Early themes emerge at first school funding town hall

Investing more money into education, providing options for parents other than traditional public schools and funding more support staff like school counselors emerged as top concerns for the state’s overhaul of its education funding model during a town hall Wednesday night.

The public town hall at Merrol Hyde Magnet School in Sumner County was the first of eight the Tennessee Department of Education will hold across the state over the next six weeks — and the only one that will be held in the Nashville area.

About 150 people attended the meeting, including representatives from Metro Nashville and Rutherford County school boards, retired educators, members of the parent advocacy group Nashville Propel, current educators, retired teachers and homeschool families from Clarksville and Robertson County.

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said it was clear that most of the 60 people who spoke during the meeting had the same goal.

“What I heard across the

board is that everyone wanted what’s best for kids,” Schwinn told reporters after the meeting. “That is a shared Tennessee value. What that means and what that’s going to look like is

part of the development process, but we all want the same thing and that is to serve children as best as we possibly can. I was surprised by how much commonality I heard.”

But differing priorities quickly emerged as some educators and advocates called for more funding for public schools and support resources for students, while many of the parents in attendance asked for the “money to follow the student.”

“To be student-focused, [funding] has to follow the student, otherwise, it’s not student-focused,” said Frank

Napolitano, a Hendersonville resident. “What’s right for my two kids might not be what’s right for someone else’s kids. We are talking about Tennessee values, but not everyone has the exact same values. We’re talking about public education, but it’s public funding, but not public schools. It’s public because it’s funding coming from taxpayers.”

The call for more funding has already dominated the conversation since Gov. Bill Lee announced earlier this month the efforts to review and potentially

“To me, it’s all about the amount of funding, not so much the allocation of funding.”

– KENT FOREMAN, WILLIAMSON COUNTY RESIDENT

overhaul Tennessee’s education funding formula. Though Tennessee is set to spend $5.6 billion in state money this fiscal year on K-12 education, some Democratic lawmakers and education advocates say that’s not enough.

Kent Foreman, a Williamson County resident and a longtime volunteer in Metro Nashville Public Schools, said critical needs aren’t being met.

“The pie that we are talking about is just not big enough,” Foreman said. “The current funding doesn’t cover some critical areas like technology for every classroom, enough teachers from a ratio perspective for every classroom, enhanced studies, AP courses, foreign language and physical education. It doesn’t cover expenses for mental health. It doesn’t cover professional envelopment for teachers.

“To me, it’s all about the amount of funding, not so much the allocation of funding,” Foreman said.

Others have also questioned whether the “student-centered” approach that Schwinn and Lee have emphasized mirrors model legislation from a well-known national conservative group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, and is yet another attempt by the governor to carve out a way to introduce education savings accounts or school vouchers to Tennessee.

Metro Nashville Board of Education member Emily Masters, who spoke just before Napolitano, said she wanted to make sure that the funding following the students was “following them to public schools.”

“It is the right of every student to receive a high-quality education. We have very highly qualified, highly trained teachers in our public schools, so I just want to be sure that when we are talking about funding following students, it’s following them to public schools,” Masters said.

At the beginning of the meeting, Schwinn and her Chief of Staff Chelsea Crawford both told the audience that the conversation was meant to focus on a future funding formula and not grievances with the state’s current model. The state is in an ongoing legal battle with school districts, including those in Nashville and Memphis, challenging the funding formula in court. The case is expected to go to trial early next year.

Schwinn told reporters public comments gathered at the department’s town halls, via email, surveys and from “Twitter town halls” will be provided to the 18 subcommittees launched to lead the review process.

Eventually, those subcommittees will give recommendations to the central steering committee heading the review process, which will put together recommendations for the governor and lawmakers.

For more information, visit tn.gov/education/tnedufunding.