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Moms for Liberty Renews Fight Against School Lessons on Empathy, Compassion

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice speaks to an in-person and online audience on Jan. 8, 2025, at a small recording studio near Nashville, Tennessee, as part of the organization's new national training program for parents on monthly education topics. The first session was about social and emotional learning. (Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

In a small recording studio near Nashville, Tennessee, conservative activist Kelly Schenkoske urged an online audience of parents to scour school district websites for contracts that mention social and emotional learning (SEL).

“Social-emotional learning is far more than just kindness,” Schenkoske said. “It is a bait and switch.”

The bait, according to Schenkoske and other panelists at the recent Moms for Liberty training event, is small shifts in the school day to introduce students to lessons about virtuous qualities like empathy and compassion.

The switch, they said, is to make children sympathetic to what they see as progressive ideas, ranging from open borders and acceptance of homosexuality to gun control, action against climate change, and redistribution of wealth.

“You send your child with your value system, your own beliefs, and now they’re getting the government’s value system installed into them,” warned Schenkoske, who hosts a podcast from her California home about education and parent rights.

The two-hour training session was the first installment in Moms for Liberty U, an online course meant to drive conservative parent activism in the group’s continuing effort to sway local and national education agendas.

That it focused on social and emotional learning illustrates the staying power of conservatives’ concerns about schools’ role in addressing student well-being. These concerns stretch back years, even as research on SEL shows wide-ranging benefits for students.

Now Moms for Liberty has an ally in the White House, with President Donald Trump painting schools as centers of radical indoctrination and signing executive orders that seek to stamp out teaching about systemic racism and policies supportive of transgender youth.

The group’s future trainings will cover critical race theory, restorative justice, sex education, library content, Marxism, and more — topics that are under scrutiny by the new administration and more prominent in public conversation.

Tiffany Justice, a Florida mom, activist, and former school board member who co-founded Moms for Liberty, sees SEL at the root of everything. She hopes the administration soon will call it out by name, too.

Parents who agree with the Trump administration can “take those executive orders, that messaging, and really make it come alive throughout the entire country,” Justice told Chalkbeat.

SEL use grew in schools after the pandemic

Social and emotional learning is an educational approach introduced in the 1960s to teach life skills designed to help children manage stress, treat others with respect and empathy, work cooperatively, and recognize and regulate their emotions.

The use of SEL tools has increased as educators seek to help students rebound academically and emotionally from disruptions to schooling and children’s daily lives after the Covid pandemic emerged in early 2020.

About 83 percent of principals reported last year that their schools use an SEL curriculum or program, compared with 73 percent in the 2021-22 school year and 46 percent in 2017-18, based on a nationally representative survey by RAND Corporation and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.

Educators say the pandemic deeply affected students’ mental health, contributing to higher rates of depression and anxiety. And national studies highlight an urgent need to provide kids with tailor-made interventions. An infusion of federal aid for education during the pandemic helped to fuel the growth in SEL adoption.

The programs vary in quality. But a large analysis of studies on SEL published in 2023 found a wide range of positive effects, including better academic performance, homework completion, and attendance, a major area of concern nationwide since the pandemic.

Though teachers sometimes complain that SEL is one more thing piled on their very full plates and could distract from pure academics, the analysis also found that programs led by teachers had more positive effects than those led by counselors or outsiders.

“It’s frustrating to see the science and impacts in schools and then to see the noise around the banning of SEL,” said Christina Cipriano, an associate professor at Yale University and lead author of the meta-analysis, which synthesized more than 400 studies over 13 years that collectively included half a million children.

Cipriano recalled a trip to Washington, D.C., to talk with policymakers about using science to make decisions, including about social and emotional learning. One Republican congressional staffer told her that their constituents would love everything about her work — except the name.

“You have a Control-F problem,” the staffer said, referring to the computer keyboard command that lets someone easily find a term in documents such as school district contracts to purchase SEL products and services.

Polls back that up. Large numbers of parents support the idea that schools should teach interpersonal skills and self-regulation, but far fewer react positively to the term “social and emotional learning.”

Another SEL backlash brews

Justice, now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with close ties to the Trump administration, described social and emotional learning as a “Trojan horse” that opens students to ways of thinking that run counter to what parents teach at home. For example, an emphasis on kindness might lead a student to feel pressure to use a transgender classmate’s preferred pronouns, she said, when that makes the first student uncomfortable and runs counter to their parents’ values.

That’s why Moms for Liberty U started its parent training series with a focus on social and emotional learning.

“We had to start here, because this is what opens the child up to the indoctrination,” Justice said. “It’s the programming mechanism that allows for gender ideology to come in, for critical race theory to come in.”

