State Representative Justin Jones, D-Nashville, represents a district that touches four school clusters with some of the highest performing public charter schools in Nashville.Those charters in east and southeast Nashville include a dozen that outscored the average grade district run public schools received in their cluster on the state’s School Letter Grades assessment. The remaining public charter schools scored equal to the cluster average and 40 percent of the Reward schools in these four clusters are charters.

Members of the House Democratic Caucus held a press conference Tuesday to release what they’re calling a “family-first” agenda for the new legislative session.Members of the Democratic caucus also criticized the Freedom Education Scholarship Act that’s a key priority for Governor Bill Lee and some members of the Republican Supermajority. The act would allow Tennessee families the ability to use public dollars to send their children to private school.

The House Democratic Caucus called for Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynold to resign Monday morning, saying she doesn’t have the necessary qualifications and experience.State law last updated decades ago requires that the Tennessee Department of Education’s commissioner “shall be a person of literary and scientific attainments and of skill and experience in school administration” and “shall also be qualified to teach in the school of the highest standing over which the commissioner has authority.”House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, said an examination of Reynold’s background shows she doesn’t meet these requirements.

A seemingly routine rule change involving the process of reviewing local school districts that authorize public charter schools faced opposition from Nashville lawmakers in the Tennessee General Assembly’s Joint Government Operations Committee Thursday.The rule change Nashville lawmakers objected to allows the State Board of Education to use only external evaluators when conducting those reviews instead of both internal and external reviewers that are currently required. Board Deputy Executive Director Nathan James told members of the Joint Government Operations Committee this rule change is needed to avoid conflicts of interest.

The first week of the special session on public safety may have seen more criticism for what lawmakers didn’t do than what they did.Only a bill to fund the special session made it through both houses of the Tennessee General Assembly and members are unexpectedly opting to return for a second week.

Thursday morning two House Democrats used what would otherwise be a routine vote to reauthorize the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission to take swipes at public charter schools despite academic success in their own counties.

The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) cleared an important hurdle Monday morning that ensures its eventual implementation for school districts across the state next school year.The Tennessee General Assembly’s Joint Government Operations Committee provided a positive recommendation to new rules that will govern TISA when it replaces the Basic Education Program (BEP) in the 2023/2024 school year.