adequate growth’

The State Board of Education appears poised to approve proposed policy changes that include a definition of “adequate growth” for fourth graders to get promoted if they don’t score as proficient readers this spring.

Chairman Robert Eby told lawmakers this week that he expects a full discussion Friday — but that members ultimately will follow the law, which directs the board to define adequate growth.

The proposed definition is tailored to each student, based on testing measurements that the state already uses to predict the probability that a student can become proficient by the eighth grade, when they take their last TCAP tests.

“It is complicated; it is not something that is easy to explain,” said Sara Morrison, executive director of the state board, during testimony before the Senate Education Committee.

“We do feel like it is statistically robust and makes sense,” she added. “But that doesn’t make it easy, and it doesn’t make it an easy decision for our board.”

Board members have received a lot of public feedback about the matter, including a letter this week from Erin O’Hara Block, a Nashville school board member who worked as Tennessee’s assistant commissioner for data and research in former Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration.

Block called the proposed calculations for measuring adequate growth “confusing,” and suggested that the real problem lies with the law itself.

“Instead of passing this revision of policy, I suggest that your board defer until a later date with a request that the legislature remove this portion of the law based on a lack of clear, transparent, viable, and implementable options,” she wrote.

In an interview Thursday with Chalkbeat, Block said state test scores are being misused because of the law. TCAP results were intended for diagnostic purposes, she said, not for high-stakes decisions such as holding a child back a year at school.

“This law was written quickly in the midst of a global pandemic and passed in a special legislative session. So why aren’t we revisiting it?” she asked.

Legislature drew a line in the sand

The law passed in 2021 during a weeklong session called by the governor to address pandemic-related learning disruptions. The same law created summer learning recovery camps that began that year and tutoring programs that started in 2022.

The interventions have proven popular to help students catch up, but the law’s retention provision — which began with last year’s class of third-graders — has been controversial.

Still, due to the intervention options and an appeals process that many families took advantage of, only about 900 third graders, or 1.2% from that class who took the test, were retained because of their reading scores.

The number of fourth graders expected to be retained this year will be significantly higher, officials say, based on the current law.

Research is mixed about whether holding students back helps or hurts them. Supporters say it spurs additional supports that struggling readers desperately need. Critics worry that retention falls disproportionately on student groups who are already marginalized, such as those who are of color or are economically disadvantaged.

During a workshop on Thursday, several State Board members questioned whether the law is even targeting the right age group — and Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds agreed. Intervention and retention policies aimed at kindergarten and first and second grades would be more effective, she said, adding that “third grade is too late.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

For the first time in three years, Hillsdale group didn’t apply to open a charter school in Tennessee

2024-02-12T23:08:15+00:00

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After gaining approval last year to open two charter schools in Tennessee in 2024, the group associated with Michigan’s conservative Hillsdale College did not apply to open another one in 2025.

Nine applicants met the state’s Feb. 1 deadline to submit proposals to open a charter school for the 2025-26 school year.

Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools received six applications, the most of any district, while Memphis-Shelby County Schools received two, and Rutherford County Schools got one.

But for the first time in three years, Hillsdale-related American Classical Education was not among the applicants.

Dolores Gresham, a former state senator who chairs the group’s board, said Monday that American Classical is focused on opening its first two schools in Madison and Rutherford counties. Both were approved last year in contentious votes.

The pause slows the once-aggressive growth plan of American Classical, which last year identified five growing suburban communities as a potential home to one of its schools. The network is seeking to change the face of Tennessee’s 100-plus charter school sector by introducing a different kind of teaching model and targeting different student demographics.

The group drew national attention in 2022 after Gov. Bill Lee endorsed Hillsdale College’s approach to K-12 education and invited its leaders to apply to open at least 50 charter schools across Tennessee that align with his conservative beliefs regarding civics and history.

But the Hillsdale-related network, American Classical Education, withdrew its first three applications later that year amid public outrage over Hillsdale President Larry Arnn’s comment that teachers are “trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

In 2023, American Classical applied again, this time to open schools in Madison, Maury, Montgomery, Robertson, and Rutherford counties.

Rutherford County’s school board was the only one to approve the network’s application, and that campus is on track to open this fall.

American Classical appealed the denials from Madison and Maury counties to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, which overturned the Madison County decision and authorized the Madison Classical Academy after the network failed to come to terms with Jackson-Madison County Schools.

Madison Classical officials have since “exercised their option to delay opening for one year to the fall of 2025,” said Hayden Pendergrass, a commission spokesman, on Monday.

A network spokesman said the delay was appropriate, since the appeals process for the West Tennessee school consumed most of 2023.

According to the state education department, the nine applications received by this month’s deadline to open a charter school in 2025, as well as the districts they’re seeking to partner with, are:

Novus SMART Academy (K-8) — Rutherford County Schools
Encompass Community School — Metro Nashville Public Schools
Journey Northeast Academy — Metro Nashville Public Schools
Nashville School of Excellence — Metro Nashville Public Schools
LEAD Cameron Elementary — Metro Nashville Public Schools
LEAD Southeast Elementary School — Metro Nashville Public Schools
Nurses Middle College Nashville (9-12) — Metro Nashville Public Schools
Memphis Grizzlies Prep STEAM School For Girls — Memphis-Shelby County Schools
Blueprint College and Career Prep — Memphis-Shelby County Schools

In addition, the charter operator for an existing state-run school applied to return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools next year as it exits the Achievement School District. Wooddale Middle Schools has been managed by Green Dot Public Schools as part of Tennessee’s ASD, but the group’s 10-year charter is set to expire.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmaker to file legislation to add appointed members to Memphis school board

2024-02-07T01:40:58+00:00

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A Tennessee lawmaker said he plans to introduce legislation giving Gov. Bill Lee’s administration the power to appoint up to six new members to the board of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Rep. Mark White of Memphis cited prolonged frustration with the board’s locally elected leadership when explaining his plans to Chalkbeat on Tuesday.

The nine members currently on the board of the state’s largest school district would remain in office under the proposal.

And the additional members would be appointed later this year based on recommendations from local officials and stakeholders, said White, a Republican who represents parts of East Memphis and the suburb of Germantown.

“I’m very concerned about the district’s direction, and I just can’t sit back any longer. I think we’re at a critical juncture,” said White, who chairs a powerful education committee in the House.

In a statement Tuesday, board Chair Althea Greene said White’s proposal is unnecessary.

“We may have had some challenges, but more interference from the General Assembly is not warranted at this time,” she said. “We have to stop experimenting with our children.”

White’s comments come as the school board is days from selecting a district superintendent to end a tortuous 18-month search process. All three finalists came from out of state last week for final public interviews.

The proposed bill also represents another attempted state foray into oversight of Memphis, spotlighting historic tensions rooted in race, politics, and power, in which both sides claim the moral high ground.

White said he is unhappy with the board’s handling of the superintendent search for a district where strong, stable, and timely leadership is especially critical. Most MSCS students are considered economically disadvantaged and continue to significantly trail state benchmarks in reading and math following devastating pandemic-related academic declines.

“I’m concerned about the three people they’ve whittled it down to, and I’m just not impressed,” said White, who did not specify the candidates’ shortcomings.

There are “highly qualified people in Memphis who know how to improve the system,” White added.

His criticisms echo recent frustrations from some local educators and community members at the prospect of an out-of-state candidate leading Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Some have called for a local candidate or for the board to permanently hire interim Superintendent Toni Williams, the district’s former finance chief.

Board member Michelle McKissack expressed surprise about White’s plan and his comments about the finalists. She praised their qualifications.

“This has been an extraordinarily robust search, and we have listened to all members of the community every way we know how to,” McKissack said.

Adding board members — particularly appointed candidates who don’t have constituents to answer to — would only complicate board governance, she said.

“It’s not going to make board operations any easier when you have a 15-person board,” McKissack said, pointing to the challenges of the previous 23-member body that oversaw the historic merger of the city and county school districts and created Memphis-Shelby County Schools a decade ago.

She added: “They think they have a problem now? Well then get ready.”

White and Sen. Brent Taylor, a Memphis Republican, expect to file their legislation this month and have been working with the state attorney general’s office “to get the language right,” White said.

The legislation could affect upcoming nonpartisan school board elections in which five seats are up for grabs. Greene is the only incumbent to have pulled a petition for the August election since the filing opened on Monday, according to Shelby County Election Commission officials.

White drew a distinction between his proposal and a 12-year-old state initiative to take over low-performing schools, mostly in Memphis, to place them with charter school operators under the oversight of the Tennessee Achievement School District.

“This is not about taking over schools. It’s about putting in place stronger governance over the elected bodies for low-performing districts,” he said.

The Memphis school board is responsible for hiring the superintendent, but also charting the direction for the district, often by prioritizing how to use the $1.2 billion it receives each year, plus the additional hundreds of millions in one-time federal funds. Board members also play a role in addressing issues of their community and educator constituents.

The board struggled with its first superintendent search for a successor to Joris Ray, who left in August 2022 amid a scandal over allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies. Last spring, board members were dissatisfied with the slate of final candidates and chose to scrap the list and reboot the selection process.

The board’s second search last fall generated 22 applicants, according to the search firm the board hired to oversee the process. Just one local candidate, Angela Whitelaw, the district’s top academics chief, was among the five finalists. Following the guidance of their own evaluations and the community’s input, the board selected three finalists:

Yolonda Brown, chief academic officer in Atlanta Public Schools
Marie Feagins, chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools Community District
Cheryl Proctor, deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities for Portland Public Schools in Oregon

It’s not the first time that White has introduced bills to give the state the power to intercede in local matters.

He successfully sponsored legislation in 2022 that forced the Memphis district to cede four schools to several nearby suburban districts, including in Germantown, which serves mostly white and affluent students. The move reignited persistent criticisms that the decade-long tug-of-war over the valuable school properties was essentially about race and class. Ultimately, Shelby County commissioners increased taxes, in part to help pay for a new high school for the urban district’s mostly Black students from low-income families.

White also asked the Tennessee attorney general to weigh in last year about potential conflicts of interest for Keith Williams, the executive director of a local teacher union in Memphis who was elected to the board in 2022.

Memphians have long been wary of Tennessee lawmakers who have repeatedly singled out Memphis on education matters. For instance, a controversial 2019 law created a private school voucher program that only applied to Memphis and Nashville, even though local officials overwhelmingly opposed it.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee budgets $144 million for statewide school vouchers

2024-02-06T02:39:16+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee renewed his call for private school vouchers for any student across Tennessee on Monday, and he also set aside $144 million in his proposed state budget to pay for the new program for up to 20,000 students in its first year.

For traditional public schools, the Republican governor asked the legislature to raise the annual base pay for teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, in keeping with his pledge last year to get the profession’s minimum salary to $50,000 by the 2027-28 school year. (Raising the base pay has a domino effect and increases the pay of more experienced teachers, too.)

Lee also wants to invest $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas while simultaneously cutting corporate taxes amid a downturn in state revenues. But he maintained that Tennessee has “a very strong economy” to pay for all the changes.

The governor outlined his list of wants Monday evening during his 2024 address before the General Assembly, which will take up Lee’s voucher proposal and the budget in the months ahead.

He opened his remarks by calling Tennessee a “model for economic prosperity” and reminding lawmakers that state revenues are still 40% higher than three years ago.

However, after years of being flush with cash, the state faces a $610 million budget shortfall this year, and many lawmakers are leery of approving a universal school voucher program that Lee wants to be available to any K-12 student in 2025-26. Currently, Tennessee offers vouchers to about 3,000 low-income families in three urban counties, but his Education Freedom Scholarship Act would open them up to families in all 95 counties, eventually with no family income restrictions.

Gov. Bill Lee

“2024 is the year to make school choice a reality for every Tennessee family,” he said, drawing a standing ovation from many legislators — but not everyone in the GOP-controlled legislature — as well as frequent jeers from some spectators in the gallery.

“There are thousands of parents in this state who know their student would thrive in a different setting, but the financial barrier is simply too high,” Lee continued. “It’s time that we change that. It’s time that parents get to decide — and not the government — where their child goes to school and what they learn.”

Lee, a Williamson County businessman who graduated from public schools in Franklin, near Nashville, touted more than $1.8 billion in new investments in public education since he became governor in 2019.

“We can give parents choice and support public schools at the same time,” he said. “You’ll hear me say that over and over again. These two ideas are not in conflict.”

The governor also released his $52.6 billion state government spending plan to begin July 1. The total was down from Tennessee’s $62.5 billion budget for the current fiscal year because of flattening revenues and expiring federal funds appropriated during the pandemic.

