Rep. Gabby Salinas of Memphis has filed a bill that would prevent ICE activities at Tennessee public schools.
The legislation, HB1482, provides protections, as summarized:
As introduced, prohibits the use of certain public properties, schools, and religious institutions for certain civil immigration enforcement activities; requires state departments and agencies to make available to the public certain information concerning person’s rights with regard to federal agents.
It turns out, all that “school choice” talk Gov. Bill Lee used to promote his signature policy issue – private school discount coupons – was just talk.
Kids aren’t leaving failing schools.
Kids aren’t performing better once they are in private schools.
It’s just state-sponsored privatization of a public good.
Most Tennessee public school students who use Education Savings Account vouchers aren’t leaving low-performing public schools, while ESA students overall are underperforming their public school peers in both academic achievement and growth.
Overall, students receiving ESA money performed worse on the state’s standardized tests than students in public schools, although ESA students outperformed their peers in Memphis-Shelby County schools last year. The comptroller’s report also notes that scores from students receiving ESAs have increased over time.
Meanwhile, virtual schools participating in the ESA program for the first time last year performed worse than both private schools with ESA students and local public schools. Just 20% of ESA students enrolled in virtual schools were proficient in English language arts, and just 17% were proficient in math.
And, the kids aren’t leaving behind schools that are “failing:”
“Most schools that students are leaving to participate in the ESA program are neither reward nor priority schools, which would indicate their performance is neither among the highest or lowest of public schools in the state,” the comptroller’s report states. “When considering schools that have received state and federal designations, more ESA students are leaving reward schools than priority schools.”
Read the Comptroller’s report on Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)
A tale out of Ohio highlights a frequent complaint in education: The unfunded mandate.
Lawmakers have the “best” idea – and if only districts would do it, everything would be great.
Funding? Districts don’t need money – just ideas. And mandates. Lots and lots of mandates.
This is the story of education a million times– some legislator gets a bright idea and declares “Let’s require schools to fix this” while waving vaguely in the direction of schools. And while this bright idea may require more resources and human-hours, that lawmaker will be confident that this whole new program can be implemented for free. Rick Hess has often said that you can force folks to do something, but you can’t force them to do it well. That is doubly true when you make zero effort to provide them with the resources needed to implement the program.
As AI “teachers” come closer to being reality, a warning:
Aura found that kids use AI for companionship 42% of the time, and over a third of those interactions involve talk about violence. Half of those interactions combine violence with sexual roleplay. A study by Common Sense Media finds larger numbers, with 72% of teens reporting they have used an AI companion and 52% saying they use AI companions a few times a month or more.
Humans are built for connection. With other humans.
Children crave companionship – and they are finding it in AI bots.
TC Weber suggests that state lawmakers may inadvertently drive up union membership among educators.
One bill I’m hearing about would eliminate Collaborative Conferencing altogether.
To be clear: they’re not replacing CC. They’re just eliminating it.
Which is rich, because collaborative conferencing already forces educators to do enormous amounts of work to produce guidelines the district is under no obligation to follow.
Teachers will quickly realize that interpreting state law will come down to them versus the district—and they’ll need qualified help.
The unions will be standing there with membership forms.
Will MNPS change school start times?
TC Weber digs into the latest:
High schools shift later by 20 minutes, elementary schools by 10 minutes, middle schools unchanged.
All schools start 15 minutes later.
Now, the district must decide on what (if any) change will be made.
TC Weber explains that Nashville’s “lost student” problem also leads to a loss of funding.
Bottom line: MNPS is staring at $16–20 million in lost annual operating revenue from a six-week enrollment shift.
That is not chump change.
And here’s the part that often gets lost:
The fiscal pain is felt by schools, not Central Office.
Using the same baseline numbers, high schools alone account for roughly $10 million of that loss.
Nashville education blogger TC Weber takes a deep dive into the data to find out about nearly 1500 students leaving MNPS well after the school year started.
Between August 12 and October 1, Metro Nashville Public Schools lost 1,481 students.
Just shy of 1,500 kids disappeared from Nashville’s zoned schools in six weeks.
The schools losing the most students are not fringe campuses or experimental programs. They are the district’s cornerstone comprehensive schools:
