The state-run school system as it stands is a one-size-fits-all monstrosity which crowds out private alternatives and spreads socialistic and anti-Christian propaganda. It’s time to think bigger than Friedman’s school vouchers, it’s time to separate school from state.
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In 2016 Tennessee passed two new statutes with bi-partisan support that addressed the issue of whether Tennessee’s private schools, both K-12 and “higher education,” could establish their own policies with respect to whether and to what extent civilian possession of firearms would be prohibited on their campuses. These laws are codified at Tennessee Code Annotated Sections 49-50-803 and 49-7-161.
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Kentucky lawmakers hope they have already have taken steps that can help avoid a tragedy such as took place in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday.
On Friday of last week, legislation was signed into law allowing parochial and other private schools to develop pacts with local law enforcement agencies or the Kentucky State Police to have school resource officers on their campuses. House Bill 540, sponsored by state Rep. Killian Timoney, R-Nicholasville, was signed by Gov. Andy Beshear.
In Tennessee on Monday, a shooting at Christian elementary school left three children, three adults and the shooter dead.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed National Opportunity Project founder, Patrick Hughes to the newsmaker line to discuss the misallocation of millions of COVID dollars to private schools throughout the country.
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Some of the largest public school districts in the nation are planning to close K-12 schools as they face plummeting student enrollment rates.
“Nationwide, public school enrollment fell by more than 1.4 million students to 49.4 million between fall 2019 and fall 2020—a decline of roughly 3%, according to data from the U.S. Education Department,” reported the Wall Street Journal in January. “The following school year, enrollment failed to return to prepandemic levels and remained roughly flat.”
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A new regulation announced by the New York State Board of Regents requires all of the state’s 1,800 private and religious schools to provide an education that is “substantially equivalent” to that offered by public, government-run schools.
The Board of Regents passed the new regulation last week unanimously and without debate, reported WABC.
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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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Former Democrat New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says teachers’ unions were responsible for keeping schools locked down during the pandemic, a move that has enabled a mass exodus of students from traditional government schools throughout the country.
Given the generally poor academic achievement of America’s students, the steep drop in enrollment means states are now paying more to educate fewer children, and, “paying more for failure,” he asserts.
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Thales Academy opened the doors of its brand new building in Pittsboro, North Carolina, Monday, as about 100 students from the academy’s Cary campus moved to the new facility in rural Chatham County.
“Chatham is the first time that Thales has been in a rural county,” Bob Luddy, the founder and chairman of Thales Academy, told The Star News Network. “So, my thought was having a facility of that quality in a rural county that’s a private initiative is going to change the way people think about K-12 education.”
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As more families and teachers flee government schools, the Biden administration – bound to the teachers unions – has now “declared war” on charter schools, as Robert Maranto, editor of the Journal of School Choice, wrote at National Review Monday.
The Biden education department is now on a path to sabotage the federal grant program that funds charter schools, public schools that are privately managed, with its proposal of new rules that appear to actually deter applicants from seeking grants.
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The Georgia Senate Education Committee approved a bill that would create education savings accounts for children across the state and, ultimately, fund students over government school systems.
The Georgia Educational Freedom Act (SB601) passed out of committee by a vote of 6-4, but, as the Daily Caller reported Wednesday, three of the four Democrats on the committee who voted down the bill sent their children to private schools.
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I have received many requests from you regarding how Gov Youngkin’s order applies to school masking requirements.
For private schools – the answer is easy. Private schools were ordered by the former health commissioner to require masking in schools. That order is rescinded. Private schools should rely on the parental choice option and create a policy allowing mask wearing to be optional.
Public schools: This is more complicated. Last year a law was passed (SB1303) that requires public schools (only public – not private) to be open for in-person learning 5 days weeks while requires “ii) provide such in-person instruction in a manner in which it adheres, to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for early childhood care and education programs and elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
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State Representative Mike Sparks (R-Smyrna) was the first to sign the American Federation for Children (AFC) “Education Freedom Pledge” this week. The pledge seeks to unite lawmakers, candidates for office, and voters around the important issue of education freedom.
In a statement shared with The Tennessee Star, Representative Sparks said that “Parents should be in control of their child’s education, and they have the right to not only make their voices heard, but choose the best educational option that fits their child’s needs. I was proud to sign the pledge, and lend my support to this important cause.”
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In what was characterized as a blow against the state constitution’s Blaine amendments, members of the House and Senate on Tuesday passed a slate of bills aimed at providing opportunity scholarships for Michigan students.
Senate Bills 687 and 688 and House Bills 5404 and 5405 all passed mainly along party lines, with Republicans supporting the legislation and Democrats in opposition. Each chamber’s respective education committees moved the bills forward earlier in the day.
