Governor Bill Lee released a statement Monday announcing there is “not a pathway” for his universal school choice voucher bill this legislative session of the Tennessee General Assembly.
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Aaron Gulbransen, executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, said the Tennessee House of Representatives should have introduced a “clean” universal school choice bill instead of attaching additional incentives not particularly related to school choice to the bill.
While the governor’s school choice bill in the House includes additional incentives, the Senate’s version solely focuses on the governor’s proposal.
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Metro Nashville Council Member Jeff Eslick detailed how the council has recently taken up resolutions surrounding statewide issues and how some members request that a hand vote be recorded as a “shaming move” against members who oppose the resolutions.
In addition to activists taking advantage of the public comment period during Metro Council meetings to speak on the current situation in the Middle East between Israeli and Hamas forces, Eslick said the council has taken up three different types of resolutions that “condemn or express disappointment with the state” in recent weeks.
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Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) State Director Tori Venable responded to News Channel 5’s investigative segment on Monday accusing the conservative political advocacy group of threatening Tennessee state lawmakers to advance Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill.
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Corey DeAngelis, a school choice activist and senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, said it’s time for Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) to be voted out of office amid his anti-school choice stunts, including his recent work with News Channel 5’s Phil Williams.
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Ben Cunningham, founder of the Nashville Tea Party, said it’s “pathetic” that advocates of Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice voucher program are not being given a voice through local news outlets across the Volunteer State.
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Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) confirmed that Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice voucher program would be forced by a Supreme Court ruling to distribute scholarships to illegal alien students. However, he said he believes that not many will take advantage of the program because its application requires parents to provide their children’s social security numbers.
“Everybody has to fill out the form, including a social security number and so forth. If you don’t have a social security number, then anybody that doesn’t have one, we want to make sure that those authorities are aware that these students don’t have a social security number,” Pody said on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
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Tennessee State Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) said he voted present on the State Senate’s version of Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill this week in the education committee because he said he believed there needed to be “more discussion” on the bill before it advanced out of committee.
“I was present, not voting, because I felt like we needed more discussion in the education committee,” Hensley said on Thursday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, slammed News Channel 5’s Phil Williams for his omission of a key comment submitted by Mark Gill in response to the outlet’s attack piece featuring an undercover video recording taken during a strategy session for school vouchers in 2016.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, vowed to help “lead the charge” to retire Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) in response to the lawmaker’s vote against Governor Bill Lee’s proposed school voucher program.
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Aaron Gulbransen, executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, condemned Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner’s (R-Chapel Hill) vote against Governor Bill Lee’s proposed school voucher program.
On Tuesday, state lawmakers on the K-12 Subcommittee voted 6-2 to pass the House version of the governor’s school voucher program, which would make Education Freedom Scholarships worth $7,000 available to students in every county of the state.
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Tennessee State Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka), who chairs the Education Instruction Subcommittee, said Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill, known as the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, will likely be revealed next week.
Cepicky said there was a meeting on Wednesday for the committee chairs and caucus members to go over the bill’s language, making tweaks to ensure the bill will “function properly” and is “constitutional.”
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Florida Sen. Manny Diaz (R-FL-36) is sponsoring legislation that would expand opportunities for students to be able to attend a school of their choice through a voucher program. SB 506 would amend the Hope Scholarship program to permit students who attend school districts who are not complying with state law to apply for the program and receive a voucher.
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On Monday, the Florida Senate passed SB 1028 which would allow Florida’s colleges and universities to sponsor an unlimited number of charter schools. Under current law, colleges and universities can, through the Florida Department of Education’s approval, sponsor one school.
A state university is permitted to work with a school district to develop a charter school but can only sponsor one. Now, there is no limit to the amount of charter schools an institution can sponsor.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed education expert Timothy Benson of the Heartland Institute to the newsmakers line to discuss school choice legislation trends and the true intention of teacher unions.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the American Federation for Children’s Tennessee State Director Shaka Mitchell to the newsmakers line to discuss the pending lawsuit for Governor Lee’s new education savings account pilot program.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the Vice President of Legal Affairs at The Beacon Center Braden Boucek to the show to discuss the recent ruling regarding the school voucher program in Tennessee.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the recent ruling deeming the ESA and school voucher programs for Davidson and Shelby Counties unconstitutional.
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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.
At the end of the second hour, Carmichael discussed how Black Lives Matter has become a tool of the Democratic party evidenced by their ignorance of Black police officers who have been killed in the line of duty. He also notes that the school voucher programs which would help Black children’s education are consistently being blocked by Democratic establishments across America’s cities.
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A judge has blocked Tennessee from processing applications for a school-voucher program while the state appeals a ruling that said the program is unconstitutional.
Davidson County Chancellor Anne Martin ruled the state cannot remit funds for the program or engage with parents or schools about the program. The court also ordered the Tennessee Department of Education to post the current status of the lawsuit and encourage parents to have a backup plan in a statement on the program’s website in case the appeal fails.
“Whatever happens on appeal will happen, but the current status is the program is not going forward and parents need to be told and to have a Plan B,” Martin said Thursday in her ruling from the bench. “The court is going to deny the relief requested.”
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Public affairs strategist and all-star panelist Clint Brewer joined 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. – Wednesday morning on the newsmakers line.
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A judge ruled that the Tennessee Education Savings Account (ESA) Pilot Program is unconstitutional, and a nonpartisan think tank says that could harm children.
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Officials in the state of Maryland have banned a school from their voucher program due to its faith-based views on gay marriage and transgenderism. The Baltimore Sun reported that Bethel Christian Academy responded to the ban with a lawsuit contending officials violated its religious freedom.
The case will now be heard in federal court.
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