Memphis City Council Member Jerri Green – a previous candidate for the TN House of Representatives – announced she plans to run for Governor in 2026. Current Gov. Bill Lee is term-limited.
Green, a Democrat, said she plans to bring an “army of moms” to the campaign.
An interesting tidbit from The Education Report about Indiana’s voucher program and the possible implications for Tennessee:
Tennessee starts a universal school voucher plan in the 2025-2026 school year. That program is already at capacity in terms of the number of applicants. All 20,000 slots will be taken.
If growth of the program tracks Indiana, that would mean that by 2035, Tennessee will be spending more than $1.4 billion on private school coupons.
Which brings us to the second big takeaway: These vouchers are just creating a discount for wealthy families – they are not a pathway for low- and middle-income families to gain access to private school education.
State Rep. Aftyn Behn a candidate for Tennessee’s 7th House District
A Tennessee State Representative with a reputation for hardcore community organizing and a passion for defending public education is now a candidate for Congress.
Behn focused her announcement on her work as an organizer – work that paid off when she defeated a popular Metro Council member in the primary for House District 51.
I’ve seen it as a social worker, sitting with families of kids with disabilities who can’t get the care they need — parents forced to take dead-end jobs just to scrape by, instead of being able to stay home and care for their own children. As a legislator, I’ve heard it firsthand, picking up the phone for my constituents who’ve been waiting years for their SSDI to come through, or who were kicked off TennCare with nowhere else to turn.
Our country is broken. Our systems are broken. And the billionaires and corrupt politicians who broke them are getting richer than ever, while pointing the finger at immigrants and trans kids to distract us from who’s really to blame.
While Behn has organized around the state on healthcare issues, she’s also been a strong advocate for Nashville and Tennessee public schools.
Withheld funds or potential cuts could heavily impact Tennessee education programs, where it’s primarily been used to pay for teacher development, after-school programs, and other child care initiatives.
In a statement, Memphis-Shelby County Schools district officials say 100 teacher and staff positions could be impacted if some $17 million is withheld.
A pair of stories in The Education Report highlight the unfortunate reality of a federal school voucher scheme brought about by the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Robert Kim, Executive Director of Education Law Center:
“Education has not been spared in this bloodbath. This legislation establishes a federal tax credit school voucher scheme with no spending cap. Study after study shows that vouchers sweep aside civil rights protections, support segregation, decimate public school budgets, and do not improve student outcomes. Vouchers undermine public education, the cornerstone of our democracy, and have no place in federal policy.”
The federal voucher is proposed as a tax credit scholarship, meaning that every dollar taxpayers put into the voucher program is a dollar of revenue the federal government does not collect (and for which each donor gets a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, a deal unlike any available for other donation credits). The House version has a cap on the amount of tax revenue the government will give up; the Senate version has no such cap.
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