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EXPLAINED: GOV. LEE’S “STUDENT-BASED FUNDING FORMULA” MONEY GRAB

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LEE’S NEW PUBLIC SCHOOL MONEY GRAB COMES INTO VIEW

 For months Governor Lee has been touting his new “STUDENT BASED FUNDING FORMULA” which he says will revolutionize how Tennessee funds our public schools. The plan has been very short on details by design, but after the press conference he gave yesterday we now have enough clues to understand what’s really going on.
Previously, Governor Lee did all he could to get private school vouchers passed, even reportedly offering military promotions as bribes to squeak it through the house. Unfortunately for him, the courts held up his unconstitutional plan (SO FAR).Now, instead of steering public dollars to private schools, Lee has begun a partnership with HILLSDALE COLLEGE, a private Christian school in MICHIGAN with close ties to BETSY DEVOS led by Larry Arnn, who Trump appointed to lead his history-whitewashing “1776 Commission” in response to the 1619 Project.

In the State of the State, Lee talked about bringing in Hillsdale to teach our kids to be “informed patriots”, by which he means he wants to fill their heads with propaganda and avoid them learning the the harsh truths of our past.

What Lee didn’t mention in his speech was the fact that he has apparently asked Hillsadale to bring 50-100 CHARTER SCHOOLS to Tennessee, which Arnn mentioned at a meeting in Franklin last September in AUDIO WE UNCOVERED THIS WEEK:

“Governor Lee wanted 100 charter schools in TN.”

When asked about it at a press conference yesterday, Lee did not deny it. He instead leaned into it, saying CHARTER SCHOOLS are a big part of his plan, and repeatedly making a point to call them “PUBLIC” schools – by which he means they’ll be taking our PUBLIC SCHOOL funds.

So instead of strengthening our public schools and funding them properly, Lee is telling us he’s willing to pour another $1 BILLION into our schools BUT ONLY IF WE ADOPT HIS STUDENT-LED FUNDING PROGRAM – which would mean those dollars would follow kids to Charter schools like these Hillsdale schools.

Charters are privately run enterprises. Now Lee thinks he can dodge the accusation of “Steering public funds to private schools” by saying these charter schools are “public schools”, but as someone said recently: Calling charter schools “PUBLIC” because they get public funds is like calling defense contractors public companies.

This has clearly been the plan for a long time. Even the MOMS FOR LIBERTY WILLIAMSON COUNTY CHAIR has been posting about the Hillsdale Charter school planned for Williamson since last year – and we’re told a petition has been pulled in Montgomery county as well.
They want our (underfunded) public school funds to send their kids to what will essentially amount to a publicly-funded private school.

It’s an attack on our public schools. A heist. They’re steering our public school funds towards a network of private schools by another name, run by a Trump loyalist who wants to whitewash our history and fill kids’ heads with propaganda.

And to top it all off, Lee has rigged the charter approval process. So even when communities vote to REJECT these schools, a state board handpicked by the governor can overrule these local decisions.

Worried yet? You should be. Strengthening our public schools should be our top priority. This new “STUDENT-BASED FUNDING FORMULA” SCHEME is just a new way for Governor Lee to steer our public dollars to private companies run by his friends, and he’s using these “PUBLIC” Charter schools as a vessel to do it… and our public schools will suffer.

Florida’s ed commish praised Lee and put it in this distasteful way at Hillsdale College👇🏽WATCH: “YOU CAN’T PUT THE ANIMALS BACK IN THE BARN”😳 – meaning once kids go to a charter school, we have no choice but to keep sending them money because you can’t force them to go back.

OUR QUESTION: Is Gov. Lee’s attempt to use public funds to create a network of private schools (while calling them “public”) even constitutional? Hopefully someone smarter than us can figure that out.

We’ll be here to cover it, and that’s thanks to your support, so Please consider chipping in monthly if you’re not yet doing so, even if it’s just a few bucks – the monthly support truly keeps us going. 

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OPINION: EMPLOYERS BROKE THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

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EMPLOYERS BROKE THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

By Jacob Padgett

Along with our trust, most employers are going to need to give those who participated in the great resignation something to hold onto. The cliché during the pandemic is that we’re all in the same storm, not the same boat.

Some of you are in yachts while the rest of us are drowning, grasping at driftwood.

For some it’s being deep in medical debt. For others, they suffer from burnout, and many are living paycheck to paycheck. The top tiers of corporations have grown so rich and out of touch that they don’t even know what our problems are. There is no chance these titans of industry ever went a day in their life without having a thousand dollars to spend on a medical emergency- for the rest of us that’s half of the rent, electricity, and water.

You see, most people don’t inherit million-dollar companies. These birth lottery winners will never know what is like to be us. It’s psychologically impossible.

To have grown up never knowing a single moment of monetary struggle will break your brain in a way that cannot be rectified. It bankrupts their morality and leads them to see the world exclusively as a meritocracy where they clearly deserve to have many millions, while the have-nots must have done something wrong to be in poverty.

