Republican state legislators across the state of Tennessee praised the creation of a new joint working group on Monday by Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) (pictured above, right) and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) to study the impact federal funds have on education in the Volunteer State and consider rejecting the $1.8 billion in “strings attached” annual federal funding the U.S. Department of Education provides for K-12 public schools in the state.
Democrat state legislators complained that the proposal was “misguided.”
State Senator Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) and State Representative Debra Moody (R-Covington) will lead the new group.
Lundberg (pictured above, left) told The Tennessee Star, “For me, it’s about answering three questions. What does the money do for us, what do we get for it, and, how much does it cost us?”
Sources familiar with the proposal told The Star they believe that at least $600 million of the annual federal funding is spent on compliance costs with U.S. Department of Education regulations, meaning that the net annual financial benefit to the state of Tennessee is $1.2 billion at most. Several sources say the annual compliance costs may be as high as $900 million, which would mean the net annual financial benefit to the state is only $900 million.
Fellow joint working group member State Representative John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) told The Star he is “grateful” for the speaker’s faith in him and for “the opportunity to be part of this group.”
In the lawmaker’s eyes, the federal government has been increasingly aggressive in its attempts to insert itself into state education policies. Ragan characterized the federal government’s ever-increasing stipulations as an overreach by the federal government.
He pointed out that federal money is not just derived from the Department of Education but also through other departments like the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Defense. The joint working group charter tasks the group with looking at all federal education dollars, and he wonders if the state can’t accept some separation of funding.
The charter for the joint working group outlines four areas of focus:
- Identify the amount of federal funding the state, districts, and schools receive and the laws associated with accepting such funds;
- Examine how the state, districts, and schools use or intend to use the funding, and whether there are conditions or requirements for accepting such funds;
- Report on the feasibility of the state rejecting federal education funding;
- Recommend a strategy on how to reject certain federal funding or how to eliminate unwanted restrictions placed on the state due to receiving the funding.
Tennessee receives $1.8 billion in Title I, IDEA, and other federal funding each year, supporting low-income students, students with disabilities, and school lunch programs.
Group members are expected to deliver a report to the State General Assembly by January 9th.
Ragan told The Star, “The timeline presents a challenge, not an insurmountable one, but nonetheless a challenge. I look forward to getting to work as quickly as possible.”
Republicans enjoy super majorities in both the Tennessee State Senate and the Tennessee House of Representatives.
Predictably, Democrat state legislators oppose the idea of the state rejecting federal education funding.
State Senator Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) told The Star, “In the old days when we did things the so-called ‘Tennessee way’ without interventions from the federal government, we just didn’t meaningfully educate most students with disabilities or come close to adequately funding the education of poor children. I don’t think we really want to go back to that.”
“When it comes to schools, we could study how to make bolder, more strategic, and more effective investments for months without stumbling upon the misguided notion of eliminating 10% of our education budget,” Yarbro added.
“I don’t see why we’d study how to blow a $1.8 billion hole in the state budget. Tennesseans would still pay those taxes, but the benefit would go to the other 49 states,” Yarbro said. He also expressed concern that such an action would require Tennessee to “ramp up its reliance on sales and property taxes just to maintain the status quo.”
The state senator added, “You don’t really need an accounting degree or a legislative study committee to recognize the fiscal irresponsibility.”
Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS), as one of the largest school districts in the state, would be significantly affected by any effort to refuse or limit federal money. The naming of the joint working group concerns school district leaders.
“Federal funds are used for some of our highest-needs schools and student populations, such as students with disabilities, students experiencing poverty, and our English learner students,” Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) communications chief Sean Braisted told The Star. “Federal funding is also a significant portion of our school nutrition budget. This is in addition to the COVID relief funding we received through ESSER, which has gone to fund many of our district-wide academic and wrap-around supports for students.”
“We have significant concerns about any plans to eliminate federal funds and hope that lawmakers will act with extreme caution before making any decisions that could reduce or eliminate support systems for our students in need,” he said. “We would suggest that instead of supplanting federal funds with state dollars, the state uses those additional funds to supplement the underfunded public school system in Tennessee.”
Joint working group member State Representative William Slater (R-Gallatin) acknowledged the importance of the federal funds but told The Star, “Tennessee taxpayers send money to the Federal Government in buckets, but it comes back to us in dribbles with strings attached. It’s worth looking at those strings and what they cost Tennesseans.”
