Coffee County Teachers Stage “Walk In” to Raise Awareness about Vouchers

On the morning of April 17th, a group of teachers gathered at Coffee County Central High School and Coffee County Middle School for a “Walk In” to raise awareness about the current Educational Savings Account (also known as voucher) bill that is working its way through the Tennessee Legislature. A “Walk In” is when teachers gather in front of the school building while they are off-duty before school starts and hold up signs for parents to see while dropping their children off at school. This event was organized by Mike Stein, the President of the Coffee County Education Association.

House Bill 939/Senate Bill 795, if passed, would rob over $110 million from public education while causing local property taxes to rise. Eligibility for the ESA program initially is limited in counties with at least three schools in the bottom 10% — but zoning in a bottom 10% school is not required. Due to state law, there will always be a list generated of the bottom 10% of schools. That will play a role in vouchers expanding to other counties across Tennessee. This has happened in other states.

In Arizona, 75 percent of all ESAs are used by the affluent families zoned for A or B rated schools. Most vouchers in Indiana now go to affluent families who never intended to send children to public schools. The ESA program is designed for families who already send children to private school or homeschool and does nothing to improve struggling schools across the state. In fact, those schools will be weakened under this current legislation.

Currently, taxpayers do not currently subsidize private school tuition, but as more families take ESAs for their incoming kindergartners who they never planned to send to a public school, a new ongoing cost will shift to local taxpayers. The Senate version of this bill will allow funds to be used for homeschooling, which has great potential for abuse. ESAs in other states have experienced a significant amount of fraud and abuse. These states believed they had proper safeguards in place to prevent fraud and abuse, but still lost hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Additionally, students who use ESAs for private and homeschool are not held to the same accountability standards as public schools, putting those students at risk for falling behind their peers in traditional public schools. Private schools do not have the same certification and expertise requirements as public schools. In the House version, voucher students do not have to take state tests in Social Studies and Science, and in the Senate version students will not have to take any type of state test, which can be substituted for any nationally-normed test. ESAs and vouchers don’t work and actually harm student learning. Research clearly shows voucher students fall behind their peers who attend to private schools or homeschooling.

When Mike Stein e-mailed Rep. Rush Bricken stating his concerns about this bill, Mr. Bricken sent this reply: “I appreciate you taking the time to let me know how you feel about HB 939. I support and believe in public education. I am not fully for this legislation but want to wait to see what comes out of committees before I finally decide.” Despite all of the pitfalls of this legislation, Rep. Bricken is hesitant to do what many other lawmakers have done and stand on the side of public education and against this bill. He will vote on this bill within the next few days and can be reached at (615) 741-7448 and rep.rush.bricken@capitol.tn.gov. If you don’t live in Coffee County, you can quickly contact your representative by going to  https://actionnetwork.org/letters/no-to-vouchers.

5 Reasons Why You Should Support Tuition Equality

Being a college basketball fanatic, this is by far my favorite time of year. It’s amazing watching these teams--each one composed of players from around the country, or even from around the world--come together as one unit and work together for a common purpose. The fans of each of the sixteen remaining NCAA tournament teams come from different backgrounds and have a plethora of life outlooks, yet they solidify as one unified group, proudly wearing their respective team’s colors showing their support.

While the United States continues to transform into an increasingly divided nation, Americans are becoming more proud to wear the colors red or blue. Like sports, most things in life transcend identifying with one color or the other. One of these issues that needlessly divides Americans is immigration. It’s easy to forget that we are a nation that is founded by immigrants; sadly, in this country’s relatively short history, there has always been an “evil” immigrant group who was forced to wear the opposing team’s jersey through no fault of their own--whether it was the Native Americans, the Irish Catholics, the Jews, the Japanese, the Hispanics, or the Muslims.

Being a public school teacher, it’s my job to teach the students in front of me, regardless of their race, sexual orientation, or immigration status. The bottom line is that I teach people. I teach people with hopes and dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. I teach people who have no earthly idea what they want to be when they grow up.

Rep. Mark White of Memphis and Sen. Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga have co-sponsored a bill that absolutely needs to pass. HB0863/SB1014, which is up for a vote in the Senate on Wednesday, March 22nd, exempts an individual from paying out-of-state tuition if that individual: attended school in this state for two years prior to graduation from high school, graduated from high school or a home school program or obtained a GED, and is registered at a state institution of higher education. Here are my top five reasons why everyone needs to support this bill.

