“I once wanted to be a king who wrote history. Now I realise only kings write history,’ Simnel says. ‘Is anything true written anymore?”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender

Election Day is fast approaching. That means Tennessee will soon have a new governor.

The presumptive favorite is Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn. Blackburn has enjoyed a double-digit lead since the summer, but she’s managed to run a campaign that closely resembles how the Tennessee Titans play football.

In case you’re not a football fan, trust me, that’s not good.

The man behind the curtain for Blackburn is Ward Baker. Baker is a GOP political consultant from Mississippi, now based in Nashville. He ran Bill Hagerty’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate and is said to be a favorite of Sen. Mitch McConnell, who remains grateful for Baker’s help securing Republican control of the Senate a few years back.

Baker has a reputation for being smart and savvy. Democrats sometimes refer to him as “the go-to guy for riling white people.”

That part of his reputation he’s certainly lived up to in Tennessee.

He’s got Marsha focused on socialists and Chinese land barons. Issues that may fire up the base but don’t necessarily speak to the everyday concerns of Tennessee families trying to pay their bills, educate their children, and keep their heads above water.

It’s a curious strategy for someone who entered the race as the overwhelming favorite.

Blackburn’s campaign has been so uninspiring that it’s arguably opened the door for Democratic challenger Jeri Green. Green has been working tirelessly to narrow the gap, and by some accounts, she’s managed to get it down to single digits.

She’s also benefited from the presence of two independents, David Hatley and Lauren Pinkson, who have complicated the electoral math for both major-party candidates.

Hatley, who has reportedly invested $12 million of his own money in the race, has been especially effective at attracting attention. Some estimates suggest he could capture as much as 20% of the vote.

That would be an extraordinary showing for an independent candidate in Tennessee.

Whether those projections survive contact with actual voters remains to be seen.

Opponents have criticized Blackburn for refusing to debate her challengers.

Personally, I think it’s smart.

Better to let people think you’re a fool than to open your mouth and confirm their suspicions.

The senator has been in politics for more than two decades. Her priorities are a matter of public record. Anybody who doesn’t know where she stands probably hasn’t been paying attention.

Green’s priorities look familiar to anybody who has followed Democratic campaigns: legalize marijuana, rein in ICE, and focus on affordability.

That last one is brilliant.

As long as I’ve been alive, life has never been affordable. So how exactly do we define affordability? At what point do we declare victory?

It’s a lot like promising to fully fund schools.

Everybody supports it. Nobody can ever tell you precisely when we’ve arrived.

And that brings us to the question I’m most interested in.

When it comes to education, does it really matter who wins the governor’s race?

All roads lead through the General Assembly

The two front-runners have different approaches to education. On paper, those differences should matter.

Blackburn would presumably continue Tennessee’s movement toward school choice, parental rights, and a greater role for private providers in publicly funded education.

Green would presumably put greater emphasis on traditional public schools, teacher compensation, and limiting the expansion of vouchers.

Those are meaningful philosophical differences.

But philosophy and governing are two different things.

When it comes to Tennessee education policy, all roads lead through the General Assembly. And that’s a legislative body that has become increasingly powerful during Governor Bill Lee’s second term.

The governor can propose. The legislature disposes.

And Tennessee’s Republican supermajority isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

On a side note, I’m betting House Speaker Cameron Sexton is secretly cheering Justin Pearson on in his race for Washington.

If Pearson wins, that removes a giant thorn from Sexton’s side.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Speaker offered to pay for the moving company.

But back to the governor’s race.

Reading the tea leaves, I don’t see either candidate having enough influence to push a sweeping collection of signature education initiatives through the legislature.

Blackburn may enjoy ideological alignment with Republican lawmakers, but that doesn’t guarantee cooperation. Legislative leaders have their own priorities, constituencies, and political ambitions.

Green would face an even steeper climb, trying to advance a Democratic education agenda through a Republican supermajority.

Which means the next governor may have considerably less influence over education policy than campaign speeches suggest.

That’s not to say the office doesn’t matter. Governors appoint people, propose budgets, influence agency leadership, and help determine which ideas get oxygen.

But the days of assuming that the governor alone sets Tennessee’s education agenda are long gone.

The legislature has become the main event.

I know that’s cynical.

But I calls ’em like I see ’em.

And while candidates promise to transform education, the machinery already in place keeps moving.

Sometimes in directions that make considerably less sense than the campaign slogans.

Charter schools: You can approve them, but can you build them?

Let’s take a moment to focus on our favorite subject.

Charter schools.

While everybody was celebrating the State Charter School Board overturning Metro Nashville Public Schools’ rejection of two charter applications, another charter story was unfolding with considerably less fanfare.

