Image Credit: capitol.tn.gov
The Center Square [By Jon Styf] –
Three Tennessee K-12 school superintendents spoke to a committee looking at rejecting federal funding to the state’s schools Tuesday, with Hawkins County Director of Schools Matt Hixson instead suggesting the state continue to accept the federal funds and use extra funds to help pay for infrastructure needs in the schools.
The group was asked about strings attached to federal funds and said the depth of those strings related to the school lunch program, for instance, is recording how many free meals the schools serve.
Sen. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, started the afternoon discussion saying that “there is no word about cutting any dollar of funding” in the plan but instead spending the same amount on education with the state funding more to replace the potentially rejected federal funding.
Metro Nashville Schools Chief of Staff Hank Clay said the federal funds go to help homeless students, students with disabilities and students who have additional potentially costly educational needs.
Hixson added he would be concerned, if the funds were not earmarked to be spent on those specific students, there could be the thought of spending those funds instead on school infrastructure needs.
The morning session of the meeting was a presentation from Sycamore Institute, which said the state received $1.1 billion in federal funding in the last pre-COVID fiscal year of 2019 and Tennessee would be in uncharted territory if it rejected the funds, though Oklahoma and South Carolina had also discussed the move.
Committee member Rep. William Slater, R-Gallatin, added that Tennessee residents shouldn’t be concerned about the potentially rejected funding because federal civil rights laws would still be followed.
“The constitution provides a floor, not a ceiling, on civil rights,” Slater said.
Sycamore Institute Deputy Director Mandy Spears said Tennessee has enough in its current budget to pay for what the federal government is contributing to education funding but it would have a cost in eliminating some non-recurring projects that had been funded.
About the Author: Jon Styf, The Center Square Staff Reporter – Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonStyf.
6 Responses
The failed and floundering TN education system is a joke. It’s a damn shame that we have to pass a law to force schools to actually teach reading. But, never fear, the answer is throwing more good money after bad. There are a lot of good and highly motivated teacher out there who are hamstrung by their own union, federal regulations and the multitude of strings that go with it. State Government is not helping, although the law to mandate reading skills to grade level is a step in the right direction. There are no easy answers and throwing more money at them is, as history shows, wasted taxpayer dollars. Someone has to bite the bullet and take charge. I don’t see anyone, either in the school leadership or the Government capable of doing that.
Most of the School Board members and top staff are Libs. Remember that.
Please leave.
TN pubic ejikashun is a giant failure. The Fed strings attached to that money NEED cut. I’d favor money spent to aid folks to homeschool.
You shouldn’t be homeschooling any children since you cannot spell or have basic sentence structure. You teaching a child would be child abuse.
Government Money, Government Strings. Get the government and unions out of education!