Their father earned it for them you see, and their father before that, so goes the perpetuation of socioeconomic stratification and the gap widens year by year. How long can you stack all the weight to one side of a boat before it tips?

This perversion of reality leads one to ponder equality and equity, and where they should be applied. To define terms: Equality would be giving everyone a stimulus check of the same amount. Why that doesn’t work is that a family in poverty quickly pays debts, while a rich family getting that same check invests it because they didn’t actually need it.

Equity would be distributing that money based on need, not on merely existing. It seems fair to say that Jeff Bezos didn’t need a stimulus check, but he got one. That is where the idea of economic equality fails, and why these CEOs don’t understand why people struggle financially.

Our policies must change to be statistically weighted by the needs of the people, and America needs to get past its fascination with giving everyone either nothing or exactly the same. Naysayers would argue that this is fiscally impossible, a runaway growth of government or socialism. Yet many collect their social security benefits, and it seems fair to say we could potentially apply that logic to another area. It’s not irresponsible or impossible, but it is socialism, and Americans love it when it already exists, but have been conditioned to hate it if it’s new.

This can be demonstrated in interviews where people are asked if they support Obamacare and say no, then they are asked if they support the Affordable Care Act they will say yes. One has that “socialist” connotation, so it’s bad.

The argument must be made that we can actually afford universal health care in the richest country in the world.

We have examples we can pull from all over the world. This concept is not new, and frankly we’re foolish for not already having this safety net in place already. The idea of social safety nets and welfare are hated by many, but really they should be loved.

Currently it feels like governments operate like corporations, spending as little of our tax dollars as possible. Is that what anyone actually wants? Their job is not to have a great bottom line, it’s to provide public services and preserve human rights.

Healthcare is a human right, and local and federal governments should spend as much of our tax dollars as possible on us, the citizens. Who cares if you live in a rich state if everyone is living in tents on the street? Nobody, except the elite.

While the top earners keep hoarding, and the poor keep dying, I hear Nero playing a tune.

Jacob Padgett is a Logistics and business intelligence analyst, former financial planning analyst, and has a BA focused on Spanish Language and Literature from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He advocates for universal healthcare and the rights of the disabled, active in drug harm reduction projects. @somacomadreams on FB and IG.

HOLLER PODCAST: THE DEFICIT MYTH with STEPHANIE KELTON

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Justin Kanew and Stephanie Kelton talk deficits, and about how many in politics have fooled us into thinking that spending money on people-centric policies is bad. Stephanie is an American economist, a professor at Stony Brook University, and she also served as an advisor to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

VIDEO: Reps Mitchell & Stewart Call On Rep. Daniel To Investigate $4 MILLION Slush Fund

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“It’s The Role Of This Committee To Get to the Bottom Of a $4 MILLION SLUSH FUND” Rep. Mike Stewart and Rep. Bo Mitchell call on Rep. Martin Daniel to investigate mysterious MONEY Gov. Lee may have used to get public school-harming vouchers passed. Even speaker Cameron Sexton calls it “troubling”.

Dems To Gov. Lee: “PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH”, Stop Hoarding $$ Intended for Poor People

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Watch TN Dems Rep. Bo Mitchell & Rep. Mike Stewart call on Gov. Lee and the TN GOP to stop hoarding hundreds of millions in TANF funds intended for poor people’s child care, food, job training.

Between not expanding Medicaid, hoarding TANF funds, and not spending hundreds of millions in federal day care funds, Lee & The TN GOP have kept $8 BILLION from getting to Tennessee’s neediest.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” one school social worker told us when she heard this.

Dems to Casada: Where Did All The Money Go?

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From the Democratic Caucus:

Democratic Caucus Chair Mike Stewart today asked “where did all the money go?”  Stewart demanded a full accounting into the financial dealings of outgoing Speaker Glen Casada’s Republican leadership team.

Chairman Stewart:

“All of these reports of no-show jobs, five figure raises for former interns and multi-million dollar expenditure increases need to be fully examined before we go into special session and vote on a new Speaker.  The Republicans cannot be permitted to use the Special Session to sweep these issues under the rug and hide the truth from the citizens who were forced to foot the bill for all this nonsense.”

Representative Gloria Johnson added:

“The reports we have read about misspent money are deeply offensive to the citizens of my district; these taxpayers are entitled to know what happened to every cent of their hard-earned tax dollars.”

Stewart called on a three-pronged approach to determine how funds were misspent, misallocated and/or misused during the Speaker’s administration:

  • A full financial audit by the comptroller’s office into spending on purchases, salaries and allocations made by the Speaker’s office since Casada’s election.
  • The appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the no-show jobs held by employees of the Speaker’s office.
  • An open records release of all financial records, receipts, timesheets and other documents for full public review.

Chairman Stewart urged that all requests need to be completed before the called special session August 23rd, saying:

“Otherwise, we risk the possibility that the Republicans will just put one of Casada’s cronies in as Speaker in an effort to sweep evidence of financial malfeasance under the rug.  If that happens, the taxpayers will never really know the full cost of the Casada Gravy Train and those that got the money will never be held accountable.”