He proposed $8 million to hire 114 more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

Other recurring funding recommendations include $30 million to pay for summer learning programs; $3.2 million to expand access to advanced placement courses for high school students; and $2.5 million to pay for a universal reading screener as part of the state’s literacy initiative, all to offset federal funding that is drying up.

Lee is asking for $15 million in one time funding to help charter schools with facility costs.

The governor also announced that his administration will bring the legislature a bill designed to help parents oversee their child’s social media activity.

“It will require social media companies to get parental consent for minors to create their own accounts in Tennessee,” Lee said.

Such legislation would widen the state’s push against social media giants.

Last fall, Tennessee joined a coalition of states suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is accused of violating consumer protection laws and deceptively marketing its platforms to adolescents to the detriment of their mental health.

And some Tennessee school districts have joined a growing list of school systems nationwide that are suing major social media companies like TikTok and YouTube over a crisis in student mental health.

But in the wake of last year’s shooting at a private Nashville school — where three children, three staff members, and the shooter died — the governor offered no new initiatives aimed at improving school safety or decreasing gun violence, other than funding to hire 60 more state troopers.

Last year, after the March 27 tragedy, the legislature approved $140 million in grants to place an armed law enforcement officer in every Tennessee public school. But the legislature rebuffed the governor’s call for a law to help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Remarks about Lee’s universal voucher plan, announced in November, drew quick responses from the leaders of the state’s two largest teacher organizations.

“The concept of universal vouchers would be costly to the state, and we urge the Tennessee General Assembly to move slowly,” said JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

“In particular, we have concerns over the lack of income-eligibility requirements and accountability,” he continued. “Our state must avoid any program viewed as a tax subsidy for existing private school families or a tax bailout for struggling private schools.”

Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said Lee’s plan shows that vouchers have never been about helping economically disadvantaged families, as the governor first characterized it in 2019.

“The goal has always been to privatize public education and use public dollars to fund private school education, which goes against our Tennessee values,” Coats said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s universal school voucher details are being heavily debated — but not in public

2024-02-02T22:33:45+00:00

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Tennessee Republicans are using a legislative maneuver to meet behind closed doors while crafting a statewide expansion of private school vouchers, putting into question whether the public will get ample time to review the legislation and weigh in.

To meet this week’s deadline to file legislation, Senate and House majority leaders Jack Johnson and William Lamberth submitted so-called caption bills that gave a brief description of the intentions of the full legislation that they’ll file later through amendments.

On Friday, neither legislative leader, nor the governor’ office, would say when they expect to unveil the full detailed proposal that’s been anticipated since November. That’s when Lee announced he would push to create a universal voucher program to offer public funding to families who choose to send their children to private schools or some home schools, regardless of family income or what county they live in.

The policy would mark a major change in Tennessee’s K-12 education structure, affecting students, parents, taxpayers, schools, districts, and communities across the state. Currently, vouchers are offered in three counties — Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby — and only to low-income families.

But the lack of details for the proposed program — ranging from whether participating private schools must be state-accredited to whether participating students have to take the same state tests as public school students — worries some public education advocates. They are concerned the administration is focused on drafting language that will line up the most legislative votes, instead of crafting a research-based policy for release in time to fully study and vet the plan in public forums.

“This debate deserves to be held sooner than later and conducted in the light of day — not in back rooms at the Capitol,” said Gini Pupo-Walker, director of The Education Trust in Tennessee.

When the voucher amendment is introduced, public debate can kick off in legislative committees, and lawmakers can hear directly from their constituents about what parts of the proposal they like and don’t like.

But under House rules, for instance, a vote in a subcommittee can happen the day after an amendment is introduced.

Some voucher critics fear the legislative process could get rushed if the specifics are delayed for weeks, especially since the 2024 session was already expected to be shorter than last year’s session that ended on April 21. That’s because it’s an election year, when the seats of all 99 House members and half the Senate are up for grabs. Legislators can’t accept campaign contributions until they adjourn for the year.

It’s uncertain how much the bill will be amended from draft legislation that Johnson’s office said it accidentally filed earlier in the week, then quickly retracted.

RELATED: Tennessee universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out

In a statement Friday, Johnson, the Senate majority leader from Franklin, said “it is important we get it right.”

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson speaks at a 2021 news conference at the Tennessee State Capitol. Photo courtesy of State of Tennessee.

“The governor has gone to great lengths to meet with stakeholders and experts to ensure the language is solid, reasonable, and consistent with Tennessee’s outstanding record of fiscal responsibility,” he said. “I look forward to presenting the proposal to my colleagues in the Senate soon.”

But House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, whose party opposes vouchers, offered a different explanation.

“They clearly don’t have the votes to pass this voucher scam, and they don’t want to file a bill until they have the votes to get it through the committee process,” said the Nashville lawmaker.

Governor’s proposal generates more questions than answers

Lee has shared his vision in broad terms for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act. The program would start with up to 20,000 students statewide who would get $7,075 next school year for private education services, with eligibility restrictions for half of those. Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, he wants all K-12 students to be eligible, with no eligibility restrictions.

But dozens of unanswered questions remain. Among them:

Will private schools that accept vouchers have to require state licensure for its teachers, in addition to a background screening, to ensure a certain level of professional qualifications and safety?

Will the governor seek to place stipulations on tuition costs and who can use vouchers at participating private schools? (There’s evidence that private schools have exploited similar programs in Arizona and Ohio by raising tuition rates or encouraging students already enrolled in private schools to apply for a government-paid voucher.)

Will the legislation mandate fiscal audits of the program?

Will the program be evaluated to gauge whether it’s leading to better academic outcomes than public schools?

Given the numerous restrictions lawmakers have placed on public school instruction and curriculum in Tennessee over the last decade, will participating private or home schools be allowed to teach anything they want?

Will language be included in the legislation to ensure private schools can’t discriminate against certain applicants, such as students with disabilities, or based on race, religion, or sexual orientation?

Will the legislation attempt to exclude undocumented students from eligibility, as Tennessee’s 2019 education savings account law did?

Caption bills can be helpful, or not

None of those questions are answered in the voucher bills filed on Jan. 31 in the House and Feb. 1 in the Senate.

Broadly written caption bills are an increasingly common tool used by Tennessee lawmakers and lobbyists.

Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said caption bills can be useful — for instance, to address a sudden need such as in the middle of last year’s session, when changes to bolster school safety took on urgency after six people died in a mass school shooting in Nashville.

But caption bills can be abused, by not revealing a bill’s true purpose until it’s too late for the public to notice. They also can become a delaying tactic, allowing legislators to push through legislation in a session’s waning days before constituents can ask questions or opponents can mobilize against it.

In 2019, during Lee’s first year in office, his administration used a caption bill to introduce his education savings account proposal. The amendment that presented the details was filed in mid-March and, in an historic and controversial vote, a further amended version passed the full House less than six weeks later during a season when most school communities are consumed with state testing.

Fisher said there’s adequate time for a full and robust debate on Lee’s newest voucher proposal, “but not if it’s held back too many weeks.”

It takes time for information to filter out to citizens, Fisher added, especially for an issue as contentious and complex as vouchers.

“I think this governor would look better and serve our state better if he showed his hand and let people know the nuts and bolts,” she said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Future of Tennessee school turnaround work uncertain with departure of first statewide leader

2024-01-31T00:17:47+00:00

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Six months after Tennessee hired its first leader to manage school improvement work statewide, the position is now vacant.

On Tuesday, the state education department confirmed the departure of school turnaround superintendent Bren Elliott, one of Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds’ first major hires. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment further or answer questions about whether the vacancy will be filled.

When Elliott stepped into the powerful new position, which took multiple searches across three years to fill, she was tasked with overseeing school improvement work in hundreds of schools in urban, suburban, and rural districts as well as Tennessee’s high-profile Achievement School District, or ASD.

Her abrupt departure raises questions about the future of school improvement work in a state that was once considered a turnaround pioneer, thanks in part to a $500 million award in 2010 from the federal Race to the Top competition to implement various education reforms.

The ASD, the state’s most intensive intervention model, was launched in 2012 using mostly charter school operators, and its lackluster performance has dimmed Tennessee’s star considerably in school turnaround circles.

Elliott’s hiring, announced last August, had been viewed as a way to jumpstart the work.

Elliott had been the school improvement chief for District of Columbia Public Schools since 2017. She also worked as a school administrator in Nashville from 2001 to 2007.

In her new job, chief among Elliott’s responsibilities was overseeing the ASD, which at one time had more than 30 schools in its portfolio but has since dwindled to 13 campuses and 4,600 students, mostly in Memphis.

State officials informed ASD operators last week that Elliott was leaving and that Shannon Gordon, the department’s chief operating officer, will assume her responsibilities.

“They did not say anything about … reposting that same position by that name,” said Brett Lawson, executive director of Frayer Community Schools, a Memphis-based charter operator with three ASD schools.

Drew Sippel, chief executive officer of longtime ASD operator Capstone Education Group, was also on the call.

“[Gordon] took all the operators’ questions and committed to giving schools the support and resources needed to be successful,” he said.

Elliott also was responsible for supervising interventions for all of the state’s so-called priority schools — those that score in the state’s bottom 5% academically — as well as schools needing targeted support due large gaps in test scores among groups of historically underserved students, such as English language learners, students with disabilities, or those from low-income families. That encompasses nearly 300 schools.

ASD is at a crossroads

Rep. Antonio Parkinson, a Democrat from Memphis, said Tuesday that Elliott’s swift departure highlights “disarray” in the education department, especially regarding its oversight of the ASD.

Most ASD schools have performed no better than low-performing schools receiving no intervention, according to researchers.

“It’s incredibly alarming given that we’ve invested over a billion taxpayer dollars in a failed experiment,” he said. “We’ve had superintendent after superintendent after superintendent of the ASD. And yet, it has the highest teacher turnover rate and the lowest graduation rate of any district in our state.”

Last year, Parkinson sponsored a bill that would prevent the state-run district from taking over more low-performing schools. Instead, under his legislation that cleared two House education committees, the state would turn the initiative into a resource hub for school improvement work across Tennessee.

Parkinson said he hopes Elliott’s departure will garner more legislative support for his bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Raumesh Akbari, also of Memphis.

“What we’re doing now just isn’t working,” he said.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs a House education committee, declined to comment when asked about the personnel change and the future of Tennessee’s school improvement work. He said he wanted to confer with agency officials first.

The ASD hasn’t taken over new schools since 2016. Meanwhile, the district is expected to shrink by half later this year as schools reach the end of their 10-year charter agreements and either exit the ASD or close.

There have been at least five ASD superintendents in a decade. The district’s lack of steady leadership has complicated the complex exit process, creating uncertainty for students, staff, and families in ASD schools in Memphis and Nashville.

Another issue is whether or how the state-run district will grow in the future.

State law gives Reynolds, as education commissioner, the authority to identify schools for takeover and place them in the ASD. But since starting her job last July, Reynolds has not publicly discussed her plans for the turnaround district.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out.

2024-01-30T02:30:50+00:00

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Tennesseans got their first glimpse of Gov. Bill Lee’s plan to create a universal school voucher program that could eventually give all families tax dollars to pay for private school.

Two months after Lee announced his proposal, a draft of the Senate bill was inadvertently filed Monday due to a miscommunication, then removed a short time later from the legislature’s website.

Elizabeth Lane Johnson, the governor’s press secretary, said the draft’s “key pillars” are accurate, but she emphasized the document is a “framework” for ongoing discussions.

Johnson said majority leaders in the Senate and House will file so-called “caption bills” this week to outline the legislation’s intent and to meet filing deadlines. Full legislation, with updated details, will be filed later through amendments.

Here are five things that stand out about the plan, based on a Chalkbeat analysis of the eight-page draft.

No testing accountability

While the governor has repeatedly pledged to build accountability into his proposal, the draft wouldn’t require participating students to take state tests, or other assessments.

There’s no accountability provision — or mention of the word accountability — in the draft. There’s also no reporting requirements to track how students are doing, or evaluate the program.

Public school students are required to take annual TCAP tests in math, English language arts, science, and social studies. Students who participate in Tennessee’s current voucher program — which offers education savings accounts, or ESAs, to students in three counties — have to take state tests every year in math and English language arts.

The ESA program’s first test results, from Memphis and Nashville in the 2022-23 school year, were disappointing. Most of the 452 participating students performed worse than their peers in public schools after the program’s swift rollout earlier that school year, according to data from the state education department.

Lee emphasized accountability through parental choice when promoting his plan during visits last month to private schools in Memphis and Chattanooga.

Asked about the omission of testing requirements in the draft, Lee’s press secretary said the governor looks forward to having those discussions with members of the General Assembly.

