The Tennessee Education Association is pushing for increased school funding and a repeal of the state’s voucher law in this legislative session, according to a report from WMOT radio.
TEA President Beth Brown notes that the state’s per-pupil school funding is the second lowest in the Southeast. She says it’s time for lawmakers to spend Tennessee’s excess revenue on education.
“We actually have a $7.6 billion cash reserve. …and so we will be pushing very hard to see some of that revenue that’s going unbudgeted invested in our schools.”
Brown says the TEA will also support efforts this session to repeal Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher plan passed by a single vote last year.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
The Tennessee Holler has the video of State Rep. Gloria Johnson questioning the rules for Tennessee’s new voucher scheme and exposing the discrimination inherent in the program:
Democratic legislators today unveiled a proposal to add $1.5 billion to the BEP — the state’s funding formula for public schools. Chalkbeat has more:
Democratic lawmakers called Wednesday for $1.5 billion more for public schools and an overhaul of an education funding formula that they called “fundamentally broken.”
Tennessee’s investment of $9,225 per student trails most states in the South and its level of school funding remains the elephant in the room for state government. A trial is expected this year in a 5-year-old lawsuit filed by school districts in Memphis and Nashville over the adequacy of state funding for students and schools. If successful, the case could mean sweeping changes for how much Tennessee spends on K-12 education.
For instance, classroom size requirements have forced districts to hire more than 9,000 teachers beyond what the BEP provides to pay for their salaries, according to a recent analysis presented to the BEP Review Committee.
Back in 2014, I wrote that the BEP formula was broken:
As I mentioned, the BEP includes an instructional component which provides districts funding for teacher salaries. The current instructional component sets a salary number of $40,447. The state then funds this component at 70%, leaving districts to pay 30% of the salary cost for that teacher.
There are a few problems with this. First, nearly every district in the state hires more teachers than the BEP formula generates. This is because students don’t arrive in neatly packaged groups of 20 or 25, and because districts choose to enhance their curriculum with AP courses, foreign language, physical education, and other programs. This add-ons are not fully contemplated by the BEP.
Next, the state sets the instructional component for teacher salary at $40,447. The average salary actually paid to Tennessee teachers is $50,355. That’s slightly below the Southeastern average and lower than six of the eight states bordering Tennessee. In short, an average salary any lower would not even approach competitiveness with our neighbors.
While those are 2014 numbers, the disparity between the BEP salary allocation and the actual cost of a teacher still exists. It means the state is picking up far less than the 70% of instructional costs contemplated by the BEP. In fact, one possible path forward would be to fund teacher salaries through the BEP at a rate equal to the average actual cost of a teacher. That’s actually what Shelby County proposed back in 2014. The cost? $500 million.
Next, making up the 9000 teacher deficit — the gap between what the BEP generates and the number of teachers ACTUALLY hired by districts. That cost? Around $500 million.
Tennessee has both less teachers than we need AND we pay them less than we should. Addressing those two issues costs about $1 billion.
The other $500 million? Funding for counselors, nurses, and other critical support staff for schools.
Tennessee has the money — with years of record surpluses boosting the state’s coffers. Will the General Assembly elect to spend that money on an investment in our schools?
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Even as a legislative committee heard testimony this week acknowledging that the vendor chosen to administer the state’s school privatization program was awarded the contract without competitive bidding, ClassWallet was bragging about inking the Tennessee deal. Here’s the text of a recent company newsletter:
November marked a great milestone for the Company landing our 4th state contract, this one with the Tennessee Department of Education. It’s exciting when the problem is real and ClassWallet can uniquely solve it. I have no doubt that ClassWallet will save the Department thousands of hours of time, substantially reduce the cost of program administration and provide dramatically more accountability than the alternatives.
ClassWallet has signed a contract to work with the Tennessee Department of Education. The state of Tennessee joins North Carolina, Arizona, and New Mexico as the latest state government agency that will be using ClassWallet to manage educational program fund distribution, reconciliation, and reporting.
It’s worth noting that Arizona’s ESA program has been marked with fraud, and there have been new questions raised about excessive account balances:
Of the nearly 7,000 accounts, nine have a balance of more than $100,000 and 78 were found with more than $60,000. The records were released by the Arizona Department of Public Education, and spokesman Richie Taylor said the amounts reflect the different types of disabilities students have. But the high dollar figures raised questions for some school voucher skeptics.
“If the entire premise of the ESA program is that families need these state dollars in order to go into private schools or the private sector to pay for the education that their kids need, then I’m not sure why funds would be piling up an individual accounts to the tune of $130,000 piled up; $105,000 piled up,” said Dawn Penich-Thacker with Save Our Schools Arizona. “The funds are paid out quarterly every single year because, theoretically, you’re supposed to be paying tuition or paying therapist or paying for services.”