Two schools — The Rock Academy and Rocketship’s planned Rutherford County campus — postponed their planned 2026 openings until fall 2027.

The reason?

They couldn’t secure suitable buildings.

Imagine that.

We can spend months arguing about authorizers, parental choice, academic models, and whether local school boards should have the authority to reject charter applications.

But eventually somebody has to find a building.

And that building has to have classrooms, bathrooms, fire exits, parking, transportation access, and enough space to accommodate the students the school hopes will show up.

Apparently, that’s harder than writing an application.

Building a school from the ground up has become increasingly expensive. As a result, charter operators are searching for existing properties that can be renovated to accommodate their academic models.

But finding a building is only the first obstacle.

Then comes figuring out how to pay for it.

Unlike established school districts, new charter operators frequently lack years of financial history. Lenders are understandably reluctant to finance multimillion-dollar projects based largely on projections.

And those projections depend on another increasingly uncertain variable.

Enrollment.

Charter facility consultant Jana Lavin recently told Tennessee charter commissioners that lenders need confidence schools will attract enough students to support their debt.

That means operators can no longer assume that opening a school in a particular neighborhood guarantees a predictable share of students.

Interested families don’t always become enrolled families.

Imagine that, too.

Lavin emphasized the need for stronger enrollment projections and budgets that account for multiple scenarios.

In other words, charter operators need to demonstrate that their financial models work even when everything doesn’t go according to plan.

That’s generally considered good business practice.

It’s also something that should have been central to the discussion from the beginning.

Tennessee is beginning to acknowledge the problem.

The Tennessee Charter School Center recently launched the Volunteer Facilities Fund, combining $5 million in state funding with $10 million in philanthropic support.

The fund separates assistance for newer schools from longer-term financing for established operators.

Fifteen million dollars sounds impressive.

Until you consider that a recent Charter School Center survey found participating Tennessee charter schools anticipate more than $72 million in facility costs over the next five years.

That’s a pretty substantial gap.

And it raises a question that deserves considerably more attention.

Where is the rest of the money supposed to come from?

At an October 8 workshop, Tennessee Charter School Center Vice President of External Affairs Emily Lilley acknowledged that financing alone won’t solve the problem.

Operators need help identifying appropriate buildings, understanding real estate requirements, navigating construction, and finding qualified advisers.

As reported by Tennessee Firefly, Lilley put it:

“School leaders are school leaders. They’re not real estate attorneys or financial planners. (There are) so many things that you don’t even know what questions to ask.”

She’s right.

But that observation also raises an uncomfortable question.

If school leaders aren’t equipped to evaluate the financial and logistical challenges of opening a school, who is making sure those challenges are adequately addressed before authorization?

Because approval isn’t the same thing as readiness.

And readiness isn’t the same thing as sustainability.

That distinction matters enormously in Nashville.

Last week, the state approved Music City Academy and The Gate School, while opening a five-year direct-application pathway that allows charter operators to bypass MNPS.

Supporters celebrated the decision as an expansion of educational opportunity.

Opponents criticized it as another erosion of local authority.

Both sides have arguments worth considering.

But neither argument produces a school building.

State approval doesn’t guarantee a facility, financing, or sufficient enrollment.

And when a charter school fails to open on schedule, families who made plans around that school are left scrambling.

That’s not expanding choice.

That’s creating uncertainty.

Perhaps it’s time Tennessee built a more rigorous facilities and financing review into its charter authorization process.

Not as an excuse to deny applications, but as a safeguard against approving schools that aren’t financially or operationally prepared to open.

If we’re serious about creating sustainable educational opportunities, the ability to secure a building shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought.

And if the state intends to help finance those buildings, taxpayers deserve to know how much the commitment could ultimately cost.

Because $15 million may be a beginning.

It certainly doesn’t look like an ending.

As always, the devil is in the details.

The director’s evaluation: Everybody gets a gold star

Next Tuesday, MNPS’s Director Evaluation Committee is scheduled to meet at 4:15 p.m., followed by the full board at 5 p.m.

Under normal circumstances, this would provide an opportunity for the public to get a candid glimpse of both the praise and criticism board members have for their one employee.

Unfortunately, if history repeats itself, we’ll get considerably more of the former than the latter.

Don’t misunderstand me.

Public evaluations shouldn’t be exercises in humiliation. Nobody benefits from board members grandstanding or using personnel evaluations to settle political scores.

But meaningful oversight requires meaningful questions.

And those questions shouldn’t disappear simply because the answers might be uncomfortable.

For example, how does the director explain continued enrollment challenges?

What measurable benefits have resulted from central-office staffing decisions and compensation increases?

