PHD ED POLICY RESEARCHER TO THE TENNESSEAN: “ISSUE A CORRECTION FOR SEN. JACK JOHNSON’S FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT LEE’S VOUCHERS”

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Below is a letter from PHD Ed Policy researcher Ezra Howard to Tennessean opinion editor David Plazas, in reaction to a recent op-ed from Senator Jack Johnson, who is sponsoring Governor Lee’s voucher bill this upcoming session. Johnson parroted Lee’s claim that the vouchers will not negatively impact public school funding, which is simply not true. Public schools will only be held harmless for one year, but after that year their funding will drop if kids leave for private schools and take their funding with them. 

 

Hello Mr. Plazas,

My name is Dr. Ezra Howard. My day job is the data and evaluation manager for the Nashville After Zone Alliance within Metro Nashville. However, I came back to my hometown of Nashville after a career as an ESL teacher, then district ESL administrator, as well as educational researcher while completing dual PhDs.

I was reading Sen. Jack Johnson’s recent op-ed in the Tennessean. I must insist that the Tennessean issue a correction for his opinion piece as on the point of funding Mr. Johnson is either incorrect or sharing misinformation.

In particular, Sen. Johnson states:

“Despite the false claims of many critics, there will be no decrease in funding for any public schools as a result of this legislation. Two things can be true: we support public schools and school choice.”

This is not a false claim. In fact, it is the Senator misrepresenting the language of his own bill and he has done almost immediately after submitting the bill and saying himself funds would decrease over time.

As the language of the bill states on page 10:

“Notwithstanding subsections (b) and (c), beginning with the TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year, an LEA’s allocated education funding shall not decrease from one (1) year to the next year due to the disenrollment of students from the LEA. If an LEA’s calculated TISA allocation decreases from the LEA’s TISA allocation for the prior school year, then the department shall allocate additional funds to the LEA in an amount such that the LEA’s TISA allocation for the current year is not less than the prior school year. For purposes of this subsection (i), “disenrollment” means that the LEA’s non-virtual average daily membership for the current school year is lower than the LEA’s non-virtual average daily membership for the prior school year.”

With a professional background both in ESL and as a researcher, I am well practiced in reading policy. Though I also practice due diligence and consulted with a local lawyer working within educational spaces as well as a colleague in higher education whose focus is on law and education. My reading as well as theirs is that Senator Johnson is patently mis-representing his bill. Funds will go down as enrollment goes down and the stated intent of vouchers is enrollment in local public schools decreasing. It is simply that there will be a year lag. 2025-26 TISA allocation will be based on 2024-25 enrollment. 2026-27 will be based on 2025-26 enrollment. So on and so forth.

Furthermore, House Speaker Cameron Sexton was recently on Inside Tennessee on a local affiliate in Knoxville to discuss this bill and Mr. Sexton goes into a good deal of depth explaining that funds will indeed go down in the exact manner I state above.

As such, I respectfully ask that the Tennessean issue a correction on Sen. Johnson’s piece and retract the false statements both in the excerpt above as well when he states “Public schools will retain their full resources, while families gain access to new opportunities that better meet their children’s needs.

There are other issues such as the “success of pro-school-choice candidates” when many purposefully either downplayed or did not run on school choice, but those can be construed as a matter of opinion. Funds decreasing over time is a matter of fact. And on that fact, Sen. Johnson is not correct.

Regards,

Dr. Ezra Howard

(If you would like to contact David Plazas and join Ezra in asking for a correction, his email: [email protected])

EDITOR’S NOTE – TO EZRA’S POINT, JACK RECENTLY ADMITTED THE BILL WOULD HURT PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER 1 YEAR TO NEWSCHANNEL 5, THEN WALKED IT BACK:

“FIGHT LIKE A MOM” (Rep. Shaundelle Brooks Arrives)

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INTERVIEW: Tim Miller on Leaving the GOP, Elon, Bannon

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“You don’t have to love Kamala to vote for her, given the threat on the other side – but that’s not me. It was very easy.”

Ex-GOP Tim Miller of The Bulwark on a too-close race, the steal threat, confronting Bannon, the danger of Elon and more.

Read his ⁠plea to Haley voters HERE⁠.

Guy Banned From CNN For Racism Took Credit For Replacing 33% of Williamson County’s School Board

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A CNN conversation went off the rails this week when right-wing commentator Ryan Girdusky made a wildly racist comment to Mehdi Hasan, saying “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off” when Hasan said he supports the Palestinian people.

