Tennessee House and Senate education committees passed the governor’s private-school voucher program Tuesday, speeding the $450 million first-year expense to final votes before week’s end.
Senators voted 8-1 to send the measure to the finance committee to be considered Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), carrying the bill for Gov. Bill Lee, told lawmakers the plan will “empower families to do something for their kid, fulfilling needs we’re not meeting with this public school system that we run together with our local folks.”
Johnson claimed a mandate to pass the measure from President Donald Trump, who posted on his Truth Social platform earlier that he supports Tennessee lawmakers’ efforts to adopt “school choice.”
Senate Republican Majority Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin said Tennessee lawmakers have a “mandate” from President Donald Trump to enact private school vouchers. (Photo: John Partipilo)
“It is our goal to bring education in the United States to the highest level, one that it has never attained before,” Trump said in his post.
Lee’s plan, which is zooming toward final votes in a special session this week, calls for providing more than $7,000 each to 20,000 students statewide and then expanding by about 5,000 annually. Half of those students in the first year could come from families with incomes at 300 percent of the federal poverty level, an estimated $175,000 for a family of four, while the rest would have no income limit. No maximum income would be placed on the program after the first year.
A financial analysis by the state’s Fiscal Review Committee determined K-12 schools will lose $45 million and that only $3.3 million would go toward 12 school districts most likely to lose students.
Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) was the lone vote against the bill as she urged the committee to “exercise a bit more caution.” Akbari reminded senators that students participating in the state’s education savings account program, which provides vouchers to enroll in private schools in Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby counties, are performing worse academically than their peers.
In contrast, Sen. Adam Lowe (R-Calhoun) said standardized tests shouldn’t be the deciding factor in passing the bill. Lowe also told Hawkins County Schools Director Matt Hixson he shouldn’t be worried about talk that some local leaders in upper East Tennessee believe they have to support the voucher bill or the legislature could refuse to approve $420 million for Hurricane Helene disaster relief.
The House panel endorsed the plan on a 17-7 vote after Republican lawmakers used a procedural move to bypass debate on the bill. Rep. Jake McCalmon (R-Williamson County) called for an immediate vote following public testimony, backed by Rep. William Slater (R-Sumner County). The move kept opponents from questioning the bill’s sponsor, House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland).
Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) called the move “ridiculous” afterward because of the impact the bill could have on public schools and the state’s budget.
In addition to complaining that the state will be running two school systems and likely hitting financial problems, Johnson challenged Lamberth’s assertion that the bill will make public schools “whole” when they lose students to the private-school voucher program.
Lamberth, though, said public schools would not lose “one red cent” as a result of the program.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.
Tennessee’s proficiency rate grew in eighth grade math, while the national average declined, according to the latest results from the Nation's Report Card. The gains position the state's middle schoolers to perform better in Algebra I, their first high school math class. (Photo by Allison Shelley for EDU)
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters
Tennessee students held their ground on a major national test in a year when average student test scores declined nationwide.
Results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, released Wednesday, show that average test scores in Tennessee increased slightly in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math, compared with 2022, though the gains were not statistically significant.
Tennessee’s latest post-pandemic results stood in contrast to declines seen nationwide and in many other states. And Tennessee students scored three to four points higher than the national average in math and one to two points higher in reading.
“Tennessee students did well relative to other states, and we did better than some of our neighbors,” Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said.
“We didn’t move backwards, we moved a little bit forward, and we expect to do better next year,” added state Rep. Mark White, of Memphis, who chairs a key House education committee and also serves on the NAEP governing board.
Math scores outpace reading scores.
Tennessee has launched numerous initiatives aimed at bolstering early literacy, but the latest NAEP showed the state’s most dramatic improvements came in math.
In fourth-grade math, 42 percent of students scored proficient or advanced, an increase of 6 percentage points from 2022. The state was one of 29 jurisdictions that posted scores similar to 2019, before the pandemic. Only Alabama had average scores higher than 2019. Nationwide, average scores are down three points, and 22 states had declines.
In eighth-grade math, Tennessee’s proficiency rate also grew, while the national average declined. Tennessee was one of just two jurisdictions with similar scores to 2019. Average scores dropped 9 points.
In fourth-grade reading, Tennessee was one of 47 states with no statistical change from 2022. Nonetheless, its scores were up slightly, whereas the nationwide average dropped by two points from 2022 and by five points from 2019.
The small increases in eighth-grade reading scores were not statistically different from 2022 or 2019, but again, the small increase stood in contrast to nationwide averages that dropped 5 points since 2019. Tennessee also saw more notable increases in scores among higher-performing students in the 75th percentile.
Credit: ChalkbeatTNCredit: ChalkbeatTN
The relatively strong showing in math, according to state officials, could be tied to the full return to in-person learning, which studies show is especially important for math instruction; Tennessee’s 2021 adoption of new math standards; and the subsequent rollout of math curriculum to align with those standards.
They expect that trend to continue with passage of a 2024 state law spotlighting more analysis of and support for math instruction.
Tennessee was an early adopter of pandemic-era interventions.
Tennessee has been held up as a model both for how it managed federal pandemic relief spending — quickly steering money into tutoring, summer learning camps, and after-school programs aimed at students who had fallen furthest behind — and for its intense focus on early literacy. State test results from 2024 show students there making steady progress since 2021.
The challenge now will be to maintain progress and deploy state funds to replace federal pandemic relief aid that expired last year.
“We still have that obligation at the state level to continue to support districts in as many ways as possible,” said Reynolds, the state’s education chief. She cited free professional development resources provided to school systems by her department as one example.
“Local school officials also knew that the money was ending, so they’ve been building in their own sustainability practices to keep the work going,” she said.
White, the state lawmaker and NAEP official, said the state’s controversial 2021 third-grade reading intervention and retention law was a key part of the mix. It pushed children whose families might have opted for summer breaks into summer learning programs and motivated schools to increase support for struggling readers.
“If a child is not reading proficiently in third grade, we want to really understand why and not just pass them on,” he said.
State officials already are digging into the latest NAEP data on how various student groups performed to study how they can offer better support.
Tennessee’s growing population of English-language learners saw across-the-board improvement, while students with disabilities showed slight decreases.
The alignment of national and state data is important, said Amy Owen, the state’s senior education policy director, because “it shows that our students will be able to compete with students from across the country when they look at post-secondary and career opportunities.”
“We’re seeing steady increases, which is significant when you think about where our kids were during COVID,” added Reynolds. “Our fourth graders were kindergartners then, our eighth graders were fourth graders.”
Memphis district opts out of separate NAEP assessment
Since 2018, NAEP has also released results for Memphis Shelby County Schools, one of roughly two dozen large urban districts participating in national math and reading tests through the Trial Urban District Assessment program, which is designed to help those districts measure student performance against districts in other large cities. But last year, leaders of the Memphis district chose not to participate in the program.
The lack of participation represented a “leadership breakdown” as the district cycled through superintendents.
— State Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis)
White, who represents part of Memphis, said the lack of participation represented a “leadership breakdown” as the district cycled through superintendents. “That’s sad that we don’t have their scores,” he said. “We can’t continue that trend.”
What is NAEP?
Not every Tennessee fourth-grader or eighth-grader took the national test when the federal government administered the assessments in early 2024.
NAEP tests a nationally representative sample of students in every state. In Tennessee, each of the four assessments was taken by about 1,700-1,800 students in 80-90 schools.
The results, published as the nation’s report card, allow comparisons across states and are an important marker for showing how students are doing over time.
The last three testing cycles happened in 2019, 2022, and most recently in 2024, providing an especially helpful comparison of what students knew before the pandemic and how much they have rebounded from COVID-related learning disruptions.
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Collage Dance celebrates Black History Month. (Photo: Tre’bor R. Jones | courtesy of Collage Dance)
Are you looking for a celebratory way to kick off Black History Month? Well, here’s one way you can start the month off right. Collage Dance’s ballet performances of Their Eyes Were Watching God and Rise were originated with one thing in mind: to honor Black culture and to spotlight pivotal moments the Black community endured in the past.
“I wanted to create works, or ballets, about our community. Because in this art form, classical ballet, there really are hardly any stories about us,” says Kevin Thomas, artistic director at Collage Dance, co-choreographer with Amy Hall Garner of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and choreographer of Rise. Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel of the same name, Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the timeless story of Janie Crawford’s life and her journey of self-discovery that many fans love, incorporating it into ballet. Thomas says, “This is the first time a story by Zora Neale Hurston has been turned into an actual ballet and a ballet about our history.”
Rise, on the other hand, is Collage Dance’s decade-old ballet that portrays the era surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech before his assassination, evoking what Black people have overcome and the uncertainty about what lies ahead for them. If you have seen Rise before, expect a few changes as dancers will now be wearing period-inspired costumes instead of the classic abstract attire that they have previously worn. “This was inspired by Abeo Brown, who’s our wardrobe designer, and she came up with this look. She was actually inspired by a picture of the balcony scene of Martin Luther King. There’s a little girl on that balcony and that’s where the inspiration came from. Abeo was honoring that little girl there,” says Thomas. King’s final speech will be presented live during the performance and voiced by the award-winning voice actor known for portraying Pua in The Lion Guard, Gerald C. Rivers.
The production, which also features the dance Trilogy, runs from January 31st through February 2nd, and tickets are on sale now. For more information regarding all three ballet performances and where to purchase tickets, visit collagedance.org/rise/.
Their Eyes Were Watching God and Rise, Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Friday, January 31, 11 a.m. (Student Matinee) | Saturday, February 2, 2:30 p.m. | Sunday, February 3, 2:30 p.m., $22-$62.
It’s a great time to be alive if you live in Memphis, like to browse Facebook Marketplace, and love weird figurines.
Consider this “drunk pirate figurine” posted by Boula Baskhairoun from Olive Branch.