The training session, which was taped early this year, describes SEL as being tucked into dozens of programs and tools in common use in schools, from teacher-parent messaging platforms to programs designed to make recess a more positive experience. Panelists named surveys on youth well-being as another example of SEL.

Alex Neuman, a conservative author who appeared on the inaugural training panel, said the ultimate goal of SEL is “de-Christianizing education,” something he traces back to Horace Mann, the 19th century social reformer considered one of the fathers of public education.

Panelist Jennifer Kom, a psychology professor at Bethany Lutheran College in Minnesota, said SEL forces teachers to be therapists and leads children to disclose personal matters that can lead to bullying.

Their arguments were enough to convince Tennessee mom Genevieve Pahos to take her activism a step further.

Pahos was part of a small live audience at the taping. A Moms for Liberty chapter leader in Williamson County, south of Nashville, she already had heard many of the arguments against SEL, but she said the session inspired her to start filing more public records requests about SEL programs in her local districts.

“I learned a lot from some of the speakers,” she said, “about how to find out what’s really happening in our schools.”

Speaking to Chalkbeat after the training session, Justice said schools should stick to academics.

“Kids are sad sometimes; it’s okay to be sad sometimes,” she said. “But we need to help children be resilient and find their way through [sadness] by finding interest in life and success in school and giving them the confidence that they get from mastery of skills in the classroom.”

Put another way: “It ends up having kids marinating in their feelings all day. It’s very hard to focus on learning math if we’re all talking about, you know, Johnny’s dog that died.”

Researcher: Schools should include families in SEL programming

Even supporters of social and emotional learning are sometimes fuzzy on what SEL is and isn’t, Cipriano said, which can make it hard to have productive conversations across different viewpoints.

SEL is not therapy or a mental health intervention, she said. But done well, it might mean fewer children need mental health support down the road, just as teaching reading properly to all students might mean fewer students need special education services.

Building resilience — so that students can focus on academics even when bad things are happening around them — is one goal of SEL.

School leaders should think about what problems they want to solve and how they’ll support teachers, Cipriano said, not just adopt a social and emotional learning curriculum because it seems like the thing to do.

She’s working on a public database that she hopes will help school communities make better decisions about which curriculum or products to invest in. Users will be able to see what outcomes were generated by certain programs and the types of communities where these programs have been tried.

She sees lots of room for improvement — better teacher training, more rigorous reviews of existing curriculum, and better communication with parents.

“It seems to me that we have a real opportunity to engage families at the outset of implementation so they’re aware of what’s happening in the schools,” she said. “When you talk to parents and families about the strategies involved in social and emotional learning, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t want their child to be a good friend or have less test anxiety.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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TN GOP: Teachers Should Follow Trump’s “Gulf of America” Order

Sen. Bo Watson, a Republican from Hixson, chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly. (Larry McCormack for Chalkbeat)

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A state Republican leader has introduced a resolution encouraging Tennessee teachers, especially geography teachers, to use the names Gulf of America and Mount McKinley when speaking with their students about map locations recently rebranded by President Donald Trump.

As a proposed resolution and not a law, the measure would not place any mandates or requirements on teachers if it’s approved.

State Senator Bo Watson (R-Hixson), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, filed his resolution Thursday and had amassed 19 co-sponsors, including Lt. Governor Randy McNally, by the end of the day, ensuring its passage in the 33-member Senate.

Watson’s resolution follows Trump’s executive order renaming as the Gulf of America the body of water that for 400 years has been known internationally as the Gulf of Mexico. The order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — also reversed President Barack Obama’s 2015 executive order renaming Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the nation’s highest peak, as Denali, the site’s Native Alaskan name.

Republican lawmakers in Iowa already have advanced a bill that would require schools to change educational materials to map names that align with Trump’s “America First” worldview.

The Tennessee proposal reads: “We most heartily agree with President Trump that ‘the naming of our national treasures … should honor the contribution of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation’s rich past.’”

On Friday, Senate Democrats called the resolution a “distraction” to important education matters aimed at preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow.

“Everybody has a right to file resolutions if they think it’s important, but it’s not going to be one that I’ll support,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis.

Trump’s order has already sparked reflection, discussion, and debate among teachers, as well as mapmakers, journalists, and textbook publishers who seek to stay apolitical about map lines that are inherently political.

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, said his organization’s board has not taken a position so far or offered guidance to social studies teachers who are its members.

“Personally, I believe what teachers will do is what’s in the best interest of students,” said Finchum, a retired social studies teacher from Jefferson County.

