In a televised debate on a wide range of topics, Democratic Tennessee House District 18 Candidate Gregory Kaplan proposed a drastic change that would put the future of every Tennessee public charter school, and their more than 30 thousand students, in question.
Following a question about whether Tennessee needs more public charter schools during last week’s debate, Kaplan suggested these public schools should essentially be defunded from public money.
“Now I think there should be choices in education,” said Kaplan. “The concept of the charter schools in itself could be a good one, but it needs to be distant from public money, which only should fund public education.”
Kaplan’s comments are at odds with the basic concept of public charter schools in Tennessee where the schools are tuition free, funded by public dollars, and held to the same academic standards as other public schools.
The Knoxville candidate didn’t specify where the more than 100 Tennessee public charter schools would get their funding without public dollars, but his comments stood in stark contrast with his Republican opponent Elaine Davis.
During the debate, Davis commented on how impressed she was with the work of Knoxville’s sole public charter school Emerald Academy.
“They have the ability to change their curricula if it’s not effective and so that nimbleness allows them to really address the needs of students,” said Davis. “Any sort of tool that we can use, any sort of program or option that’s available for parents to be successful to help their children succeed so they can grow and prosper, we need that.”
The race for the open House District 18 is considered among the few truly competitive elections in Tennessee next month. The campaigns have focused a lot of attention on political issues like inflation, public safety, and Tennessee’s abortion laws which Kaplan opposes, and Davis supports. The debate gave both an opportunity to discuss education, including the recently passed Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA).
TISA provides a billion new dollars to public education in Tennessee and changes the way schools are funded to a student-based formula that’s similar to what most other states including Texas and California are using.
“Our state values education. We are working hard to ensure that students are successful that’s the goal and with the new TISA formula that’s what they’re trying to accomplish,” said Davis.
Kaplan appeared less supportive of TISA and called for changes to the funding formula.
“Why aren’t we paying attention to funding public education, K to 12 for example, modifying the TISA legislation,” said Kaplan. “I’m running to modify the TISA formula to fully fund all public-school students in Tennessee.”
An analysis from the Knoxville News Sentinel projects Knox County, where House district 18 is located, to receive a 12% increase under TISA.
Both candidates also showed their different positions on higher education when asked about recently passed legislation that prohibits public institutions of higher education from conducting mandatory training on certain divisive concepts on race or sex. The law also prevents these institutions from penalizing students or employees for opposing these divisive concepts.
“This Divisive Concepts Law is an example of the extremist nonsense that’s been passed in Nashville because it’s completely unnecessary,” said Kaplan. “It was just designed to intimidate teachers and students.”
“We need to recognize and realize that the legislature is representative of their constituency,” said Davis. “I’m going there to represent the people in my district and if the people in my district say that those values, that those concepts don’t align, then we need to make sure that we’re listening to those parents and those teachers.”
Voters in Knox County will decide the House District 18 race November 8.
