Tennessee Teacher Supports Cutting Federal Education Dollars

Press Release –

With the announcement that Lt. Gov. Rand McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton are forming a committee to study the impact of rejecting the $1.8 billion the federal government gives Tennessee for education, Joseph R. Murray, II, Esq., a civil rights attorney turned Tennessee educator and author of Take Back Education, argues that this is a step in the right direction for Tennessee.

“In the year 2023, why are the 50 states dependent on the federal government for education cash? At its inception, it was the federal government that was supposed to be dependent on the states,” Murray argued this week in The Tennessean.

Though critics claim that rejecting federal dollars would harm at-risk students, Murray asserts that such an argument is specious.

“Tennessee Republicans are not saying that they are going to reject federal money and leave those [students] out in the cold. Quite the opposite. They are merely seeing if there is an avenue in which the state could make up the money that it would reject,” Murray explained. “Why is this even controversial?

Murray contends that the uproar over rejecting D.C. dollars has nothing to do with student welfare and everything to do with protecting a broken education system, as well as those who broke it.

“The system is broken. As this author previously wrote in The Tennessean, competition was removed from the classrooms, political equity has taken the place of excellence, teachers are handcuffed by dumb-down academic standards and stale, equality of outcome curricula. The results produced?

The Tennessee Department of Education released state 2022-23 testing scores that showed just 38% of public-school students were proficient in English language, 34% in math, 43% in science, and 43% in social studies. If education were a private business, management would be fired, new employees hired and a new operations manual put in place.

But what prevents an overdue overhaul? Federal strings attached to federal dollars. That is why the teachers union, entrenched urban politicians, and the establishment are crying wolf,” Murray wrote. You can read the entire piece here.

Murray is suited to provided commentary on this topic due because of his crossover careers in constitutional law and public education.

For over fifteen years, Mr. Murray litigated civil rights cases in courtrooms across the nation and he has been a fixture in the conservative movement. He worked for Pat Buchanan during Mr. Buchanan’s 1999 presidential run and has also worked for conservative institutions like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Family Association.

In 2017, he left the courtroom for the classroom to follow his true dream of teaching. He has won awards for his instructional efforts. He is also gay and, in 2015, was the first gay conservative to organize mainstream LGBT support for President Trump.

As a gay conservative, he has fought against the stereotypes created by identity politics. He has a long track record of creating sensible answers to controversial questions. Due to his ability to find common ground, Mr. Murray has been a guest on Fox News, Sky News, and countless other television and radio broadcasts. Mr. Murray has also been featured in newspapers like USA TODAY, the Washington Examiner, The Hill, and the Orlando Sentinel.

Click here to for examples of Mr. Murray’s work with the media.