The two have filed legislation to expand the state’s current Pre-K program so that all families can benefit.
“Working families are the backbone of Tennessee, but far too many struggle to afford high-quality preschool for their children,” said Rep. Behn. “This legislation cuts costs, gives families a raise, and ensures every child gets a strong start in life. The research is clear: when families have access to free pre-K, parents can work more, earn more, and build a more secure future for their children. It’s a win for families, businesses, and the state economy.”
An effort to oust Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins was put on hold Tuesday night when a divided school board voted to push the debate to next month.
In a 5-4 vote, the board referred a resolution to oust Feagins over allegations of “professional misconduct” to a committee meeting in January.
Bill Lee’s “new frontier” looks a lot like Tennessee’s old frontier of school funding failure
Remember how Gov. Lee pushed a new school funding formula – TISA – to replace the state’s highly equitable but woefully inadequate BEP?
Remember how Lee promised TISA would usher in a bold new era of investment in Tennessee’s public schools?
Well, as it turns out, Lee’s rhetoric failed to match the reality. Or, those who warned about TISA were right – the new formula still provides inadequate funding to Tennessee’s public schools.
While in 2018, Tennessee ranked 42nd in the nation in school funding effort, today we rank 47th. On overall funding level, there has been no change since 2018 – that is, we’re still at 43rd.
So much for that new frontier Gov. Lee promised. Seems like the same old frontier of inadequate funding combined with the newness of even LESS effort to actually fund schools.
All of this continued lack of investment in school happened while the state enjoyed multiple years with huge (multi-billion dollar) budget surpluses. Rather than invest those funds in schools, Lee and his legislative allies gave out $1.6 billion in corporate tax breaks and $500 million to the Tennessee Titans to build a new stadium.
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Districts across Tennessee remove books from school libraries
Wilson County has a list of 425 books that are no longer allowed to appear in school libraries there. Rutherford and Williamson counties recently announced they are banning or restricting access to certain books. And Knox County banned 48 books.
There’s sure to be more as districts address the requirements of the “Age Appropriate Materials Act” passed by the General Assembly.
The point of using all those devices – school-issued or otherwise – to monitor student behavior/activity is allegedly to protect the students.
However, as Greene notes, there’s often more involved – like amassing mountains of data that can be used for marketing and profit.
But the fact that we were all kind of distracted did not stop the march of ed tech’s surveillance industry. How could they? It was like printing money, and it dovetailed perfectly with the longstanding interest in data mining children to get that womb-to-tomb pipeline up and running. No matter how creepy it seemed, it was a profitable way to fix it so that busy CEOs could log on and select meat widgets like picking out toasters on Amazon.
Data is the new gold, and what we get are a whole bunch of companies saying, “I would like to collect a bunch of your gold, but don’t worry, I’ll keep it safely stored in this unlocked desk drawer.” Then before you know it, you’re reading about how huge investment firm Blackstone has bought Ancestry.com and its vast stores of genetic information. Probably just because they have a keen interest in genealogy.
Once again, this new version is jam-packed with all kinds of seemingly nice things tacked on to try and distract people from the fact that this is all a scam designed to defund public education. Lee and his voucher scammers want you to pay attention to the long overdue teacher raises and the newly-dedicated funding source for school construction projects promised in the bill.
But let’s face it − if they were really serious about the proposals, they would have already done them. They wouldn’t have to tie them to a bait-and-switch scheme to designed to undermine public education and make out-of-state billionaire voucher backers happy.
The new money for teachers in Lee’s latest voucher proposal is a one-time bonus, not a long-term commitment to better pay.
While Lee claims to support investment in school infrastructure, schools are still waiting for funds while the Tennessee Titans have $500 million in state money for their new (smaller) stadium.
Today, Mayes announced yet another fraud case in which a couple has been charged with 60 counts of fraud, having put in applications for 50 students, 43 of whom do not actually exist. The couple– Johnny Lee Bowers and Ashley Meredith Hewitt– apparently did not even live in Arizona at the time. They grabbed around $100K, which they used for “personal living expenses,” so this was like their job, what they did for a living.
Here’s the deal: The voucher scheme in Arizona is busting the budget – and it is rife with fraud.
As TN lawmakers consider vouchers (again), they should look at the results in Arizona – lots of fraud, little ROI in terms of student outcomes.
Vouchers lost big on Election Day, but voucher supporters keep insisting they should get their way
Even though voucher supporters thought they could win by putting vouchers to a vote in three states (Kentucky, Colorado, and Nebraska), and even though they were soundly defeated in all three cases, and even though vouchers have never won when put to a vote of the people, voucher supporters are still trying.
They know best, after all. And even though the votes weren’t close, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do vouchers anyway.
So perhaps the more complete version of the argument is this– nobody should be able to make me do things I don’t want to do, but I should be able to make them do things they don’t want to do. And if I want their money to help me do the things I want to do, they should be made to give it to me. Or maybe it’s “if I’m going to be forced to so something I don’t want to do, then other people should be forced to do something I do want to do.” Or maybe just “Other people shouldn’t be able to make rules that bind me.”
And then, Greene gets to the heart of the reality of vouchers:
Private schools are a way for those with might and money to escape the democratically-operated system. Vouchers are a way to funnel public tax dollars into that system while pretending that we’ll open great private school doors to one and all. But that pretense is just that– a pretense. Voucher laws deliberately protect the ability of private schools to discriminate while also protecting their right to avoid any accountability to the taxpayers.
Gov. Bill Lee wants to spend $150 million to start a universal school voucher scheme that could cost more than $700 million a year at full implementation.
He gave $500 million to the Tennessee Titans for a new (smaller) stadium.
He handed out $1.6 billion in corporate tax breaks.
And yet he has not (yet) taken a bold stand in favor of free school meals for all kids.
That, though, has not deterred Rep. Clemmons and legislative Democrats.
Rather than fund school lunches or boost teacher pay or invest in Medicaid expansion, or end the grocery tax, lawmakers have found a dizzying array of ways to reduce revenue by lowering or eliminating taxes paid by the wealthy or corporations.
Teachers offer strong resistance to Trump education agenda
Response to Donald Trump’s nomination of Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education has been swift. And mixed. Why there isn’t more fierce resistance is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps education groups are afraid of her powerful wrestling moves (she was once CEO of WWE). Or, maybe some groups want to still be in line to receive DOE grants.
“Parents and educators will stand together to support students and reject the harmful, outlandish, and insulting policies being pushed by the Trump administration. They will make their voices heard, just as they did by resoundingly defeating vouchers in states like Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska.
