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Where do Tennessee’s governor candidates stand on education issues?
Tennessee voters this month tapped Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Memphis City Council member Jerri Green to face off in the November general election.
In a Chalkbeat candidate survey, both candidates outlined their education platforms and positions on policies such as the state’s third grade reading retention law, teacher retention concerns, and the growing school choice landscape.
Departing Gov. Bill Lee will leave office next year after significantly altering education policy in Tennessee. A staunch school choice advocate, Lee championed earlier universal school voucher programs and created the Education Freedom Scholarship program, which now uses public funds to pay for 35,000 students to attend private schools in the state.
The school choice debate is likely to dominate education policy discussions even after Lee leaves office. Blackburn and Green both pointed to it as the biggest education issue Tennessee faces, though they offered sharply different approaches.
For Blackburn, school choice and expanding the EFS program is a top priority in Tennessee’s education system, which she said “is not built to address the unique needs of every student.” She is also considering altering charter school regulations in the state, criticizing “senseless red tape” she says is complicating charter school operation.
“Tennessee should be the best place in the country to start a school, choose a school, and go to school,” Blackburn said. “It’s my hope that my legacy is that no child is trapped in a school that doesn’t meet their needs.”
Public school funding is top of mind for Green, who pledged to defund the voucher program if elected in November. Green said she would direct that funding to Tennessee public schools to raise teacher pay and expand access to support staff such as counselors and nurses.
“As we continue to take money away from our public school system via the voucher scheme, our teachers are finding resources even more limited, students are losing access to supports they need, and the educational gap in Tennessee is widening,” Green said.
Read Blackburn and Green’s full responses to the Chalkbeat Tennessee survey here:
Should Tennessee expand school vouchers?
Blackburn pledged to expand the EFS program to all Tennessee families if elected governor. The program opened last year with 20,000 scholarships before GOP lawmakers expanded it this year to 35,000.
“Parents know best when it comes to their children’s education, and this program ensures a child’s success is not determined by their zip code,” Blackburn said. “As governor, I will fight to expand Education Freedom Scholarships until no parent has to win the lottery to give their child the education that best suits their unique needs.”
Green said continued voucher expansion makes her worry for “our next generation and rural towns.”
“I’ve been on the road and some of these rural, small towns only have one school,” Green said. “When you take money from that school, which is often the community’s biggest employer, you take money from that community’s future. We’re robbing our children of opportunities to give families who can afford private school welfare.”
With her pro-voucher platform, Blackburn bested two other Republican candidates in the August primary: U.S. Rep. John Rose and state lawmaker Monty Fritts. Fritts opposed vouchers, while Rose supported school choice but called for accountability measures to ensure programs work as intended.
School choice accountability
Students receiving vouchers are not required to take the same state assessments as public school students, making it difficult to determine if students are achieving at the same level as their public school peers.
Green called the program an “unaccountable” system that creates a “glaring, unfair double standard.”
“We are forcing our public school teachers and students to meet rigorous, often unrealistic benchmarks while handing over millions of public taxpayer dollars to private institutions with virtually zero oversight or transparency,” Green said. “If a school accepts public funding, they must be held to public standards. Period. Parents and taxpayers have a right to know exactly how their money is being spent and whether students are thriving.”
Blackburn said she is happy with how the system is set up currently, arguing there is “no greater accountability than a parent’s decision” to choose the right fit for their child.
“Data is important because it ensures accountability and transparency, and I support high standards in testing,” Blackburn said. “The private schools receiving EFS funding have to be accredited by our Department of Education or State Board of Education. That being true, the parents can hold private schools accountable, and we as a state can trust parents to hold private schools accountable.”
How should Tennessee strengthen the educator pipeline?
Tennessee districts are struggling to fill classroom positions with fully credentialed and trained teachers. While vacancies have dropped in recent years, the number of emergency credentialed educators has skyrocketed.
Green proposed creating a new fellowship to recruit young teachers into high-demand areas like special education while increasing support for veteran teachers.
“To keep our veteran teachers from burning out, we must immediately raise teacher pay and hire more support staff — like counselors and nurses — to ease their workload,” Green said. “By properly funding our classrooms, we can give educators the respect and resource-rich environments they deserve to stay in the profession long-term.”
Blackburn pledged to reconsider Tennessee’s current teacher licensure requirements to ensure the state doesn’t lose out on potential educators.
“While we need to hold our teaching professionals to the highest standard, we also need to make certain that our licensing processes aren’t causing us to miss out on individuals who would be great teachers,” Blackburn said.
Third grade reading retention law and state testing
Tennessee’s third grade reading law has sparked controversy over the high-stakes consequences tied to students’ performance on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP. The law, which requires significant interventions like summer school or even retention for students who underperform on the ELA assessment, has yielded results. Nearly 45% of Tennessee third graders met or exceeded expectations on the state’s reading assessment this year, the highest performance in nearly a decade.
Green, in response to a Chalkbeat question about whether the law is working as intended or needs reform, criticized the policy for forcing “educators to teach strictly to the test.”
“The pressure is so high that in Memphis, students — including my own son’s classmates — had to retake the exam multiple times on their last day of third grade just to meet rigid requirements,” Green said. “We need reform to eliminate single-test retention, trust our teachers’ professional judgment, and invest in early interventions like universal pre-K. True reading proficiency comes from properly funding our public schools.”
Blackburn praised the state’s “great educational progress” and said literacy interventions should be considered for students before third grade.
“The numbers prove it, programs like the third-grade retention reading law work,” Blackburn said. “Early reading and writing proficiency is essential to keep kids learning in schools and on the right track. By creating checkpoints so that no student falls through the cracks, we can make certain that all Tennessee students are receiving the world-class education they deserve. But certainly, ideally intervention would occur earlier than third grade to have the necessary fundamental literacy skills.”
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.