1. It’s the right thing to do. This bill will allow my immigrant students to follow their dreams and pursue a college degree. The Bible is very clear about helping immigrants. One of my favorite scriptures regarding immigrants is from Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
2. This is a bi-partisan bill. Staunchly conservative Texas was the first state to pass a tuition equality bill. In total, 27 states have passed a bill similar to the one that is proposed in Tennessee. Both blue states and red states support it. Why? That leads me to number 3.
3. It’s good for our economy. Workers with a college degree make $1.3 million more in their lifetimes. More productivity means the state can collect more in taxes. Demand for educated workers is rising while supply is lagging behind.
4. It’s great for our universities. An increase in admissions will provide income to universities that isn’t already there. Allowing undocumented immigrants access to in-state tuition will most certainly increase university graduation rates.
5. Governor Haslam supports it and will sign it if it passes the legislature. In 2013, the governor launched Drive to 55, a campaign to increase the number of college graduates to 55% by 2025. Tuition Opportunity supports the governor's goal of reducing barriers to higher education and creating a more educated workforce.

Update: This bill passed the Senate Education Committee and has moved on to the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee. In the House, this bill is up for a vote on Tuesday, March 28th in the Education Administration & Planning Committee.

Teachers' Bill of Rights

Please excuse me for a brief moment while I jump up and down in moderated excitement. There is a bill pending in the state legislature so lathered with common sense that it became easily recognizable from many of the other bills that will be discussed this session (i.e. voucher bill, bathroom bill, marriage bill, run over protesters with your car bill, etc.).

Senator Mark Green of Clarksville and Representative Jay D. Reedy of Erin have co-introduced a bill that is appropriately nicknamed “The Teachers’ Bill of Rights.” If SB0014/HB1074 passes, it will send a clear message to all educators that the legislature has our collective backs. The much-needed byproduct of this bill is that it should help increase enrollment in teacher prep programs at our state universities. Tennessee is at the beginnings of what will become a severe teacher shortage unless drastic measures are taken immediately. Governor Haslam’s proposal to increase education funding will certainly help as will this Teachers’ Bill of Rights.

Here is the full text of the bill: “This bill creates a list of rights and protections for educators. Under this bill, every ‘educator,’ meaning any teacher, principal, supervisor or other individual required by law to hold a valid license of qualification for employment in the public schools of this state, has the right to: (1) Act upon the educator's own conscience, so long as the educator does not attempt to proselytize students, disrupt the educational process, or act as a potential threat to student safety; (2) Report any errant, offensive, or abusive content or behavior of students to school officials or appropriate agencies; (3) Provide a safe classroom and school; (4) Defend themselves and their students from physical violence or harm; (5) Share information regarding a student's education experience, health, or safety with the student's parent or legal guardian, unless prohibited by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA); and (6) Review all materials brought into the educator's classroom or utilized with their students. This bill specifies that an educator must not be expected to waive this particular right.

This bill further provides that an educator is not: (1) Required to spend the educator's personal money to appropriately equip a classroom; (2) Evaluated by professionals, under the teacher evaluation advisory committee, without the same subject matter expertise as the educator; (3) Evaluated based on the performance of students whom the educator has never taught; or (4) Relocated to a different school based solely on test scores from state mandated assessments.”

In my view, the most impactful elements of the Teachers’ Bill of Rights are the last four items. Teachers have been saying for decades that we shouldn’t be expected to purchase our own school supplies. No other profession does that. Additionally, it makes much-needed changes to the evaluation system. It is difficult, if not impossible, to argue against the notion that we should be evaluated by other educators with the same expertise. While good teaching is good teaching, there are content-specific strategies that only experts in that subject would truly be able to appreciate fully. Both the Coffee County Education Association and the Tennessee Education Association support this bill.

As this bill moves forward and hopefully becomes law, I briefly want to address a few concerns I have with it as it is currently written. The language in the bill is vague in parts, and needs clarity. For example, what, exactly, does it mean to provide “a safe classroom and school”? This can be misconstrued in many unintended ways. Will this open the door for teachers to carry weapons into their classrooms? If so, then it will create a dangerous and deadly precedent. Also, who will pick up the slack when teachers need classroom supplies and will no longer be expected to buy the supplies themselves? If this responsibility falls on local governments, it could result in unintended tax increases. The state has a surplus of money, and it should be forthcoming in funding classroom supplies. Further, I wonder what enforcement mechanisms will be in place when--not if--these laws are broken. These issues need to be worked out before this bill becomes law. In the meantime, I commend Sen. Green and Rep. Reedy for standing up for teachers and introducing common sense legislation that will actually improve the teaching profession. Please take the time to call them or tweet them your support for this bill!