No language to prohibit discrimination

The voucher movement has some roots in racist opposition to school desegregation in the mid-20th century, and critics have long charged that private schools pick and choose which students they want when accepting public funding through vouchers.

The draft legislation includes no language to prohibit discrimination based on race, creed, color, national origin, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.

Anti-discrimination language is frequently included in state laws regarding eligibility for education programs.

In fact, Tennessee’s 2019 education savings account law requires participating private schools to certify that they will “not discriminate against participating students or applicants on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

No guarantees for students with disabilities

Private schools would not be required to provide the same level of services as public schools for students with disabilities, according to the draft.

The language says: “Although an eligible student participating in the program does not retain the right to receive special education and related services through an individualized education program, the student may be eligible under the (federal) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act … to receive equitable services through an individualized service plan.”

Essentially, parents in a private school can request some publicly funded special services, but with no guarantee of exactly what their student would receive.

By contrast, public schools are required to provide students with disabilities with specialized support and services determined collaboratively by school leaders and parents.

“In practice, what this means is that students in private schools have a lesser right to disability-related services than those in public schools, and often receive fewer, more generic accommodations and services,” said Jeff Strand, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Disability Coalition.

More private schools could participate, but not from out of state

While Tennessee’s current ESA program is open to state-approved or accredited private, independent, and parochial schools, the draft opens the door to other school categories that have little to no state oversight.

Those include church-related schools or other private schools that the state merely acknowledges are in operation.

The lack of accreditation from schools in those categories may affect a voucher student who wants to transfer back into a public school in the same grade. Public schools may require testing to determine grade level or number of credits.

The language specifies the school must be located in Tennessee, which would prevent out-of-state virtual schools from participating.

But there’s no mention of an application process for a school to participate, as the education savings account program requires.

Nor is there text to support tiny home-run schools, in which the parent must report to their local school district that their child is being home-schooled. However, church-related home schools, which typically have a minimum of 10 students, appear to qualify.

Funding for the new voucher program isn’t a sure thing

As the governor announced earlier, the program would start with up to 20,000 students statewide who would get $7,075 in taxpayer money next school year to attend a private school, or certain home schools.

Half of those students must be considered economically disadvantaged or currently participating in the ESA program. And beginning in 2025, all K-12 students would be eligible to receive vouchers, regardless of their family income.

If 20,000 students participated, it would cost the state $141.5 million a year, which would increase if the program grows in subsequent years. But the draft says any voucher disbursements would be “subject to appropriations and other available funds.”

Tennessee revenues have flattened since the 2023-24 fiscal year began last July, and financial experts have urged lawmakers to rein in spending.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are closely watching developments in Arizona, the first state to offer universal school choice. That state is struggling to cover the costs of the universal school voucher program approved last year by its Republican-controlled legislature.

Below, you can read the draft legislation.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee House report on federal education funding targets food waste in school cafeterias

2024-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

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Tennessee House members looking into the feasibility of rejecting federal education funding aren’t recommending taking that dramatic action, but they do want a comprehensive study of food waste in school cafeterias under federally funded child nutrition programs.

They also want their chamber to begin reviewing any new federal rules and directives sent to the state education department. And they want to conduct annual hearings into federal requirements for student testing.

The actions are among a handful of recommendations outlined in a 13-page report submitted Jan. 19 by House members to legislative leaders.

During five days of hearings in November to study what federal money Tennessee receives for its K-12 students and schools, House members frequently zeroed in on food waste through school programs funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Rep. John Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican, suggested that Tennessee could do a better job of overseeing such programs to improve their efficiency, but that more information is needed.

Anderson County Schools, which is located in Ragan’s district near Knoxville, has studied food waste at one of its schools. But few other Tennessee districts have, and there’s no statewide data measuring the amount of uneaten food in cafeterias.

Milk and vegetables tossed in the trash

Nationally, about 41% of milk and 31% of vegetables were discarded from lunch trays, according to the Agriculture Department’s 2019 School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study.

“When you have a $480 million program (in Tennessee), 31% waste is a lot of money that could be devoted to hiring more teachers, buying more classroom supplies, fixing the roof, whatever,” Ragan told Chalkbeat after the hearings.

He said his goal is “not to starve children, but to optimize these programs.”

The House report recommends that the state agriculture and education departments evaluate food waste in public schools, and determine whether to contract with an outside agency to develop an improvement plan.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a list of recommended strategies to encourage students to consume more of the food they take — seemingly simple things like giving students choices, extending lunch time, and letting students save nonperishable foods to eat later.

In Tennessee, some schools have used other strategies such as offering breakfast in classrooms and letting students share unopened, wrapped foods with peers at “share tables,” Debby Thompson, assistant state commissioner of federal programs and oversight, told the lawmakers in November.

Meals under school nutrition programs are served free or at reduced cost to eligible students, and cafeteria operators must comply with federal nutritional requirements.

Meanwhile, in response to a rise in childhood obesity and other diet-related diseases during the pandemic and to improve the health of children and adolescents, the Biden administration has been rolling out more stringent nutrition standards for school meals. The policies reinstate health goals that were rolled back during the Trump administration.

How House and Senate reports on education funding differed

The House report came nearly two weeks after Senate members of the joint legislative panel on forgoing federal education funding issued their own report, citing disagreements with their House colleagues about their findings and recommendations.

The plan had been for the panel to submit a single report about exactly what federal money Tennessee receives for its students and related federal requirements.

The Senate report was cautionary, and much of it mirrored analysis from the nonpartisan Sycamore Institute. It highlighted the risks associated with rejecting about $1.3 billion in federal money and trying to fill the gap with state revenues. Most of the funding goes to support low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.

The House report was more action-oriented and offered recommendations, some of which may not require legislation, said Connor Grady, a spokesperson for House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who has been pushing the conversation for nearly a year.

“The House agreed with the Senate’s options for consideration. However, the Senate would not agree with the House’s actionable recommendations moving forward,” Grady said. “Each body will be moving forward with their own recommendations.”

Sen. Jon Lundberg, co-chair of the legislative panel, said the House recommendations, if followed, could add bureaucratic layers to state government and slow down the work of the education department.

“That’s why we have a (state) Department of Education, to deal with these kinds of issues,” the Bristol Republican said Wednesday.

But Sexton’s office says more oversight is needed on the acceptance of federal funds.

“Allowing the federal government to pass down rules onto Tennesseans with no oversight is our main concern.” Grady said. “The General Assembly and Tennesseans need to know what federal rules are being passed down onto them. We should do everything that we can to be whole and autonomous and independent from the federal government.”

Discussion is not over

Both reports were called “preliminary” by the panel’s leaders, who said the group may continue to meet.

While not in its recommendations, the House report suggested the legislature could get involved in processes for renewing federal grants.

The legislature could “implement a process for legislative authorization of grants, such as requiring grant applications to go before a legislative committee before an agency can submit an application,” the report said.

The House report was submitted by all four Republican representatives on the panel, but not the lone Democrat. Rep. Ronnie Glynn, of Clarksville, refused to sign the document, saying that movement toward rejection of federal funding would be “fiscally irresponsible and discriminatory.”

“The hearings made clear how harmful such a move would be to Tennessee’s school children and how detrimental it would be to taxpayers and our state’s budget,” said a statement about Glynn’s position, issued Thursday by the House Democratic Caucus.

Below, you can read the full House report.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show that Rep. Ronnie Glynn, a Democrat, did not sign the report.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee education chief Lizzette Reynolds challenged by Democrats over job qualifications

2024-01-22T17:44:45+00:00

House Democrats called Monday for the ouster of Lizzette Reynolds as Tennessee’s education commissioner over questions about whether she meets the state’s legal requirements for the job.

Reynolds has nearly three decades of policy and legislative experience in education at the state and federal levels. But she has no teacher’s license or experience leading a classroom, in apparent violation of a century-old state law requiring the commissioner to be a person “of skill and experience in school administration” and “qualified to teach in the school of the highest standing over which the commissioner has authority.”

Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville, who chairs the House Democratic caucus, and Rep. Sam McKenzie of Knoxville, chairman of the legislature’s Black caucus, said Reynolds should step aside.

“There is no vagueness in this statute,” Clemmons said during a news conference at the state Capitol. “Commissioner Reynolds is legally unqualified, and she must resign.”

If she does not, McKenzie said, Gov. Bill Lee should fire Reynolds and hire a leader who understands the method of teaching, in both theory and practice.

“There are plenty of qualified people out there to lead this great education system we have,” McKenzie said.

Calling for the resignation of Lizzette Reynolds, Rep. John Ray Clemmons points out language in state law listing Tennessee’s requirements to be education commissioner. Clemmons, who is a Nashville Democrat, was joined by (from left) Rep. Ronnie Glynn of Clarksville and Rep. Sam McKenzie of Knoxville.

Reynolds, who has a political science degree from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, was hired last year to succeed Penny Schwinn.

Her job pays $255,000 a year, up from $236,000 when she started in July. The average salary of a licensed Tennessee teacher was $58,594 in 2021-22, according to the department’s most recent annual statistical report.

Reynolds previously was chief deputy education commissioner in Texas and most recently served as vice president of policy for ExcelinEd, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to pursue education policies that he believes improve student learning and lessen inequities.

The challenge to Reynolds’ credentials comes as she works to implement multiple sweeping policy initiatives passed by Tennessee lawmakers during Lee’s first term in office.

Tennessee is in its first year of operating under a new education funding formula, and also must enforce a controversial 2021 reading law under which thousands of fourth-graders are expected to be held back this year, based on projections for state test results this spring. In addition, the state is overseeing large-scale tutoring and summer programs in response to learning losses during the pandemic. And Lee is seeking a massive statewide expansion of vouchers to let families use government money to send their children to private schools or some home schools.

Asked about the Democrats’ assertions, a spokesperson for the governor defended Reynolds’ experience, saying her credentials qualified her to serve as commissioner.

“We’re proud of the work she’s doing to accelerate academic achievement and support all Tennessee students,” said Elizabeth Lane Johnson, Lee’s press secretary. “Additionally, though not explicitly required by statute, Commissioner Reynolds is currently enrolled in the [University of Tennessee]-Martin Education Preparation Program to expand upon her previous experience.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat last July, three weeks after starting her job, Reynolds said Lee hired her for her ability to roll out policies.

Asked then about her lack of teaching credentials or experience, she talked about her public school experiences as a student and a parent.

“As a parent of public school kids, I’m as close to the classroom as you’re going to get, because I’m a consumer of the public school system,” she said.

The vast majority of Tennessee’s top education officials have been longtime educators with deep knowledge of and experience in the practice of teaching.

For example, Candice McQueen was the dean of Lipscomb University’s College of Education, which the state rates among its top teacher training programs, when Republican Bill Haslam chose her in 2014 to lead the state education department during his second term as governor. She had won multiple awards for her teaching at both the K-12 and college levels.

Lana Seivers, who served as Democrat Phil Bredesen’s education chief from 2003 to 2008, was a teacher, principal, and district superintendent in Tennessee for most of her career. She also served on a long list of state and regional boards related to K-12 and higher education.

Both McQueen and Seivers held multiple graduate degrees in education.

Several other recent commissioners had backgrounds that, like Reynolds, leaned more toward policy and politics. But they also had some non-traditional teaching experience. Schwinn, who preceded Reynolds in the Lee administration, and Kevin Huffman, who was Haslam’s education chief during his first term, started their careers in the classroom through Teach for America. Schwinn also had a brief stint as administrator over a charter school in Sacramento, California.

JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, called Lee’s hires to lead the education department a “troubling trend,” even as he praised Reynolds for giving access to stakeholders.

“This governor has spurned people from Tennessee from key roles in state government,” he said. “There are highly qualified people from this state who know this state well.”

Leaders with the the state’s largest teacher organization said the governor should respond to questions that are being raised.

“It is Gov. Lee’s responsibility to know Tennessee state law and the requirements to serve as commissioner of education,” said Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association. “In appointing the current commissioner, it appears his focus may have been on finding someone who would be on board with his privatization agenda and would enforce policies like A-F school grades that undermine our strong public schools.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comments from the governor’s press secretary.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee private school voucher law hits new obstacle in court

2024-01-11T21:20:49+00:00

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A legal challenge to Tennessee’s private school voucher law is back on track after a state appeals court ruled that a lower court erred in dismissing the case.

The three-judge Court of Appeals said Wednesday that a trial-level judicial panel acted prematurely in 2022 when it declared that Davidson and Shelby county governments, along with a group of parents, had no legal standing to challenge the 2019 Education Savings Account law, which provides families with taxpayer money to pay toward private school tuition.

The appellate court, in sending the case back to the trial court, also said the case’s remaining legal claims are “ripe for judicial review.”