What safeguards ensure the integrity and consistency of student grading?

What independent evidence supports the district’s claims of improved performance?

And perhaps most importantly, how does the district distinguish between activities it has undertaken and results those activities have actually produced?

Those aren’t hostile questions.

They’re governance questions.

They’re also questions that taxpayers, families, and educators have every right to expect their elected representatives to ask.

Unfortunately, this board has increasingly operated as though public questioning of the director somehow undermines her authority.

Which brings to mind the immortal words of Jack Nicholson:

“You can’t handle the truth.”

The problem with that approach is that accountability becomes indistinguishable from affirmation.

A director evaluation shouldn’t be a ceremony designed to reassure everybody that everything is wonderful.

It should identify strengths, weaknesses, unmet goals, and areas requiring improvement.

If every evaluation produces nothing but praise, either the district has achieved an extraordinary level of perfection or the evaluation process isn’t doing its job.

I’ll let you decide which explanation seems more plausible.

My prediction?

Tuesday will feature effusive praise. Nobody will speak off the cuff. Everybody will carefully choose their words.

And maybe we’ll get a little dancing.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Teacher retention: Staying doesn’t necessarily mean thriving

The Tennessean has a piece out today examining Tennessee’s teacher retention rates.

According to the paper, statewide retention hovered around 90% between 2017 and 2020 before declining to 88.1% in 2020–21.

It subsequently rebounded, then fell to 85.4% during the 2023–24 school year.

The following year, it climbed back to 87.8%.

That sounds encouraging.

Especially if you say it fast.

But those numbers deserve considerably more scrutiny than they usually receive.

First, retention measures whether teachers remain employed in the relevant system. It doesn’t necessarily tell us whether they’re satisfied, supported, effective, or enthusiastic about returning.

Second, staffing figures can present a misleading picture when viewed without context.

Districts can combine classrooms, eliminate positions, reduce offerings, or leave vacancies unfilled.

Those decisions don’t automatically manipulate a retention rate, but they can substantially alter the staffing picture that rate is supposed to help us understand.

A district can retain a relatively high percentage of its teachers while simultaneously asking those teachers to do more with less.

Those two conditions aren’t mutually exclusive.

In fact, they may increasingly go hand in hand.

Vanderbilt professor Jason Grissom, faculty director of the Tennessee Education Research Alliance, offers useful insight into the complexity of teacher retention.

Grissom has spent considerable time examining the teacher labor market and speaking with educators across Tennessee.

He notes that teachers may remain in their positions for reasons that have little to do with job satisfaction.

Some stay because of salary increases tied to years of service.

Others remain because their communities offer limited alternative employment opportunities.

Still others may be deeply committed to their students and schools, even as working conditions deteriorate.

On the other side of the equation, teachers may leave schools and communities they love because compensation no longer justifies increasing workloads, challenging student behavior, or inadequate resources.

Those pressures can become particularly intense in high-poverty schools.

As Grissom told The Tennessean:

“We’re getting a sense that teachers are feeling like the job is becoming more demanding.”

Ya think?

Talk to teachers.

Not just the ones selected to sit on district advisory committees or appear in promotional videos.

Talk to the teachers grading papers at their kitchen tables after their own children have gone to bed.

Talk to the ones buying classroom supplies with their own money.

Talk to the teachers managing increasingly complex student needs while navigating another round of instructional initiatives from people who haven’t taught a class in years.

Ask them whether their jobs have become more demanding.

I suspect you’ll get a fairly consistent answer.

Grissom points to the annual Tennessee Educator Survey, conducted by the alliance in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Education.

According to the alliance’s 2026 teacher-retention analysis, more than 80% of surveyed teachers in both 2025 and 2026 indicated they planned to remain in their current schools.

Among those considering leaving, leadership, school culture, climate, and workload were prominent concerns.

That’s important information.

But there’s another number I’d like to see placed alongside those findings.

How many teachers actually completed the survey?

Historically, participation has varied considerably, and statewide response rates have often been discussed in the neighborhood of 40% to 50%.

The precise rate for each year matters, and so does the participation rate within individual districts.

Because when we report that 80% of teachers intend to stay, we’re talking about 80% of respondents.

Not necessarily 80% of all teachers.

That’s a distinction worth making.

Survey results can provide valuable insight even when participation is less than universal. But participation rates, respondent characteristics, and possible nonresponse bias all matter when interpreting the findings.

Teachers who are disengaged, overwhelmed, or distrustful of district leadership may not participate at the same rate as those who are satisfied.

Or they may be especially motivated to respond.

Without additional analysis, we shouldn’t assume either outcome.

Which brings us to MNPS.

District retention figures are sometimes discussed in the 85% to 90% range.

