Tag: Public Schools

Kerry McDonald: Parents’ Demand for More Education Options Has Been Met with Greater Innovation in Providing Alternatives to Public Schools

Susan Berry, PhD
Kerry McDonald

Senior Education Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Kerry McDonald told The Star News Network the time is ripe in America for greater innovation and entrepreneurship in providing new education models for parents exiting the government school system.

Many parents got an up-close look at what their children are learning in public schools for the first time during the pandemic school closures and subsequent remote learning, leading them to consider education alternatives.

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Corey DeAngelis: More School Choice Creates Greater Incentive for Teachers’ Unions to Push Student-Focused Policies

Susan Berry, PhD
Corey DeAngelis of the American Federation for Children

In an interview with The Star News Network, nationally known school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis said teachers’ unions would be incentivized to push for more student-focused policies in public schools if school funding followed the child and more states adopted school choice programs.

DeAngelis, the national director of research at the American Federation for Children, is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a senior fellow at the Reason Foundation.

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Documentary Exposes Critical Race Theory and ‘Corrupting Influence of Teachers’ Unions’ on Education of American Children

Susan Berry, PhD
Young girl in pink long sleeve writing

A new documentary exposes Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the “hidden agenda in America’s schools,” as it also emphasizes the “corrupting influence of teachers’ unions” and urges a return to the true education of American children.

Fathom Events, the film’s distributor, notes on its website Whose Children Are They? seeks to “pull back the curtain about what is truly happening in our public schools today.”

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Youngkin Stays on Virginia Public Schools, Rescinds Curricula Found in Violation of Civil Rights

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Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Friday followed through on his first official initiative after taking office in January to review, then rescind what his considers “inherently divisive concepts including Critical Race Theory” in commonwealth public school curricula.

Youngkin announced the move in a 19-page report in which he states: “Executive Order One charged the [commonwealth’s] superintendent of Public Instruction to begin the work of identifying and addressing inherently divisive concepts including ‘Critical Race Theory. … This interim report rescinds certain policies, programs and resources that promote discriminatory and divisive concepts as directed by Executive Order One.”

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Commentary: Shutting Down Parents Does Not Help Public Education

Admin

As school districts start dropping the mask mandates, removing pornographic books from their libraries, and explicitly prohibiting critical race theory, it’s clear that the parent protests are working. School boards, even in progressive bastions like San Francisco, are currently being cleaned out and replaced by more pro-parent members. Moreover, politicians like the governor of Oklahoma are openly instituting a school choice model that would allow for different schooling models and have education dollars follow the student, not automatically go to the school.

Naturally, these developments invite more pushback (sometimes literally so) from those who believe they’re supporting public education. It was fine in the past to let various kooky parents carry on about the evils of teaching Harry Potter or sex ed; school boards and district leaders could simply yawn and carry on as before. However, now that it actually threatens their authority and influence, they can no longer ignore parents’ concerns..  

In general, opponents of protesting parents make the same points over and over. They deny that public schools have problems, play semantic games with critical race theory (“it’s just an abstract legal theory taught in law school,” etc.), and accuse angry parents of being misguided racists. In their view, parents who demand a more wholesome and academic experience for their children are actually demanding an exclusively white and privileged experience. And for good measure, they will add an anecdote about a heroic public school teacher changing lives, proving beyond any doubt that public schools are still doing noble work and are essential for a healthy, diverse society.  

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Some School Districts Cancel ‘Diversity’ Programs After Backlash

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As backlash grows against so-called “diversity” programs in public schools, some districts throughout the country have been canceling plans to implement such programs.

According to ABC News, one such program was in Colorado Springs School District 11, a district that serves over 26,000 students. In May of 2020, shortly after the accidental fentanyl overdose death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the district was among the first in the nation to push for an “equity policy.”

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Governor Bill Lee Joins The Dan Mandis Show to Talk About Re-Working the Basic Education Program and Holding Schools Accountable

Julie Carr

  Live from Nashville, Tennessee, Friday morning on The Dan Mandis Show – weekdays on Supertalk 99.7 WTN – weekdays 5 a.m. to 9 a.m.– host Mandis welcomed Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to discuss how he will reformulate the Basic Education Program from the ground up and hold underperforming schools accountable. Mandis: Governor Bill Lee joining us. And always appreciate having you on the radio program, sir. There’s been a lot of discussions going on Capitol Hill over the last few weeks about how we’re going to fund the schools. Now, Governor, you have said that you want the funding to follow the kids no matter where they go. During your State of the State speech, you said this: (Bill Lee clip plays) I am proposing an innovative approach that sets aside dollars for each student based on their individual needs. And these dollars will be used in whatever public school they attend. This is not just hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. This is our kids and their lives. So, Governor, a lot of folks said hallelujah. And for the last many weeks, we have been waiting, including folks in the state legislature, eagerly awaiting your proposal.…

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Grassroots ‘America Pack’ Recommends 36 Bills in the Arizona Legislature This Session

Rachel Alexander

America Pack, a grassroots movement “built to empower citizens to hold elected officials accountable, advocate for honest elections, support law enforcement, and fight for freedom and liberty,” has issued a list of its most important bills this session in the Arizona Legislature. The topics primarily address election integrity, education, and COVID-19. They must be scheduled to be heard in a committee by Feb. 18, or they will die.

Election Integrity – House Government and Elections Committee

HB 2023, sponsored by State Representative Mark Finchem (R-Mesa) with several co-sponsors, requires digital images of ballots to be posted publicly online after elections.

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Public School Pandemic Decline Leads to Rise in Parent-Formed Microschools

Susan Berry, PhD

School closures and district struggles to provide adequate remote learning platforms for students have led parents, and some teachers, to think outside the box to create their own private “microschools” that provide individualized learning and flexibility.

In late summer of 2020, as many school districts wrestled with reopening amid government-imposed mandates and teacher union demands, Jason Bedrick, director of policy at EdChoice, and his colleague, fellow Matthew Ladner, prepared a report at Heritage.org that explained the concept of microschools.

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Pennsylvania Senate Democrats Push for Public-School Funding Increase

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Senate Minority Appropriations Chairman Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia) announced Monday he aims to achieve the largest public-school funding boost in state history this year.

Basic education funding has already seen a record-setting four-percent spending increase for the current fiscal year, with $7.07 billion in state-taxpayer dollars now going to public schools. (About twice that amount also gets allotted to schools annually from local property-tax revenues.)

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Commentary: The Collapse of Yellow School Bus Transport

RealClearWire

Between 2012 and 2019, student ridership on school district buses declined nationally by 3.8 million riders. The drop is owed to various factors, especially increased demand for drivers in private industry. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the trend, via a combination of even more demand for drivers with Commercial Drivers Licenses and reluctance of older drivers to return to work after the shutdown. A nationwide bus driver shortage has been in the headlines this fall, with stories focusing on stranded students and; most dramatically, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker called out the national guard to drive buses.

The decline of the yellow bus system presents an equity challenge for students. In a choice-based education system, lack of bus transport in certain areas means that children in those areas will have fewer schooling options. The problem will require an urgent effort to modernize. Nationwide, only about a third of students took buses to school in 2017, but in some states the figure is considerably lower – such as Arizona, where it had 23% by 2019.

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Los Angeles Schools Delay Forcing Thousands of Unvaccinated Students Back to Online Learning

The Center Square

Los Angeles Unified School District will hold off enforcement until the start of the Fall 2022 semester for a vaccine mandate that would have moved thousands of students out of the classroom and into remote learning.

The LAUSD’s Board of Education voted Tuesday to suspend enforcement of a vaccine mandate for all students 12 and older until the fall. The original mandate, which passed in September, required students to show proof of full vaccination or obtain an exemption by Jan. 10, 2022, to continue attending in-person classes.

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Report: More Than Half of Federal School COVID Relief Funds Used for Non-Pandemic Purposes

Admin

This week’s Golden Horseshoe Award goes to the U.S. Department of Education for approving pandemic relief spending plans by school districts that include millions for upgrading athletic facilities, installing security cameras, purchasing floor shiners and other non-pandemic related projects.

Approximately $190 billion in pandemic funding under both the Trump and Biden administrations was allocated to schools to safely reopen and protect teachers and students.

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Nashville Public School Teachers and Amazon Partner to Generate Ideas for Schooling Changes

Bradley Vasoli

The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF), a Vanderbilt University-based schooling-policy nonprofit, this week announced the creation of its first twelve-member “Teacherpreneur cohort” to consider solutions to what the organization sees as major challenges in education. 

NPEF—which aligns itself with progressive causes like “culturally relevant curricula,” higher teacher pay and increased public-school funding—is creating its new program with financial support from the ubiquitous online merchant Amazon, which also owns the information-technology-platform company Amazon Web Services (AWS).

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Gov. Walz’s Education Department Lobbied Against Measure to Remove Violent Students from Classrooms

Admin

Minnesota schools are struggling with an increase in student violence, yet Gov. Tim Walz’s Department of Education (MDE) lobbied against a measure to quell the chaos.

Rochester schools are “taken over with violence,” a fight between students at Hopkins High School recently left three staff members with injuries, and ISD 728 is accused of not cracking down on student-on-student sexual abuse. Meanwhile, Rochester is banning parents who don’t wear masks from school grounds for a year, a St. Louis Park Catholic school has rolled out a new “social justice algebra” class, and some other schools are moving back to “distance learning.” Critics say that spending time and money on initiatives like these distracts from what schools should be focused on: stopping classroom violence.

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California Teachers Association Conference Instructed Teachers to Undermine Parents on Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation

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California’s largest teacher’s union instructed members at a meeting in October about the best ways to undermine parents and conservative communities regarding gender identity and sexual orientation issues, according to leaked documents and audio obtained by Abigail Shrier.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) held a conference on Oct. 29-31 in Palm Springs, California. During workshops, teachers said they surveilled students’ Google searches, online chats and hallway conversations to identify and personally invite sixth grade students to join LGBTQ school clubs, according to the leaked documents and audio reviewed by Abigail Shrier, which were authenticated by three conference attendees.

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State Representative Mike Sparks First to Sign ‘Education Freedom Pledge’

Morgan Nicole Veysey

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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Woke Teachers Go Viral After Sharing Their Shocking Classroom Behavior on Social Media

Admin

Woke K-12 teachers ranting about their leftist agendas are ubiquitous on social media, particularly the Twitter account “Libs of TikTok.”

As universities ramp up their efforts to train K-12 educators on how to teach components of leftist and woke ideologies, Campus Reform decided to give parents and community members a look in the classroom with information on the higher education programs and academic theories that trained some of teachers behind those infamous videos.

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Commentary: Financial Stability Is Key to Being Able to Leave Job for Refusing Vaccine Mandate

Admin
Joshua Mawhorter

Until recently, I was a California teacher working in two charter schools, one as a full-time classroom teacher of Government/Economics and sometimes U.S. History, and the other as a part-time independent study teacher who assists families with a program primarily based around homeschooling. I have taught for about five years and love teaching.

Last week, I was fired from one school and put on unpaid administrative leave at the other because of my refusal either to take and demonstrate proof of the COVID-19 vaccine or test weekly. I even filed a religious exemption stating the following that was rejected:

“As a committed follower of Christ, I religiously and philosophically cannot submit to either a government vaccine mandate or weekly testing.

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Loudoun County Sheriff Rejected School Superintendent’s ‘Extraordinary’ Security Requests for School Board Meetings

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Scott A. Ziegler and

Recently-unearthed documents revealed a disagreement between the superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), after the former requested increased security measures from the latter in order to combat protesting parents at school board meetings, the Daily Caller reports.

The correspondence was revealed by a public records request from the Fight for School PAC. Documents show that superintendent Scott Ziegler’s requests included an increased presence of officers, a K-9 sweep of the meeting venue, and undercover officers in the crowd, among other measures, all of which were rejected by LCSO as excessive.

The LCSO even went so far as to disagree with Ziegler changing the rules for the school board meeting, including the decision to shut down the public comment section of a meeting that took place on June 22nd; LCSO told Ziegler that measures such as this amounted to silencing political opposition.

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Consultants Are Raking in Millions Promoting Critical Race Theory in Schools, According to Conservative Advocacy Group

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Diversity, equity and inclusion consultants are getting paid millions of dollars by public schools “to push divisive ideologies” to transform American schools “from institutions of education to places of woke indoctrination,” according to a conservative education advocacy group. 

Parents Defending Education (PDE) spent four months compiling data for its “Consultant Report Card” released Thursday, which investigates 543 public school districts and agencies across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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Teachers Union President Backing McAuliffe Promotes Article Claiming Parents Don’t Have a ‘Right’ in What Kids Are Taught

Admin

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten shared an article that claimed parents do not have a right to shape what their children learn in school.

“Great piece on parents’ rights and #publicschools,” Weingarten commented on the article by The Washington Post. The piece describes movements by parents to influence what schools teach their children as “paranoid” and a “frenzy,” and it characterizes parental involvement as an obstacle of sorts to children “[thinking] for themselves.”

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Commentary: Targeting Citizens for Expressing Traditional Values is a Hallmark of Tyranny

Admin

All my life I’ve felt a bond with places and with people.

Growing up in Boonville, North Carolina, population then about 600, I went to elementary school and the Methodist church, knew many of the merchants in town—Harvey Smith, grocer and mayor for many years, Donald the barber, Mr. Weatherwax who owned the pharmacy and was kind enough to let me read comic books on the premises, and a dozen more adults—and relished my friends and their families. Boonville’s red clay and rolling hills are as much a part of me as any genetic code.

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Parents Allege Arizona School Disregarded Opt-Out from ‘Gruesome’ Curriculum

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The parents of a seventh-grade student in an Arizona school district claimed that a teacher disregarded an “opt-out” from an assignment while speaking before a school board Thursday.

“After being made aware of inappropriate racial and political content being taught in our daughter’s seventh-grade social studies class, we reached out to the teacher, then the principal, then the curriculum department, and finally the superintendent to obtain curriculum for us to review ahead of time,” Amy Souza told the Peoria Unified School District Governing Board in a video posted to Twitter by Free to Learn.

After relating how she and her husband finally obtained the curriculum following “exhaustive efforts to get it,” they determined an upcoming lesson would be “gruesome, violent, and inappropriate” for their daughter.

They emailed their concerns to the teacher, announcing they would “opt out” of that lesson. They stated in the video that the teacher emailed back, agreeing to an alternate assignment.

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Pennsylvania Schools Would Be Required to Post Curriculum Online Under Proposed Bill

The Center Square

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved a measure this week that would require schools to post curriculum online.

Prime sponsor Rep. Andrew Lewis, R-Harrisburg, said it’s only an extension of what some districts already do – and gives parents access to what their kids are learning without having to visit a school building in person.

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REPORT: Training Urged New Jersey Teachers to Track Conversations with Parents, Students Regarding the COVID-19 Vaccine

Admin
Group of adults sitting at a conference room table

New Jersey teachers said they were instructed during a teachers union training to log conversations regarding the COVID-19 vaccine with parents and students, Fox News reported.

The training provided by Made to Save, a vaccine “equity” nonprofit, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) directed instructors to “follow up and track” conversations with parents and teachers regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, Fox News reported. They were told to log their conversations into the Democrat campaign app, “Reach,” and were incentivized with gift cards to be active users.

Campaign operative Jake DeGroot devised Reach, which New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez utilized in her 2018 campaign, Fox News reported.

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Florida Mom Calls for ‘Mass Exodus’ from Public Schools to Fight Indoctrination in the Classroom

Admin

A Florida mom called for a “mass exodus” from the public school system as the “only thing” left to do to fight indoctrination in public schools during a Family Research Council event Thursday.