The unanimous decision breaks a string of legal victories for voucher backers in Tennessee, where Gov. Bill Lee’s administration is proposing an expansive new program that would ultimately make vouchers accessible to all students in all 95 Tennessee counties, without the family income limits that are part of the current program.

Lee, who has campaigned on a pledge to expand alternatives to traditional public schools, has sought to capitalize on parent anger over pandemic-era school closures and disagreements over what kids are taught.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on November 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

First-year test scores were disappointing

Meanwhile, Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds told lawmakers Wednesday that the first state test scores of students using vouchers to attend private schools in Shelby and Davidson counties were lackluster.

“The results aren’t anything to write home about,” Reynolds told the Senate Education Committee. “But at the end of the day, the parents are happy with this new learning environment for their students.”

The first results came out of Davidson and Shelby counties in 2022-23, before the legislature added Hamilton County to the program this school year. According to data from the state education department, most of those 452 students performed worse than their peers in public schools after the program’s swift rollout early that school year.

Reynolds told lawmakers she’s hopeful for better scores this spring from participants in all three counties.

“We are only technically a year and a half into implementation,” she said.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, the panel’s lone Democrat, said the early results from the Education Savings Account pilot program should give state leaders pause about rapidly expanding access to vouchers.

“It says ‘pilot’ because we want to see how it works,” Akbari said during Wednesday’s hearing. “And we only have a year and a half of data, and we’re already talking about expanding the program.”

The expectation, Akbari added, was that students using vouchers would perform as well as or better than students in public schools.

Legal challenge enters its fifth year

The legal dispute over Tennessee’s voucher law began a year after the legislature narrowly approved Lee’s ESA bill in 2019, via a controversial House vote. A Nashville judge soon declared the law unconstitutional because it affected only the state’s two largest cities, Memphis and Nashville, without giving them a say. That judge said that legislative approach violated the state constitution’s “home rule” provision.

But a split Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2022, clearing the way for the program to launch that fall. Now with three counties participating, the program remains under-enrolled with 2,134 students, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap, according to the state’s latest count.

The case is now being tried on several remaining legal issues, including a constitutional clause that requires the state to maintain a system of “free public schools,” with no mention of private schools.

However, Metro Nashville and Shelby County governments are no longer involved in the case. They withdrew as plaintiffs last year and declined to comment on their retreat.

Plaintiffs behind a second lawsuit, which was filed in 2020 on behalf of 11 public school parents and community members in Memphis and Nashville, are continuing to fight the law in court.

Called McEwen v. Lee, the complaint was filed by the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, collaborators in a national campaign that opposes vouchers and wants public funds used exclusively to support and strengthen public schools. The plaintiffs are also represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and the Nashville law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP.

“We are gratified by this Court of Appeals opinion and look forward to pursuing these claims in chancery court,” Chris Wood, a Nashville lawyer helping to litigate the remaining lawsuit, told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Officials with Nashville’s legal department, which took the lead in litigating the case for Davidson and Shelby counties, said they expected the appellate court’s ruling, but that the favorable opinion does not affect its decision to pull out of the dispute.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said the state is reviewing the appellate decision, while a spokesperson for the governor declined to comment on the court case.

“Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is an entirely separate legislative proposal, and we look forward to working with the General Assembly to ensure Tennessee parents have choices,” said Elizabeth Johnson, Lee’s press secretary.

You can read the 29-page ruling on the state court website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee senators’ report highlights risks of rejecting federal education funding

2024-01-09T21:28:53+00:00

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Senate members of a joint legislative panel that looked into whether Tennessee should reject more than $1 billion in federal education funding released their own report Tuesday, citing disagreements with House colleagues.

The 12-page report said Tennessee could not make new investments toward other needs if it opts out of federal education funding and tries to fill the gap with state revenues.

The report also noted numerous other avenues for Tennessee to pursue to resolve conflicts between federal and state interests, and it brought up uncertainties created by taking the unprecedented step of saying no to U.S. money.

“Many federal requirements could still apply to Tennessee schools even if the state rejected federal K-12 dollars, creating questions that would likely be resolved in court,” the report said.

In essence, the senators’ report laid out why no state has ever taken the step of rejecting federal funding for its students and schools, even though several such as Oklahoma and Utah have considered it.

The U.S. contribution, for which Tennessee citizens pay taxes, makes up about a tenth of the state’s budget for education — about the same as with other states. Most federal money supports low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.

Sen. Jon Lundberg, the Bristol Republican who co-chaired the 10-member panel, called the report “preliminary” as he and four other senators submitted the document to Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton.

“At this time, the House and Senate have not agreed to mutual recommendations,” they wrote in an accompanying letter.

Rep. Debra Moody, the Covington Republican who co-chaired the panel with Lundberg, did not immediately respond when asked whether the House members would submit their own report or comment on any disagreements.

Rep. Debra Moody and Sen. Jon Lundberg, both Republicans, co-chaired the joint legislative panel that conducted hearings in November.

But Sexton, who floated the idea nearly a year ago for Tennessee to look into the possibilities, said through an aide that a separate House report is coming.

“The House agreed with [the] Senate’s options for consideration. However, the Senate would not agree with the House’s actionable recommendations moving forward,” said a statement from Sexton’s office.

The Crossville Republican, who is a likely candidate for governor in 2026, had complained about testing requirements and other federal strings attached to acceptance of federal dollars, but has yet to provide a list of the other strings he finds objectionable.

Education advocates have suggested that objections from Sexton and the legislature’s GOP supermajority are related to current “culture wars” about curriculum and the rights of transgender students to use school bathrooms or join sports teams consistent with their gender identity, which may not correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

A year ago, Sexton said Tennessee could tap into $3.2 billion in new recurring state revenues, which would more than cover any lost federal funds for education. But those numbers were based on budget information at that time. State revenues have since flattened.

“Tennessee likely has room in the budget to reject and replace recurring federal funding in K-12 education, but at the expense of other potential investments,” the report said.

The senators also noted that the amount of federal money that Tennessee receives totals more than any of the recurring increases for education over the last decade. It’s also larger than the budgets of all but just a few state agencies, such as TennCare, transportation, education, and corrections.

Lundberg released the report just as the General Assembly reconvened its 2024 session, meeting a Jan. 9 deadline set by Sexton and McNally when they appointed the joint panel in September.

RELATED: Key education issues to watch as Tennessee lawmakers return

He told Chalkbeat later Tuesday that he stands by the report and refused to make changes requested by Sexton’s office.

“We determined it was best to release a Senate report that was solid, based on the testimony we heard and the information we were given,” said Lundberg, who declined to detail the points of contention.

Lundberg, who also chairs the Senate Education Committee, praised the work of the joint legislative panel for clearly identifying the state’s funding sources for education and their related mandates.

“Frankly there are fewer federal strings than I anticipated,” he said.

During four days of testimony in November, the panel heard mostly fact-finding presentations from established nonpartisan researchers, school district leaders, and state officials.

On the fifth day, at the request of House members, the group also heard from representatives of two conservative groups who urged the state to pursue forgoing federal funding. None of the Senate members were present for that final testimony. They said scheduling conflicts prevented them from attending.

The legislative panel declined to hear from Tennessee parents or advocacy groups about how federally funded education programs are run or affect their children.

Last week, several legislative leaders told Chalkbeat they did not expect any new legislation this year out of last year’s hearings.

Below, you can read the full Senate report, with the accompanying letter.

This story has been updated from a previous version.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org

Vouchers, school safety, retention: Key education issues to watch as Tennessee lawmakers return

2024-01-08T11:00:00+00:00

Five years after a bruising legislative battle opened the door to private school vouchers in parts of Tennessee, lawmakers are preparing to take up a controversial bill to create a similar program statewide.

Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher proposal, which eventually would make all K-12 students eligible to use public funding to attend a private or home school, is expected to dominate debate after the 113th General Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday.

But other issues affecting students and educators are sure to emerge in a state where education reform has been front and center since 2010, when Tennessee won $500 million in the federal Race to the Top competition to jumpstart changes.

And if the last few years are any indication, a few surprises may surface in the months ahead. Politics and tragedy have shaken up the education priorities of several recent sessions, from an 11th-hour Republican drive in 2021 to restrict classroom discussions about racism and bias to last year’s deadly Nashville school shooting that led to new investments in campus safety and dramatic protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws.

With the GOP supermajority setting the agenda again this year, here’s a look at some big issues to watch as the opening gavel falls.

School vouchers: Lee’s expansion plan renews long-running debate

In November, the governor said he’ll introduce a new Education Freedom Scholarship Act to offer $7,075 in taxpayer money for each of up to 20,000 students statewide next school year to attend a private or home school, with eligibility restrictions for half of them. In 2025, eligibility would open up to all students, regardless of their family’s income.

The proposal would mark a massive expansion of Tennessee’s voucher program, which is now limited to three urban counties and still under-enrolled. But more than a month after Lee’s announcement, few details have been released.

“I have yet to understand where the financing is coming from,” said Sen. Page Walley, a Republican whose district includes eight rural counties in West Tennessee.

“If we jump to statewide vouchers, I don’t see how we fund it without robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he added.

School safety: Renewed discussion, but no gun laws (it’s an election year)

Tennesseans were unnerved when an armed intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27, in the middle of last year’s legislative session. And the growing impact of gun violence on kids across the state is undeniable.

But Republican lawmakers’ response last year was to further harden schools rather than entertain any proposals to restrict gun access — not even for people who are deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, as the Nashville shooter had been.

“We’ll be back in January,” parents wanting stricter gun laws vowed in August after a special session on public safety yielded little action on guns.

Spectators watch the Tennessee Senate doing business at the State Capitol during a special legislative session on public safety in August 2023. Lawmakers were called back by Gov. Bill Lee after a mass school shooting in Nashville in March.

Some of them have organized news conferences and rallies at the Capitol this week for students, educators, and others to voice their concerns. Meanwhile, a group of parents from The Covenant School in Nashville, where the tragedy took place, say they’ll continue to advocate for changes to “ensure responsible firearm ownership, safe schools, and accessible adequate mental health care for all individuals across Tennessee.”

GOP leaders anticipate the legislature will revisit many of the proposals left on the table.

They include several measures to let certain citizens or school employees carry handguns in schools, and a bill to require all public and private schools to create alarm policies that differentiate emergencies for fire, weather, or an active shooter.

A new bill, from Republican Sen. Mark Pody of Lebanon and Rep. Susan Lynn of Mount Juliet, would let schools purchase lanyards equipped with emergency alert buttons for school staff to wear around their necks.

But don’t expect the legislature to look seriously at bills to restrict gun access in an election year, according to several key Republicans.

“I do not believe there’s an appetite or pathway to success for any legislation that might be introduced that is going to infringe on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, of Franklin.

With the latest State of the Child report ranking Tennessee near the bottom nationally for access to mental health resources, Johnson sees more room for discussion on that topic.

“I think a big conversation in the coming session will be how we strengthen our mental health safety net,” Johnson said, “as well as general access to mental health treatment in Tennessee.”

Third-grade reading law: Lawmakers may revisit retention provision — again

Last year, the legislature widened the criteria, beginning this school year, for determining which third graders are at risk of being held back if they aren’t deemed proficient readers under a 2021 law targeting pandemic learning lag.

Now under the same law, the state may have to retain thousands of fourth graders who test poorly this spring.

“I think we have to look into it,” said Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who chairs a House education committee. “We’ve probably got a lot of fourth graders who have already done summer school and tutoring but still won’t pass that test. It’s never a bad thing to have off-ramps and waivers.”

He added: “I want us to continue looking closer at kindergarten, first, and second grades so we’re not waiting until the third and fourth grades to address these challenges.”

But Sen. Jon Lundberg, who chairs his chamber’s education panel, is less inclined to make more changes in the 2021 law.

“We’ve set the standard for proficiency and for showing adequate growth, and I don’t want to move those,” he said.

Federal education funding: Talk about rejecting it looks like just talk, for now

House Speaker Cameron Sexton surprised many in his own party last year when he floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting more than a billion dollars in federal funding for students, which he said could be offset with state tax revenues.

In November, a task force appointed by Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally held hearings to explore the possibility. But Lundberg, the panel’s co-chairman, told Chalkbeat afterward that he didn’t expect the state to reject federal funds, even if it can find a way.

Legislative leaders polled by Chalkbeat last week said they haven’t heard of any legislation coming out of the hearings.

“It doesn’t hurt to know where our funding is coming from and how it’s being spent,” said White, the House’s education leader, said of the task force’s discussions, “but I don’t see that conversation going anywhere in the short term.”