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A website that tracks critical race theory (CRT) in K-12 schools and higher education institutions released a study Monday that shows CRT, “equity” and other initiatives are being pushed at the U.S.’ top 25 elite private schools, according to a database compiled by CriticalRace.org.
Some of the schools “have embraced CRT explicitly, while others have a continuum of programming, such as ‘antiracism,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ that does not easily fit into a Yes/No construct,” according to the CriticalRace.org database. The database found that seven of the 25 schools has a mandatory form of anti-racism training, while 20 of the 25 schools had some type of anti-racism, CRT or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirement.
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This week, Niche rolled out its “2022 Best Private Schools in America” list and revealed which Tennessee private schools ranked highest out of the national pool. Niche is a website that gathers data on schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces in order to help people decide the best places to go to school, live, or even work.
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Arizona’s charter schools experienced a rush of new applications amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a compilation of state-by-state data on charter school enrollment compared with enrollment in the 2019-2020 school year. It found nearly 240,000 new students enrolled in charter schools nationally, a 7% increase from the prior year.
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Just three weeks after Gov. Doug Ducey announced that school districts issuing mask mandates or requiring vaccinated students to quarantine would be penalized by diverting money to students to use as school vouchers to attend elsewhere, demand has exceeded the $20 million he allotted by twice the amount. Ducey announced on August 17 that money the state received from the federal government through the pandemic-generated American Rescue Plan to boost per-pupil spending would not go to any of those schools.
Ducey made the announcement immediately following a demand on August 11 from Republican state legislators to take action regarding those school districts. They suggested that Ducey could withhold federal funds and offer vouchers, which he did, but he did not go so far as following their recommendation of suing the school districts.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to discuss the lack of clarity in Bill Lee’s executive order for K12 mask mandates.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Bridgeway Academy’s CEO Jessica Parnell to the newsmakers line to discuss the boom in homeschooling and information about their curriculum and services that help homeschool parents.
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Ohio public schools, colleges and universities cannot require COVID-19 vaccines after Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill that originally was introduced to help military families.
The Ohio Senate amended House Bill 244, which passed in late June along party lines, to prohibit public schools from requiring any vaccine not fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and from discriminating against unvaccinated individuals. The FDA approved COVID-19 vaccines on an emergency basis.
The bill also allows military families moving into Ohio to enroll their children in school virtually or through advanced enrollments before they move into the state.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Independent Women Forum Senior Fellow Carrie Sheffield to the newsmakers line to weigh in on the woke critical race theory permeating America’s K12 public school system and the small percentage of dollars dedicated to real infrastructure in Biden’s plan.
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Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D-Prince William) and Delegate Glenn Davis (R-Virginia Beach), who are both running for lieutenant governor, started their education debate on Twitter during the 2021 General Assembly session. On Saturday, the two candidates met on Zoom to continue their discussion about the future of education in Virginia.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist and Metro School Board member Fran Bush to the studio to discuss how Nashville’s leadership has failed public school students and their parents.
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The Buckeye Institute Wednesday joined an amicus brief supporting private school students in a July 7 lawsuit between several states and the federal government.
At issue is a federal rule initiated by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, directing the U.S. Department of Education to share federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) funds between private and public schools.
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Several reports and national surveys indicate that private and charter schools provided more meaningful educational services during state shutdowns than public schools did, and more parents are choosing nontraditional educational options this fall.
A nationally representative survey conducted by Education Next found that while there was “a lot of lost ground on learning” during coronavirus shutdowns in the spring semester, there was “a more robust response in the charter school sector and in the private school sector” among respondents.
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According to the New York Times, one of the main reasons why public K–12 schools are reopening more slowly from Covid-19 lockdowns than private schools is because public schools generally have less money. Times reporter Claire Cain Miller makes this claim three times in a single article, but her assertion is the polar opposite of reality and has been so for decades.
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Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.
During the second hour, Carmichael weighed in on Joe Biden’s recent advocacy for teachers and not students in his endorsement of the National Education Association (NEA) during a virtual assembly last Friday. He stated that Donald Trump is the clear choice for Blacks, Hispanics, and other people of color that care about their children’s education.
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The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday that states can’t cut religious schools out of programs that send public money to private education in a 5-4 ruling.
Hailed as a victory for religious freedom, the justices upheld a Montana scholarship program that allows state tax credits for private schooling in which almost all the recipients attend religious schools.
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A legal motion filed Friday in Davidson County asks the courts to halt the implementation of the Tennessee Education Savings Account (ESA) Program.
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