Tag: education

Governor Lee Appoints Three to State Charter School Commission

TC Weber

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has reappointed Alan Levine to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission. Along with Levine, Michael Carter of Davidson County and Chris Tutor of Shelby County have been submitted for approval as members. The two new members will represent Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee respectively, replacing Dr. Derwin Signet and Dave Hanson as board members. Appointments come from the governor, but must be confirmed by the General Assembly.

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Connecticut Towns Seeking Tax Relief, More Education

The Center Square

Connecticut cities and towns are seeking tax relief and more money for education from the state as a new legislative session gets underway. 

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities has released a list of legislative priorities that its 168 municipal members believe “merit priority action” by Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly before the regular session ends in June. 

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Legislative Session Finds Tennessee Lawmakers Poised to Expand and Amend Existing Education Policies

TC Weber

The 113th Tennessee State General Assembly is set to convene at noon on Tuesday, January 10, and preliminary indications are that the state’s Department of Education (TDOE) will not be supporting any new initiatives this year. The official position of the TDOE is that the administration sets the legislative agenda for state agencies, but in the past, the department has led the charge on several occasions – including, but not limited to, literacy, high-quality materials, and school funding.

For their part, legislators appear to be looking to amend – and in some cases expand – past efforts to improve student educational opportunities. This year’s legislative agenda forsakes the bold initiatives of the recent past in order to tweak and expand existing laws. Education Savings Accounts (ESA), TISA, and the 3rd-grade retention policy are all on the table for modification this year.

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Conservatives Scored Massive Victories in the Battle over Education in 2022

Admin

In 2022, conservatives flipped dozens of school boards across the county, enacting conservative priorities and amending school policies to increase transparency in the classroom.

Moms for Liberty, an organization of conservative parents and school board candidates working towards parental rights in education, and the 1776 Project PAC, a political group that helps school board members against Critical Race Theory (CRT) get elected, endorsed candidates that won many of their races to flip school boards in 2022. School boards throughout the country also banned CRT, adopted new gender identity policies to involve parents and ousted administration in favor of mask mandates.

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Analysis: Tennessee State Report Card Scores for Cannon, Williamson, and Nashville Metro School Districts

TC Weber

The recently released Tennessee State Report Card for schools and districts offers a means for parents to gather information about their children’s schools and compare and contrast neighboring school districts. The report focuses on performance, but also provides data on student demographics, student funding, staffing levels, and other pertinent information required by parents to make informed judgments about their children’s education opportunities.

“With the release of the State Report Card, Tennessee continues our firm commitment to providing families with clear, actionable information on how our districts and schools are serving students,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “The Report Card allows stakeholders to access years’ worth of meaningful data through an interactive, easy-to-navigate online platform, and now the latest data is available to help Tennesseans to explore and learn about their local schools and districts.”

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TDOE Announces Partnership to Deliver Foundational Reading Books to Young Children Through the Christmas Season

TC Weber

The Tennessee Department of Education announced a partnership with the Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) on Wednesday aimed to deliver books to the parents of young elementary school-aged children this winter. The books are offered at no cost and are for kindergarten through second grade children. The effort is part of the state’s increased commitment to early childhood literacy under Governor Lee.

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Commentary: A Republic if You Can Teach It

RealClearWire

President Biden has a civics lesson that he is fond of and regularly repeats. It is about how the United States is unique in the world because of the founding ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

“Unlike every other nation on Earth, we were founded based on an idea,” he notes before adding that “while we’ve never fully lived up” to those principles, “we have never given up on them.”

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New TDOE State Report Card Shows Improvement in Some Areas, but Falls Short of Lawmakers’ Standard

TC Weber

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) released the 2021-22 State Report Card on Monday. The Report Card serves as an annual reflection of lawmakers’ desires to bring greater transparency into how Tennessee’s schools are serving students and families.

State Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said in a statement about the report, “With the release of the State Report Card, Tennessee continues our firm commitment to providing families with clear, actionable information on how our districts and schools are serving students.”

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Textbook Commission Hears from School Librarians as They Develop Guidelines for Schools and Reading Materials

TC Weber

In an effort to assist the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission with crafting a library policy mandated by state law, the Tennessee Department of Education pulled together state school librarians to craft a set of recommendations. Kate Capshaw, the current president of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians (TASL), and Blake Hopper, a past president, presented their recommendations in a workshop session on Friday.