Surly with a pistol, sword, and holding a chimp’s hand, this guy is just $29. How Boula knows the pirate is drunk, though, was not disclosed.
Posted to Facebook by Mary D. Wasson
Since you’re already down that way, swing a little further south to Hernando for Mary D. Wasson’s “Talking Trumpinator” figurine. He says, “I’ll be back … in 2024” and “hasta la vista, Biden.” Timeless fun. Only $40.
Facebook by Nea Antiques
Complete your figurine road trip in beautiful Blytheville, Arkansas, for the guy above. From a ’70s-era Lewis and Clark Expedition collection, he’s also a decanter. The drunk pirate will love him.
Posted to Facebook by Zach Runyon
If none of that interests you, Zach Runyon has 20 barrels of peanut butter back in Memphis that he’ll let go for $50 a pop.
In the political sphere, both major political parties chose new leaders over the weekend.
The executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP), meeting in Nashville on Saturday, elected Rachel Campbell of Chattanooga the party’s new state chair. Campbell, currently chair of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, defeated state Representative Gloria Johnson, the party’s unsuccessful 2024 candidate for the U.S. Senate, and three other candidates.
The election required two ballots, with Campbell ultimately winning over runner-up Johnson by a margin of 43 to 22. One of the issues militating against Johnson was a concern that, as an elected state official, her direct involvement in fundraising campaigns would be limited by restrictions set by the state Election Registry.
The TNDP elected Nathan Higdon of Blount County as vice chair.
And in Shelby County, also on Saturday, a few hundred delegates turned out for the local Republican Party’s biennial convention at New Hope Christian Church in Bartlett, electing former Memphis city councilman Worth Morgan Shelby County Republican chair over party vice chair Naser Fazlullah.
The contest had generated a fair amount of friction in local Republican circles, some of it carrying over to the convention itself, largely on account of Fazlullah’s charge that Morgan had been insufficient in his support of President Donald Trump.
Fazlullah repeated the charge to the convention attendees on Saturday, and for his pains heard himself being hooted at from the floor by supporters of Morgan, one of whom hurled the deadly epithet “Rino” (for Republican in Name Only) at Fazlullah.
The tally results — 307 votes for Morgan, 100 for Fazlullah— indicated that the advance Sturm und Drang, which was considerable, had been wholly disproportionate to the actual alignment of forces in party ranks.
Morgan’s campaign, run under the rubric “25 [for 2025] to Revive,” had been well organized and clearly included in its ranks a lopsided majority of local GOP influencers.
Patti Possel, a veteran of the erstwhile deannexation-from-Memphis movement in the suburbs, was elected local GOP vice chair.
Jim Kyle (Photo: Tennessee Courts)
• Jim Kyle, the onetime Democratic leader in the state Senate, who gave up his legislative seat a decade ago to make a successful run for Shelby County chancellor, made his retirement from the bench formal last week.
Some months ago, Kyle had been forced to step down from his judicial duties because of the debilitating effects of CIDP (chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy). Lawyer Jim Newsom was appointed special judge, a temporary successor to Kyle, by Governor Bill Lee.
Kyle reports progress in what has been a difficult rehabilitation period, one which has severely restricted his movements and confined him to a wheelchair. He is looked after by his wife, state Senator Sara Kyle, by other family members, and by various ad hoc helpers.
Gamely, Kyle says he is greatly buoyed by the imminent birth of a grandchild to his son James Kyle Jr. and by devoted watching of the televised games — “good, bad, and ugly” —of the Grizzlies basketball team.
A new year brings new goals and a fresh start. If your resolutions include investing for the future, congratulations! You’re taking the first step toward building wealth and achieving financial independence. Here are six tips to help you begin in 2025.
1. Start simple.
One of the easiest ways to start investing is through a retirement plan. If you have access to a workplace plan, such as a 401(k) or 403(b), make sure you’re contributing enough to take full advantage of any company matching contributions. If you don’t have access to a workplace plan, consider opening a traditional or Roth IRA.
Once you have an account in place, commit to making regular contributions. Automatic payroll deferrals are a great way to effortlessly build an account balance. Each year, have a goal of increasing your contributions by 1 percent to 2 percent. Even a small increase can have a big impact on your retirement savings over time, and you’re unlikely to even notice the impact on your take-home pay.
2. Find a fiduciary advisor.
A great way to start investing is by working with a qualified fiduciary advisor to establish an investment strategy that makes sense for you, given your current financial situation and goals for the future. Fiduciary advisors are held to fiduciary duty standards, which means they’re legally obligated to act in clients’ best interests at all times.
In contrast, some advisors are incentivized by investment managers and/or insurance companies to sell clients certain products that may or may not be in the client’s best interest. This practice can lead to high fees and the long-term erosion of your assets.
Look for an advisor who provides 100 percent of their services as a fiduciary advisor; offers low-cost, tax-efficient strategies; and uses an approach based on rational, science-driven, academic research. There’s a lot of misleading financial data out there. Your advisor should have the knowledge, background, and experience to get to the facts and develop well-researched solutions to the challenges you face.
