The thing that gets me is that Tennessee ranks toward the bottom nationally in public education, but instead of taking cues from top-performing states—by, say, properly funding our ed systems—our lawmakers decided to mimic other underperforming states by passing a voucher bill!

Florida passed school choice. Florida education drops to a record low. It's almost like these bills are being rushed through w/o considering if they work. Unless they are meant to do something else...

WATCH: “$19000 a month? That’s pretty good, man… Whew!” As Rep. Justin Jones pointed out, Speaker Speaker Cameron Sexton’s Chief of staff makes $19000/month (!!) while TN teachers make $3500/month — yet TN Republicans only offered $2000 as a one-time bribe to garner support for vouchers💰🤔

The voucher vendor that will run Tennessee's expanded program had no previous state-level experience managing education savings accounts. Arkansas terminated its contract with company last fall. chalkbeat.org/tennessee/2023…

Key point about the Tennessee GOP's ramming through this $500 million school voucher program: they had to do it this way because public support was so tepid. Not only was the public ed world opposed but grassroots conservative orgs were against it too.

The two most persistent falsehoods peddled in education policy are: 1) that vouchers = “school choice” and improve student results 2) that investing in public schools has no impact Both have 10+ years of data now consistently showing otherwise.

How it started How it’s going The Gov. Bill Lee “thank you sir May I have another” edition

🔥WATCH: “There was a dead rat up there… this is a swamp… what you saw was an infomercial.” Anti-voucher REPUBLICANS @Jodyforstaterep Barrett & Warner call out Speaker Cameron Sexton silencing dissent— Warner blasts Lee for tying vouchers to hurricane aid. Full: wkrn.com/news/tennessee…

TN NAEP scores are historic. For the 1st time, we are above the national average in all areas. TN students are in the top 25 for reading & math proficiency. 1st in the US in 8th gr math scores for Black students 13th in 4th gr math 21st in 8th gr reading

From vouchers to the immigration crackdown: “All this makes no Tennessean proud, only worn out with exhaustion. Nor has it wrapped the Lee Administration in righteous glory but exposed a MAGA ‘supermajority’ as clumsily transactional for the wrong things.” keelhunt.substack.com/p/a-cause-wort…

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What A Night! Such a great evening celebrating our young men and their mothers and grandmothers! Maggie Corbin was a Grand Slam and such a great message and down to earth person! We also honored Tonya Fraley as this year’s Playing For A Cure Honoree. It’s Great to Be A Royal!!

It’s National Women in Sports Day and I would like to Thank Melinda Hart for being the leader behind the scenes for ECCA Baseball! She is a driving force in our program and I Love Her and Thank her for supporting and taking care of our young men and the program!

Don’t take any lectures about government fraud or waste from folks demanding to fund a second sector of education with unaccountable school vouchers—and cutting in middleman vendors to run the thing at 2.5-10% off the top of each transaction

“The widespread adoption of vouchers, Cowen explains, was a policy coup staged by billionaires who were libertarians or religious zealots or both.” Yet vouchers don’t work. So honored by The Privateers review from the great Diane Ravitch 🇺🇸🇺🇦📚🌈🗽🌹🇨🇱❤️ in The New York Review of Books nybooks.com/articles/2025/…

Royals travel to Hardin Valley to play East Robertson at 10:00. Opening Ceremony and First pitch for The Playing For A Cure Tournament will be around 12:15 after our game. Thanks to Everyone for helping to strike out cancer!!

WATCH: “If they win, this won’t stop in Tennessee. The rest of us need to pay attention.”🎯 As we’ve been saying — the cruel William Lamberth Bo Watson bill to keep undocumented kids out of school is aimed at SCOTUS. It’s everyone’s problem. Full: instagram.com/reel/DHHFNyIsq…

No, Mr. Speaker, the military executed on a plan with precision. The top level officials put that mission at risk by recklessly chatting about the classified details of it on a phone app, not even knowing who was on the chat with one of them visiting Moscow at the time.

I thought they said states would still get their education funds. “State education officials nationwide say the U.S. Dept. of Ed is blocking access to tens of millions of $$ meant for K-12 schools” and firing half the staff has only exacerbated the issue. edweek.org/policy-politic…

So we can’t guarantee our own citizens health care but we can pay everyone in Greenland $10,000/year? How is this “America First”, exactly? nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/…