Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District is anchored in Memphis and has been one of the South’s strongest Black-majority districts for decades. On May 7, Tennessee Republicans passed new congressional maps that carve Memphis into three separate districts stretching deep into rural, conservative Middle Tennessee. That’s a textbook “cracking” tactic: it dilutes Black voting power and turns one safe Democratic seat into three Republican-leaning ones.
And even if you don’t live in Memphis, this should concern everyone in Tennessee. When politicians can redraw maps to silence communities they don’t agree with, it threatens democracy and fair representation for all of us.
Buses are leaving from Nashville and Memphis to Montgomery early Saturday morning. This fight is far from over – save your spot on the bus and share as widely as you can!
Education advocacy group Stand for Children sent an email to supporters about the stakes of this blatant oppression:
On Day 2 of Tennessee’s special legislative session to redraw congressional districts, lawmakers are moving forward with a plan that could split Memphis up and dismantle CD-09, Tennessee’s only majority-Black congressional district.
This proposed map would create confusion and chaos ahead of the upcoming August election and could leave Memphis and Shelby County represented by officials who live hundreds of miles away from the people most affected by their political decisions.
What’s happening right now should concern every Tennessean, not just those who live in Memphis.
When politicians can redraw maps in the middle of an election cycle to protect their own power, it sets a dangerous precedent for communities across the state. It means politicians are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their leaders.
We won’t be fooled. This is a blatant power grab designed to weaken community voices, dilute voting power, and lock in political control for the people already in power.
Tennessee has now been ranked as the worst state in the nation for spending on public school students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The finding is part of a new report from the National Education Association that tracks teacher pay, student spending and education investment across the U.S.
The report shows that public school spending per student has dropped nearly 10% from the 2023-2024 school year. In that year, Tennessee ranked 48th in the nation for student spending.
The report places the Volunteer State 51st in per-pupil spending, behind every other state and the District of Columbia, prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers who argue the numbers reflect years of underinvestment.
“It shows the state has prioritized big tax cuts and a private school program rather than dealing with the most important investment we make in the state’s future,” State Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) said.
The appointed oversight board will have four years to address what Republicans argue is untenable academic underperformance and administrative instability in the district, which serves more than 100,000 students.
The new law gives the oversight board, which could be appointed at any time and must convene for the first time before July, broad latitude to set performance metrics for the district. It could also control everything from firing and hiring a superintendent to textbooks and classroom curriculum. The new body would have final say over the district’s $1.7 billion budget and major decisions like school closures and zoning.
The Unity Group of Chattanooga says in an email that the rapid expansion of school vouchers in Tennessee will lead to a dual system of education – a resegregation of schools.
Here’s what they have to say:
The Unity Group of Chattanooga remains firmly opposed to the expansion of school voucher programs in Tennessee, including Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and the newly created “Education Freedom Scholarships.”
In the most recent actions of the Tennessee General Assembly, lawmakers have advanced and enacted sweeping voucher expansion through legislation including Senate Bill 1585 / House Bill 1881, as well as House Bill 2532 / Senate Bill 2453. Together, these measures significantly expand the state’s voucher system, increasing the number of publicly funded scholarships and further diverting taxpayer dollars from public schools into private education.
House Bill 2532 / Senate Bill 2453 in particular demonstrates the scale and direction of this effort, expanding the number of scholarships available statewide and tying state funding to student movement out of public schools. These actions make clear that Tennessee is not simply experimenting with vouchers, but actively building and growing a parallel, publicly funded private education system.
We have said before, and we will continue to say, that these programs are ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable. That conclusion is grounded in what we’ve seen in other states and in Tennessee itself: declining academic outcomes; rising costs to taxpayers, and programs that too often benefit those already positioned and affluent enough to access private education.
But for us, the issue runs deeper than cost or performance.
What we are witnessing is the State of Tennessee moving back toward a dual system of education, one public system that remains accountable to all, and another publicly funded but privately controlled system operating under a different set of rules.
That reality stands in direct conflict with the principles established under Brown v. Board of Education and reinforced through decades of court decisions requiring states to dismantle segregated systems and achieve unitarystatus.
When public funds are redirected to private institutions that are not bound by the same transparency, admissions standards, or civil rights obligations as public schools, we risk recreating conditions that those rulings were meant to eliminate.
We have seen this before. Following Brown, similar mechanisms were used to avoid integration and maintain separation under a different name.
We cannot ignore that history.
At a minimum, these policies raise serious questions about whether Tennessee can still be identified as a state that has achieved and maintained unitary status. From our perspective, this is a step backward, toward separation, toward inequality, and away from the shared responsibility of providing a strong public education for every child.
The Unity Group of Chattanooga will continue to speak clearly on this issue. We believe in one system of public education that is fully funded, fully accountable, and open to all, not a divided system that leaves too many behind.