3. Establish clear investing goals.
Everyone has different goals for the future, so there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. A great way to begin your investing journey is by establishing an overall financial plan. A solid financial plan can serve as a blueprint to guide all aspects of your financial life and can help ensure your investment decisions make sense, given your overall financial situation.
Consider working with an advisory team with experience navigating a range of financial challenges, including debt management, insurance planning, retirement planning, budgeting, estate planning, tax planning, and preparation, etc.
4. Diversify.
Regardless of where you are in your investing journey, it’s important to maintain a diversified portfolio. Investing in different types of assets can help spread out your risk because when one sector or investment type is performing poorly, another investment type that’s performing better can help smooth out overall portfolio volatility. While diversification won’t prevent losses, it can reduce your risk of being too heavily invested in the worst performing part of the market.
5. Don’t neglect your emergency savings.
While investing in a diversified mix of stocks and bonds is a great way to build your wealth over time, it’s also important to have access to a liquid emergency fund to help cover unexpected expenses. Consider saving three to six months of living expenses in a short-term account separate from your invested assets.
6. Protect your nest egg.
As you build your investment portfolio, be sure to implement a variety of risk-management strategies. These include things like life insurance, umbrella liability insurance, long-term-care insurance, disability/income replacement insurance, and more. Work with your wealth manager to determine which strategies make sense for your particular situation.
Gene Gard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Private Wealth Manager and Partner with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest registered investment advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
Greenland: We “need” it.
Apparently. (Photo: Rokas Tenys | Dreamstime.com)
If you had Greenland being invaded by the United States on your 2025 bingo card, congratulations! You may be a winner. The Financial Times reported last Friday on a 45-minute phone call made by Donald Trump, the newly elected president of the U.S., to Mette Frederiksen, the premier of Denmark, a longtime NATO ally. The results weren’t encouraging.
According to the Financial Times, Frederiksen “emphasized” to Trump that the world’s largest island — a self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark — was not for sale. That apparently went about as well as you would expect, given the intellectual maturity of our current commander in chief.
The FT spoke to “five current and former senior European officials” who had been briefed on the call, each of whom said the conversation had gone badly. Trump was “aggressive and confrontational,” said one of the officials. “He was very firm. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous.”
You have to forgive the Danes for being a bit shocked. They have had dibs on Greenland for a long time — since 986 A.D., to be semi-exact. That’s 1,039 years, certainly long enough to have gotten a little attached to the place. Now, out of the blue, comes a call from the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth and his message is, basically, “Gimme your biggest piece of land.”
To quote The Don more precisely: “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.” Simple as that. Give it to us because we “need” it. It’s a geopolitical version of The Godfather. “It’d be a shame if something were to happen to your cute little kingdom, Mette. So hand over the island, capiche?” She’s lucky she wasn’t in the same room with him. No telling what he would have grabbed.
The truth is, “people” actually do know if Denmark has a right to Greenland. And the answer is yes, they do — and have for over a millenium. Equally true is the fact that the United States has absolutely no claim to the place. Zero. Yet Trump is on record as saying he wouldn’t rule out military action to seize Greenland, which is an act of war. Forcibly taking the territory of one of our NATO allies is such a bonkers concept that some pundits are writing that Trump is just posturing — playing three-dimensional chess — in order to distract us from his horrible cabinet appointees and batshit presidential orders by making these outlandish (Ha-ha!) feints at taking sovereign territory from our allies.
Nope. He’s not that clever. Yes. He really does appear to be that delusional.
According to the NATO treaty, an act of aggression toward one NATO member is seen as an attack on all members. So what Trump is dancing around by threatening Denmark is a circumstance that could put the U.S. in a military stare-down against Great Britain, France, Germany, and all the other NATO powers. Like World War II, only this time we’re the bad guys.
Trump seems to see Greenland, like Canada (who he’s pitched as a “51st state”), and the Panama Canal (“We’re taking it back.”), as nice additions to his North American Monopoly collection. Oh, and we’ve renamed the Gulf of Mexico because why not? (No word yet on whether my hometown of Mexico, Missouri, will become America, Missouri.)
If it weren’t so insane, all of this would be comedy gold, ripe material for a wacky Broadway farce: The Emperor Has No Clues. But imagine how terrifying all this is to the rest of the world. Imagine how we’d feel if China or Russia or some other nuclear power was suddenly being led by an erratic buffoon who was calling Australia and demanding they hand over New Zealand.
To most of the other civilized countries on planet Earth, the United States appears to have lost its freaking mind. How do you begin to comprehend a country that elects Barack Obama, then Donald Trump, then Joe Biden, and then Trump again? It’s not normal. None of this is normal. We’re all in Greenland now.