Watch it happen:

The comment was a reference to Israel killing a number of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon by making their pagers explode, an attack that also took the lives of some innocent people, including children, causing even NPR to wonder if it was a violation of international law.

Others were impressed by it.

Girdusky’s comment was not only incorrect on the facts – the pager attack was in Lebanon, not Gaza – it was also wildly offensive and racist, as he was equating support for “Palestinians” by a Muslim man with support for Hamas, and implying he thought Israel may? should? kill Hasan for it.

Hasan took offense immediately, as did the rest of the panel. After the following commercial break, Girdusky was gone thanks to quick work by host Abby Phillip, and CNN announced he was banned from the network.

Girdusky took to Twitter and whined about it, trying to deflect blame and call it a “joke”, as is the standard Republican way in the Trump era. But the question isn’t why did they kick Girdusky off, it’s why were they platforming him in the first place.

Girdusky previous was a writer for Richard Spencer, a proud white supremacist. He allegedly worked for Milo Yiannopoulos, which would be problematic for a number of other reasons. So for him to say openly racist stuff on CNN should not have come as a surprise to anyone, CNN included.

And here’s why we’re telling about this: the incident also has ties to Tennessee.

Williamson County and Wilson County, specifically.

Girdusky runs a right-wing “1776 Project PAC” out of New York, which claimed credit for the victories of 4 school board members in Williamson (Hibma, Reeves, Bostic, Driggers) and 1 in Wilson (Hohman) this past cycle.

How tight were those school board members with Girdusky? Did they court and approve his PAC’s support? Did they know about his problematic past? And do they support what he said to Hasan?

These all seem like fair questions to ask of them. And if someone capable of such open racism is proud to have backed these candidates for School Board, what does it say about their priorities for the kids in Williamson and Wilson counties?

Here’s Mehdi Hasan’s response to the incident. It’s worth your time:

It’s worth noting that the very first thing these far right school board members did was rescind the previous board’s anti-private school voucher scam resolution, which was likely not a coincidence. Backing Governor Lee’s push to privatize our public schools and steer billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools was almost certainly a prerequisite for Girdusky’s PAC’s support.

Girdusky’s 1776 Project PAC is openly hostile to public schools. It stands to reason deep down these school board members are as well. Sadly, this is what low voter turnout gets us.

2 Conversations: Adam Brody & Rob Huebel Talk Politics

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Kanew just had 2 conversations about politics. One with Adam Brody:

And one with Rob Huebel:

Holler Hats!

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MORE HOLLER HATS ARE HERE! To get yours, we just ask that you become a monthly supporter of our Hollering and chip in $10 per month or more (or make a one-time contribution of $40) – then email us at [email protected] and say “I just became a monthly supporter, send me a hat y’all!” – and include which color (see below for options… If paypal isn’t your thing you can also use square)

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WILSON COUNTY SCHOOLS REMOVES 400+ BOOKS THANKS TO GOP LAW

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At the start of the school year there were reports that Wilson County Schools would start the year with their library closed as they worked to comply with the new state Republican “Age Appropriate Materials Law”. Wilson Schools explained:

“We will fully comply, and the process to remove materials will happen in a productive and expedited process.”

So what does the law say? From the Tennessean:

“The legislation prohibits materials containing nudity or describes or depicts sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse, according to state obscenity laws. It also mandates material that “appeals to the “prurient interest” should not be considered appropriate for school age students.”

Obviously wildly broad, vague, and confusingly up for interpretation.

And what does compliance look like in Wilson County? Now we know.

400+ books have been removed from Wilson County Schools libraries. Here’s The List, which we understand will be presented at the Wilson County School Board meeting Thursday Night at 6pm.

Maybe parents should show up and make their voices heard.

5 of the books were removed from elementary schools, nearly 40 from Middle School, and the rest, nearly 350, from High School libraries.

The list includes classics like Slaughterhouse 5, Pinkalicious, Ready Player One – there’s really something for everyone on the banned list.

To make sure they are in compliance and not open librarians and teachers up to liability, Wilson Schools is understandably making sure nothing remotely edgy is available to students, who Republicans believe are unable to handle books that have been in school libraries for decades.

Sad. Is this really the world we want for our kids? A world where libraries are devoid of anything challenging? How will this prepare them for an inevitably challenging world?

It’s important to keep in mind these book bans are part of a much bigger push to villainize our public schools, with a focus on librarians – part of a privatization effort that ends with billions of dollars landing in the pockets of private church schools and privately run charter schools, which has been Governor Lee’s main priority since the day he took office.