“I don’t think they’re going to ignore the topic, but I also don’t think they’ll simply call it the Gulf of America and continue with the lesson,” he said. “In Tennessee, geography is primarily taught in middle and high school, so these students are old enough to have heard the words Gulf of Mexico. If you just call it the Gulf of America, some student is going to raise their hand.”

Tennessee, which overwhelmingly voted for Trump last fall and where Republicans have a firm grip on state government, has been an early adopter of laws stoking culture war battles around education in recent years.

In 2021, it became one of the first states to enact a law intended to restrict K-12 classroom discussions about race, gender, and bias. That law is being challenged in court by a group of teachers and the state’s largest teacher organization.

Under Republican Governor Bill Lee, the legislature also has passed several laws leading to the purging of hundreds of library books from public schools, with titles involving race, sex, and the Holocaust among the most frequent targets.

And earlier this month, Watson introduced a bill that could allow school districts and charter schools to bar undocumented students from enrolling, potentially challenging a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitling all children to a public education regardless of their immigration status.

His latest resolution says the body of water between Florida and Mexico warrants renaming because of the gulf’s pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy.

Regarding the name of the nation’s highest peak in Alaska, the resolution cites President William McKinley’s leadership behind the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War and the nation’s rapid expansion, including the annexations of Puerto Rico, Guam, and Hawaii, during McKinley’s administration from 1897 until his assassination in 1901.

Informally, Alaskans have called the snow-covered mountain Denali, its Native name, for decades. President McKinley, who was from Ohio, never set foot in the state.

You can track the resolution on the General Assembly’s website.

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.

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School Voucher Bill Poised for Passage as Special Session Set to Wrap

Chairman Bo Watson and Vice Chairman John Stevens lead the Tennessee Senate Finance Committee, which voted 8-3 to advance Gov. Bill Lee's universal school voucher bill during its meeting on Wednesday. (Larry McCormack for Chalkbeat)

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Gov. Bill Lee’s private school voucher bill on Wednesday cleared the committee level in a special legislative session, setting the stage for votes this week by the full House and Senate.

As expected, the bill sailed Tuesday through education panels stacked with lawmakers who support policies that provide taxpayer funding to families to pay toward private education services.

The bigger test came later in finance committees, where a similar voucher bill bogged down last spring over disagreements within the Republican supermajority. It passed easily there too, with only a few GOP members from rural areas in opposition.

Lee’s Education Freedom Act, his signature education proposal, is scheduled to be debated Thursday by both full chambers, where the votes are expected to be tighter.

If it passes, the initiative would mark a major change in K-12 education in Tennessee. It would create a new statewide schooling track, starting with 20,000 “scholarships” of $7,075 each.

To draw support from lawmakers worried about the impact to their public schools, the measure also would give one-time bonuses of $2,000 to the state’s public school teachers; establish a public school infrastructure fund using tax revenues from the sports betting industry that currently contribute to college scholarships; and reimburse public school systems for any state funding lost if a student dis-enrolls to accept the new voucher.

Only 15 of the state’s 144 districts are expected to receive such reimbursements, according to the legislature’s latest fiscal analysis of the bill.

An amendment added on Tuesday requires that, for public school teachers to receive the bonus, their school boards must adopt a resolution saying that they want to participate in the bonus plan. Sponsors said the change was intended to give local boards more autonomy over the funds.

The action on Lee’s proposal came as President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that frees up federal funding and prioritizes spending on school choice programs.

A day earlier, Trump applauded Tennessee’s Education Freedom Act.

“Congratulations to Tennessee Legislators who are working hard to pass School Choice this week, which I totally support,” the president said in his post.

A subsidy or a civil right: Senators debate the bill’s purpose

The governor, who has framed school choice as “the civil rights issue of our time,” called lawmakers into the special session to take up vouchers, disaster relief, and immigration.

Republican leaders who control the General Assembly have signaled that they intend to wrap up that business in one week and pass three different legislative packages, as well as about $1 billion to pay for them.

The statewide voucher bill is the session’s most contentious issue, prompting philosophical debates Wednesday among members of the Senate Finance Committee about whom the proposed program is intended to help.

According to the state’s own analysis, about 65 percent of the new voucher recipients are expected to be students who are already in private schools, with the rest coming from public schools.

That projection may be low. In Arkansas, which approved universal vouchers in 2023 under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, more than 80 percent of last year’s enrollees had not attended public schools the previous year.

Tennessee’s bill would remove any family income restrictions for eligibility in the program’s second year. For the upcoming 2025-26 academic year, half of the vouchers would be available to students whose family income is no more than three times the federal threshold for receiving a reduced-price lunch, or about $175,000 annually for a family of four.