The event, titled “Fighting Indoctrination on a National Scale,” from the annual Pray Vote Stand Summit in Leesburg, Virginia, featured remarks from Quisha King, who works for Moms for Liberty and drew national attention in June for comments she made in opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT).

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Commentary: The Collectivist Presumption Against Parents

Admin

Like religion, the traditional family poses a rival authority to liberalism’s arrogant conception of the state. Consequently, liberals view religious freedom and parental authority with suspicion and often hostility. Liberals are keenly aware that the fulfillment of their statist goals — pushing propaganda about abortion, transgenderism, critical race theory, socialism, and so on — depends upon isolating children from the influences of religion and family.

It is this view that drives liberalism’s opposition to parental consent and notification laws and its distaste for private education and homeschooling. Last year, a Harvard law professor argued for a ban on homeschooling, saying that it represents a danger to a “democratic society.”

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North Carolina School District to Discipline Educators Who Teach America is Racist

Admin

A North Carolina county school board has passed a policy that will discipline or fire teachers who undermine the U.S. Constitution, tell students that American historical figures weren’t heroes or portray racism as systemic in America.

The vote Friday by the Johnston County school board is part of a larger campaign to stamp out critical race theory from American schools.

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Supreme Court Rejects NYC Teachers’ Request to Stop Vaccine Mandate

Admin
U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to block New York City’s vaccine mandate for public schools following a petition brought by a group of teachers.

According to The Hill, the group of New York City teachers asked for an emergency injunction on Thursday, following a lower court’s ruling that permitted the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate to take effect this coming Monday.

The group argued that many teachers would lose their jobs if the Supreme Court didn’t intervene.

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Commentary: Virginia Rep. Bob Good Seeks to Defund Critical Race Theory in Public Schools

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Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) introduced the Defending Students’ Civil Rights Act of 2021 to prohibit the indoctrination of racially divisive curriculum within our nation’s schools. Good’s bill would prohibit the use of Critical Race Theory or (CRT) critical race pedagogy in any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Any attempt to teach or implement critical race theory in federally funded institutions would be a violation of a student’s civil rights, punishable by law.

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Vaccinating Kids as Young as Five Would Be a ‘Game Changer,’ Biden’s Education Secretary Says

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President Joe Biden’s Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the approval of a COVID-19 vaccine for children would be a “game changer” for students in the U.S.’s public school system, U.S. News reported.

Pfizer announced Monday that a smaller dose of its vaccine has generated an immune response in 5 to 11-year-old children during the clinical trial. The company said it plans to submit data for approval in the next few weeks.

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Los Angeles Becomes First Major School District to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines for Children

Admin
Young girl getting COVID vaccination

The Los Angeles public schools opened last month with some of the strictest coronavirus control measures in the country. Students and staff are required to wear masks inside and outside, participate in weekly virus testing, and obey social distancing protocols. District staff are also required to get the COVID-19 shot, and now all Los Angeles public school students ages 12 and over are forced to get the vaccine.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles school board voted to pass the student vaccine mandate, with one board member stating: “So I do not see this as your choice or my choice or about my great nieces and nephews and grandchildren or your children. I see this as a community necessity to protect the children under 12 who cannot be vaccinated.”

Los Angeles public school students have until the end of the calendar year to get fully vaccinated, unless they participate in extracurricular activities which requires full vaccination by October 31st. If they don’t comply, students will be pushed into a district-run online learning program. In 2015, California eliminated its religious vaccine exemption and now only recognizes medical exemptions for schoolchildren.

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Demand for Gov. Ducey’s School Vouchers to Leave Arizona Schools That Mandate Masks or Require Unvaccinated Students to Quarantine Exceeds Funds

Rachel Alexander
Doug Ducey

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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‘Dramatic Declines’ in Michigan Student Test Scores After Gretchen Whitmer-Induced ‘Disrupted Learning’

Cooper Moran
Close up of a pencil on top of a multiple choice exam paper

Test scores of Michigan students fell dramatically after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) responded to the coronavirus pandemic by banning in-person learning for much of last school year.