At work, the therapist often shares a psychoeducational handout that describes ways to cope with anxiety. The recommended tools of deep breathing and meditation can be helpful, and yet she doubts they are adequate in the present situation. Even classic cognitive restructuring — scaling back worst-case-scenario thinking — seems to her duplicitous. She wants to conjure exercises that banish all anxiety, particularly worries around Trump’s threats of mass deportation. But she isn’t that good.
Undocumented immigrants living in the United States have been in this spot before, and so has the therapist, who worked in this small office eight years ago, when Trump first set up residence in the White House. She has waited for this fear to resurface as a concern for those who visit the family medicine clinic to treat diabetes or high blood pressure and then stop in to discuss their life stressors. Soon after the 2024 presidential election, a patient brought up Trump’s aggressive threats. “I don’t belong anywhere in this country,” she said sadly. Some patients report difficulty controlling worrying, trouble relaxing, and feeling as if something catastrophic might happen.
Trained to maintain confidentiality, the therapist nevertheless believed back in 2017 that it was important to move outside the bubble of therapy and raise awareness of the toxic impact Trump’s immigration policies had on mental health. During Trump’s first term, she wrote an article for Memphis Parent magazine introducing Karla’s story. An article reflecting similar concerns could be written today. “Sixteen-year-old Karla plans a special Mother’s Day celebration. The high school junior will serve breakfast in bed to her mom, honoring her mother’s presence in her life. Throughout the day, she’ll try to push aside the anxiety she has experienced the past few months. ‘I try to cherish every moment.’ Inevitably, though, she will read a news report or social media post outlining President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Karla is a U.S. citizen, and her parents are undocumented immigrants from Mexico. ‘I worry that one day my parents may not come back to my house,’ she said. ‘My 9-year-old sister looks at the news and worries when someone knocks on the door.’”
When at school, the distracted girls found it difficult to concentrate on academics. In many ways, Karla’s parents were typical — they worked hard, paid taxes, and built strong relationships in the community. The children looked forward to attending college.
Another source for the article was Mauricio Calvo, the director of Latino Memphis, who said, “Children are hearing the conversation at the dinner table, ‘What happens if I don’t come back today?’ For a community where family is everything, the fear of separation touches us at our core. People fear that any interaction with the government will result in deportation — applying for food stamps for their U.S. citizen families, or going to any court, not just immigration court. Some skip doctors’ appointments, and fear of deportation may prevent crime victims from filing police reports. Even if nothing happens, anxiety makes people sick.”
He noted that at one elementary school, parents from four families approached a teacher, pleading with her to take custody of their children in the event of their deportation.
That year, local artist Yancy Villa shared her perspective with the Barrier Free installation displayed in pop-ups around the country. In silhouettes portraying a father carrying a child and a caregiver pushing a wheelchair, the artist left void spaces representing missing persons. Her project built on the controversial idea of Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead of concrete, the installation consisted of portraits of local families and individuals representing Memphis’ diverse tapestry. “Everyone is an essential part of our community, and separating us, physically, emotionally, or in any other form, makes our community incomplete,” she said.
It is now early 2025 just after the festive holiday season. In some areas of Mexico and the United States, children recently celebrated Epiphany, commonly known as Three Kings Day or El Día de Los Tres Reyes, by leaving out shoes filled with hay for the kings’ camels. It is a happy and joyful time. Weeks later, the 60th presidential inauguration ceremony took place, ushering in a period with many unknowns. It is vital for undocumented immigrants to know their rights, and the Latino Memphis website describes those rights and how to apply them.
The therapist is not fluent in Spanish, the “heart language” of many patients, and relies on medical interpreters to facilitate conversations about the ways of the heart and mind. Still, the pain comes through loud and clear, and Mauricio Calvo’s words from eight years ago return to the therapist. “Even if nothing happens, anxiety makes people sick.”
Stephanie Painter is a behavioral health consultant and freelance writer.
According to 2024’s “The Infinite Dial” report by Edison Research, 47 percent of the U.S. population, 12 and older, listened to at least one podcast in the span of a month, up 12 percent from the year before. What can we say? People like their podcasts. So much so that there are millions of them. We tried Googling the exact number but got bogged down in the AI of it all, so we landed at millions … or at least hundreds of thousands.
What we can say with certainty is that a decent number of podcasts are being created right here in Memphis. Check out what a few local podcasters had to say in this week’s cover story, and take a peek at the sidebar to discover even more podcasts to add to your playlist.
Verbally Effective
If there’s a go-to expert in podcasting in Memphis, it’s Ena Esco. She’s the host of Verbally Effective, innovator in residence at Cossitt Library, founder of the PodBox Memphis Podcast Festival, and the wearer of many more hats in this new media landscape.
With a background in radio since graduating from LeMoyne-Owen College in 2001, Esco started her podcast in 2018. “With radio, you only have so many minutes that you can have a conversation,” she says, “and I wanted to extend those conversations through podcasting. And so I wanted it to be a podcast that intersected art, culture, politics, entertainment, with a Memphis focus.”
