Author Archives: Andy Spears

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SOLD!

Governor Bill Lee and his school privatization friends Betsy DeVos and Lee Beaman scored a major victory today as school voucher legislation passed the House on a 50-48 vote and earned approval in the Senate Finance Committee by a vote of 6-5.

The measure advanced in the House after an apparent 49-49 tie vote on the initial tally. After holding the vote open for nearly 40 minutes, Speaker Glen Casada and Majority Leader William Lamberth were able to convince Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) to switch his initial NO vote to a YES. No word on what commitments or rewards Zachary secured in exchange for his betrayal of Knox County — a district directly impacted by the voucher legislation. It’s worth noting the school board in Knox County was one of the first in the state to speak out against vouchers and Knox County parents and teachers protested Bill Lee on his latest visit to the area because of Lee’s support for vouchers. Still, Zachary changed his vote after a back porch meeting with Casada, so it’ll be interesting to see how he explains that.

Over in the Senate, the voucher bill looks somewhat different. Just one week ago, Senator Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga indicated his opposition to the Governor’s voucher scheme. Today, the bill passed 6-5 with Gardenhire voting in favor. Some changes were made, ostensibly to secure Gardnehire’s support.

Now, the Senate bill heads to the floor on Thursday (4/25). The Senate and House versions have some key differences, so even if it secures Senate passage, those changes will likely be worked out in a conference committee. Given the extremely close House vote, those changes could spell trouble for the ultimate voucher package.

The question remains: What did Jason Zachary get in exchange for his YES vote?

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Bill Lee’s Wingman

We’ve already seen Bill Lee and his team of school privatizers use desperate measures in order to win votes for their “educational savings account” voucher scheme, but the latest effort reaches a new low. Team Lee turned to conservative mega-donor Lee Beaman (who gave Lee’s gubernatorial campaign $8000 in 2018) to pen an article in defense of school vouchers.

While the opposition to school vouchers includes resolutions from 44 school boards around the state, groups of parents, teachers, charitable foundations, civil rights groups, and even a former Senate sponsor of voucher legislation, the support appears to come from a small group of big money backers. The public face chosen for this group? A guy with a porn addiction who taped himself having sex with prostitutes in order to teach his wife how to better please him. You might say he’s certainly a fan of choice.

Beaman and Lee have been working together for years to bring school privatization to Tennessee. Both Bill Lee and Lee Beaman have been consistent supporters of the Tennessee affiliate of Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children, a group that works to undermine public education and advance school vouchers.

It’s no surprise, then, that after bringing Betsy DeVos to Nashville, Bill Lee would turn to his other voucher buddy, Lee Beaman, to advance his privatization agenda.

In fact, as I wrote in December, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Bill Lee is taking our state down this dangerous road:

Even though as early as 2016, Bill Lee was extolling the virtues of school voucher schemes and even though he’s a long-time supporter of Betsy DeVos’s pro-voucher Tennessee Federation for Children and even though he has appointed not one, but two voucher vultures to high level posts in his Administration, it is somehow treated as “news” that Bill Lee plans to move forward with a voucher scheme agenda in 2019.

Now, we’ve got Lee Beaman as the face and voice of vouchers ahead of a week when the privatization scheme known as ESAs will face key votes in the House and Senate.

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TEA to Host March on Monday

The Tennessee Education Association will host a march to the Capitol on Monday, April 22nd to express opposition to Governor Bill Lee’s voucher plan.

The event will begin at TEA headquarters, 801 2nd Ave. North at 3:30 PM and will proceed to the Capitol at 4 PM.

More details here.

Lee’s voucher proposal will face a vote in the Senate Finance Committee on April 23rd and is also slated to be considered on the House floor on the 23rd.

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Maddox Fund Opposes ESAs

A statement from the Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund on Governor Bill Lee’s voucher plan:

Since 2008, the Dan and Margaret Maddox Charitable Fund has been partnering with nonprofit organizations that are working to improve the lives of young people in Middle Tennessee.  Core to our values is knowing that education and knowledge are transformative.  Understanding this as an education funder, we feel that Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs) will be a detriment to ensuring that all children can access high-quality educational opportunities.

Educational Savings Accounts would divert funds away from public schools and the students that need them.

Tennessee currently ranks 45th in the nation for public spending on education.  Allowing these already scarce resources to potentially go to private institutions through ESAs would place a greater strain on our currently under-funded public schools.  ESAs would not be made accessible to all students.  Out of the 145,000 students living in low-income households across the state, only 5,000 would receive an ESA in this first year.  Requirements for documentation would also bar some of Tennessee’s most vulnerable students from these educational opportunities.  The $7,300 provided by ESAs may not fully cover the tuition for students to attend private schools and does little to address the multitude of other barriers that families face like transportation.