“It’s essentially giving a scholarship to people who can already afford to go to private school anyway,” said Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis).

By contrast, the state’s smaller existing school voucher program, approved by the legislature in 2019, restricts eligibility to public school students living in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, and whose families have significantly lower incomes.

Defending the governor’s universal voucher plan, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) challenged the suggestion that the measure amounts to a government-funded subsidy for affluent families.

“We’re not going to penalize people who’ve been successful,” said Johnson, the bill’s Senate sponsor. “We’re not going to penalize people who work hard and might do a little better than someone else. We want these to be universal, and that’s the ultimate goal.”

Johnson added that he “has a problem with deciding who’s rich and who’s not.” It depends, he said, on their family’s location and circumstances.

“This program is going to help families across Tennessee — 20,000 kids — get into a school that their parents think is a better option,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be based on income. It should be universal.”

Early research shows that small voucher programs limited to low-income students are more likely to have positive outcomes, while recent national studies indicate that vouchers have mostly negative or insignificant impacts on academic outcomes.

Long-term costs worry critics

Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) sought to pin down the proposed program’s cost as it grows, especially since the 74,000 students who attend private schools in Tennessee would be eligible to apply for a state-funded scholarship.

State analysts expect all 20,000 vouchers will be awarded in the first year, allowing the state to expand the program by 5,000 participants each year, potentially doubling the program’s size by the 2029-30 school year. In the first five years, the program could cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion, the state’s analysts say.

“This is a long-term program, and we should think about the long-term costs,” Yarbro said.

He called out the explosive growth of Arizona’s voucher program, which became available to all students in 2022. The initiative has contributed to a $400 million shortfall in the state’s current budget.

Johnson said Yarbro’s concerns amounted to “scare tactics.”

Any growth in the program is “subject to appropriation” by the legislature, he said. “We’ll be back next year, and we’ll have a conversation about it.”

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.

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Voucher Bill Glides Through House, Senate Committees

Photographs by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout ©2025

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.

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Tennessee Students Buck Grim National Trends On Nation’s Report Card

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: ChalkbeatTN
Credit: 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 national results track with test-score trends from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, which in 2024 showed that students continued to improve from post-pandemic lows.

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.

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Lee Calls Special Session; Foes Slam “Voucher Scam”

State Capitol (Photo: Tennessee State Government)

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee called a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly on Monday, January 27th to pass his school voucher plan, though one Democrat called the move an attempt “to use an unspeakable tragedy as a public relations stunt and political leverage.”

Lee announced the move Wednesday morning, after much speculation that he would call the session. The session will focus on his signature Education Reform Act. But the governor will also introduce a “disaster relief legislative package addressing recovery needs for Hurricane Helene, as well as future natural disasters. The session will also address public safety measures regarding immigration, as the incoming Trump Administration has called on states to prepare for policy implementation.” Lee promised details of all of these in the coming days and an official call. 

The announcement of the session Wednesday came with a joint statement from Lee, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville), Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), and House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland). 

“We believe the state has a responsibility to act quickly on issues that matter most to Tennesseans, and there is widespread support in the General Assembly and across Tennessee for a special session on the most pressing legislative priorities: the unified Education Freedom Act and a comprehensive relief package for Hurricane Helene and other disaster recovery efforts. 

“The majority of Tennesseans, regardless of political affiliation, have made it clear that they support empowering parents with school choice, and the best thing we can do for Tennessee students is deliver choices and public school resources without delay. 

“Additionally, Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented disaster across rural, at-risk, and distressed communities that cannot shoulder the local cost share of federal relief funds on their own. The state has an opportunity and obligation to partner with these impacted counties and develop innovative solutions for natural disasters going forward. 

“Finally, the American people elected President Trump with a mandate to enforce immigration laws and protect our communities, and Tennessee must have the resources ready to support the Administration on day one.”

Last week, House Democratic Caucus chairman Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) and Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis) condemned the idea of Lee’s special session. Here are their statements: 

Clemmons:

“It is inappropriate and highly offensive for Gov. Bill Lee to pair his voucher scam with much-needed relief for northeast Tennessee families. It gives one the impression that he is attempting to use an unspeakable tragedy as a public relations stunt and political leverage with several members of our body who have opposed vouchers in the past. 

“We could have and should have held a special session months ago to accomplish everything we need to do for these devastated communities, but Lee clearly and purposefully waited almost four months until he thought he had enough votes to pass his voucher scam. 

“There is nothing ’Christian’ about a man who demonstrates such callous indifference to the lives of Tennesseans and the well-being of entire communities as often as Bill Lee. 

