Capitol

With critical race theory dominating national headlines, COVID-19 causing tension between the state and local school districts, and a plan underway to overhaul how Tennessee funds education, it’s a particularly important year to pay attention to education-related bills and conversations in the legislature. 

Education funding is going to be a significant focus in the current session. The Scene has published a lot about education funding since Gov. Bill Lee announced his plan to overhaul the state’s Basic Education Program formula in October — this could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to give Tennessee’s students access to the education they deserve. The current funding formula was adopted 30 years ago and has seen little change since. Eighty-nine school districts sued the state over the current formula, arguing that Tennessee does not adequately fund education. Though the trial was set to take place this month, it has been moved to later in the year to allow the state time to create and implement changes that the lawsuit calls for. 

For months the state has been soliciting public feedback and siphoning it to various committees, and Tennessee legislators now have the chance to show how much they value that feedback and public education in general. The state has already released a new funding formula draft, which would allocate resources based on students’ individual learning needs. That’s something many folks have requested, but the draft still leaves some questions, like how much more money specific groups of students would get — such as those living in poverty or those with unique learning needs — or how the state would gauge and reward learning outcomes.

“I think that we are going down the right path,” says state Rep. Harold Love Jr. (D-Nashville), a member of both the House Education Administration Committee and the English learner funding review committee. “I really was encouraged by this notion of, if we see an area where a child needs more support, we can put more funding in for that support.” 

“You’re talking about a portion of [money] that is probably almost a third of our state budget,” says state Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol), first vice chair of the Senate Education Committee. “So it’s a huge, huge part of what we do as a state, so we’ve got to be incredibly careful. And candidly, we can’t afford to get this wrong.” 

Tennessee ranks among the bottom 10 states in the nation when it comes to per-pupil funding, and one of the major public requests received during the feedback campaign is that we provide more funding for education rather than simply changing how and where the money is going. 

Despite the magnitude of education-funding-related legislation, it won’t dominate the session’s education conversations entirely. A bill sponsored by Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) and Rep. Michael Curcio (R-Dickson) has already drawn a lot of attention — it would give families school vouchers if their district doesn’t offer 180 days of in-person learning due to COVID-19, starting with the 2022-23 school year and leading up to 2025. Families with students zoned for an Achievement School District — that is, one of the lowest-performing districts in the state — could also receive a voucher. An earlier version of the bill also provided vouchers to families in districts with a mask mandate, but that part was dropped. (The state’s attempts to limit school districts’ mask mandates have repeatedly failed in court.) 

“We’re doing this to make sure that the schools out there, our public school system, which is tasked to educate the vast majority of students in our state, take that job seriously,” said Bell of his proposed voucher bill at a Senate Education Committee meeting last week. “And we can look back at what’s happened in the last couple years here in the state of Tennessee, and we know that there were a couple of districts, may have been three, that for whatever reason just decided not to fulfill the purpose for which they were created to do — and that’s to educate our children.” 

When asked by Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) about the intention of the bill and how it relates to a voucher law that’s currently under litigation, Bell responded, “I guess it’s anybody’s guess what impact this bill would have on what’s currently going on in the court.” In 2019, Gov. Lee’s education savings account plan passed in the legislature, but Davidson and Shelby counties later sued the state for targeting the two counties. 

Akbari noted that the vouchers bill would drain money from Tennessee’s public schools and siphon it to private schools. Regardless, the Senate bill was recommended for passage.

Another bill aims to add more school nurses and counselors, while others address higher education and workforce training, and one seeks to push back school start times — Nashville has one of the earliest school start times in the country, and some advocates have raised concerns about its effect on student mental health and academic progress. Another bill worth watching is House Bill 1717/Senate Bill 1835, which requires the Tennessee General Assembly to confirm a governor-appointed education commissioner, and that the commissioner submit a strategic plan for approval by the state board of education. The Education Trust in Tennessee has a bill tracker to help folks stay on top of incoming bills and their status.

Last year, the concept of critical race theory led to legislation censoring curricula regarding race and sex. No related bills have been introduced so far, though Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) has introduced a xenophobic bill that would cut funding for undocumented students, and Rep. Glen Casada (R-Franklin) introduced a bill that would allow parents to check out instructional materials to review student curriculum. What’s more, a pair of transphobic bills introduced last week by Rep. John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) would prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in women and girls’ athletics and punish non-complying districts. These bills arrive after a law passed last year requiring student athletes to prove that their gender matches the sex listed on their birth certificate.

Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) tells the Scene he isn’t expecting any CRT-related conversations in this year’s session, and Rep. Love says, “I don’t think, but you don’t ever know.” Reginald Nash, external relations manager for the Education Trust in Tennessee, is “anticipating some additional movement in the classroom-censorship space, really seeking to dilute history or or present a form of history that isn’t aligned with truth.” He noted that Kentucky lawmakers proposed a bill that extends censorship to higher education.

“We’re hoping that such a bill doesn’t come forward in our legislature,” says Nash. “But if it does … we will be closely watching that and likely advocating against anything that comes forth that seeks to muzzle the truth or … the very real experiences of so many communities in the United States and in our state’s history as well.”

With COVID-19 still running rampant and making education-related needs and inequities all the more clear, Tennessee lawmakers have a unique opportunity to address these needs and change the trajectory of the state’s education for decades to come.

Let’s hope they don’t screw it up.

 

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