Guaranteed

Tennessee’s Constitution guarantees a free public education. Specifically, it states, “The state of Tennessee recognizes the inherent value of education and encourages its support. The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools.” Tenn. Const. art. XI, § 12. 

David Sciarra of the Education Law Center provides some insight into what constitutional guarantees to public education — like the one included in Tennessee’s Constitution — mean in the time of a global pandemic.

In the wake of closing physical school buildings and classrooms, states are legally mandated to educate all students while they are sheltering at home, regardless of student need or the conditions in the district in which they are enrolled. And this affirmative duty means that states cannot simply pass the buck to school districts to figure out how to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on their students and teachers, nor to shoulder on their own the responsibility for continuing instruction by remote, digital means.

To fulfill their Education Article duty during the COVID-19 school closure, the states, through their education agencies (SEAs), must take these minimum proactive steps:

  • Issue robust emergency guidance to school districts requiring the continuation of student learning through remote means and equitable opportunities for all students to access remote learning. The guidance must be comprehensive, addressing the full range of challenges faced by school districts, including addressing the specific legal rights and needs of students requiring interventions and supports, such as students with disabilities, English language learners, homeless students, students in foster care and those academically at-risk.
  • Provide intensive assistance to those districts serving high enrollments of low-income students and students of color to address the “digital divide” resource gaps that disproportionately affect these groups of students and impede delivery of remote instruction, including lack of internet access and devices and the need for online learning platforms, professional supports for teachers and other crucial assistance.
  • Collect data from districts on the extent of the “digital divide” with a focus on low-income students and students of color and make the data publicly available on a rolling basis.
  • Launch and implement a statewide campaign to make certain every student in need has access to meals and other supportive services while at home.
  • Issue guidance on district use of federal CARES Act emergency relief funds, prioritizing digital resource gaps and publicizing district plans for use of those funds.
  • Begin planning, through a statewide task force or work group, for appropriate supports to be in place when schools reopen, including the need for significant resources to compensate for student learning loss during school closure and support services for students experiencing trauma.
  • Ensure all public funds, including federal funds, are used exclusively to maintain and support the public education system and are not diverted to private virtual schools, tutoring services or other private education uses.

States are constitutionally obligated to make certain all children, no matter their life circumstances, have access to learning opportunities during the pandemic, and that students return to schools that are fully resourced and ready to meet their short- and long-term educational needs. Information on these resource needs will be crucial to inform the difficult budgetary decisions legislators and governors must make in the coming months, given the staggering fallout from the pandemic on state and local revenues.

The bottom line is this: states cannot close school buildings and then fail to educate children or permit and tolerate educational disparities among districts or vulnerable student populations. The constitutional obligation to provide public education belongs to the state, and only the state, and this responsibility cannot – and must not – be left to local district discretion, conditions or circumstances.

Privatizing Prowlers

Sciarra takes an opportunity here to caution against those who seek to profit from the pandemic by privatizing public schools. He notes that states should:

Ensure all public funds, including federal funds, are used exclusively to maintain and support the public education system and are not diverted to private virtual schools, tutoring services or other private education uses.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen our Tennessee profiteer friends at Pearson and K12, Inc. taking steps to use the COVID-19 crisis to grab even more taxpayer dollars with little accountability or oversight.

As the Tennessee General Assembly grapples with how to handle the inevitable budget challenges created by the current emergency, it’s important to remember Sciarra’s warning. The State of Tennessee MUST provide the resources necessary for a free public education for ALL students. This means directing necessary funds to local districts rather than simply relying on them to “make up the difference” between state funding and student needs.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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The Ever-Changing Survey

After the Tennessee Department of Education received tons of pushback from parents and teachers over a controversial survey suggesting adding summer school and/or extended school days to make up for days missed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the DOE just … changed the survey so the questions generating controversy weren’t there.

Yep. They just … changed it.

Here are some tweets explaining the changes from former TN DOE spokesperson Jennifer Johnson and some other individuals who noticed the differences:

https://twitter.com/un__anchored/status/1246938171876823041?s=20
https://twitter.com/un__anchored/status/1246938117984129025?s=20

It seems no one at the Tennessee Department of Education thought anyone would notice these … pretty big changes.

The arrogance is stunning.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Survey Says

The State of Tennessee has a survey out about how to use one-time funds from the COVID-19 stimulus. Among the suggestions: somehow “making up” for the weeks/months lost in this school year by adding time to school days or adding days to coming school years.

Here’s teacher Mike Stein’s tweet with a link to the survey:

Take just a few moments and fill it out and then let your lawmakers and local school boards know how you feel.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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COVID-19 and School Budgets

Even as the coronavirus highlights the value of public schools to our communities, school systems are facing significant budget uncertainty. Chalkbeat reports on how schools in Memphis are looking ahead and what COVID-19 might mean in 2020-21 and beyond.


Before a global pandemic closed Memphis schools indefinitely, Shelby County Schools was already planning staff cuts in its central office and in schools.


As of Saturday, Superintendent Joris Ray’s administration was expecting to eliminate 139 central office positions and 115 teacher positions, according to budget documents Chalkbeat obtained. Anticipated teacher raises would be 1% after state funding cuts last week. Overall spending for the $1 billion budget would be down $11.5 million, or about 1%.


Now as the new coronavirus spreads, the proposed 2020-21 budget is constantly changing as federal, state, and local governments adjust their spending plans for education.


And county officials, who provide local funding for schools, are researching what it would cost to get virtual classrooms fully functioning while also calculating an expected decline in sales tax money as households spend less on businesses that had to close or cut back operations during the pandemic. State officials rely on sales tax money for schools and are anticipating a significant drop in revenue.


“This is going to force us to be disciplined about what we invest in,” said Michael Whaley, who leads the county commission’s education committee. He added poverty should not be the reason students do not have access to online learning. “That’s just not fair to those students. I think this lights a fire to figure out how to do this.”

Funding is down under a recently approved barebones emergency budget, including money for teacher raises and other initiatives. Gov. Bill Lee has not yet earmarked money for districts to purchase equipment to launch online classes, so only districts that already had enough laptops for every student are fully switching to digital learning.

While state funding for investments in public school decreased from Gov. Lee’s original proposal, the budget does include more than $40 million to fund vouchers.

The legislature is slated to reconvene in June and it’s possible they could address long-term budget concerns for school districts based on the impact of the COVID-19 shutdown.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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