“I trust that my colleagues across the aisle are incensed as I am and that they will hold the line on their opposition to a scam that would decimate public education, blow a hole in our state budget, and directly result in property tax increases in every county.”

Lamar:

“Gov. Lee’s push for private school vouchers is a direct affront to Tennessee families and taxpayers. The current voucher program in Tennessee is failing to deliver the promised benefits to students while siphoning essential funds from our public schools. 

“At a time when our communities are still grappling with the aftermath of recent storms, the last thing Tennessee needs is a special session to advance a flawed voucher policy. 

“If a special session is convened, our focus should be on unifying issues that directly impact our citizens: Storm recovery to ensure that all affected communities receive the necessary support to rebuild and recover, affordable housing for our working families, implementing measures to alleviate financial burdens on Tennessee households, and preventing crime. 

“Using storm relief as a pretext to promote a voucher scheme is a disservice to our families and undermines the real challenges we face. We must prioritize policies that strengthen our public schools, support our communities in recovery, and enhance the well-being of all Tennesseans.”

Here’s how others reacted to the news of Lee’s special session:

• Tanya T. Coats, a Knox County educator and president of the Tennessee Education Association:

“For months, East Tennesseans have been reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It is high time to address the needs of families and communities that are suffering.

“While the General Assembly considers measures to support those recovering from a natural disaster, they should refrain from creating a man-made disaster. Reducing the state’s support of public schools to pay for vouchers will leave local governments to try to make up the difference. They’ll be forced to decide whether to raise taxes locally or reduce services, which can mean firing teachers and closing schools.

“Small towns can’t afford to lose their public schools — where more than 90 percent of students are educated — because of vouchers. Rural communities depend on local public schools to do more than just educate their students — they serve as community gathering places and are often the largest employer. During the days and weeks immediately following the flooding in East Tennessee, public schools served as hubs for distribution of aid to hurting Tennesseans.

“Governor Lee should focus on helping our neighbors, not pushing his statewide voucher scheme backed by out-of-state special interests.”

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Despite Controversial Law, Few Failing Students Held Back

Photo: CDC | Unsplash

Some 60 percent of Tennessee third-grade students scored below proficiency in English language arts on 2024 state tests. Fewer than than 1 percent of them were retained under the state’s reading and retention law, and about 2.5 percent are no longer enrolled in public schools, according to new data.

Among fourth graders who had been promoted by receiving tutoring during the 2023-24 academic year under the same law, just over 1 percent were held back this school year, while at least 4 percent have left their public school.

The findings, presented by Tennessee’s chief academic officer to the State Board of Education on Thursday, show some of the effects of Tennessee’s 2021 reading intervention and retention law aimed at accelerating learning after the pandemic.

The controversial statute was pushed by Gov. Bill Lee, who said he wanted to draw a hard line to “stop the cycle of passing without preparation.” The legislature has since approved several revisions to loosen the policies and provide more pathways to promotion for students who don’t test as proficient readers.

State leaders are ‘encouraged’ by tutoring and summer program data

The big question is whether students are becoming better readers with the state’s interventions.

That includes summer programming, which began in each school system in 2021 to mitigate the effects of disruptions to schooling during the pandemic. About 121,000 students went that first year, and participation has leveled off to about 90,000 in subsequent years.

Chief Academic Officer Kristy Brown, in her presentation to the board, said attendance rates improved for recent summer programs, indicating that parents are finding value in them.

As far as academics, she said: “What we’re really seeing is the effects of decreased summer slide, or the lack of it, for students who are participating, compared to those who are not.”

Summer slide, referring to when students’ academic proficiency regresses during summer break, is a common phenomenon, especially for historically disadvantaged populations.

As for required small group tutoring, which younger students receive weekly during the school year if they don’t meet expectations on state tests, Brown said students testing in the bottom level, called “below” proficiency, are moving in the right direction.

In addition, almost half of the 12,260 fourth graders who received required tutoring in 2023-24 showed improvement as the year progressed. Over 14 percent of them scored as proficient on their TCAPs last spring, and nearly 33 percent met the threshold for showing adequate growth based on a state formula.

The data is the first available for fourth-graders who started receiving additional support after scoring below proficiency in the third grade.

“To finally have the numbers — to see that the needle appears to have been moved in a positive way like that — I was glad to see,” said Ryan Holt, a member of the state board.

Several other board members also said they were “encouraged” by the data.

Brown, the state’s academic chief, cautioned that gains can’t be traced at this point to any single part of the state’s reading interventions.

“It’s a combination of the things that we’ve done,” she said, “with professional learning for teachers, and summer programming, and tutoring, and those things customized for those students to see the gains that I think we’ve seen in Tennessee.”