Lee’s rigged charter appeal board, the TISA funding overhaul, the push for universal vouchers – all of this is an effort to villainize public schools and make it easier for kids to leave, taking public taxpayer dollars with them over to privately run religiously affiliated schools and charter schools.

That’s the backdrop here. This book ban law gives the impression our librarians and schools have been peddling pornography, which is anything but the case. Obscene books are already illegal in our schools. The difference is now we have the Rep. Susan Lynn and Senator Mark Podys of the world deciding what ALL of our kids can read. How is that parental choice?

Rutherford County and other counties are also banning books over the vague legislation, which has drawn criticism that includes PEN America’s Freedom to Read Director Kasey Meehan, called  “draconian.”

Book bans are now the norm in Tennessee. Is this really what we want to be known for? Hard to find a time in history where the book banners were on the right side of it.

JC Bowman of the Professional Educators of Tennessee tells us:

“The law creates more problems than it solves.”

There have been questions about whether the new legislation would apply to the Bible, since the Bible includes a ton of violence, terror, rape, and even depicts 2 daughters getting their father drunk and raping him.

But all that is totally fine, according to the bill’s Republican sponsor Susan Lynn: “any standard in Tennessee, the Bible has always been acceptable.”

Sure, Susan.

SAVE THE DATE – U.S. SENATE DEBATE! (Oct. 16th)

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SAVE THE DATE: U.S. SENATE RACE DEBATE!

October 16th in Franklin, at city hall, we have invited both Gloria Johnson and Marsha Blackburn to participate in a debate. Gloria has accepted. No response from Marsha yet.

Ok y’all, after months of pounding the table to try to get another outlet to hold a U.S. senate race debate with or without Marsha Blackburn, we have decided to do it ourselves.

We invited Marsha Blackburn and Gloria Johnson to participate in a debate at City Hall in Franklin, TN on October 16th at 530PM CST.

Gloria has confirmed she will be there.
Marsha has yet to respond.

If Marsha is a no-show, there will be an empty podium in her place – just like they did in Georgia when Perdue refused to debate Ossoff.

We were hoping other outlets would step up and do this, but since nobody else is going to, we will.

There are around 150 seats inside the room give or take, plus an overflow hallway. It will be accommodated on a first come first served basis.

It will also be STREAMED LIVE on all our social media feeds, so if you can’t be there in person definitely plan on being there online.

And please share the announcement posts so as many people as possible know this is happening: On Twitter, On Facebook, On Instagram, On TikTok, On Threads

We are not charging for tickets or making any money here, but there are a few costs associated with it so if you feel like Chipping in a few bucks to support what we do in general, as always we appreciate it! Make it MONTHLY and get a Holler hat!  (or on SQUARE) 

See you October 16th in Franklin!

The Holler
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INTERVIEW: Memphis Mayor Paul Young on his opposition to the referendums

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TN Media Must Make Marsha Debate

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MAKE MARSHA DEBATE

The Tennessean says Blackburn hasn’t responded, but Georgia shows there’s precedent for holding the debate with an empty podium


We have said it before, and we’ll say it again: We deserve to see Marsha Blackburn and Gloria Johnson debate. Marsha debated Bredesen, she should debate Gloria. No excuses.

And when we say debate, we mean DEBATE. Not back to back interviews where Marsha talks, then Gloria talks. That’s the coward’s way out, and it’s the one Governor Lee took when Dr. Martin was running against him.

By offering that option the Tennessean helped Lee hide. Gloria should NOT accept the Tennessean offering to interview them one after the other.

David Plazas writes in the TENNESSEAN that “Gloria expressed interest in debates, Blackburn has not responded to multiple requests.”

They shouldn’t ask Marsha, they should tell her. Hold the debates, and let her know they will have an empty podium there if she ducks it.

Reminder: Georgia did it. When Perdue ran from Ossoff, Georgia media had an empty podium there as a monument to his cowardice.

There is precedent for having an empty podium when Marsha Blackburn refuses to debate Gloria, and we should have the same courage shown by our media here.

Debates should not be optional for any office, let alone one as important as the United States Senate. We have asked all the outlets what they are planning to do, and you can help us also by using this link to reach out and let us know if they respond.

We will continue to keep up the pressure. Please join us.

And Chip in a few bucks to keep us going if you can – make it MONTHLY and get a Holler hat!  (or on SQUARE) 

The Holler