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:
Yes, all school meals should be free for every kid every day.
But for now, free meals are limited to those who fill out forms and qualify based on income.
Lee has an opportunity to accept federal funds for 2026 -and the deadline for that decision is fast-approaching (It’s January 1st).
Groups are asking Lee to take action – County Mayors, pastors, and more are calling on Lee to accept the funds that help some 700,000 kids access food assistance in the summer.
Below is a statement from the Tennessee High School Democrats:
Schools of Hope co-location shifts costs, concentrates disruption in vulnerable communities, and strips local school boards of authority, all while insulating the neighborhoods and families with the most resources. That’s not innovation. It’s the extraction of resources from public schools for the benefit of charter corporations.
The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday announced a proposed agreement with Missouri that would shutter a Biden-era student loan repayment program and require millions of loan holders to immediately begin repaying their student debt.
The proposal would end the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan, which the Biden administration launched in 2023.
Nearly eight million student loan borrowers on SAVE plans began accruing interest on their debt again in August after the Education Department restarted the charges.
The Student Borrower Protection Center said it projects that the typical borrower will be forced to pay more than $3,500 per year or $300 per month in interest charges.
Five incumbent Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members — Michelle McKissack, Natalie McKinney, Tamarques Porter, Sable Otey and Towanna Murphy — confirmed with Chalkbeat that they’re running for reelection.
Tennessee House Republican leaders will push forward a plan in 2026 to install a Memphis-Shelby County schools oversight panel that would seize significant decision-making authority from the locally elected school board.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton and education committee Chairman Mark White confirmed this month they are committed to working with the Senate to pass a form of takeover legislation in the 2026 legislative session.
What Tennessee kids want for Christmas is Summer EBT funding
Gov. Bill Lee took Tennessee out of the Sun Bucks program in 2025.
Sun Bucks is a Summer EBT program through SNAP that provides extra funds ($120) to help bridge the summer gap while kids are not getting meals at school.
Now, Lee must once again decide what to do about Sun Bucks – will he take the money in 2026 and feed as many as 700,000 kids? Or, will he return to his failed 2025 model that only helped a few thousand?
We respectfully write to you to implore you to take immediate action to address the nutrition needs of Tennessee’s most vulnerable children. We write not merely as constituents, but as people of faith. We recognize and appreciate your public commitment to leading our state with a heart for the “least of these,” and it is in this spirit of shared moral responsibility that we—314 faith leaders from across the state—petition you to intervene for the 700,000 children in Tennessee whose health and future depend on a decision that must be made before January 1.
The Knoxville News-Sentinelreports on letter grades assigned to Knox County Schools:
Knox County Schools has made significant improvements on the individual school level, with 42 schools earning high marks in the “school letter grades” announced by the Tennessee Department of Education.
The department released the grades Dec. 19 in its 2024-2025 State Report Card. Twenty of Knox County’s schools received an “A,” and 22 schools received a “B,” which together represent more than half of the 81 schools graded in the county.