Many educators and parents have been less enthusiastic.

The high-stakes testing was well-intended, they say, but it’s taken an emotional toll on many of Tennessee’s youngest students, affecting their self-confidence and their feelings toward school.

The legislature’s most recent revisions to the law were intended to give parents and educators more input into retention decisions.

Many students facing retention used alternative pathways to promotion

After the 2023-24 school year, most of the nearly 44,000 third graders who were at risk of retention used other pathways to promotion.

Nearly 27 percent were exempted for various reasons, including having a disability or suspected disability that impacts their reading; being an English language learner with less than two years of ELA instruction; and having been previously retained.

Over 4 percent retook the test at the end of the academic year and scored as proficient.

Others were promoted through a combination of tutoring and summer program participation.

For the 12,260 fourth graders who participated in tutoring last school year, over 14 percent scored as proficient on the state’s assessment in the spring.

Over 32 percent met the state’s “adequate growth” measure that’s tailored to each student. It’s based on testing measurements that the state uses to predict the probability that a student can become proficient by the eighth grade, when they take their last TCAP tests.

And nearly 44 percent of at-risk fourth graders were promoted by a new “conference” pathway that lawmakers approved on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. It allows the student to be promoted if their parents, teacher, and principal decide collectively that it’s in the child’s best interest.

Any fourth grader promoted to the fifth grade via the conference pathway must receive tutoring in the fifth grade.

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.

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List of Nearly 400 Purged Books Circulating Among TN School Districts

Credit: Zetong Li on Unsplash

One Tennessee school district’s list of nearly 400 books removed from library shelves, including titles by authors ranging from Dr. Seuss to Toni Morrison, is being used by other school systems as a possible template to follow.

Administrators for Wilson County Schools directed the district’s librarians to pull the books a month ago. This week, leaders with Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools sent its librarians the same list to consider when reviewing their collections.

A third large suburban district, Rutherford County Schools, instructed its librarians this week to remove around 150 titles — 51 of which overlap with the list in neighboring Wilson County.

The removal there came at the request of school board member Frances Rosales, who told Chalkbeat that she used the Wilson County list and reviews on the website Book Looks as the basis for her request.

The purges come under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 “age-appropriate” school library law, which lawmakers expanded this year to prohibit public school libraries from having books with “nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual content, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

Sponsors of the changes, enacted amid national “culture wars” fueled in part by pro-censorship websites, say their goal is to protect students from obscene content and give families more control over their children’s education.

But the changes have also created a climate of fear, confusion, and self-censorship for school leaders and librarians, prompting some to revise or ignore their own review processes and preemptively pull titles from their shelves.

Graphic novels and books containing LGBTQ+ topics for high schoolers are among the casualties, as are classics like Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, about a young African-American girl who longs for blue eyes, and popular children’s picture books like David Shannon’s No, David! and Seuss’ Wacky Wednesday.

“This law was designed to catalyze book banning,” said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program. “We should not be surprised now that we are seeing the mass removal of books in response to this censorial legislation.”

Tennessee law likely faces a constitutional challenge

Tennessee’s original 2022 law, championed by the governor, required districts to publish the list of materials in their library collections and periodically review them to make sure they are “appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials.” Each community was to define what is considered age-appropriate based on local standards.

This spring’s revisions by the legislature added a definition of what’s “suitable” — including verbiage about sexual content, nudity, and violence that could be interpreted to prohibit literary classics like Romeo and Juliet, historical novels such as All Quiet on the Western Front, and encyclopedias containing photographs of nude statues.

The law is expected to be challenged in court over its vague wording, a lack of compliance guidance from the state, and the uneven way the law is being applied across Tennessee.

Among groups tracking its implementation are the ACLU of Tennessee and some publishing companies.

In Florida, several large publishers sued education officials there in August over a 2023 state law prohibiting sexual content in school libraries. They argued that the law had ignited a wave of book removals in violation of the First Amendment.

‘Creating an unofficial statewide book ban list’

A survey conducted this fall of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians found that more than 1,100 titles had been pulled statewide under the revised law during the first few months of the academic year.

“I’ve removed 300 books in the first month of school,” one librarian anonymously told the organization.

Since the survey, the number of titles pulled across Tennessee has ballooned “from a trickle to a tidal wave,” said Lindsey Kimery, a Nashville school library supervisor who is one of the group’s leaders.

“If Wilson County’s list is being shared around, and district leaders see it as a cheat sheet so that they don’t have to conduct their own reviews, it’s creating an unofficial statewide book ban list,” Kimery said.