Teacher shortages: Vacancies could lead to creative thinking

With Sexton declaring that Tennessee has enough state revenues to cover more than $1 billion in federal funding, plenty of public school advocates asked why the state wouldn’t use that excess instead to accelerate the governor’s plan to raise the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000 by 2027. (This year, the base is $42,000.)

Districts struggled to fill nearly 4,000 vacancies statewide last school year, especially in the middle grades, English as a second language, world languages, and special education, according to one report. And shortages of school bus drivers are a nationwide problem.

Lee told reporters that, while state revenues have flattened in recent months, Tennessee’s economy remains strong.

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters on Thursday after a tour of a Nashville ministry. “We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

“We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

But with the teaching profession facing a post-pandemic crisis in Tennessee and nationally, the legislature could also pursue other avenues to elevate the profession.

Currently, the state covers less than half of health insurance premiums for its teachers, while state employees get 100% of their premiums covered. Moving teachers to the state employee plan could be a boost to both teachers and the local districts that employ them.

Professional Educators of Tennessee has also called on the legislature to develop policies to address child care access and affordability for teachers, more than 80% of whom are female.

“If you want to keep good teachers,” said Executive Director JC Bowman, “ease their burdens so they can focus on their work in school to educate and nurture our future generation.”

To follow this year’s legislative business, visit the General Assembly’s website for calendars, committees, legislation, and livestreams.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

A-F grades come out this week for Tennessee schools. Here’s what to know.

2023-12-18T11:00:00+00:00

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This week, for the first time under a 2016 law, Tennessee will give each of its public schools an A-F letter grade.

The goal, says Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, is to help families, educators, communities, and policymakers understand how their local schools are doing.

And what better way, she says, than by using a letter-grade system that families are familiar with from their student’s report cards.

But the policy has been controversial since lawmakers began debating its merits nearly a decade ago, and local school leaders worry the grades will actually create confusion for parents and harm school communities.

They say a single grade is more simplistic than simple, and can’t fully capture the quality of learning and support that’s happening in a school, especially for communities where students face extra challenges before even walking into the classroom.

Local concerns escalated when the state education department recently revamped its grading formula in a way that will make it harder for certain schools to get an A or a B.

Here’s what you should know about the upcoming school letter grades, which the state is scheduled to release on Thursday.

What exactly will the grades measure?

As required by state law, the grades must take into account student performance and improvement, as demonstrated on annual tests under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as TCAP. High schools will also be judged on their students’ college and career readiness, based on measures such as ACT scores, postsecondary credits, or industry credentials.

How will the grades be calculated?

The formula weights student proficiency the heaviest, according to the department’s recent presentation to the State Board of Education. Next comes growth, or how much a school’s students improved from one year to the next. A separate factor seeks to assess how well schools are helping their lowest-performing quartile of students to improve.

The formula factors in test scores for English language arts, math, and science for elementary schools, and for all four core subject areas for middle and high schools. But some subjects count more than others.

The state has not publicly released the thresholds for what constitutes an A, B, and so on, based on its tallies of all the data.

Will the grades matter?

Yes, and not just in terms of public perception of a school’s quality. Under Tennessee’s new funding formula for K-12 education, school districts or charter authorizers can face hearings before the state Board of Education if their schools are rated D or F, beginning with the 2024-25 school year.

Ultimately, administrators could be forced to submit a corrective action plan or undergo a state audit of spending and academic programming at the school.

School ratings also can affect the price of real estate in a school’s neighborhood, as well as teacher and student morale. Studies have shown that ratings such as those given by third-party websites frequently are biased and can steer families toward schools serving more affluent, white, and Asian students.

Why is Tennessee grading its schools?

Legislators who voted for the law said A-F school grades would provide a common-sense aid to parents trying to navigate an increasingly complex school choice system.

Big supporters included ExcelinEd, an advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, plus other groups that favor giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to families to send their children to private schools. (Gov. Bill Lee recently proposed a statewide expansion of Tennessee’s voucher program, which operates in three counties and has fewer than 2,000 enrollees. The state is not grading private schools that receive vouchers.)

School letter-grading policies were also promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC. Its members are mostly conservative state lawmakers, and its funding comes from foundations, trade groups, and some corporations, according to research from the Center for Media and Democracy.

The law passed in 2016. Why are schools just now receiving their first grades?

The initial grades were to come out in 2018 but got delayed repeatedly, mostly because technical glitches and the pandemic disrupted state testing.

This year, soon after assuming her new job as Tennessee’s education chief, Reynolds prioritized the rollout of A-F grades and launched a process to revise the grading formula, which will use results from tests that already have been administered. The goal of the overhaul, she said, was to generate grades that signify meaningful differences in school performance in a way that makes sense to Tennesseans.

How did the formula change, and what effects will the revisions have on the final grades?

Previously, Tennessee’s grading formula skewed toward growth, which refers to the progress or improvement that schools made toward helping their students meet certain academic standards over the course of a year.

The new formula puts greater emphasis on achievement, or proficiency. Achievement is basically a snapshot of how much students in a school know, and whether enough of them are meeting grade-level standards on their state tests.

The changes will likely mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than previously expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.

More broadly, the shift marks a change of course for Tennessee, which was an early adopter of using growth data to evaluate how its students, teachers, and schools are doing. Educators have mostly embraced this model as ultimately the best way to gauge the quality of learning in their classrooms and schools.

Do other states issue A-F letter grades for schools?

As of late 2021, 11 states had such grading measures in their accountability systems, according to the most recent data from the Education Commission of the States.

But several states, including Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, and Utah, have since rolled back those policies. And in Texas recently, a judge blocked the state education agency from issuing grades after several districts sued. The districts charged that the agency had unfairly recalibrated its formula and waited too long to communicate those changes.

Where will Tennessee’s grades be published?

As of last week, state officials had not shared exactly how they plan to release this week’s grades. Chalkbeat continues to track and report on the topic.

Eventually, the department plans to publish all grades, along with school-level TCAP scores from the 2022-23 school year, on the State Report Card. The online tool should be ready to go live with the latest data in January, according to several spokespeople for the department.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Bill Lee short on details as he rallies for universal school vouchers in Tennessee

2023-12-14T01:51:50+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee hit the road Wednesday to begin selling his universal school voucher proposal, but offered no new details about how much the program would cost over time, specific ways to hold private schools accountable when receiving taxpayer money, or what the impact could be to public schools.

However, the Republican governor, who announced in late November that he wants to take vouchers statewide, said he expects GOP leaders to file legislation on his behalf before Jan. 9, when the General Assembly reconvenes, answering many of those questions.

Despite skepticism and outright opposition to his plan from many corners of the state, Lee believes the pandemic has changed the calculus so that more Tennesseans — and their elected representatives — are ready to support universal school vouchers. In 2019, Lee’s scaled-down voucher program, using education savings accounts, barely squeaked through the House in a contentious and controversial vote.

“Through the pandemic, parents just became much more engaged with what was actually happening with their children and their education,” said Lee, adding that more parents are demanding more education choices for their children because of disagreements spawned by COVID over school closures and what kids are taught in public schools.

But the voucher proposal also has stoked fierce opposition across the state, especially in the Memphis area.

Last week, Arlington Public Schools released a fiery statement denouncing Lee’s plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, while the director of Germantown Municipal School District recorded a video declaring that any private schools that accept voucher money should be held to the same standards as public schools. Lakeland’s school board passed a resolution this week opposing the plan, and the chairwoman of the board for Memphis-Shelby County Schools issued a statement Tuesday saying the board was “vehemently opposed” to Lee’s initiative.

Research is also mixed about whether vouchers help improve student performance.

On Wednesday, Lee was joined by House Speaker Cameron Sexton in Memphis at a panel discussion at New Hope Christian Academy, one of 80 private schools currently accepting vouchers through the education savings account program that began in 2022 in Davidson and Shelby counties, expanding this fall to Hamilton County.

While short on specifics, some comments by Lee and Sexton gave insights into the behind-the-scenes negotiations happening to garner support for Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act and to pound out a bill to put before the GOP-controlled legislature.

Academic testing requirements for voucher students unclear

Both leaders expressed openness to adding a facility component to the state’s new K-12 funding formula to help local governments pay for new public school construction or improvements to existing public school campuses — a chronic challenge in a state where schools need about $9 billion of infrastructure investments over five years, according to one recent government report.

Lee said he pushed for the formula overhaul in 2022 “to provide for more nuanced funding” and suggested that facility needs are in line with the new approach.

“If there are particular needs that school districts have, then we should look at that formula and how we more appropriately fund public schools going forward,” he said. “Not just more money, but more wisely spent money.”

The governor also said accountability for participating private schools would be part of his voucher bill, but he did not elaborate on what that would look like.

Currently, private schools participating in the ESA program have to administer annual state tests for math and English language arts to voucher students. But it’s hard to attract private schools to participate under that mandate. And results from those tests during the first year of the program indicate that participants performed worse than their public school peers in Davidson and Shelby counties, according to data from the state education department.

The governor’s press secretary, Elizabeth Johnson, previously told several media outlets that no testing requirements were in the draft legislation, though details were still being hammered out. Johnson did not immediately respond when asked Wednesday if any of those positions have changed as the proposal has evolved.

The draft also didn’t include other accountability measures that public schools must abide by such as third- and fourth-grade retention requirements for students who are deemed poor readers, or A-F grades for schools beginning this month, Johnson previously said.

Taking a different tact, Sexton suggested that Tennessee should rethink its accountability systems for public schools as part of any expansion of private school vouchers.

“Why don’t we treat the high-performing school districts the same as private [schools] and give them more autonomy and freedom to do their job?” Sexton told reporters after the panel discussion.

“Why not reward quality instead of trying to treat all school systems the same regardless of where they are?” he said.

Such a change would begin to unravel a fundamental education policy in Tennessee, where GOP officials previously credited the state’s vaunted accountability systems for historic gains on national tests between 2011 and 2013.

Suburban Memphis leaders oppose planned voucher expansion

The governor emphasized accountability through parental choice during his visit to New Hope.

“We do know that parents know best what’s best for their kids,” Lee said. “When parents have choice, the parents and the children are empowered to live a better life and to move in a better direction.”

Lee later traveled to Chattanooga to participate in a similar event at Chattanooga Preparatory School to promote his proposal.

Sexton, who voted against the 2019 voucher bill but now says he supports universal vouchers, stayed in Shelby County to meet with suburban leaders. Public school officials in those suburbs have been among the noisiest critics of Lee’s proposal.

“In my past 10 years as a superintendent, our legislature has passed hundreds of laws that are crushing the way that we run our schools,” Germantown Municipal School District’s Jason Manuel said in his video recording. “None of these laws will apply to the schools accepting this taxpayer money.”

Manuel called for an even playing field. “Either these schools have to follow all of the same laws we do, or our legislators need to take all the restraints off of our schools and let us get back to the way we have always served our children,” he said.

Private school choice programs have grown in recent years, with states such as Florida, Iowa, and Arkansas passing massive expansions of their voucher initiatives.

But do vouchers work?

According to an ongoing Chalkbeat review of the research, there’s little recent evidence that vouchers improve student test scores. In fact, they’ve sometimes led to declines. But older studies are more positive toward vouchers, and some show that vouchers have a neutral or positive impact on student outcomes later in life.

Research also suggests that targeted voucher programs may not be costly, but universal programs probably will be.

Other education advocates worry that that mostly GOP-driven drive to give parents more choices beyond public charter schools, magnet schools, and other optional programs will accelerate resegregation in schooling.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org

Some social studies teachers wary as national conference meets in increasingly censored Tennessee

2023-11-30T22:54:25+00:00

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About 3,500 social studies teachers converge on Nashville this weekend for their annual national conference, but not without some pushback for meeting in a state with multiple laws aimed at classroom censorship and restrictions related to discussing race and gender.

“Some of our members have worried that this could be a hostile environment for them,” said Wesley Hedgepeth, a social studies teacher in Henrico County, Virginia, and this year’s president of the National Council for the Social Studies.

Even so, attendance is set to surpass last year’s convention in Philadelphia, the group’s first in-person gathering since the pandemic. The last pre-COVID conference, in 2019, drew about 4,000 participants to Austin, Texas.

“There have been concerns about Tennessee’s divisive-concepts law and perceived censorship by the government, as well as the suppression of certain identities,” Hedgepeth said on Thursday, the eve of the three-day conference.

“We’ve been working tirelessly to make sure this is an inclusive conference and remind people that Nashville is a welcoming place,” he said.

Gov. Bill Lee, flanked by GOP legislative leaders, speaks during a press conference at the close of the 2021 session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Under the leadership of Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the GOP-dominated legislature, Tennessee was one of the first states to impose legal limits on classroom discussions about racism and white privilege. It gave a state commission new authority to ban certain library books statewide. It also enacted restrictions on the rights of transgender students in school. One new law ensures that school and university employees can opt out of implicit-bias training.

And earlier this year, the predominantly white and older House of Representatives ousted two young Black Democratic members for the way they protested the body’s failure to pursue significant gun reforms after a shooter killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school.

Related: The ‘Tennessee 3′ made history. Will their story be taught?

Add in a 2023 state law restricting drag shows — which has since been overturned by a federal judge — and some social studies teachers from elsewhere in the nation were balking at coming to the Volunteer State.

That spurred the council, which is the nation’s premier professional organization for social studies, to issue a three-page statement this spring titled “Why Nashville?”

The paper noted that, in addition to its renowned music scene, Tennessee’s capital city is home to key moments and movements in U.S. history.

On Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women across America the right to vote.

And in 1960, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a group of college students including Diane Nash formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Nashville. The chairman was a young John Lewis, a student at Nashville’s Fisk University, who went on to become a civil rights icon and longtime congressman from Georgia before his death in 2020.

“We remain committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all social studies educators to come and learn with us in Nashville,” the organization’s statement said.

The last time the group held its national conference in Tennessee was in 1993. The state’s affiliate organization submitted a 2017 pitch for a return to Nashville, and organizers soon signed contracts with local hotels and convention facilities. That was before the national racial reckoning spurred by the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and a conservative backlash to subsequent anti-racism protests. Tennessee has been at the forefront of culture wars ever since.

Related: How the age-appropriate debate is altering curriculum

This spring, after the legislature expelled the two young Black Democratic members, the National Council for the Social Studies issued a four-page rebuke of the Tennessee House of Representatives. The statement called the ouster an attack on the foundational principles of democratic and republican norms and said that, intentionally or not, the state was sending its students a message that the rights to free speech, peaceful protest, and holding their elected officials accountable are “reserved for those who have a specific view or perspective.” (The two lawmakers were later reelected by their local constituents.)

Rep. Justin Pearson raises his newly signed oath of office after being reinstated to the Tennessee General Assembly on April 13, 2023, days after the Republican-controlled legislature ousted him and another Democratic lawmaker over the way they protested the state’s lax gun laws.

The vagueness of Tennessee’s censorship laws also is having a chilling effect in classrooms and school libraries. In Memphis this fall, for instance, the co-authors of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Floyd were told not to talk about systemic racism during an appearance at Whitehaven High School.

“It’s like walking on eggshells,” said Laura Simmons, an eighth-grade U.S. history teacher from Bedford County, south of Nashville. “We want to give our students the information they need, including multiple viewpoints and narratives. At this point, I think most social studies teachers are just feeling out the climate of their school, their parents, and their administration.”

As president of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, Simmons is co-chair of this year’s national conference and helped to plan it, along with Hedgepeth, the national president. Attendees represent all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and nine other countries. About 10% are faculty at colleges and universities.

The 2023 conference theme is “Social Studies: Working in Harmony for a Better Tomorrow,” with sub-themes about inclusivity, elevating local narratives, and seeking partnerships beyond physical and political borders.

Featured speakers include Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Caste” and “The Warmth of Other Suns,” and Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and freelance journalist. Jelani Memory, author of the bestselling “A Kids Book About Racism,” will talk about tackling difficult topics with young learners.

“We are not shying away from controversial issues,” said Simmons, a 22-year teacher in Tennessee. “Our philosophy is to make sure we’re giving our educators the things they need to best help their students.”

Ultimately, said Hedgepeth, the conference is focused on the future of social studies, which research shows is systematically marginalized in the U.S. education system, from kindergarten to college.

“This is a critical time right now, with the war in Israel and Palestine, the upcoming presidential election, and how politics have divided our country after COVID and other traumatic events,” he said. “I think we are seeing the consequences of a lack of social studies education echoing across our country — from how we relate to others to how we digest media to how we discern between what is true and false.”

“If you don’t teach social studies,” Hedgepeth said, “you don’t get those skills. It’s as simple as that.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor proposes extending school voucher program statewide, eventually to all students

2023-11-29T01:32:04+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

Gov. Bill Lee proposed Tuesday to take Tennessee’s education voucher program statewide, starting with up to 20,000 students who would get taxpayer money next school year to attend a private or home school.

The Republican governor also called for all K-12 students to be eligible for vouchers beginning in 2025.

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act, offering $7,075 annually for each participant, would mark a massive expansion of eligibility for a voucher program that was billed as a pilot project and is now in its second year. The state’s education savings account program, which currently is limited to three urban counties, has just under 2,000 enrollees.

During an announcement in Nashville attended mostly by lawmakers and allies, Lee said statewide voucher eligibility was his vision for Tennessee during his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, when he called for more education choices for parents.

“Parents know what’s best for their child as it relates to education,” he said, adding that the vouchers would give all Tennessee families the freedom to choose a good fit, whether it’s in public, private, parochial, or home schools.

His plan would eventually eliminate income requirements and change who could benefit from the vouchers. Rather than giving students from low-income families an opportunity to attend private schools — the original stated purpose of Lee’s education savings account program — the universal vouchers Lee now proposes could also subsidize tuition costs for students from more affluent families who already attend private schools.

It’s uncertain whether the final legislation would hold private or home schools accepting voucher money to the same accountability standards that public schools are subject to, including testing requirements or the A-F letter grades that the state is preparing to give out for the first time in December.

“The final details of this legislation aren’t worked out,” Lee told reporters after his announcement. “This is Day One. This will be a legislative effort.”

But Lee’s proposal will face a battle when the General Assembly reconvenes in January. Even under a GOP supermajority, Tennessee’s voucher law squeaked through the House of Representatives in 2019, after sponsors agreed to limit the program to a few urban areas.

The open-ended cost of universal vouchers will be an issue in a state where financial experts have warned lawmakers recently that Tennessee’s government needs to control spending in coming years. Lee said his voucher proposal would be funded through a separate scholarship account, not the funding structure currently in place for public schools, but he didn’t provide a cost analysis.

Lee is trying to ride the momentum of other states with Republican-controlled legislatures — including Florida, Iowa, and Arkansas — that passed massive expansions of their voucher programs this year amid parent anger over pandemic-era school closures and disagreements over what kids are taught in public schools.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a fellow Republican who signed a law in March creating a school voucher program in her state, appeared on stage with Lee for his announcement. She heralded the work of their states as part of a “conservative education revolution,” with vouchers as a centerpiece.

More important for the legislative battle ahead were pledges Tuesday by Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally to advance Lee’s voucher agenda. Sexton, a charter school advocate and likely candidate for governor in 2026, voted against Lee’s education savings account bill in 2019 and did not say why he now supports Lee’s proposal.

However, the legislature’s Democratic leaders said Lee and GOP leadership are in for a fight — similar to the one in Texas, where a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans beat back Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher bill this month during a special legislative session.

During a morning news conference, Tennessee Democrats charged that statewide vouchers will weaken public schools and lead to cuts in everything from school personnel to arts and athletic programs, plus increased property taxes for residents. And they pledged to work across the aisle with Republican lawmakers who have been skeptical of vouchers from the outset.

“On the House side, we’re already reaching out to local officials to join us in supporting public schools,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat and House caucus chairman, noting that public school districts are typically the largest employers in the state’s rural communities.

From left, Sens. Raumesh Akbari and London Lamar, both of Memphis, listen as Rep. John Ray Clemmons, right, of Nashville, criticizes Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s education voucher expansion proposal during a news conference on November 28, 2023.

Democrats also warned that, under the governor’s plan, private schools will be able to choose the voucher students they want to accept, especially from families that are already bound for a private education.

“What this is is a coupon program for rich families who do not want to pay the full price of tuition,” said Sen. London Lamar of Memphis, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus.

Meanwhile, leaders of groups both for and against vouchers said they were mobilizing for the fight ahead.

Among the pro-voucher contingent is Americans for Prosperity in Tennessee, part of a conservative network backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, and the American Federation for Children, whose founding chairperson was Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos.

Groups opposing Lee’s plan include the state’s two largest professional organizations for educators, the Tennessee Education Association and Professional Educators of Tennessee.

Tennessee has been a battleground state in the school choice movement, with a coalition of conservative political organizations using out-of-state money to campaign against incumbent lawmakers who oppose vouchers.

Lee’s newest proposal, if approved, would put Tennessee on track to become the 10th state to adopt a universal voucher program, joining Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and West Virginia. But the change would happen before state officials have enough data to evaluate the effectiveness of its current education savings account program, which launched last year in Davidson and Shelby counties and this year in Hamilton County.

For the 2024-25 school year, Lee proposes to provide 10,000 “scholarships” for students who are considered economically disadvantaged, have a disability, or are eligible for Tennessee’s current education savings account program. Another 10,000 would go to a universal pool of students across the state.

Beginning in 2025-26, Tennessee would offer vouchers to any K-12 student.

A one-page promotional document circulated by the governor office said Tennessee would prioritize “currently enrolled students, low-income and public school students if demand exceeds available funding.”

For years, Tennessee has been in the bottom tier of states in funding public education and remains in the bottom half nationally, even with a $1 billion increase this year as part of Lee’s overhaul of Tennessee’s education funding formula.

In 2020-21, before the latest investment, national data ranked the state 37th for per-student funding. And in its annual grades for education funding, the Education Law Center gave Tennessee two F’s for funding level and effort, and a D for funding distribution.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Nashville, Shelby County withdraw challenge to Tennessee private school voucher law after long fight

2023-11-17T23:54:28+00:00

Nashville and Shelby County governments have pulled out of their more than 3-year-old legal dispute with the state over a 2019 private school voucher law.

The paperwork to withdraw their latest appeal was filed quietly on Aug. 25 with the Tennessee Court of Appeals, according to court documents.

The pullout by Tennessee’s two largest counties is the latest setback for efforts to overturn the controversial education savings account law, the signature legislation of Gov. Bill Lee’s first year in office.

The law, which allows the state to give taxpayer money to eligible families to pay toward the cost of private school tuition, was declared unconstitutional by a Nashville judge in 2020 because, at the time, it affected students only in Nashville and Memphis, where local officials have consistently opposed vouchers. But after several appeals, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state in 2022 and resurrected the law, allowing the program to launch last year in the two counties. This fall, the state rolled out the program in Hamilton County after lawmakers voted earlier this year for expansion.

On Friday, Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz declined to comment about the decision to pull out of the suit, as did E. Lee Whitwell, chief litigation attorney for Shelby County government.

Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz criticizes a Tennessee Supreme Court ruling upholding the state’s private school voucher law during a news conference on June 1, 2022, soon after the court’s decision.

But Dietz, whose office has been leading the charge on the Nashville-Shelby lawsuit, noted that the legal challenge remains alive through a second lawsuit filed in 2020 by the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of 11 public school parents and community members in Memphis and Nashville. Their appeal is pending before the state’s appellate court.

The state Supreme Court’s ruling in May 2022 rejected Metro Nashville and Shelby County’s argument that the voucher law violated a “home rule” provision in the Tennessee Constitution. The latest court battle has been over whether plaintiffs in both lawsuits have legal standing to pursue the case based on other legal claims, such as a constitutional clause that requires the state to maintain a system of “free public schools,” with no mention of private schools.

In a split vote in late 2022, a three-judge panel of Davidson County Chancery Court dismissed those claims. Soon after, attorneys behind both lawsuits appealed that ruling to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

Chris Wood, a Nashville lawyer helping to litigate the remaining lawsuit, said the pullout by Metro Nashville and Shelby County has no bearing on his case filed jointly with the Education Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU.

“We’re still here,” Wood said Friday. “Our case has always been our case. And while it’s good to have other folks working with you, this really doesn’t have an impact on what we’re doing.”

A spokesperson for the Tennessee attorney general’s office did not immediately respond when asked Friday about the development.

Currently, Tennessee’s education savings account program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in 75 state-approved private schools in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs a House Education Committee, has said he expects to file legislation next year to take the program statewide.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Senate leader doesn’t expect Tennessee to reject federal money for students

2023-11-16T23:27:17+00:00

A leader of the panel exploring whether Tennessee can reject federal education funding says he doesn’t expect the state to do so, even if it can find a way.

Sen. Jon Lundberg, who co-chairs the special legislative committee looking into the idea, said that based on what the panel has learned during two weeks of hearings that ended on Wednesday, it would be premature to make big changes in the funding streams for Tennessee students.

The Bristol Republican also expects the panel’s work to continue “well into 2024″ as members seek information from the U.S. Department of Education about rules and regulations tied to acceptance of federal funding.