Accountability and measurement are important for making sure that education programs are truly making an impact.  Maddox asks its nonprofit partners to be able to demonstrate their success, but studies on ESAs and similar voucher-based interventions have shown that they have little impact on student achievement and are less effective than other programs in addressing attendance and graduation rates.  There is little accountability to the students accessing ESAs.  Students attending private schools will not be held to the same academic assessments.  There are also no provisions to ensure that English language learners, students with Individual Education Plans, or those with special needs are not discriminated against in the admissions process.

ESAs will only make educational opportunities available to a select few and without any oversight, would potentially further disparities for our state’s low-income communities.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Done Dirt Cheap

Desperate for votes for his voucher scheme to send public tax dollars to unaccountable private schools, Governor Bill Lee appears to be going along with a plan unveiled by House Republicans yesterday to buy off rural legislators with a tiny grant program. Let’s call it what it is: bribery.

Here’s the deal: The new plan eliminates Madison County from the list of districts where students will initially be eligible for Education Savings Accounts. That’s likely intended to win over the votes of Madison County Republicans wavering in their support of Lee’s proposal. It means that only students in Shelby, Knox, Hamilton, and Davidson counties will be eligible for the program when it launches (if it should pass).

Next, the plan redirects funds originally intended to help urban districts to rural districts. Again, this is nothing more than throwing money at lawmakers (and their districts) in order to secure the needed 50 votes for passage in the House.

Here’s a breakdown of how that would work:

In the first year, school districts outside the four counties identified in the program would split up $6.2 million. In the second, schools in the 91 counties would share $12.5 million. In the third year, the aforementioned counties would receive $18.7 million.

91 counties would divide a relatively small amount of funds. In the first year, if the grants were evenly divided among all counties, each county would receive an additional $68,000. That’s barely enough to fund a single position in most districts.

The amended proposal also pushes the amount of the voucher to $7500. That means at full implementation (currently imagined at 30,000 students), the total annual cost would be $225 million.

That’s enough to give every teacher in the state a raise of roughly 8%. That’s $225 million NOT available to fund the BEP or to enhance our current funding formula by improving ratios for RTI or school counselors or nurses.

Instead of adding the elements needed to make our public schools a success, Bill Lee and the House GOP envision giving that money away to private schools that don’t have to take the state’s TNReady test.

The legislation is currently scheduled to be heard in Senate Finance and on the House floor on Tuesday, April 23rd.

Oh, and if you’re a legislator not susceptible to this type of cheap bribery, Lee and his team will ensure you face pain in the form of attack ads paid for by pleasant-sounding dark money groups with names like Tennessee Federation for Children and Tennesseans for Student Success.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Looney Leaving?

The Williamson Herald reports that Williamson County Director of Schools Mike Looney is the top finalist for the same position in Fulton County (Atlanta) Georgia:

Atlanta’s Fulton County Schools on Wednesday announced Williamson County Director of Schools Mike Looney as the top finalist to fulfill its open superintendent position.

As the district’s top finalist, Looney could soon exit the position he’s held in WCS for just over 10 years if he chooses to officially accept the position May 2 at the competing district’s school board meeting.

The Williamson County School Board issued the following statement from Board Chair Gary Anderson in response to the announcement:

On behalf of the Williamson County Board of Education, I want to thank Dr. Looney for his service to Williamson County Schools and wish him the best in his next endeavor. Should Dr. Looney sign a contract with Fulton County Schools on May 2, the WCS Board, at its regular May meeting, plans to name an interim superintendent and establish the effective date of that leadership transition.

We have a strong leadership team in place at the Central Office and in our schools, and our teachers and staff are focused on success for all students. Our students come prepared to learn and achieve, and our parental involvement is second to none.

For more than 25 years, Williamson County Schools has been recognized as a top performing school district in the state, and I believe that will continue for years to come. The Williamson County community should expect a seamless transition as we move on to our next Superintendent of Schools.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Pinkston’s Parting Words

Nashville School Board member Will Pinkston announced his pending resignation earlier this month and will soon leave his position on the board. He’s offered some thoughts as he’s heading out and you can read (then listen) to his parting message here:

Friends: As you’ve likely heard, I’m stepping down soon from the Nashville School Board after nearly seven years of public service. I made the decision earlier this year and explained the rationale in my resignation letter. I’m pushing my departure date into the summer (versus this month, as originally planned) to tie off some loose ends.

