We Don't Need No Education, Con't

Tennessee's GOP Speaker of the House wants to stop taking nearly 2 billion in federal education money so the state can be "free of Washington's influence" and, you know, not have to have schools that serve the poor, disabled, or non-English speakers or any of that equality crap.

 

One of Tennessee’s most influential Republican lawmakers says the state should stop accepting the nearly $1.8 billion of federal K-12 education dollars that help provide support for low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton told The Associated Press that he has introduced a bill to explore the idea during this year’s legislative session and has begun discussions with Gov. Bill Lee and other key GOP lawmakers.

“Basically, we’ll be able to educate the kids how Tennessee sees fit,” Sexton said, pointing that rejecting the money would mean that Tennessee would no longer have “federal government interference.”

To date, no state has successfully rejected federal education funds even as state and local officials have long grumbled about some of the requirements and testing that at times come attached to the money. The idea has also come up elsewhere in recent months among GOP officials, including in Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Many Republican politicians and candidates at the federal level have also made a habit of calling for the outright elimination of the U.S. Department of Education.

According to Sexton, Tennessee is currently in the financial position to use state tax dollars to replace federal education funds. He pointed to the $3.2 billion in new spending outlined in Gov. Lee’s recent budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year as proof that the state could easily cover the federal government’s portion.

Federal dollars make up a small slice of Tennessee’s K-12 education funding, which had an almost $8.3 billion budget as of fiscal year 2023. Yet the federal money is seen as a key tool to supporting schools in low-income areas and special education.

Sexton says he has been mulling the proposal for a while, but this week, he publicly touted the idea in front of a packed room full of lawmakers, lobbyists and other leaders at the Tennessee Farm Bureau luncheon on Tuesday.

“We as a state can lead the nation once again in telling the federal government that they can keep their money and we’ll just do things the Tennessee way,” Sexton said at the event. “And that should start, first and foremost, with the Department of Education.”

 

The goal is of course not having programs, classrooms, or schools that server those student at all, and the state would be under no influence to do so.

Now, here in the real world, Tennessee taxpayers would continue to have to pay federal taxes, they'd just get much less in return. Fine with me, except the state will turn around and prey on the most needful among them.

The bigger issue is that Republican state governments really do want to reenact 1861 again. They don't want to be a part of a diverse country, they want to be a part of a White supremacist Christian country, where the "Christian" way of giving to the needy comes with God's strings attached, and or bullets.

 

Fine if they lose, but not if it costs us, you know, 5% of the population.