A spokesman for the Clarksville-Montgomery district, which serves about 38,000 students near the Kentucky border, emphasized that Wilson County’s roster was being used “as a resource, not a mandate” for its own librarians.

“We are not directing you to immediately remove all of these titles from your library collection,” curriculum leaders told principals last week, according to talking points from the meetings that the district shared with Chalkbeat.

“However, we are providing this list as an example of books already vetted by Tennessee educators and strongly encouraging you and your library-media specialists to review the list and consider, if you have these titles in your collections, whether these materials violate state law.”

Books in violation must be removed, the principals were told.

In Rutherford County, where 150 books were removed this week, the school board voted Thursday night to give librarians time to review the titles and come back with a formal recommendation on whether they should be permanently removed or returned to the shelves.

“I don’t believe we intentionally have pornography in our schools, but I do believe that some books with questionable content have trickled in,” said Rosales, who told Chalkbeat that she “put a lot of thought and research” into her request to remove 150 titles.

She added, however, that “our librarians are experts, and we need to give them time to review these books and give us a report.”

Other school systems conducting library reviews reported that Wilson County’s list isn’t factoring into their work.

A spokesperson for Knox County Schools said the East Tennessee district is collaborating with its librarians and legal team to identify books for possible removal and will provide its schools with a list in the weeks ahead.

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.

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At Large Opinion

Voucher Bill

Photo: CDC | Unsplash

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who never lets a chance to try to steer public funding to private schools pass him by, is having a good week. State Senate and House majority leaders filed identical bills to create “Education Freedom Scholarships” that would give $7,075 in public funding for a private education to 20,000 Tennessee students, beginning in the fall of 2025. The plan would grow in scope in subsequent years.

The bill has been opposed by the state’s large city school systems and by legislators in many rural districts, where there are often no private school options, and where getting adequate funding for public schools is often difficult. The voucher bill is also opposed by the vast majority of the state’s public school teachers. 

That’s bad enough, but later in the week, Voucher Bill (see what I did there?) got more good news. In case you haven’t been paying attention, GOP luminaries of all stripes are now urging the abolishment of the federal Department of Education. See, that way, supporters say, the money from the feds would come directly into the state’s coffers, to be dispensed under the supervision of, well, Bill Lee. Shocker, right? It should come as no surprise that Lee is all for killing the education department.

“We know Tennessee. We know our children,” Lee said. “We know the needs here much better than a bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., does.”

No you don’t, Bill. What you know how to do — and what you have tried to do for years — is slide public tax dollars into the coffers of private education firms that will then grease the palms of pols such as yourself. If you cared about Tennessee’s children, you wouldn’t want to funnel our tax dollars to well-off Tennesseans who will use it for tuition fees for little Bradley’s third-grade year at Hillbilly Bible Kollege. 

Lee and the GOP have been fighting for vouchers to become law for years, and this time around, given the upcoming change in the White House, they might have the juice to pull it off. If the last election proved anything, it is that the average American is anything but well-informed and well-educated. One of the most googled questions on Election Day was, “Did Joe Biden drop out?” Lawd, help us. 

Here are a few numbers to ponder (and weep over): 21 percent of adults in the U.S. are illiterate; 54 percent of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level; 45 million read below a 5th grade level; 44 percent of American adults do not read a book in a year. So yeah, let’s fix that by cutting public school funding and giving people money to send their kids to private schools. 

My parents weren’t rich, but I grew up privileged. Only we didn’t call it privilege back then because it was so ordinary. In the small Midwestern town where we lived, everybody I knew — Black, white, brown, poor, middle-class, or wealthy — went to the same public schools and attended the town’s single public high school. 

It was a great equalizer, and kids learned — sometimes the hard way — not to get too snooty. I’m not so naive as to think that my Black classmates didn’t suffer negative experiences that were beyond the experiences I had, but we did all manage to get along. And we all had the same opportunity to learn with the same teachers, using the same facilities in the same classrooms, no matter a family’s income level. That is a great and powerful thing about public education — it’s an equalizer. But it needs to be funded and nourished. An investment in educating our youth is one of the best possible uses of our tax dollars. Instead of destroying the Department of Education, we should be funding it better and putting it in the hands of someone with creative ideas to support teachers and inspire students.

I’m not holding my breath, though. I’d put the odds at 50-50 that the Education Department survives the coming administration. And if it does, given the clown-car level of cabinet appointments thus far, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Trump appointed the My Pillow guy to the job. 

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Gov. Lee Backs Trump Plan to Abolish U.S. Department of Education

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who has criticized the federal government for "excessive overreach," said Wednesday that the U.S. education department should be eliminated during Donald Trump's second term as president. (TN.gov)

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters

Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday that he’d welcome closing the U.S. Department of Education under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, adding that states can do a better job of deciding how to spend federal dollars on students.