Speaking of no-show jobs, the Holler has been told Michael Lotfi, who was on the receiving end of one of Casada’s no-show jobs and was attacked child sex abuse survivors while on the payroll, is still handling social media for Tennessee House Republicans.

REACTIONS: BIPARTISAN BLOWBACK TO CASADA’S BLOATED BUDGET

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Yesterday the Tennessean put out a scathing report of the skyrocketing cost of running the Tennessee State House under Speaker Glen Casada, who fancies himself a “fiscal conservative” but clearly does not walk the walk.

From the Tennessean:

“Since House Speaker Glen Casada became the chamber’s leader, the size and cost of running the Tennessee General Assembly is increasing, forcing the lower chamber’s leader to ask the governor for an additional $7 million.”

The report from Joel Ebert points to staff fees like the $130,000 raise (!) he gave his Chief of Staff Cade Cothren, an outrageous number by any stretch of the imagination.

Cothren now makes just shy of $200,000 to run the Speaker’s office. As a reminder, the legislature is in session for approximately one-third of the year each year.

From Ebert’s report:

“Cothren earns $199,800 a year. Last year, when Casada was the House majority leader, Cothren made $68,400 as an executive assistant and policy researcher… 31-year-old Cothren is the third-highest paid legislative employee, behind Senate Clerk Russell Humphrey and Rick Nicholson, McNally’s chief of staff… Cothren has worked for state government since 2013. Nicholson and Humphrey first started working for the state in 1995 and 1998, respectively… Cothren makes more money than Lee’s chief of staff and all but three commissioners in the governor’s 23-member Cabinet… And his salary is significantly higher than the last three House chiefs of staff.”

(Cothren was last seen lying to the face of a protester of the bust of the first KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest about misspelled emails.)

Regarding the office of the Speaker, the article goes on:

“It costs more than $5.1 million to pay for the salaries of employees in those offices, the analysis found. At this time last year, salaries for those same House offices cost taxpayers about $3.8 million.

If you have an issue with this, holler at Casada HERE.

In the meantime, here are some reactions from Tennesseans from both parties across the state… Despite Majority Leader William Lamberth playing the good soldier and calling the increased size and cost of operations in the House “extremely conservative” (apparently forgetting what words mean) the reaction to the article on both sides of the aisle has been one of shock and disgust:

Rep. Mike Stewart, the House Democratic caucus chairman, had this to say:

“It sounds like fiscal conservatism means about as much with Tennessee Republicans as it does with the Republicans up in Washington.”

Madison County Commissioner, District 9 – Republican Jay Bush:


Democratic State Senator Jeff Yarbro:


Democratic State Rep. Gloria Johnson (who says she still hasn’t received a $3 key to her office!):


Longtime political operative Holly Mccall (who contributes to the Holler):

Williamson County Tweeter @StormResist:


Former State House Candidate Allan Creasy:


From John Harris, who manages Tennessee Firearms Association, Inc.:

TN ED REPORT: “100% FOR CHARTERS, 2.5% FOR TEACHERS” #StateOfTheState

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Andy Spears owns the public policy consulting firm Spears Strategy which provides policy and advocacy consulting to school systems, non-profits, and parent groups. Spears holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration with an emphasis in education policy. Over the past 15 years, he has worked in public policy roles in state and local government in Kentucky and Tennessee. Follow @TheAndySpears for his take on politics and policy and subscribe to the TN ED REPORT HERE.

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Tonight, Governor Bill Lee outlined his proposed budget for 2019-2020. Lee’s budget doubles the fund for charter school facilities to $12 million. This amounts to a benefit of $342 per student (there are roughly 35,000 Tennessee students in charter schools).

Meanwhile, he announced a meager improvement to teacher salaries of around 2% – $71 million. This amounts to $71 per student.

So, charter schools — which serve only 3.5% of the state’s students — will see a 100% increase in available facility funding from the state while teachers will see only a 2% increase in pay.

If the two investments were equal and funded at the rate granted to charter schools, there would be a $342 million investment in teacher salaries. That’s roughly a 10% raise. A raise that’s desperately needed as Tennessee leads the nation in percentage of teachers with little to no classroom experience. We also have one of the largest teacher wage gaps in the Southeast.

As one Nashville teacher pointed out, Nashville – and the entire state — have a failed business plan:

I’m starting a business and looking for workers. The work is intense, so the workers should be highly skilled. Experience preferred. Starting salary is 40k with the opportunity to get all the way to 65k after 25 years of staying in the same position. See how dumb that sounds?

Now, those are numbers for Nashville. Some teachers around the state have to teach for 10 years before they even hit $40,000. Still, the point is clear: The value proposition for teachers in our state is not very good. Unfortunately, Governor Lee’s first budget is not doing much to change that. It’s the status quo. A nominal increase that will likely not entirely make it into teacher paychecks.

Tennessee’s numbers when it comes to both investment in schools and educational attainment are disappointing. Continuing along the same path means we’ll keep getting the same results.

The bottom line: Money matters.