I won’t rehash my reasons for leaving in this email. But if you want more information about the state of the school board, listen to my “exit interview” on the Nashville Sounding Board podcast — recorded a few days after I announced my plan to leave. The first few minutes of the podcast are pleasantries and chit-chat. But the rest of it is a spirited discussion about Metro Nashville Public Schools and major issues, including (with time marks):

  • Employee pay and HR (12m01s & 43m40s)
  • Budget and revenue (14m40s & 49m40s)
  • School board and superintendent evaluation (18m10s & 28m20s)
  • Priority schools and charter schools (21m20s & 46m50s)
  • Standardized testing and English learners (23m05s)
  • Race and equity in funding (26m15s & 29m40s)
  • Future of the school board (40m50s)

Nashville can, and should, have more of these kinds of thoughtful conversations to help inform next steps at MNPS. I appreciate the Nashville Sounding Board’s Benjamin Eagles for creating a good platform for civic discourse.

Meanwhile: Even though I’ll be departing the boardroom, I’m not leaving the public-education arena. On the heels of my Race to the Bottom project, I’ve been thinking about a new campaign to better explain how charter schools bilk Tennessee taxpayers and our chronically underfunded school systems. More on that another day.

Finally, as I said on the podcast: Other than being a husband and a father, serving Nashville’s 86,000 students has been the most important thing I’ve done in life. Over the years, I’ve appreciated the support of countless students, parents, teachers, taxpayers, and friends. I’ve always believed that public education is our greatest democratic institution. With this in mind, I know MNPS won’t just survive — it will thrive. Thanks, and onward.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Happy TNReady Week

Williamson County School Board member Eric Welch offers this commentary on TNReady and vouchers:

HAPPY TN READY WEEK!!! Are you excited???

Oh wow…..that’s a lot of one finger salutes….😟.

So you’re saying you aren’t a fan of the state’s mandated TN Ready testing and your satisfaction levels so far are akin to the Comcast customer service line?

Well you may want to stop reading now because the fact is that under the proposed Voucher bills currently before the Tennessee legislature, those tests are just for your kids. Those using public dollars for private for-profit schools in the form of vouchers wouldn’t be subject to the same apples-to-apples testing requirement.

According to Chalkbeat:

“Students receiving education savings accounts — a newer kind of voucher now under consideration by the Tennessee General Assembly — would have to take half as many tests as their counterparts in public schools.

The retreat in accountability for a proposed pilot program even has some of the new Republican governor’s supporters scratching their heads.

“I would think that we would want the recipients to go through the full battery of assessments that students in public schools would receive,” said freshman Rep. Charlie Baum, a Republican from Murfreesboro, of the need to “compare apples to apples” in measuring the program’s success.”

Testing Time

Here’s a link to the TN Department of Education’s page on testing times for various grade levels.

The information on the site indicates that students in 3rd grade can expect to spend 5 hours and 45 minutes testing. Of course, this all happens over a week, and means students effectively lose days of instructional time.

This year, many Tennessee students are taking tests on pencil and paper since our TNDOE can’t predict when hackers or dump trucks will attack the integrity of our state’s tests.

Next year, as we shift to a new vendor, we’ll also see students take pencil and paper tests. Then, back to online TNReady for testing in the 2020-21 academic year.

No word from our new Commissioner of Education on amending our state’s ESSA application to change testing formats or move away from annual testing altogether.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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One Scheme at a Time

The Senate Finance Committee was slated to take up both Governor Lee’s charter authorizer bill and his plan to voucherize Tennessee public schools today. Instead, the committee only completed discussion on the charter bill, ultimately approving it and moving it forward.

Apparently, the voucher legislation will have to wait at least a week as revelations about growing opposition are causing concern among Governor Lee’s team.

In fact, in a budget update presented to the committee, Lee’s Finance Commissioner noted that $25 million was being dedicated to fight Hepatitis C in Tennessee prison. Where’d that money come from? It’s the exact amount previously dedicated to year one of Lee’s voucher scheme.

Commissioner McWhorter said the money shift would not impact the voucher scheme in year one, but the move raised questions among advocates and critics alike.

It’s entirely possible the Senate Finance Committee is waiting to see how the House acts on vouchers before taking a controversial vote. It’s also quite possible the votes simply aren’t there for a voucher plan this year.

Tune in next week to see what, if anything, the Senate does with vouchers. Will a weekend of arm-twisting by Bill Lee move a vote or two? Will the House advance the bill and thereby push the Senate to act?

The drama continues …

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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This One’s for Dolores

Last week, Senate Education Committee chair Dolores Gresham accused public school principals of viewing kids as “profit centers” during a hearing on Governor Bill Lee’s voucher legislation. This meme tells the real story: Privatizers seek profit from our kids by way of publicly-funded vouchers.

What’s your meme? Got a message about school privatization? Send it my way: andy@tnedreport.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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