Top Republicans in the Tennessee legislature are meeting on Nov. 6 to discuss the possibility of turning down federal education assistance for the K-12 schools in their state.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) introduced a bill earlier this year to explore the idea of halting the acceptance of almost $1.8 billion of federal K-12 education dollars. The newly formed working group of 10 legislators could bring that idea closer to becoming a reality.
The committee will investigate the rules and criteria that accompany the federal cash, as well as determine whether or not the state has the ability to step in and close the budget shortfall on its own.
“Basically, we’ll be able to educate the kids how Tennessee sees fit,” said Mr. Sexton, according to The Associated Press. The legislative leader also pointed to the fact that rejecting the federal dollars would mean Tennessee would no longer have “federal government interference.”
To this day, no state has been able to successfully reject federal education payments. This is despite the fact that state and local officials have long complained about certain restrictions and testing that sometimes come attached to the money. In recent months, members of the Republican Party in other states, including Oklahoma and South Carolina, have discussed the concept as well.
At the federal level, numerous Republican lawmakers and candidates have been advocating for the complete abolition of the Department of Education in the United States of America.
Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, one of two Democrats on the panel, said during a local news report that she later posted to X, formerly Twitter, that while she was open to hearing what the Republicans on the panel had to say, she believed that rejecting federal funding would hurt the people of Tennessee.
Additional efforts to sever federal control over the state have resulted in Republican leaders in Tennessee intensifying their demands to refuse millions of dollars in federal funding in lieu of adhering to stipulations concerning abortion access, LGBT rights, and other contentious matters.
The Volunteer State has already this year rejected federal funding intended for HIV prevention and treatment, as well as funds that would assist clinics serving low-income women.
Tennessee is currently one of 10 states that have, for a significant amount of time, refused to expand Medicaid coverage to thousands of low-income citizens, many of whom cannot afford health insurance. In addition, a number of states run by Republicans decided not to continue taking further federal funding for supplemental unemployment insurance payouts in the final stages of the COVID-19 outbreak.
One example of the departure from federal funding and federal oversight occurred when 12 state and county agencies discarded tens of thousands of dollars in federal grants to monitor the sexual behaviors of adolescents and attempt to reduce rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
The withdrawals come at a time when numerous Republican-led states have attempted to ban LGBT-themed materials from school libraries and classrooms, frequently claiming that doing so is necessary to protect parental rights.
In Tennessee, where a Republican governor can be overridden by state legislators due to a supermajority, proponents of withdrawing federal funding contend that the state is in a strong enough financial position to do so due to years of where the state has generated revenues that have surpassed initial projections.
However, the replacement of federal education funds, which comprise approximately 20 percent of Tennessee’s $8.3 billion education budget at present, could put that assurance to the test.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.