And if you think that tells the entire story, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to talk to you about.

What does retention actually look like across individual schools?

Are experienced teachers leaving certain campuses at higher rates?

How many teachers are transferring within the district rather than leaving it altogether?

How many vacancies are being eliminated rather than filled?

And how many educators remain employed simply because they can’t afford to walk away?

Those questions matter more than a single districtwide percentage.

A teacher who stays because she loves her school and feels supported represents one kind of success.

A teacher who stays because she needs health insurance and can’t find another job represents something entirely different.

Yet both count the same in a retention report.

And then there are the teachers who have quit without actually quitting.

They’re still showing up every morning, taking attendance, delivering lessons, and collecting a paycheck. But somewhere along the way, the passion that once drove them to stay late, sponsor clubs, mentor struggling students, and spend their weekends creating lessons has been beaten out of them.

They’ve learned that going above and beyond rarely earns them anything beyond more work.

So they’ve stopped volunteering. Stopped offering ideas. Stopped believing that anybody upstairs is listening.

Not because they’ve stopped caring about kids, but because they’ve stopped believing the system cares about them.

Some call it quiet quitting.

I call it self-preservation.

And here’s where those retention numbers become particularly misleading.

Retained doesn’t mean engaged. Employed doesn’t mean invested. And showing up doesn’t mean buying in.

A district can retain 90% of its teachers while steadily losing the very qualities that made them good teachers in the first place.

You can count their bodies in classrooms, but you can’t measure their commitment with a payroll report.

That’s the problem with celebrating retention as though it were synonymous with success.

Sometimes the most troubling number isn’t how many teachers have left.

It’s how many have stayed but already checked out.

And nobody’s putting that percentage in a PowerPoint at the next board meeting.

That’s why the conversation needs to move beyond celebrating percentages.

If we want to understand the health of Tennessee’s teaching workforce, we need to examine working conditions, compensation, school leadership, student behavior, and the resources teachers have available.

We also need to listen to educators without filtering their experiences through district communications departments.

A survey is a useful starting point.

It shouldn’t be the final word.

Different stories. Same problem.

At first glance, the governor’s race, charter school facilities, director evaluations, and teacher retention may seem like unrelated subjects.

They’re not.

Each reveals a familiar pattern in Tennessee education.

We’ve become exceptionally good at defining success in ways that protect the people responsible for producing it.

Charter school approvals become evidence of expanding educational opportunity, even when the schools can’t find buildings or secure financing.

Glowing director evaluations become evidence of effective leadership, even when difficult questions go unanswered.

Teacher retention becomes evidence of workforce stability, even when some of those teachers have emotionally checked out and are simply counting the days until retirement.

And campaign promises become evidence of commitment to education, even when nobody can explain how those promises will be delivered.

See how that works?

Define success narrowly enough, and everybody gets to declare victory.

The problem isn’t necessarily that the numbers are wrong. It’s that we’re often asking them to tell us things they were never designed to measure.

A charter approval doesn’t measure opportunity delivered.

A favorable evaluation doesn’t necessarily measure effective leadership.

A retention rate doesn’t measure teacher engagement.

And winning an election certainly doesn’t guarantee better schools.

But those distinctions tend to get lost somewhere between the press release and the PowerPoint presentation.

It’s easier to announce progress than to demonstrate it.

Easier to promise opportunity than to finance it.

Easier to applaud leadership than to question it.

And considerably easier to count teachers than to understand their experiences.

The next governor will inherit all of these challenges, along with a General Assembly that increasingly determines the direction of state education policy.

Whether that governor is Blackburn, Green, or somebody else, the questions won’t change.

Who’s paying?

Who’s accountable?

What evidence supports the claims?

And are Tennessee’s children actually better off?

Those are the questions I’d like to hear candidates answer.

Not another speech about socialists.

Not another vague promise about affordability.

Not another proclamation about fully funding schools without defining what that means.

Actual answers.

With numbers.

And preferably a plan that extends beyond Election Day.

I know.

I’m asking a lot.

But somebody ought to.

Because when the campaign signs come down, the press releases stop circulating, and the politicians return to Nashville, teachers will still be standing in classrooms.

Students will still be showing up.

Families will still be trying to figure out which promises they can believe.

And the rest of us will still be here, asking questions.

Or at least some of us will.

In Tennessee education, everybody seems to be winning. The politicians, the administrators, the reformers, and the organizations paid to tell us how well everything is going.

Funny how the people doing the teaching and learning don’t always feel like winners.

But don’t worry.

I’m sure there’s a PowerPoint somewhere that says otherwise.

Nobody reads it. Everybody quotes it.

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Categories: Education