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Governor Lee’s Voucher Program Clears Another Legal Hurdle

TC Weber

Tennessee’s Education Savings Account (ESA) plan, often portrayed as a voucher program, won another legal challenge filed by opponents of the controversial legislation that targets Memphis and Nashville schools. A three-judge panel appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court and made up of Chancellor Anne Martin, Judge Tammy Harrington, and Judge Valerie Smith, has ruled that the parties challenging the legislation have no legal standing. As a result, all challenges are dismissed.

This action, at least temporarily, removes all legal hurdles facing the 2019 Education Savings Account law. The law provides money for families to offset private school tuition, should they choose to pursue that option due to inadequate traditional school options.

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New Program Allows UT Knoxville Students to Work as City of Knoxville Fellows

Kaitlin Housler

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and the City of Knoxville announced a partnership launching a fellows program for Baker Center students.

The program would allow the students to “work directly in a variety of departments or agencies with the City of Knoxville,” according to a Friday press release by the City.

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Kari Lake Participates in Clean Elections Commission’s Gubernatorial Debate; Katie Hobbs Dodged

Neil Jones

Following controversy caused by Arizona PBS, the Arizona Clean Elections Commission (CEC) held its 2022 gubernatorial debate on Sunday. However, the only nominee in attendance was Republican Kari Lake as her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs, declined to attend.

“Thank you to the clean elections folks. I know they had to kind of move things around as we tried to make a debate happen with myself and my opponent, but unfortunately, she was not courageous enough to show up for the debate,” Lake said to start the evening.

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Kari Lake Participates in Town Hall, Discusses Issues of Concern for Arizona’s Hispanic Community; Katie Hobbs Dodges Event

Neil Jones

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake spoke to a passionate crowd on Wednesday at the Hispanic Townhall Election Event about issues that matter to the community.

“The Hispanic community is what makes Arizona great. They are the hardest working people. They love God. They love their family. They love their children. They want safe streets. They want to make sure that the drugs are not getting into the hands of our children,” Lake said to start the night.

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Many School Buses in Northeast Ohio Amass Violations, State Inspectors Report

Hannah Poling

According to state reports, many Northeast Ohio school district buses are not passing their state inspections.

The Ohio Star viewed numerous reports of state bus inspections from Northeast Ohio school districts from June 2021 through August 2022. These reports update monthly, and the reports obtained only reflect percentages from June 2021 to last month.

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Researchers Say Better Data Is Needed to Verify Claims, Extent of Teacher Shortages

The Center Square

New research on the demand for teachers highlights the lack of information about teacher shortages at all levels of government.

A working paper from Brown University found that “teacher shortages are still poorly understood, and it remains unclear whether there is a shortfall of teachers on the national scale or if shortages are localized – a key component of the current debate around teacher shortages.”

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Some Michigan Schools Keep Mum on COVID Relief Spending

The Center Square

Theoretically, taxpayers should be able to see how Michigan schools are spending $5.7 billion of taxpayer money to recover from COVID-19-related learning loss.

But an investigation by The Center Square through more than 80 records requests to schools statewide shows how difficult it can be to obtain itemized COVID spending records. Many schools never responded to an initial Freedom of Information Act request.

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Hillsdale College Releases Statement to ‘Correct Factual Inaccuracies and Oft-Repeated Falsehoods in the Media’ About Its K-12 Education Work

Kaitlyn Osteen

HILLSDALE, Michigan- Hillsdale College has released a statement to provide answers to common misconceptions about its work in K-12 education and the nature of the relationship between Hillsdale College and the schools with which it is affiliated.

The statement has been released, following the appeal of American Classical Academy Rutherford to open a charter school in Rutherford County, Tennessee after the denial of their application by the Rutherford County School Board earlier this year. American Classical Academy intends to use curriculum provided by Hillsdale College and was launched with the financial assistance of Hillsdale College.

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Rutherford County Parents Ask Tennessee Public Charter School Commission to Approve American Classical Academy Charter School Application

Admin

The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission held a hearing in Murfreesboro Wednesday morning on the appeal by American Classical Academy Rutherford of the denial by the Rutherford County School Board earlier this year of their application to open a charter school in the county.

Twelve Rutherford County parents told TPCSC Chair Tom Griscom and TPCSC staff members in attendance they wanted the TPCSC to approve American Classical Academy Rutherford’s appeal, and grant the school a charter to begin operation in the fall of 2023, initially for grades K through 5.