Ena Esco, host of Verbally Effective (Photo: Courtesy Ena Esco)
Her Verbally Effective became home for just that, with each episode, over 300 in total, in conversation with a Memphis changemaker — from National Civil Rights Museum president Russell Wigginton to Grammy Award-winning Crystal Nicole to therapist Brandy J. Flynn. “You just never know what people have gone through to be where they are today,” she says, “and to hear their stories lets me know that the type of work that I’m doing with podcasting is important because I know that their stories will resonate with other people.”
Esco’s goal, she says, is to elevate voices, whether that’s in her own podcast or through helping others create theirs. “So much is going on right now, especially right now, with people trying to silence voices, but we can utilize the new media platforms to get our messaging across.”
“With podcasting, anything is on the table,” adds Esco. “In podcasting, you can create your own situation. You can format your show however you want to format your show. You can monetize. You can build relationships with people that you probably never would.”
After building her audience with Verbally Effective, Esco drew the attention of Memphis Public Libraries’ leadership and before too long became its first-ever innovator in residence, coordinating free podcast programming at Cossitt Library, developing workshops, curating panels and shows, and working with podcasters individually. In her nearly three years at Cossitt, Esco has helped podcasters in a gamut of genres, from sports to lifestyle to travel. “When you get [people] into podcasting, you’re really building up their confidence in making them a stronger speaker, a better storyteller,” she says. “It just gives me joy to see people transform in their way.”
For her work through the library system, Esco earned an honorable mention from the Urban Libraries Council Innovation Awards in 2024. “It was a big deal because it afforded [the Memphis Public Libraries] the opportunity to receive a grant to bring in more innovators [in other areas],” she says.
This coming year, Esco hopes to produce 10 podcasts, with a focus on community podcasting. “It’s going to be quite the undertaking,” she says.
Also in 2025, Esco will lead digital radio, podcasting, and TV broadcasting programming for the recently reopened Lowery Communication Center at LeMoyne-Owen College. “This is a full-circle moment for me because I started my media career as a senior, and now I’m back at my alma mater, seeing the students in this particular subject matter, so I’m just blessed. I am really blessed.”
In September, she’ll host the PodBox Memphis Podcast Festival, an annual event with industry experts, panels, mixers, and more. She’ll also host quarterly meetups with established and potential podcasters throughout the year.
Find Esco on social media @enaesco. Verbally Effective, in addition to being available for streaming, is aired on WXYR on Tuesdays at noon. — Abigail Morici
Cemetery Row
A deep and ominous bell tolls over the cold, lonely, windswept graveyard.
It’d be pretty scary, but the hosts of Cemetery Row are there to hold your hand and tell you it’s all okay. Then they start telling you the stories of some of the folks buried there and — before you know it, champ — you’re starting to have fun.
“Cemeteries are not scary places,” says Sheena Barnett, one of the podcast’s three hosts. “They’re not sad places. They can be, obviously if you’re going to where a loved one is buried. But I see them as places of love, places full of stories, places that need to be preserved.”
The sentiment is shared by hosts Lori Pope and Hannah Donegan. The trio of “spooky girls” met as Ole Miss journalism students, kept tight after school, and wanted to stay that way when Donegan moved to Chicago. Barnett volunteered at Elmwood Cemetery cleaning headstones and told the others about all the great stories out there. Cemetery Row became a way for them to connect and to hone their haunted proclivities.
Pope’s dad would tease her about “Rosie the ghost,” who was said to roam an old family cemetery on her grandparents’ farm. Barnett grew up on Unsolved Mysteries and going to cemeteries with her mother and grandmother. A “Jane Doe” headstone mystified a younger Donegan when seen in a graveyard in plain view of her Olive Branch Middle School.
That ominous bell really does toll to open each episode of Cemetery Row. The hosts introduce themselves, banter, connect, tell a few inside jokes, and they cuss … like a lot. The meat of the show, though, is true stories of the dead.
“Just like most people from history, she has parts of her life where she’s a total relatable badass, and then there’s parts where she kind of sucks a little bit,” Donagen says of occultist, ceremonial magician, and novelist Dion Fortune in an October episode called “Occultists, Psychics, and Cryptids.” “She was a rich, white lady in early 20th-century England. So, what are you gonna do?”
That episode also featured the stories of Simon Warner, a psychic and crime doctor, known as The Seer of Shelbyville (Tennessee), and some spooky tales from Idaho (a bit outside of the cemetery, strictly speaking, but right next door).
The hosts laugh, bomb each other with bon mots, and keep things casual. But they flex those journalism degrees in well-researched stories, written with a straight-ahead newspaper eloquence. Not every episode has a theme but some have featured athletes, LGBTQ folks, Black excellence, and more. One featured people named Dick.
Dial up Cemetery Row wherever you find podcasts. Pope, Doengan, and Barnett will have you skipping through the headstones in no time. — Toby Sells
Night Classy
Have you ever been curious about the deep intricacies of society that our history books never dreamed of covering? You know, like the 1950s quiz show scandal that unearthed rigging and resulted in congressional hearings? Or have you or a loved one been approached by a charming Nigerian prince who only needs your entire life savings to help him out? If you’re looking to dive more into his origin story (and the many ways he presents himself), or just looking to satiate your hunger for obscure knowledge, class is in session on the Night Classy podcast.