“My expectation is that we’re not going to say no to federal funds. We’re not going to kick more than a billion dollars back to the U.S. government,” Lundberg told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

“But I do think that, as a legislative body, we are going to be more judicious in reviewing federal rules and proposals that are passed on to the state education department and state Board of Education,” he said.

Advocate for education equity: ‘We’re taking this seriously’

This month’s hearings by the GOP-led legislative group mark the furthest any state has gone toward forgoing U.S. education dollars, which typically make up about a tenth of a state’s spending on K-12 education.

The 10-member committee, created by speakers of the House and Senate, has a Jan. 9 deadline to submit its findings and recommendations to the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who touted the idea in February, has said the state wants more autonomy over how its students are taught. He said the state would fill the federal funding gap with state money and continue programs that are currently federally funded.

Most of the federal money received in Tennessee — estimated at about $1.3 billion annually by state education department officials this week — provides additional support to low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Other federally funded programs target certain needs ranging from rural education to technology to charter schools.

The opt-out talk has angered many Tennesseans who pay federal taxes and whose children benefit from federally funded programs or receive civil rights protections through federal oversight. Advocates of historically underserved students are prepared to mobilize if the committee’s work generates legislation to reject any part of federal funding.

For now, they’re monitoring the panel’s work.

“We’re taking this seriously, because this would be such a consequential step for the state to take,” said Gini Pupo-Walker, who leads The Education Trust in Tennessee. “We’re trying to ensure lawmakers are getting accurate information during the discussions.” (Related: What it would mean for kids)

Tennessee-based advocacy groups such as The Education Trust and the Tennessee Disability Coalition, as well as those representing parents and educators, were not invited or allowed to testify during the hearings — a decision that Lundberg said was designed to keep the committee on mission. Instead, the testimony came mostly from state and nonpartisan researchers, officials with the Tennessee education department, four local school district leaders, and a federal policy expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Our charge was not to look at how to cut funding, but how to change that funding stream from federal to state dollars,” Lundberg said.

Panel leaders expect to gather more input

As of Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education had not received questions from the Tennessee panel but stands ready to provide “technical assistance” as needed, a spokesperson said.

The federal department, which was listed on the agenda for one meeting last week, did not send representatives to testify because the agency never received an invitation, the spokesperson said.

Lundberg, who initially told the committee that federal officials were “unable to attend,” clarified on Thursday that the no-show was due to a “miscommunication.”

But he expects the panel will have numerous questions for federal officials, and that the back-and-forth process could take months.

Eventually, the committee may also seek legal opinions from the state attorney general’s office. Because no state has rejected federal education money before, Tennessee officials expect numerous challenges in court if the state takes a step in that direction.

“I notified the speakers that we potentially won’t complete our work by the Jan. 9 deadline,” Lundberg said. “We have to get this right, not just quick.”

Rep. Debra Moody, the Covington Republican who co-chairs the panel, said in a statement that her intention is to “continue gathering pertinent information so the working group can release a complete and competent report.”

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said he’s pleased the panel is taking its fact-finding mission seriously.

“I have no issue with an extension, if needed, and I look forward to reading the group’s final report when it is completed,” McNally said through a spokesman.

As part of their fact-finding mission, there’s no discussion of committee members touring the state to see the kinds of services provided under federally funded programs to determine whether the state has sustainable finances and operational capacity to continue them.

For instance, federal money helps support homeless students, career and technical education labs, and after-school programs that provide tutoring, enrichment, and meals to students from low-income families.

Pupo-Walker, from The Education Trust, said any comprehensive investigation should include that type of research.

“I think it would be a disservice,” she said, “not to see firsthand how those federal dollars play out in the lives of children and families and schools and their communities.”

You can see a state analysis of county-by-county budget information that includes public education, at the General Assembly’s website. The nonpartisan Sycamore Institute has also produced two recent reports about federal education funding in Tennessee.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Marta at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tenn. hearings on federal school funding leave out parents and local advocacy groups

2023-11-15T11:00:00+00:00

A legislative panel exploring whether Tennessee should reject federal funding for its K-12 students isn’t allowing public testimony from Tennesseans about how federally funded programs are run or how they affect their children.

And it’s not hearing from Tennessee-based advocacy groups either.

However, two conservative advocacy groups from outside the state are set to weigh in on the discussion Wednesday as the panel wraps up five days of hearings.

Steve Johnson, a former member of the Michigan House of Representatives, is scheduled to speak to the GOP-led committee on behalf of the Center for Practical Federalism, part of an association of state-level free-market think tanks. The group’s website says it seeks to educate people on the benefits of federalism, which it describes as a system of government where “some authority belongs to the national government, and much more resides with states, communities and the American people.”

Also on the agenda is Sal Nuzzo, senior vice president of the James Madison Institute, a Florida-based think tank that lists “limited government” among its guiding principles. His biography says he was appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to serve on that state’s government efficiency task force. He also has worked with longtime antitax activist Grover Norquist, the bio says.

The testimony will mark a departure from proceedings that have been mostly fact-finding presentations during the previous four days of hearings with established nonpartisan researchers, school district leaders, and state officials.

The panel, created by the speakers of the House and Senate in September, is to report back to Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature by Jan. 9 on its findings and recommend strategies for rejecting potentially millions of U.S. education dollars in order to avoid federal regulations that cover everything from mandated student testing to civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ students.

If Tennessee opts to forgo any federal funding for its students, it would be the first state to do so. Federal dollars typically make up about a tenth of state education budgets and provide additional support for students who are from low-income families, have disabilities, and are learning the English language. The money also provides targeted support for certain needs ranging from rural education to technology and charter schools.

Estimates of the impact of federal education funding in Tennessee have varied from $1.1 billion to $1.9 billion since House Speaker Cameron Sexton first floated the idea in February. On Tuesday, officials with the state education department attributed the variance to additional federal education relief in recent years due to the pandemic.

For the current fiscal year, they said, Tennessee is projected to receive about $1.3 billion from the federal government, or about a tenth of the total spending on the state’s K-12 students. The rest of the money comes from the state and local governments.

State officials also reported that all 148 Tennessee school districts receive one or more federal grants, affecting a wide swath of the state’s nearly 1 million public school students. Of those, nearly 152,000 students are considered economically disadvantaged; about 129,000 receive special education services; and more than 66,000 are learning the English language.

Sexton and other GOP leaders have said Tennessee would continue services currently funded by the federal government and would fill the gap with its own funding if it decides to go that route.

Advocates for people with disabilities weren’t invited

Sen. Jon Lundberg and Rep. Debra Moody, who chair education committees in their respective legislative chambers, co-chair the special legislative panel and set the agenda for meetings that began on Nov. 6.

Rep. Debra Moody and Sen. Jon Lundberg, both Republicans, co-chair the joint legislative panel exploring whether Tennessee can replace the money it receives from the U.S. government with state funds so it won’t have to comply with mandates tied to the federal funding.

Last week, Lundberg told Chalkbeat that his committee has not allowed testimony from parents or education advocacy groups in Tennessee because the focus of the hearings is on efficiency and federal requirements for accepting federal dollars, not whether the state will continue to provide those services.

“Our charge is not to look at eliminating programs, or adding programs,” said Lundberg, a Bristol Republican. “It’s about, if we say we don’t need the federal government to provide X program, can we as a state do it more efficiently and serve this student population more effectively?”

Among the groups left on the sidelines was the Tennessee Disability Coalition, an alliance of organizations and individuals that advocate for full and equal participation of people with disabilities in school and all other aspects of life.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, one of two Democrats serving on the special legislative committee, had asked the panel’s co-chairs to invite the coalition to give a presentation about the intricacies of the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, known as IDEA, and the services it covers for students with disabilities. However, the coalition received no invitation, said Jeff Strand, the group’s coordinator of government and external affairs.

None of the panelists who have testified thus far have spoken in depth about IDEA, its services, or impacts.

“Some panelists have even mischaracterized the tenets of IDEA that are codified in (Tennessee state law), with one even saying that IDEA is in the code in its entirety,” Strand said.

Committee leaders also declined a request from Tennessee parents to testify on behalf of Rise & Shine, a grassroots advocacy group organized after a mass shooting in March left three children, three adults, and the shooter dead at a private school in Nashville.

“It’s hard for me to see this as a neutral facts analysis that’s not political when they’re talking to outside organizations and not more Tennesseans who have a perspective and experiences with these federal programs,” said Maryam Abolfazli, a Nashville mom and the group’s founder.

“It feels like they view our voices as emotional pleas, rather than a way to get insights into how these programs and funding work for Tennessee families,” she told Chalkbeat.

School leaders and education commissioner air concerns

Moody, the House co-chair, declined to comment Tuesday when asked why testimony is needed from the two out-of-state groups, or whether it’s appropriate before a fact-finding panel.

Johnson, with the Center for Practical Federalism, did not respond to questions from Chalkbeat on Tuesday asking how and why he got on the agenda. But Nuzzo, with the James Madison Institute, said through a spokesperson that he was invited to speak by Rep. John Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican serving on the committee. “He inquired whether the James Madison Institute had relevant expertise that could be helpful for the legislative panel to consider,” said the spokesperson, who said the institute provides research, legislative education, and testimony in Florida and throughout the country.

Those testifying so far have been researchers with the state comptroller’s office; the legislature’s fiscal review committee; and the Sycamore Institute, a nonpartisan research group and think tank in Tennessee.

The committee also heard from Austin Reid, the legislative director of the National Conference of State Legislatures; and from four school district superintendents who said Tennessee schools could use more funding if the state has the resources to reject federal funding and fill the gap with state revenues.

Many of those testifying warned that Tennessee will enter uncharted territory if it opts to reject federal money. And Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, who started her job in July, echoed those concerns on Tuesday in her first testimony before state lawmakers.

“Many federal requirements are also codified in Tennessee state law, and the issue of accepting or rejecting federal education funding is a complicated one, with numerous legal implications and uncertainties,” Reynolds said.

“For these reasons, it’s hard to project exactly how decisions (to opt out of federal funding) would play out,” she added.

Possible ramifications could include budget cuts or tax increases during a future shortfall or recession; protracted court battles over federal requirements that may still exist for schools even if funding is refused; and Tennesseans having to pay federal income taxes for education support that would go to other states.

Correction: Nov. 17, 2023: A previous version of this story said Sal Nuzzo, with the James Madison Institute, did not respond Tuesday to questions from Chalkbeat asking how and why he got on the agenda. The story has been corrected to include a response from an institute spokesperson, which was emailed to Chalkbeat Tuesday night.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Marta at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee should boost education funding, not reject federal money, school leaders say

2023-11-08T01:01:44+00:00

A state committee studying whether Tennessee should reject federal education dollars heard a unified plea from public school leaders not to do that — and to instead invest the state’s excess revenues in K-12 students, teachers, and schools.

“The needs are so great,” said Toni Williams, interim superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Tennessee’s largest district, during remarks Tuesday before the panel.

She described dozens of school buildings that are over a century old, outdated HVAC systems, and the need to mitigate everything from mold to rats. Last year, a library ceiling collapsed at Cummings K-12 Optional School, injuring the school librarian and two other staff members.

Toni Williams, interim superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, speaks to state lawmakers on Nov. 7, 2023.

“This year has been incredibly difficult,” Williams said of her district’s work to address its ailing infrastructure while also providing teachers and staff with competitive pay and preparing for an end to federal COVID relief funding.

The plea from Williams and three other district leaders ran counter to the panel’s charge to develop a strategy on “how to reject certain federal funding or how to eliminate unwanted restrictions.”

Tennessee receives about $1.8 billion in federal funds for education. The U.S. government generally covers about a tenth of a state’s spending for public schools. No state has ever said no to federal funding for its students.

But leaders of Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature say they’re frustrated by the federal oversight that’s attached to receiving the money. Many of them believe the state can afford to forgo federal funding and fill the gap with state money.

The committee, appointed by the speakers of the House and Senate, kicked off hearings into the matter this week and is to report its findings and recommendations to the General Assembly by Jan. 9.

Federal funding cutoff could force tax increases later

On Monday, officials with the state comptroller’s office reported that districts in low-income and rural areas depend the most on federal funding. That money is directed to schools that serve disadvantaged students and programs that target certain needs ranging from rural education and English language learners to technology and charter schools.

On Tuesday, researchers with the Sycamore Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said “much is unknown” if the state opts to pull out of the federal funding stream.

“There’s no precedent upon which to make projections,” said Mandy Spears, the institute’s deputy director.

Even with lower-than-projected revenues and experts predicting stagnant revenues ahead, Spears told the panel that Tennessee likely has room in its budget to replace federal dollars with state money. However, possible ramifications could include budget cuts or tax increases during a future shortfall or recession; protracted court battles over federal requirements that may still exist for schools even if funding is refused; and Tennesseans having to pay federal income taxes for education support that would go to other states.