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Commentary: Accreditation Is a Means of Government Control in Education

Admin

Accreditation pervades American education from kindergarten through graduate school. It has become a means through which the government enforces subpar educational outcomes and increases its power.

Of course, it didn’t start out that way.

Primary and secondary accreditation began in the 1880s as a voluntary method to improve quality among schools and establish standards for students preparing for college.

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Katie Hobbs’ Education Plan Bashes School Vouchers

Peter D'Abrosca

Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, running for Arizona’s highest office, released an education plan that bashes school vouchers and calls for tighter restrictions on charter schools. 

“Katie continues to oppose the universal expansion of school vouchers. As governor, she will work to roll back universal vouchers, which the legislature enacted against the will of voters this year,” according to the plan. “Vouchers should not have been expanded to provide an unaccountable means of enriching private schools and defunding our local public schools.”

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Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona Blames Abysmal U.S. Student National Test Scores on Trump

Susan Berry, PhD

The Biden education department announced Thursday that U.S. students’ plummeting scores in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic is all due to former President Donald Trump.

“Today’s data confirm the significant impact the prior Administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic has had on our children’s progress and academic wellbeing,” said Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona Thursday, following the report that U.S. students showed their steepest decline in decades in math and reading scores during the COVID school shutdowns.

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Connecticut Elementary Assistant Principal on Leave After Project Veritas Video Revealed He Ensures Rejecting Catholics and Conservatives as Hires

Susan Berry, PhD

Assistant Principal Jeremy Boland of Cos Cob Elementary School is on leave in the wake of a Project Veritas (PV) undercover video that recorded his claims of how he ensures his school does not hire Catholics or conservatives in order to guarantee “subtle” leftwing indoctrination of children.

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Blake Masters Speaks on the Importance of Officials Connecting with the Community as RNC Opens Hispanic Community Center in Tucson

Neil Jones

The Republican National Committee opened a new Hispanic Community Center in Tucson, Arizona, and Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters, who appeared at the center’s opening, spoke with The Arizona Sun Times via the phone about the importance of connecting with the community.

“I think people are looking, now more than ever, for their elected officials and their servant leaders to be accessible and to have a place where you can learn more and talk to like-minded people in the community and talk about issues. I think the Republican Party’s doing great, you know, with initiatives like this, with this center and others to hopefully be permanent fixtures. I don’t want this to be something we pop up around election time and then go away,” Masters said.

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State Representative Pushes to Constitutionally Eliminate Pennsylvania School Property Taxes

Bradley Vasoli

State Representative Frank Ryan (R-PA-Palmyra) this week proposed amending the Pennsylvania Constitution to eliminate the portion of property taxes collected by localities to fund public schools.

In February, Ryan sponsored another bill to abolish school property taxes by statute; that measure has yet to receive a vote in the House of Representatives Finance Committee. While enacting a statute requires majority assent of the House and Senate and the signature of the governor, amending the state Constitution requires House and Senate approval in two consecutive sessions. The policy would then go before Pennsylvania voters as a ballot question for approval or rejection and the governor would play no role in that process.

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Pennsylvania House Republicans Want Education Secretary’s Gender Policy Reversed — or His Resignation

Bradley Vasoli

Twenty Republican members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week called on acting Pennsylvania Education Secretary Eric Hagarty to reverse controversial state guidelines concerning schools’ treatment of sex and gender. 

On a webpage titled “Creating Gender-Inclusive Schools and Classrooms,” the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) calls “binary gender,” e.g., the idea that gender and biological sex are properly denoted as either “male” or “female,” a “faulty concept.” The document also suggests that teachers host a “gender-neutral day” for students above the second grade wherein kids would identify ways in which they will eschew gender stereotypes on that day. Elsewhere, the guidance counsels teachers to ask a student his or her gender identity before assuming the right pronouns by which to call the child. 

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Gov. Lee Says over 2,000 Families Have Signed Up for School Voucher Program

Kaitlin Housler

Governor Bill Lee said last week that more than 2,000 families in Shelby and Davidson counties have already signed up for school vouchers. According to the Tennessee Department of Education, up to 5,000 are available this upcoming school year.

In 2019, the Tennessee General Assembly passed and Governor Bill Lee signed Public Chapter 506, which created the Tennessee Education Savings Account (ESA) program. The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in May that the school voucher program is constitutional.

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