Even pro-voucher groups are not happy with the payment processing:
Two pro-school voucher nonprofits are threatening to sue the Arizona Department of Education for failure to send on-time payments to parents whose kids use a special program to attend non-public schools.
The Goldwater Institute and the Liberty Justice Center filed a Notice of Claim against the department last week.
They allege the agency is forcing parents to pay for tuition costs out of their own pockets because checks were not mailed in time. The students are part of the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program that uses taxpayer money to pay for private school tuition, tutoring or home-school curriculum.
Maybe, like with TNReady, Tennessee will get lucky and everything will work out just fine.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
At a legislative committee meeting Monday, it was revealed that the contract that outsourced administration of the Education Savings Account (ESA) voucher scheme was awarded without competitive bidding. Chalkbeat has more:
A legislative review of new voucher rules gave Mitchell and other Democrats an opportunity to grill state education officials for almost two hours on Monday about details for the program’s start.
Among the revelations: The department did not go through a competitive bidding process or the legislature’s fiscal review committee to secure its contract with ClassWallet.
The lack of adherence to bidding procedures should come as no surprise as Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn faced similar challenges when she held a senior level position in the Texas Education Agency:
On November 21, 2017, then-Texas special education director, Laurie Kash, blew the whistle on the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) entering into a $4.4M no-bid contract with a special education data collecting company, SPEDx; she filed a report with the US Department of Education (USDOE) Office of Inspector General (OIG).
Kash’s supervisor? Penny Schwinn.
In short, Schwinn is doing what she’s always done: Bending the rules to serve her needs.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
The Associated Press is reporting that after much debate, Tennessee’s school voucher plan (education savings accounts) will be counted as taxable income for some families.
Tennessee’s top education officials say a small number of parents who participate in the state’s latest school voucher imitative might be taxed for participating in the program.
The development on Monday comes after months of debate between policy officials, education advocates and lawmakers over whether the new school vouchers for private education will be considered federally taxable income for parents.
The announcement on taxes comes following a November statement by Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn that vouchers would be subject to taxes:
… Penny Schwinn dropped a bombshell yesterday when she told a legislative committee that the value of a voucher under the state’s new education savings account program would be considered taxable income for the purpose of federal taxes.
Following that announcement, Gov. Bill Lee said he didn’t believe the vouchers would be taxed. Now, it appears that at least for some recipients, accepting an education savings account will also mean accepting an increased tax burden.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
That’s how much Tennessee is under-funding public schools. Senators Jeff Yarbro of Nashville and Raumesh Akbari of Memphis take on the issue of school funding in a recent OpEd in the Tennessean. Here’s some of their argument:
The “fully funded” story line falls apart every time a teacher digs into their own bank account to purchase essential school supplies for their students. The claim unravels when teachers work second or even third jobs just to make ends meet. When we see children and teachers stacked into mobile trailers, describing schools as fully funded amounts to gaslighting.
Here’s the truth: The state needs to put at least $1.5 billion more into public education each year just to meet the bare minimum. And even that investment may not be enough to get out of the bottom 10 states for school funding.
Their article follows a report from the Department of Education indicating that Tennessee is severely underfunding teaching positions in our state — to the tune of at least $500 million.
The article notes that Tennessee has had significant revenue surpluses in recent years. This means the state CAN fund public schools at an adequate level without raising state taxes. In fact, proper state funding of schools would mean local governments could keep taxes low. It would also relieve the burden that hits poorer districts the hardest.
Here are some likely responses:
The state just can’t promise that level of funding year after year
We need to try new experiments like expanding charters and moving forward with vouchers
Districts simply can’t absorb ALL that money at once
Our tax policy is critical to our business climate, so that comes first
We’re already getting results, why do we need more money?
We can’t just throw money at schools (we’d rather throw it at Amazon)
And here’s the reality: Tennessee consistently receives an “F” in both school funding and funding effort. We’re not even trying.
Yes, we have the money. Yes, our schools deserve it. Yes, WE CAN FUND SCHOOLS!
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Nashville school board member Amy Frogge takes to Facebook to expose the Broad/Ed Reform agenda of privatization. Her post follows:
Dear Nashville (and others),
Please pay attention to those with whom you choose to align yourself on education issues. If you are supporting anyone funded or trained by California billionaire Eli Broad, you can bet you’ll end up on the wrong side of history.
Eli Broad created and funds a blog called Education Post. The folks who run it would like for you to believe they are just activists for low-income families and minority children- but in reality, they are dripping with dirty money. Education Post’s first CEO, Peter Cunningham, was paid $1 million for 2 1/2 years of blogging. Board member Chris Stewart, known online as “Citizen Stewart,” was paid $422,925 for 40 hours a week across 30 months as “outreach and external affairs director.” As author/blogger Mercedes Schneider concludes, “In ed reform, blogging pays juicy salaries.” (For the record, I have never earned a penny for any of my social media posts, of course.)