Spears said federal requirements tied to federal funding provide an extra layer of accountability that’s important to many students and their families because of Tennessee’s history of racial discrimination, school segregation, and exclusion of students with disabilities from public schools.

“Students and families in these protected classes may worry that such practices could return in the absence of federal oversight,” Spears said.

Later Tuesday, the panel asked school district leaders numerous questions about staffing costs related to federal compliance and whether replacing federal funds with state money would give them more flexibility. They also questioned the superintendents about whether their districts measure how much federally funded food is wasted in school cafeterias.

They don’t.

“We just report the number of meals served every day,” said Williams of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, where food and nutrition is the second largest federally funded program at a cost of $89 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Williams said 60% of the district’s 100,000-plus students are considered economically disadvantaged.

“Some of these students wouldn’t have an opportunity (to eat), if not for our food and nutrition program,” she said.

District leaders say extra funding is needed

Asked for a list of burdensome requirements associated with federal education funding, none of the school leaders spoke up. But they spoke at length about the need for more funding for public schools and their students.

Marlon King noted that Madison-Jackson County Schools, where he is superintendent, is among several districts in West Tennessee making investments to develop the future workforce for Ford Motor Co.’s new electric pickup truck plant in nearby Haywood County.

Hank Clay, chief of staff for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, worried that any move toward eliminating federal funding or oversight could tempt districts to shift money that helps their most vulnerable students, especially when school leaders are dealing with other challenges around teacher pay and school facilities.

“If there’s funding on the table to replace these federal dollars, we would welcome that, but ask that it be in addition to — because our students deserve it,” Clay said.

Matt Hixson, who leads schools in Hawkins County, called infrastructure a “huge concern” and noted that his rural district is staring at a $15 million price tag for roof replacement at two high schools. That cost is borne by local taxpayers.

“The only way we have to fund some of those projects is to stand in front of my peers in the county and say we need more tax money,” he said. “I’m a taxpayer too. I’m not a fan of big taxes.”

Earlier this year, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations reported that the state needs to invest more than $9 billion in its K-12 education infrastructure over five years, an increase of nearly 9% from an assessment done a year earlier.

Of that amount, about $5.4 billion is needed for renovations and technology improvements, while nearly $3.6 billion is needed to build additions and new schools.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s first A-F letter grades for schools will stress proficiency

2023-11-03T00:01:41+00:00

After months of asking Tennesseans how the state should judge its public schools when giving them their first A-F letter grades, Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds mostly ignored the feedback.

In her first major initiative since taking the helm of the state education department in July, Reynolds chose a school grading system that elevates the importance of proficiency — whether students are meeting certain academic standards on state tests — over the progress that schools make toward meeting those standards over the course of a year.

Her plan, unveiled on Thursday, will mark a sharp change of course for Tennessee, considered a pioneer in emphasizing growth measurements to assess its students, teachers, and schools.

It’s also significantly different from what Tennesseans have asked state officials for since Reynolds announced in August that an overhaul in the state’s grading system was coming. The overwhelming feedback at 10 town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments was for keeping the calculation focused on growth, as it has been the last five years.

Reynolds’ plan is similar to the model backed by ExcelinEd, the education advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and where Reynolds previously served as policy director.

It will still include improvement as a factor, as required by a 2016 Tennessee law, but achievement will get more weight than under the original formula — and there won’t be a way for schools to meet the achievement criteria by meeting certain improvement goals, according to a presentation to the state Board of Education.

“This version is recalibrating that balance point and is going to say more about where the kids are in those schools right now,” said David Laird, assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in the education department. “It is less of a referendum on maybe what the school’s impact has been, but it’s more clearly articulating their challenges right now.”

The department also announced that the grades will be released in mid-December, a month later than previously planned. State officials say they need more time to verify data going into the grades.

This is the first time the state will issue its letter grades since the 2016 law requiring them took effect. Previous attempts were called off because of testing glitches and the pandemic.

There are several other changes to the calculation.

The formula will factor in test scores for science and social studies, although not as much as for math and English language arts, which were the focus of the original model.

Gone is data related to chronic absenteeism. A new factor will be how well schools are helping their lowest-performing quartile of students to improve. For high schools, college and career readiness will be included, based on measures such as ACT scores, postsecondary credits, or industry credentials.

The debate about growth vs. proficiency was the biggest concern for school leaders who have been waiting and planning for grades for five years.

Focusing on proficiency likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.

Beyond the stigma of getting a D or an F, officials representing those schools eventually may face hearings before the state Board of Education or audits of their spending and academic programming.

Several board members worried that teachers could flee schools graded D or F, exacerbating the challenges faced by schools in high-poverty areas, where students face extra challenges before they even walk into a classroom.

“It’s a struggle for me to think about saying everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when some folks have a closet full of boots, and some have none,” said Darrell Cobbins, who represents Memphis on the board.

Many education advocates worried the state could return to an era when schools with many affluent students coasted to the top ratings, while doing little to show they were helping students improve. Meanwhile, schools in high-poverty areas will have little chance to earn an A or B, they told Chalkbeat.

“Measuring only absolute proficiency for 50% of a school’s grade will most certainly disadvantage our highest poverty schools,” said Erin O’Hara Block, a school board member for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, who served on the working group giving input to the state.

“I’m not sure what this system is supposed to motivate for schools, nor how it will truly inform parents on differences in what various schools can offer to their children,” she said.

Reynolds said the letter grades are a tool to provide families and school communities with information they can use to make decisions, not necessarily to incentivize schools to improve.

“We want to tell the truth about whether or not our kids are actually achieving,” she said.

But Gini Pupo-Walker, director of the Education Trust in Tennessee, is hopeful the grades will somehow be tied to extra resources to help struggling schools.

“We look forward to learning more about how the state plans to support schools that receive D’s and F’s,” she said, “and ensure schools are paying attention to the success of all students.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Why this award-winning school superintendent donates his bonus back for his students every year

2023-11-02T10:00:00+00:00

If his school community had to choose between himself and its nine therapy dogs, David Snowden jokes that “the director of schools would have to go.”

Now in his 23rd year as leader of Franklin Special School District, south of Nashville, Snowden has championed the canine program since Mattie Grace became the school system’s first trained therapy dog in 2018.

Five years later, each of the district’s eight schools has a canine companion on site, as does its central office, to provide emotional support to students and staff.

Snowden says the program is popular — and needed. Even before the pandemic, faculty and staff were seeing an increase in student anxiety, depression, and mental distress.

But all of the comfort and joy brought by the pups wouldn’t be financially possible if Snowden hadn’t donated his performance bonus back to his home district to help cover the cost. It’s a practice he’s done every year since coming to his suburban district in 2001 — to acknowledge and reward the collective work of the students, teachers, and staff who surround him.

“It takes a team effort to be successful,” he explained.

In all, Snowden has returned about a quarter of a million dollars in bonus money to pay for various needs over the years, whether to hire tutors, buy chargers for Chromebooks, or provide water bottle refilling stations during the pandemic.

His colleagues call him a “true servant leader,” but his peers across the state recently gave him another title: Tennessee Superintendent of the Year. Because of the honor bestowed on him in September by the state’s superintendents organization, Snowden will represent Tennessee in February in San Diego at the national competition sponsored by the American School Superintendents Association.

In a recent interview with Chalkbeat, Snowden talked about why he chose a career in education, how he tries to bring out the greatness in others, his strategy for dealing with negative politics, and what gives him hope for the future.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What led you to a career in education?

Other than my parents, the most influential and inspiring people in my life were teachers and coaches. Any and all successes I may have had, both personally and professionally, are directly related to their support and mentorship. With my own career, I wanted to provide students with those same positive influences to help them become as successful as possible.

Tell us about your own experience as a student and how it affects your work today.

Growing up in rural Mississippi, I was an average student who enjoyed school but struggled with self-confidence. Fortunately, I had teachers who supported and inspired me to achieve higher than what I thought I could. With those influences, I became a fairly good student by high school. But those early struggles still resonate with me as I watch our great teachers positively connect with and encourage students each day. Every child is not going to excel at the very highest levels, but we know every child can be successful with the help and support of great teachers.

Describe an interaction with a student or teacher that made a lasting impression on you.

When I was an assistant high school principal in Pascagoula, Mississippi, my initial interaction with this particular student didn’t make a lasting impression. However, the note I received from her 20 years after she graduated made me realize that we, as educators, can have a positive impact on the lives of students, even when we don’t immediately see the fruits of our labor.

This young woman was constantly late to school and class and seemed to have a terrible attitude in general. I tried to get through her tough exterior but never thought my counsel resonated. When I wrote her a detention note, she routinely wadded it up like trash as she left my office. She managed to graduate from high school, so that end result was positive. Fast forward 20 years. I received a note from her (written on the back of a detention notice, no less) thanking me for all of our interactions through the years and the advice I had given her. She wrote that she never would have graduated, had it not been for those “tough love” conversations and my support. I still have that note!

What’s the best advice you ever received, and how have you put it into action on the job?

“Be yourself.” “Do your very best each and every day.” “Listen more than talk.”

Leaders shouldn’t try to be someone they are not. No matter how hard they may try, most people can see through the facade.

Doing our best means to never accept the status quo and to always be open to new ideas and growth.

I strive to be a good listener and to model one of Stephen R. Covey’s principles of highly effective people: “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” If someone doesn’t understand a person, there is no way they can effectively address their problem, issue, or idea. When we are engaged listeners, we understand better.

Kindergarten students at Moore Elementary School surprise Snowden at a 2023 leadership team meeting to congratulate him for his Tennessee Superintendent of the Year award.

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

Many years ago, I read “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins, about why some companies become great, while others merely remain good. It made me realize the importance of always striving for continuous improvement. “Good is the enemy of great,” he wrote, so we know if we are not improving, we are regressing. He also said that you have to be willing to “face the brutal facts” of why you are not where you want to be in order to achieve greatness. It is important to create a culture of collaboration and trust in order for continuous improvement to occur.

In education, as we constantly analyze and utilize data, we must do our best to determine the root causes of our successes, as well as what’s at the root of areas that need improving.

What were the biggest challenges for you as a school leader during the most recent school year, and how did you address them?

The negativity we heard from some corners about public schools and public school educators in Tennessee was definitely a challenge. Those comments were not based on fact but came from people who want to disparage public education — in my opinion, for their own benefit. We responded by accentuating the positive aspects of public education at every opportunity and highlighting the work of public school teachers in our district and across the state. Our school board members also spoke out publicly about the unfair and unfounded attacks on public education.

What were the biggest rewards?

One of the biggest rewards centered on the resolve of our teachers and leaders to work together for student success, despite the challenging political environment. Our parents were great partners and supporters as they gave our teachers perks on a regular basis and frequently volunteered their time. And we saw continued local investments in facilities for our students, including a new state-of-the-art performing arts center, a new gymnasium, and a new athletic complex. All of these facilities provide our students with high-quality venues to showcase their gifts and talents.

Many students are facing heightened challenges with mental health. What do you think are the root causes, and how is your team helping to support them?

Schools are a microcosm of society, and we’re seeing the struggles of many people from all walks of life. This was true even before the pandemic.

Snowden checks in with Blake, a therapy dog at Franklin Elementary School, and his handler, art teacher Jennifer Alvarado.

We provide training related to trauma and how best to help individuals and groups of students to overcome the residual effects of adverse events. Being better informed about the effects of trauma is important so we can recognize those signs and provide specific support.

Through a partnership with a local clinic that provides behavioral health counseling services, we now have a mental health therapist at every school in our district, most of them five days a week.

In 2018, we launched a therapy dog program with one canine at Johnson Elementary School. The initial plan was to add a dog each year. But seeing the clear positive impact, we fast-tracked the initiative and now have a therapy dog in each school. We even have a dog at the central office to provide support for both students and adults.

How do you take care of yourself when you’re not at work?

The goal is to stay active, whether it’s walking or working out. I enjoy playing golf, which gives me an opportunity to soak up some Vitamin D while trying to improve a not-so-good golf game. My wife, Kathy, and I like to travel, so we are always thinking about our next adventure.

What gives you hope at this moment?

My hope always lies in people and their human spirit. Even though there is a great deal of divisiveness today in our society, we believe that through perseverance, love, and character, we will return as a society to that place of mutual respect and understanding. Obviously, that doesn’t mean everyone will agree on every issue, but we can disagree without being disagreeable. As educators, we have to model how best to interact and effectively communicate with each other to enhance our community, state, and country.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.