Hayley Madden and Katja Barnhart are two educators by day, taking their aptitude for knowledge from the classroom to the mic. Both women met through Teach For America (TFA) and bonded over The Office — facilitated by the “TFA experience,” which Madden explains is like an “extension of college.”
Katja Barnhart and Hayley Madden host Night Classy. (Photo: Alec Ogg)
Madden says the podcast was originally Barnhart’s idea, which she says stemmed from her “obsession” with podcasts, and after moving to a new place, this seemed like the perfect new hobby to take up. Barnhart remembers thinking, “This is it; this is going to be good.”
The podcast’s future was further solidified when Barnhart met her longtime boyfriend Alec Ogg, who’s a podcast producer by trade and offered to produce the podcast.
As a child, Madden says she liked to experiment with different things such as making mud pies and catching frogs. “Maybe not researching like I do now as an adult, but just getting into things is something I’ve always been into,” she adds.
Barnhart says she’s always been obsessed with history, always finding herself engrossed in historical fiction. She then found herself obtaining a history degree, but ended up teaching math.
“[I] didn’t really have an outlet to read about the kind of things I wanted to aside from my spare time, so the podcast has been a good way to scratch that itch,” Barnhart says.
During each episode, the hosts pick two stories that they’ve each researched with detailed notes about topics that can be defined as “oddities and curiosities you’ve never learned in school.” As they approach their 250th episode on their main feed, the ladies have covered brain eating amoebas, the lore of America’s Next Top Model, and the Ant Hill Kids Cult to name a few.
“It had to be something we wanted to research,” Madden says. “If it’s not fun on the front end, then it’s not going to be fun for us to actually do, execute, and listen to later.”
Barnhart also adds that they didn’t want to limit themselves to true crime, paranormal, and reality TV. While they’re interested in all of these things, diversifying their content keeps the experience fresh.
“I feel like if you have to read about it every single week, you’re going to hate it,” Barnhart explains. “We wanted options.”
“We were like, ‘What’s our hook?’” Madden adds. “Well, we’re teachers.” — Kailynn Johnson
Sonosphere
Sonosphere is more than just a podcast, and had been even before it became a radio show on WYXR (every Monday at 4 p.m.). More than most podcasts, perhaps, it was founded with a mission: fostering more appreciation of unconventional music in Memphis. As co-founder Amy Schaftlein says, the goal of Sonosphere was “highlighting the sort of experimental bands that don’t really fit into a genre, but have always brought intriguing and interesting sounds. Not everybody could tell if they liked or not. You know, like when you try a new food, you’re kind of like, ‘I don’t know if I like that.’ But you might start to like it a lot more as you try it in different ways.”
Realizing this would take more than a mere podcast, Schaftlein started the nonprofit Sonosphere Inc. with then-fellow president/CEO Christopher Williams in 2017, intent on programming live performances and lectures, music festivals, and audio documentaries. Thus, right from the beginning, Sonosphere the podcast had a parallel production series known as Sound Observations. “A lot of the Sound Observations series that we brought to Memphis back in 2017, ’18, and ’19 highlighted experimental artists like Wu Fei, who plays a very ancient Chinese instrument.”
Amy Schaftlein and Jenny Davis of Sonosphere (Photo: Amy Schaftlein)
At the time, Schaftlein says, Crosstown Arts had not yet leaned into the kind of adventurous programming that they’re now known for. But as Crosstown Arts evolved, with Memphis Symphony Orchestra flutist and Blueshift Ensemble member Jenny Davis taking on music programming for a time, there was less of a need for the Sound Observations series, and Sonosphere the podcast came to the fore. When Williams moved away, Schaftlein, after hosting solo for a while, thought that Davis would be the perfect partner.
“Jenny worked with Chris and I on our Sound Observations when she was at Crosstown Arts,” says Schaftlein. “And she also created the Continuum Fest [a local celebration of New Music and avant garde classical compositions], which she invited Sonosphere to ‘sponsor’ — which really meant we covered it for them — and we came up with some content for the fest. We’ve always worked with Jenny through Crosstown Arts, and so she’s been a part of the podcast, tangentially, for a while. And so it just seemed like a really good fit.”
This was also a good way for Davis to keep her hand in experimental music as she moved on to become the executive director of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program (MYSP). A recent episode of the podcast, for example, focused solely on last year’s Continuum Fest, staged at the Beethoven Club.