As the 2026 legislative session comes to a close, lawmakers are now looking at yet another effort to expand Gov. Bill Lee’s signature scheme: A private school discount coupon plan for wealthy families.
Some call them vouchers.
Realists call it a scam – exclusionary, expensive, and harmful to public schools and Tennessee communities.
A reverse Robinhood scheme that would make Ronald Reagan proud – taking tax dollars from Tennessee’s working class and sending them to the wealthy to fund private school education discounts.
In an email, Metro Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda notes:
After securing an expansion of Governor Lee’s voucher scam, well-funded special interests are now pushing to grow the state’s older and more costly ESA private school voucher system and the legislation is already moving quickly.
Tennessee lawmakers are advancing amended legislation (HB 1881/SB 1585) that would significantly expand the state’s ESA voucher program.
Key concerns with the amended bill:
Dramatically expand the income limitfor the Education Savings Account (ESA) program and add Knox County, in addition to the Achievement School District, Hamilton County, Metro Nashville, and Memphis-Shelby. The income limit would be so high that almost every Tennessee family would qualify.
Remove the 15,000-student cap on ESA vouchers. School districts affected by the program must reimburse the state for each ESA scholarship awarded from their respective counties. Most of these dollars come from local funds in each of these four counties. Without the cap, school districts may have to send additional funding to the state to cover the additional ESA recipients, taking resources out of the neighborhood public schools and classrooms.
Allow the ESA program to serve additional students when the statewide voucher program reaches capacity. The four additional counties that would now be included in the ESA program already have the highest number of families participating in the voucher program. This could explode the number of vouchers in Tennessee and cause irreparable fiscal harm to the state’s largest school districts.
Remove TCAP testing and annual reporting requirementsfor the ESA program. By removing these requirements, lawmakers reduce transparency and accountability, leaving families and taxpayers without the information they need to see how students in the ESA program are performing compared to their peers in public schools.
Use the buttons below to take action to stop special interests from taking your tax dollars to give private school coupons to Bill Lee’s rich friends.
Despite a growing price tag and the reality that school vouchers so far are essentially providing private school discount coupons to wealthy families, the GOP Supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly has approved a significant expansion of the state’s school voucher scheme.
The plan would increase the number of vouchers available from 20,000 to 35,000 effective in the 2026-27 academic year. The cost of the expanded program is expected to be $262 million.
Tennessee will expand its universal voucher program to 35,000 students next school year despite bipartisan opposition to the program over its growing price tag and changes to the funding assurances made to public school districts last year.
A slim majority of Tennessee Senate Republicans signed off on the legislation on Thursday. The bill will go to Gov. Bill Lee to be signed into law.
While the Senate initially sought to expand the program to 40,000 seats, the chamber agreed to move forward with a House version for 35,000 students.
Gov. Bill Lee has made it clear he doesn’t want to feed hungry kids in the summer if it means he has to take federal money to do so.
While this may seem a cruel way to prove a political point (the point, ostensibly that TN doesn’t NEED federal help), Bill Lee just doesn’t care.
He’s opted-out of a program known as Sun Bucks two years in a row – in spite many hunger and education advocates encouraging him to participate.
Oh, and this starvation scheme doesn’t save the state any money – in the federal program, TN spends about $5 million to draw down $84 million. Those federal funds ensure some 700,000 kids get some meal help in the summer. Lee took that same $5 million in state funds and created a much smaller program – one that only feeds 25,000 kids. That’s a terrible ROI. It seems Lee’s capitalist supporters would be shocked at his terrible business sense on this one.
Or, well, just shocked that he’d starve kids and not even save the state some cash.
In an apparent rebuke to the governor, two rural Republicans — Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Michael Hale of Sparta — are sponsoring a bill to require the state to apply for the federal Summer EBT funding. In past years, the program has distributed $84 million in federal funding to low-income families to help them buy their children food at the grocery store when school is out.
So far, a bipartisan group of 30 lawmakers have signed on – and the bill has passed unanimously in every committee where its been heard.
Will these lawmakers prevail?
And where do the current candidates for Gov stand on feeding hungry kids over the summer?
In an email sent by advocacy group TN for All, Nashville Metro Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda issues a call to action against the legislature’s attempt to rapidly expand Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher scheme. If expanded, the plan could cost as much as $300 million next year.
The email reads in part:
Last night, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to pass an expansion of Governor Lee’s voucher scheme.
These vouchers, called “Education Freedom Scholarships,” have so far gone primarily to wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools, with no evidence from the Lee administration to suggest otherwise.
For the upcoming school year, each voucher will be worth $7,530 per student attending a private school, which is more state funding per pupil than Tennessee provides to K 12 public school students. Meanwhile, Tennessee ranks 47th in the nation in per pupil spending for public education.
In short, this means more strain on our public schools and less support for the students who rely on them.
Vouchers are a bad deal for Tennessee families. Our children deserve strong, stable investment in their public schools.
