The Administration is also proposing to cut billions of dollars sent from the federal government to districts. And is supporting an expensive federal voucher scheme.
TC Weber notes that public education often creates a culture that is toxic for its frontline workers – the teachers:
In 2025, school administrators still run buildings like it’s a 1980s kitchen. The pressure to “move the needle” on student achievement is suffocating.
In Metro Nashville Public Schools, leadership talks to principals and teachers with open disrespect. It’s framed as urgency for students. But it’s demoralizing. It’s toxic.
He notes some startling stats:
Teachers are 40% more likely to have anxiety than healthcare workers.
K–12 educators are the most burned-out profession in the U.S.
Lee, Sexton want to expand state’s private school coupon scheme
Tennessee’s school voucher program is already taking a $144 million chunk out of the state budget. When fully implemented, the cost is expected to exceed $1 billion annually.
Vouchers are expensive – and undermine local public schools. Research consistently suggests vouchers do not improve student outcomes – and, sometimes, actually lead to a decline.
Expensive. Hurting local communities. Failing to help students.
That’s the program Gov. Lee wants to expand. And House Speaker Cameron Sexton is cheering him on, calling for at least a doubling of the voucher scheme in the upcoming legislative session.
The governor added that because of the large number of applications, he hopes to persuade the legislature to “provide more scholarships to Tennessee families” when lawmakers return for the 2026 session.
Lee, whose term runs out in January 2027, wasn’t specific about how much he would like to see the program expand. But Sexton’s spokesperson, Connor Grady, said the speaker is committed to “at least doubling” the number of available vouchers to meet student demand, Chalkbeat reported.
Behn’s record reflects strong support for public schools
State Rep. Aftyn Behn is now the Democratic nominee for the 7th District Congressional seat vacated by Republican Mark Green. Behn now faces Trump-backed Matt Van Epps in the general election taking place in early December.
As a community organizer, Behn coordinated efforts to defend public education and oppose Gov. Lee’s school privatization schemes.
As a legislator, Behn has supported expanding the state’s Pre-K program to be available for all kids.
Chaz Molder, the Mayor of Columbia with a passion for defending public schools, has raised significant cash for his bid to unseat 5th District Congressman Andy Ogles.
Molder has raised $785,000 to date and now has more campaign funds available than Ogles.
Molder has a strong record of supporting public education – and challenging interests seeking to privatize schools.
During this tumultuous year at the U.S. Department of Education that saw about half of the 4,133 employees leave due to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, the staff at the Office of Special Education Programs stayed mostly stable.
That changed on Friday, however, when the Trump administration issued reduction-in-force notices across the federal government, including at the Education Department. Court filings show that 466 employees at the Education Department were impacted and several special education association leaders say most of the OSEP staff was laid off.
Raising Concerns
NASDSE said it was “confused and concerned” by the staffing changes, adding that the Education Department under the Trump administration has repeatedly said it supports federal funding and implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education for children with disabilities.
“These RIFs, if true, will make it impossible for the Department to fulfill those responsibilities,” the NASDSE statement said. “There is significant risk that not only will Federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of a free, appropriate public education.
Team Trump focuses on being mean on purpose. To inflict pain and cause compliance through fear.
The latest evidence for this is found in the Administration using the current government shutdown to weaken the Department of Education:
Sweeping layoffs announced Friday by the Trump administration landed another body blow to the U.S. Department of Education, this time gutting the office responsible for overseeing special education, according to multiple sources within the department.
The reduction-in-force, or RIF, affects the dozens of staff responsible for roughly $15 billion dollars in special education funding, and for making sure states provide special education services to the nation’s 7.5 million children with disabilities.
Instead of investing in local public schools to meet students’ needs and ward off school closures to ensure equal access to quality neighborhood schools, Republican state lawmakers voted to force through universal ESA vouchers, which are now draining a massive $1 billion a year to instead pay for private, for-profit models that pick and choose students.
The latest edition of the Trump Presidency is about control – about achieving compliance with a radical view of how America should be and doing so by any means necessary.
The bottom line: It’s about fear. When children learn to fear the state, they learn that compliance minimizes pain.
Governing by fear is how dictators get and maintain a grip on power. You may dream of a better way, but you don’t actively seek it because you’ve learned: The state shuts down any unauthorized ideas.
As Anne Lutz Fernandez notes:
A new report on US immigration policy and mental health confirms what should be obvious: mass deportations are deeply harmful to children in migrant and mixed-status families. And when masked men grab a parent from the school car line or the corner coffee shop, all students in that school or neighborhood are subject to trauma and made to understand: The state can make people disappear. It is to be feared.
If you don’t live in Arizona or have any kids going to school there, you can still get access to that state’s voucher funds.
A man from Florida gained access to the state’s ESA voucher funds by indicating he had children in school in the state. Of course, he didn’t – these ghost kids, though, netted him as much as 25,000.
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