Meanwhile, the podcast evolved into a radio show when WYXR began broadcasting in October 2020. And while that slowed the podcast production a bit, it’s really all of a piece. Indeed, as Schaftlein says, “I actually worked for WEVL when I was in college and I had a show on the station. That’s part of what prompted Sonosphere. I really wanted a radio show on WEVL, and they took a while to get back to me, and so I just kind of started it. I was like, ‘We can do this from home!’ You know, podcasting was a thing. It wasn’t as big as now, but it was still a thing then. So we just went ahead and did it ourselves.” — Alex Greene
For your listening pleasure:
Astronomica Join a group of nerds as they crew the definitely-not-piloted-by-a-rogue-AI ship The Admiral Grace in a science-fiction OSR actual play podcast using the Stars Without Number RPG system.
Black Is America Dominic Lawson highlights little-known African-American figures and stories.
Champions of the Lost Causes Marvin Stockwell talks to folks across the country about their success and setbacks.
Got Points Podcast Ashling Woolley and Tiffani Denham teach listeners how to build up travel points quickly, how to keep a high bank of points, and how to use these points to maximize every benefit.
Grits and Grinds: Memphis Grizzlies Keith Parish covers the Grizzlies year-round with in-depth analysis.
Like You: Mindfulness for Kids Noah Glenn uses breathing, affirmations, music, and imagination to support social-emotional health and mental wellness for kids.
Memphis Flyer Video Podcast Oh, hello, that’s us! Each week, Chris McCoy and a co-host take you through the paper and give you insight into the madness that goes on at the Memphis Flyer.
The Permanent Record Just City’s podcast features conversations about the criminal justice system and how individuals can work to make it smaller, fairer, and better for everyone.
In a gray Memphis winter, Justin Bowles’ vibrant garden blooms in Tops’ window gallery at Madison Avenue Park. The garden, populated with hot pink plastic yard flamingos and bouquets of artificial dollar-store flowers and springing forth with small blue toy horses, is Bowles’ latest public art installation, this one being titled “Green Fountain.” Its purpose, the artist says, is to bring joy.
In curating her exhibit, Bowles created three paper collages: Baby Chi, My Backyard, and Wolf Garden. Baby Chi, in particular, is a depiction of her chihuahua she had for many years, a “representation of unconditional love,” she says, but in general these three collages represent her “love of nature, of gardening, of animals. … To me, those are universal things that anyone can access and anyone can experience joy from.”
Justin Bowles’ Baby Chi is one of three collages in her display. (Photo: Courtesy Justin Bowles)
The collages bring forth a world of whimsy, a secret garden for the viewer to step into, with its simple drawings and childlike aesthetic. “I don’t ever put people in my artwork because I want the viewer to be experiencing, instead of the viewer looking at another person in the artwork,” Bowles says.
With that in mind, Bowles’ environment is full of sculptural elements saturated in nostalgia. For instance, those tiny blue horses are toy horses she played with as a child. “I was so excited to find them at my mom’s house,” she says. “I was like, ‘If I paint these and put them in my installation, then I’m still enjoying them and they’re still having a life in this environment.’”
Justin Bowles (Photo: Courtesy Justin Bowles)
In another bid for nostalgia, Bowles also made large fabric strawberries that sit on the floor. “I was inspired by my grandmother and her sister who got in this crafty phrase, I think, in the ’80s, where they were making all these little fabric fruits,” she says. “So it’s like a part of my grandmother is there, too.”
But Bowles doesn’t expect the average viewer to know these small details of her life. After all, that’s the nature of public art, where more often than not, a viewer who encounters the exhibit is not seeking it out but might have just happened upon it. “Anyone can see [this space] 24/7,” Bowles says. “It’s really living a life of its own without me.”
Even so, that sense of nostalgia carries on, without biographical information, as each piece in the curated garden means something to the artist or to someone, known or unknown. Those dollar-store flowers, Bowles says, remind her of “the things people have in their homes to make it beautiful, like a form of self-expression.” A green beaded basket also sits in the garden, something she thrifted. “Somebody made this by hand, who knows how long it took them to make that,” she says. “I had to buy it. It’s a beautiful piece of art. It’s just a never-ending fascination for me as far as all the things that we collect and treasure.”
Her hope, ultimately, is that at least one of these recognizable elements, if not all, captures a glimpse of nostalgia or joy. Having created murals throughout the city and recently having sculpted a piece for the University of Memphis as a New Public Artist Fellow for the UrbanArt Commission, Bowles sees public art as a unique opportunity to do so. “You do get to interact with people that you wouldn’t normally if you have a gallery or museum show,” she says.
At this, she recalls serving Thanksgiving dinner at a shelter this year when a friend told one of the guests about her installation which had opened a few weeks prior. “She showed him a picture of it,” Bowles says. “And he said, ‘I’ve spent the night right in front of that glass.’ And he proceeded to tell me how inspiring and encouraging it was to him and all the things that he thought about while sleeping there. That was just such a blessing to me to know that somebody who I don’t know, who maybe I never would have met, and didn’t know who I was, had a positive, uplifting experience with the art that had nothing to do with me.”
Bowles goes on to say: “It was a lot of hard work making this. If I’m going to put this much hard work into it, I really want the viewer to have that experience.”
“Green Fountain” is on view through February 16th at Tops at Madison Avenue Park.