Whitmer sided with union bosses in keeping schools closed for much of 2020, but then recommending reopening in 2021, only to suggest they go virtual again after spring break, according to ABC 13. Test results show the reversals and upheaval affected student performance:

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Commentary: Left-Wing Teachers Still Can’t Decide If They Do or Do Not Teach ‘Critical Race Theory’

Admin

What is the deal with today’s K-12 teachers? They’re all over the place when it comes to Critical Race Theory, or CRT. On the one hand they vehemently deny even teaching it; on the other they defend its use in curricula.

Many of those in the latter group claim they just want to teach a “real” and “inclusive” history. They also assert that in these “real” and “inclusive” lessons, white people aren’t shamed and demonized.

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Atlanta Mom Fights Segregated Classrooms at Daughter’s School

Admin

When a principal at an Atlanta public elementary school segregated students in classes based on their race, some parents supported it, says Kila Posey, mother of a student at the school.

Sharyn Briscoe, the principal of Mary Lin Elementary, who is black, segregated second-grade classes based on race in the 2020-2021 academic year, limiting black students to two classrooms to choose from while white students could choose between six different classrooms.

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Program Offering Low-Income Families up to $7k for K-12 School Choice over COVID Measures Begins

Admin

Governor Doug Ducey’s program offering up to $7,000 in grants for low-income K-12 parents wanting to relocate their students due to their current school’s COVID-19 protocols began Friday. Eligible families have a total household income at or below 350 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, and show proof that their current school has COVID constraints, including: mask mandates, quarantines, vaccine mandates, or discrimination based on vaccination status. The grant funds may be used for a variety of education-related expenses beyond tuition like transportation, online tutoring, and even child care.

Ducey announced the $7,000 booster on Tuesday. The governor’s office cited Yale University research that found COVID-based school closures disproportionately harm low-income students. More affluent students reportedly didn’t exhibit any significant impairments.

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Arizona Supreme Court Upholds Prop. 208, Won’t Allow It to Break Education Spending Limit

The Center Square

Arizona’s high court didn’t strike down a voter-approved tax increase on the wealthy, but it’s not going to let the influx of new revenue break a constitutional cap on education spending, either.

The Arizona Supreme Court remanded Fann vs. Invest in Education back to a trial court Thursday morning, saying it’s too early to say whether the ballot initiative is entirely unconstitutional.

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Top Michigan Health Bureaucrat Inadvertently Admits Gretchen Whitmer Not ‘Following the Science’

Hayley Feland

When pressed Wednesday, the top health adviser to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) inadvertently admitted the governor is not “following the science,” per her opinion.

“Following the science” has been a staple of Whitmer’s talking points since the COVID pandemic began, but Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Whitmer’s chief medical adviser, was asked if she recommended Whitmer issue an order requiring masks in schools. Khaldun answered affirmatively, claiming, “it would likely decrease the spread of COVID-19 in schools.”

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Commentary: The Great Parent Revolt

RealClearWire

As overreach in classrooms by progressive school administrators, nonprofits and the federal government has reached new heights, parents are stepping up to fight back.

Moms for Liberty, Informed Parents of California, EdFirstNC, NJ Parental Rights, No Left Turn in Education and Parents Against Critical Theory are just a few of the hundreds of new parent groups that have emerged across the country in recent months. Many parents have become education activists because of schools’ failure to bring children back into the classroom or their continued imposition of mask mandates.

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Comptroller Report Shows Tennessee Public Schools Spent an Average Nearly $10K per Pupil in 2019-20 School Year

The Center Square

New data from the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability shows Tennessee public schools spent an average of $9,753 per student during the 2019-20 school year.

The comptroller data shows the Franklin Special School District had the highest per-pupil spending in the state at $15,582.19. Oak Ridge Schools was second at $13,041.51 per pupil, and Metro Nashville Public Schools was third at $12,374.33 per student. Union County Public Schools had the lowest spending per pupil at $7,935.77.

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