REPURPOSE EDUCATION FUNDS TO BENEFIT ALL CHILDREN
When meeting with elected leaders tasked with improving education in Tennessee, we have heard a common refrain: “We have to do something.”
In response to public education challenges, our state has tried various “solutions,” almost all of which have involved privatization: vouchers, charter schools, excessive for-profit standardized testing and expensive curriculums.
None of these options has made a sustainable difference. In fact, vouchers and charter schools have made it worse, serving to exacerbate existing inequities in school systems by draining desperately needed funding from the neighborhood schools that serve around 90% of Tennessee’s students. We must do better for Tennessee’s children.
The reason these “solutions” haven’t made any real impact is simple: None address the root of the problem, namely the challenges faced by increasing numbers of Tennessee children who come to school without necessary resources and support at home.
The impact of poverty on learning coupled with the chronic lack of adequate funding for public education in Tennessee is a recipe for disaster. Many of Tennessee’s children, most often those in poverty, have experienced trauma and adverse childhood experiences — some due to the opioid crisis that has ravaged rural communities and others due to the challenges of growing up in low-income urban environments. Many come to school hungry, lacking adequate clothing, necessities that they need to succeed (such as glasses to read), and sometimes even basic hygienic supplies.
Each day, our local schools and teachers must take on the impossible task of trying to address societal failures, but often without the means and support to effectively do so. This has never been more apparent than during the pandemic, which has laid bare the vast inequities within our school systems and communities.
However, there are solutions that would effectively set Tennessee students up for success and simultaneously strengthen our local communities.
First, we must agree to invest in Tennessee’s schools and children. Statewide, Tennessee schools are underfunded by about a billion dollars a year, and our state ranks 45th in the nation in school funding.
Second, widening the reach of Tennessee’s community school model is a proven solution that truly helps children, because it addresses the root cause of low student achievement: the issues that students face outside of school on a daily basis that impact their ability to focus in the classroom. This model allows public schools to comprehensively address the holistic needs of a student population, especially those arising from poverty, by providing wraparound and support services that address students’ basic and social/emotional needs.
Instead of investing our hardearned tax dollars in failed school “reforms” that drain money from our neighborhood schools, splinter our communities, and often open the door to corruption and fraud, why don’t we choose to invest directly in our students, families, and teachers? The answer is simple, and it is the moral one. The question is whether we have the collective political will to insist that Tennessee truly puts children, not private interests, first.
Please join Pastors for Tennessee Children for an online discussion of Community Schools today, at 2:00 CT/3:00 ET at pastorsfortennesseechildren.org/zoom.
Rev. Dr. William Terry Ladd III, pastor of First Baptist Church East 8th Street, Chattanooga, is board chairman of Pastors for Tennessee Children. Amy Frogge is executive director of Pastors for Tennessee Children and a former Nashville School Board member.