State Rep. Aftyn Behn a candidate for Tennessee’s 7th House District
A Tennessee State Representative with a reputation for hardcore community organizing and a passion for defending public education is now a candidate for Congress.
Behn focused her announcement on her work as an organizer – work that paid off when she defeated a popular Metro Council member in the primary for House District 51.
I’ve seen it as a social worker, sitting with families of kids with disabilities who can’t get the care they need — parents forced to take dead-end jobs just to scrape by, instead of being able to stay home and care for their own children. As a legislator, I’ve heard it firsthand, picking up the phone for my constituents who’ve been waiting years for their SSDI to come through, or who were kicked off TennCare with nowhere else to turn.
Our country is broken. Our systems are broken. And the billionaires and corrupt politicians who broke them are getting richer than ever, while pointing the finger at immigrants and trans kids to distract us from who’s really to blame.
While Behn has organized around the state on healthcare issues, she’s also been a strong advocate for Nashville and Tennessee public schools.
Withheld funds or potential cuts could heavily impact Tennessee education programs, where it’s primarily been used to pay for teacher development, after-school programs, and other child care initiatives.
In a statement, Memphis-Shelby County Schools district officials say 100 teacher and staff positions could be impacted if some $17 million is withheld.
A pair of stories in The Education Report highlight the unfortunate reality of a federal school voucher scheme brought about by the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Robert Kim, Executive Director of Education Law Center:
“Education has not been spared in this bloodbath. This legislation establishes a federal tax credit school voucher scheme with no spending cap. Study after study shows that vouchers sweep aside civil rights protections, support segregation, decimate public school budgets, and do not improve student outcomes. Vouchers undermine public education, the cornerstone of our democracy, and have no place in federal policy.”
The federal voucher is proposed as a tax credit scholarship, meaning that every dollar taxpayers put into the voucher program is a dollar of revenue the federal government does not collect (and for which each donor gets a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, a deal unlike any available for other donation credits). The House version has a cap on the amount of tax revenue the government will give up; the Senate version has no such cap.
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Nashville Public Education Foundation names Dr. Diarese George next CEO
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced that Dr. Diarese George will be the organization’s next President and CEO.
From a press release:
“From direct experience, including time as a teacher, Dr. George understands the challenges and opportunities in Nashville’s public education system,” said Ralph Davis, chair of the NPEF Board of Directors. “He brings passion and data-driven insight to his work and we are excited about what NPEF will accomplish under Dr. George’s leadership.”
“As a former teacher, nonprofit founder, and advocate, I know the power and exponential impact that great schools and great educators make in a student’s life,” said Dr. George. “I’m honored to lead NPEF into its next chapter and advance its strong legacy of building connections and partnerships that ensure every student in Nashville has the opportunity and access to succeed.”
Before leading TECA, Dr. George served as director of recruitment for the Nashville Teacher Residency, where he drove efforts to diversify the educator workforce by recruiting more people of color into the profession. Prior to that, he was a high school business teacher in the Clarksville/Montgomery County school district. Known for his deep networking and relationship-building skills, Dr. George has held several national and statewide fellowships, including Education Pioneers’ Summer Fellowship, the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) Educator Fellowship, Hope Street Group Teacher Fellowship, and the Mosaic Fellowship, which empowers education leaders of color across Tennessee. His passion for advancing education is further reflected in his service on statewide councils, boards, and committees.
The State of Tennessee has said it will not keep track of whether recipients of the state’s new, universal school vouchers are currently enrolled in private schools. In other states (like Arizona), as many as 75% of school voucher recipients were already enrolled in private schools BEFORE receiving a state-funded discount coupon.
These numbers would indicate that vouchers are not so much about school choice as they are about subsidizing private schools – and, ultimately, privatizing the delivery of public education.
As Tennessee lawmakers debated a new universal voucher program earlier this year, one financial analysis projected that 65% of vouchers would go to students already enrolled in private schools.
Now, it will be impossible to determine whether that projection was accurate.
Tennessee families do not have to report their previous school enrollment in the new statewide voucher program application, a gap that will leave Tennesseans in the dark about whether the program will significantly expand private school access for public school students or send millions in public funds to students already enrolled in private schools.
The expected cost of the state’s voucher program at full implementation exceeds $1 billion. If fiscal analysts and trends in other states are an accurate predictor, Tennessee will essentially be funding an entirely separate school system – in addition to the woefully underfunded public K-12 system. Tennessee currently ranks last among Southeastern states in investment in public schools.
One Tennessee school district is leaving free money for teacher pay on the table. The Grundy County School Board has decided not to accept the state’s $2000 bonus for teachers that was provided as part of the universal school voucher bill that passed this year.
From an email from Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF):
We are looking forward to the annual Public Schools Hall of Fame event on September 30, 2025, where we will honor outstanding educators, nonprofits, and leaders in our community. This year’s honorees represent exceptional dedication and expertise and have shown tremendous commitment to our public schools, students, teachers, and families. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about the event, meet the honorees, and save the date to join us.
On Tuesday, June 24, Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey presents a donation of $50,000 on behalf of The Ramsey Foundation to the “BAND TOGETHER” fundraiser to help save the concert band program at J.T. Moore Middle School in Nashville, TN.
On March 28, 2025, it was announced that J.T. Moore Middle School’s long-standing band program would be eliminated for the 2025–2026 school year. In response, a passionate group of parents launched the “BAND TOGETHER” campaign with the mission to save the school’s concert band program and keep music education alive. With generous support from Matthew Ramsey and The Ramsey Foundation, the campaign has raised over $65,000, enough to hire a part-time band director for the upcoming year. The campaign’s goal is to reach $92,000 by June 30 to fund a full-time band teacher and keep the music alive for all grades.
School privatizers are persistent – they work and work and work to obtain access to public funds. They work to reduce accountability. They work to profit from what should be a public good.
Defeating vouchers is a priority because vouchers provide a direct funding stream to private schools that takes funding away from our public schools. Private schools are not designed to be a public good. They want to be able to select the students that they educate and are not open to all students. Because they have a selective admission process, they can refuse any child for any reason. And they operate outside of the public eye. We don’t know what the standards are that they are purporting to meet. We don’t have any accountability for the quality of education that they are providing.
The district is among the vast number of Pennsylvania districts that has come out in favor of funding reform in the state. In Pennsylvania we still fund cyber charters by means laid out for bricks and mortar charters over twenty years ago. It’s nonsensical, inconsistent, and highly profitable, which is probably why Pennsylvania is the cyber capital of the country.
