Melissa Brown is the Bureau Chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. She joined Chalkbeat from The Tennessean, where she covered state politics and government policy. Melissa is an Alabama native who grew up on military bases in Japan and England before graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in journalism.
There are 20 articles by Melissa Brown :
Republican leadership did not say whether local schools or the Tennessee Department of Education would be responsible for verifying immigration status or where such data would be held.
The Education Savings Account voucher program was a signature issue for Gov. Bill Lee, who has supported additional school choice policies as a way for parents to choose higher-achieving schools.
The state law banning religious charters has not yet been legally challenged, nor has any lawmaker proposed legislation to amend the current law.
If lawmakers can agree this year, change could come quickly to Memphis-Shelby County schools, which is already primed for major upheaval in 2026.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton has already said he wants to at least double the capacity of the Education Freedom Scholarships program, which launched this year with 20,000 seats.
Educator advocates say unpaid student teaching requirements can be a barrier for aspiring teachers. The Tennessee House speaker wants to start providing state-funded stipends for those internships.
Students currently enrolled in the program can renew beginning on Dec. 9.
The Tennessee Department of Education wants a $30 million increase in summer learning funding next year.
Tennessee graduation rates had steadily risen for about 10 years before the COVID-19 pandemic and related disruptions triggered a three-year slide in the state.
Tennessee took over control of Kirby Middle School and Hillcrest High School over academic performance concerns. But the state’s Achievement School district yielded few gains, and now the schools will return to local control.
A newly filed Tennessee bill would allow dissatisfied voters to recall certain elected officials, including school board members.
The Lakeland School System has criticized the state’s focus on private school choice over fully funding special education pre-K classes.
Dr. Kevin Schaaf, a Metro Nashville Public Schools reading specialist, said students are often fatigued and disengaged in class, stressed by the emphasis on test performance.
Months after Tennessee launched its first statewide voucher program, the Tennessee Department of Education won’t say how many students are using it to attend private school.
Tennessee schools had interpreted a 2022 rule to mean students could not be removed before a formal behavioral assessment was completed. Now, schools can make removal decisions during the assessment or even before it has started.
When Tennessee State Board of Education Chairman Bob Eby mentioned at a May board meeting that he wanted to launch a study of the state’s language graduation requirement, he kicked off a firestorm of public response.
Students’ prior enrollment is a frequently asked question in other state voucher programs and was a required question on the application for Tennessee’s first voucher initiative.
For the first time in five years, many Shelby County families are missing out on supplemental grocery cash this summer after Tennessee stopped participating in a federal program that served the entire state.
Tennessee may soon make it easier for schools to temporarily remove some students with disabilities from their classrooms.
The program is a significant rollback of Tennessee’s previous summer food benefits initiative.
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