JC Bowman, executive director for Professional Educators of Tennessee (PET), questioned whether the Tennessee Department of Education has the capacity to adequately oversee the additional Federal dollars.
“Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally identify legitimate concerns about the bureaucracy associated with federal education funding.” Bowman told The Star, “They suggest that the state could be more efficient in managing education without federal regulations. However, there is little indication, especially in the previous 4-years, that the state can better manage additional funds.”
Bowman pointed to the state’s Achievement School District and ESSER Fund distribution as prime examples.
“Tennessee public schools received billions of dollars in federal aid during COVID-19, and many of those dollars were unspent, according to the Beacon Center of Tennessee,” Bowman said.
The PET executive director added, “Tennessee is a reimbursement state, meaning that we must first spend local operating funds before we draw down a reimbursement from the state. This requires significant documentation and reporting, and there is a lag between when funds are encumbered, spent, or reimbursed.”
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TC Weber is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. He writes the blog Dad Gone Wild. Follow TC on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]. He’s the proud parent of two public school children and the spouse of a public school teacher.
We can’t afford not to stop taking federal money. They are are poisoning our kids with Marxism and lbgtq bs! And financially speaking the federal government is the Titanic. It will crash at some point so it’s best to untie our lifeboat from it now.
Kick out the feds.
There is no Constitutional mandate for the Federal Dept of Propaganda ( aka education).
As a former Educator at the TDOE, there is no reason we could not do a much better job in the administration of a wholesome, productive education system without the FDOE tainted grants. The money belongs to the people. Its sent to DC & laundered, redstributed as some Marxist sees fit. Our morbidly obese government is filled with Marxists spending our money in ways that does great harm to our children & our country in general.
And as a parent & grandparent, it concerns me that the mandates that come with the money from DC are not advancing better outcomes. Who wants their child to be indoctrinated by CRT Marxists in an effort to infuse Racism into our children’s minds. America is not a racist country. CRT will take our country backwards & truly divide, not unite our citizens in the common goal of the American Dream. Some of the funds require administrators & staff to encourage children to consider they may be a different sex from the one they are born. Some of the funds require purchasing pornograhic books to be included in their curriculum & even allow boys (dressed up as girls) be allowed to play sports , dress & shower in the girls dressing room. Drag Queens & LGTBQ+ crap being presented as some kind of goal in life. Again we are going backwards. Title 9 took a lot of time to give girls their own sports teams to compete in. It’s unfortunate, but our school teachers & children are having this crap crammed down their throats by DC. For what? I personally believe it’s grooming innocent children to think this BS is “normal”, & to poison our children’s minds, morally decaying them at a very young age. It seems evil at its core.
I’d like to see our Legislature ban Pride flags in our classrooms. We do not all support the Pride ideology. But we are all Americans. need to unite on the things we have in common & work towards common goals. The purpose of our Public School System is to produce great citizens, who will loyally serve their communities & their country. Every classroom should have an American flag with a full curriculum on the meaning of our flag & why we are proud of what it represents. I would be shocked if our students are taught about such Tennessee heroes as Davy Crockett, General Andrew Jackson & Sergeant Alvin C York & many others from Tennessee. Books that are written to give our children a reason to be proud. A curriculum about our Founders who knew when they signed the Declaration of Independence, they were signing their own death warrant. These men were willing to do heroic things & suffered unbelievably to insure that America would be liberated from the King of England, so they could be free individuals with God given rights, and not subjects to a Royal Tyranny. Slavery existed & it was a bad thing, but in Tennessee there were many Black owned plantations who had slaves. Our US Constitution laid the groundwork to eliminate slavery & we did. I don’t think our teachers know about these facts or how to teach them. They too have been indoctrinated by Marxists in our academic communities.
I hope our Legislature will remove funds from every tax funded Tennessee College or University that wastes money on Departments & Directors of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. It’s poison & a waste of our tax dollars.
Part of the school curriculum should include how important the Judea-Christian faith was to the formation of all our American Traditions & Laws. The very things that made America Exceptional. It’s exhausting listening to all the haters who want to destroy America, & its becoming more dangerous everyday. It seems we are losing the battle to the Marxists.
Time to get back to the basics. Stand our ground on principles & put first things first. A house undivided will not stand.