“I believe that Tennessee would be more capable than the federal government of designing a strategy for spending federal dollars in Tennessee,” Lee told reporters when asked about the prospect.

“We know Tennessee. We know our children. We know the needs here much better than a bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. does,” Lee said.

The Republican governor’s comments come as Trump assembles his cabinet after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris last week to win a second term in office. As of Wednesday, he had not named his choice to be U.S. Secretary of Education.

During his campaign, Trump said one of his first acts as president would be to “close the Department of Education, move education back to the states.” The Republican Party’s platform also calls for shuttering the federal agency, as does the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

Tennessee’s governor called it “a great idea” to dismantle the agency, which was created under a 1979 federal law during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

“I think the federal bureaucracy that was built into the Department of Education starting in 1979 has created just that: a bureaucracy,” Lee said.

Tennessee has a template for spending federal funds

Trump has not provided a detailed plan for what would happen to federal funding or particular programs if the U.S. Department of Education were shuttered — a move that would require an act of Congress.

Lee suggested that education funding could be distributed to states similar to how Tennessee negotiated a Medicaid block grant waiver program with the first Trump administration, giving the state government more control over how it spent the money.

“We saved Tennesseans a billion dollars in taxpayer money over four years,” Lee said, “and we split the savings with the federal government.”

Federal funds typically make up about a tenth of a state’s K-12 budget. For Tennessee, that amounts to about $1.8 billion distributed to local districts for its public schools, most of which supports students with disabilities, from low-income families, or still learning English.

Lee said Tennessee would continue to spend that money to support its neediest students.

“I think that Tennessee is incredibly capable of determining how dollars should be spent to take care of kids with disabilities, to take care of kids that live in sparse populations, or with English as a second language,” he said.

Asked about the federal agency’s enforcement of civil rights protections — which some have suggested could pivot to the U.S. Department of Justice — Lee said the state would have a role in that work, too.

“The complaint process could and would still exist,” Lee said. “We would make sure that it happens in this state.”

Critics question the state’s commitment to special student groups

Tennessee doesn’t have a very good track record of educating and caring for its students who need significant additional support.

It was one of many states, for instance, that once had laws excluding children with disabilities from public schools. The premise was that those kids would not benefit from a public school education. Before the passage of a 1975 federal law establishing the right to a public education for kids with disabilities, only 1 in 5 of those children were educated in public schools.

Recently, the Tennessee Disability Coalition gave the state a “D” grade on its annual performance scorecard that includes education services.

Students with disabilities comprise a significant part of Tennessee’s public education system.

About a tenth of the state’s public school students use an individualized education plan, or IEP, that’s intended to ensure that the student receives specialized instruction and related services for their disability.

Federal laws protecting students with disabilities would remain on the books even if the education department went away, but it’s not clear how enforcement would work or what would happen to funding. The authors of Project 2025 suggested that funding be turned into something resembling a voucher and given to families.

Federal education funding has been hotly debated in Tennessee

Tennessee has gone further than any other state in recent history in rethinking its relationship with the federal government.

A year ago, after House Speaker Cameron Sexton suggested that Tennessee should look into the idea of rejecting federal funds, a legislative task force spent months studying the feasibility of such an idea.

Citing testing mandates, Sexton had complained of federal strings attached to those dollars. And the governor voiced support for the panel’s work and complained of “excessive overreach” by the federal government.

But some critics said the bigger issue was the U.S. education department’s role in enforcing constitutionally guaranteed civil rights protections for students.

Ultimately, the panel’s Senate and House members disagreed about their findings and issued separate recommendations. The Senate report highlighted the risks of taking the unprecedented step of rejecting federal funding, while the House report recommended taking incremental actions to further explore the idea. Nothing specific happened in the ensuing months.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who served on the panel, said the Senate’s conclusions should give the governor pause.

“There are reasons why we have the U.S. Department of Education — to make sure that all kids have the opportunity to receive a public education and to have their civil rights protected,” Akbari said.

She noted that segregated schools existed less than 75 years ago across the nation.

“It’s unthinkable that we would move away from these very sacred and important protections, not just regarding race but gender, children with special needs, the handicapped community,” Akbari said.

Alexza Barajas Clark, who heads the EdTrust advocacy group in Tennessee, said the federal role in education is “to level the playing field for all students,” especially those from rural communities and low-income families or who have a disability.

“Let’s not lose focus about what is at stake,” Clark said. “At the center of every education policy decision is a student.”

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.