Paid Education Post leaders regularly try to infiltrate online Nashville education discussions (Nashville is a national target for charter expansion), and Education Post also pays local bloggers to write posts. Local bloggers Zack Barnes and Vesia Hawkins are both listed as network members on the Education Post blog.
Many of the big players in Tennessee were “trained” by Eli Broad through his Broad Superintendents Academy, which recruits business leaders with no background in education to be superintendents- with the purpose of privatizing schools (closing existing schools and opening more charter schools). The current Tennessee Commissioner of Education, Penny Schwinn, is a “Broadie.” Two former heads of Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District (a ploy to expand charter schools without local approval) were Broadies: Chris Barbic and Malika Anderson. Former superintendents Jim McIntyre (of Knoxville) and Shawn Joseph (of Nashville) were also affiliated with the Broad network. Shawn Joseph claimed both McIntyre and former Baltimore superintendent Dallas Dance, a member of Education Post’s network, as his mentors.
The school “reforms” pushed by Broadies all center around profit-making through public education: standardized testing (money for private test companies), computer learning (money for IT companies and cost-savings on hiring teachers), charter schools, vouchers, scripted curriculum that can be monetized, etc. Broadies typically see teachers as expendable and believe teaching can be mechanized.
Since charters and vouchers have become an increasingly unpopular cause, the latest angle is for Broadies to increase the number of (sometimes rigged) vendor contracts for programs and services, as well as consultants, with school districts. Former Baltimore superintendent Dallas Dance went to federal prison for rigging no-bid contracts in a kick-back scheme. In a similar scheme, his mentee (Nashville superintendent) Shawn Joseph was caught inflating no-bid contract prices (in violation of state law) for vendors connected with the recruiter and Broadies who placed him in Nashville through a rigged superintendent search. (See comments for further information.)
Billionaires like Eli Broad who fund school profiteering efforts like to hire/fund people of color to act as front-men for their efforts. This provides the appearance that the push for “school choice” (i.e., charters and vouchers) is grassroots. When these folks are questioned or caught in the midst of wrong-doing, they are able to cry racism. Meanwhile, everyone has their hands in the cookie jar of funding meant to serve children.
The ploys used in school profiteering are particularly nasty- the worst of dirty politics. The goal is usually to smear, humiliate, shame and discredit anyone who is an effective critic of the school privatization agenda. Lots of money is spent on PR for this purpose. (I’ve even been attacked on this Facebook page by a paid “social media specialist” for my opposition to charter schools.)
You’ll notice that the atmosphere tends to become particularly dysfunctional and circus-like when Broadies are in charge or involved. You’ll also notice that Broadies like to push the narrative that locally-elected school boards are too dysfunctional to lead (even when the Broadie in charge is causing all the dysfunction!). This is because Eli Broad and those affiliated with him want no public oversight of public education spending.
So- when you witness education conversations on social media, be sure to figure out who is funding those claiming to promote “school choice” or to advocate for children in poverty. Follow the money, y’all. Always!
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Tennesseans for Student Success recently released a 2020 policy agenda and noted the following five pillars guiding this agenda:
Tennesseans for Student Success is kicking off the 2020 legislative session by outlining our policy pillars and how they affect student success. Our five pillars are higher academic standards, an aligned assessment to those standards, protecting accountability, innovation in education, and securing economic freedom for all.
This sounds pretty nice, or at least rather innocuous. But, who is Tennesseans for Student Success? Here’s what their website says:
Tennesseans for Student Success is a statewide network of teachers, parents, community leaders, and volunteers who are dedicated to supporting, championing, and fighting for Tennessee’s students and their futures.
This sounds even better, right? Look! It’s everyone! All coming together to fight for our kids! We should ALL love TSS, right?!
Well, let’s take another look. It seems TSS is all about privatizing public schools. Sure, they attacked staunch public education defender and state representative Gloria Johnson a few years back. But, maybe that was an anomaly.
Then, of course, there are the candidates they strongly back.
It’s a who’s who of school voucher backers.
TSS has consistently indicated support for voucher-backers like Senators Dolores Gresham and Brian Kelsey. And, they’ve taken out ads against Republicans who dare stand in the way of Gov. Lee and the school privatization agenda:
The five pillars of TSS are nothing more than the five horsemen of the public education apocalypse. Standards and Assessment simply mean ever more testing. Protecting Accountability means using voodoo science to evaluate (and remove) teachers and keep salaries (costs) low. Education “innovation” means charter schools and vouchers (as seen in the ads above). Economic freedom for all is nothing more than saying the “market” is what should guide education policy — it’s saying we should privatize above all.
TSS is, in fact, non-partisan. They’ll attack anyone, Republican or Democrat, who stands in the way of letting privatizing profiteers get their hands on public schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
