A Tennessee Republican state lawmaker is arguing federal funds to feed school children from low-income families should not be accepted unless it can be proven that the program will increase test scores.
GOP Rep. John Ragan, who has a history of targeting school students from low-income households, told the legislature’s Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding he was concerned about “tying ourselves to the federal government,” and inquired about the amount of “waste” in the federal program, according to a video clip posted by The Tennessee Holler. The Working Group’s purpose is to determine how the State of Tennessee can reject $1.8 billion in federal education funds.
“The question that is, in the top of my mind, is how – we get this money that’s supposedly aimed at the most needy students and the lowest performing students. What’s the measure of improvement? For this money coming in? How much has it improved the performance of these students?
Rep. Ragan also claimed, “if we are tying ourselves to the federal government by accepting their money to do this thing, then it would seem to me that we as a state should be looking for the improvements that this money is purportedly going to make. Otherwise we’re just throwing money at something and being potentially wasteful.”
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“Yesterday,” Ragan continued, referring to a prior meeting, “a question was addressed concerning the nutrition program related to the waste that’s involved in that. To my knowledge, there is no measurement of that waste.”
Tennessee is exploring becoming the first state in the nation to reject $1.8 billion in federal education funding.
The Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding was appointed by embattled House Republican Speaker Cameron Sexton and Republican Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, and is comprised of six Republicans and two Democrats from both the House and Senate.
Its purpose is to “review what funding state and local governments in Tennessee receive from the federal government, how the funding is used, whether the state could provide the same services, and whether it would be feasible to reject the funds,” according to The Tennessean. “Tennessee receives $1.8 billion in Title I, IDEA, and other federal program funding each year, which support low-income students, students with disabilities, and school lunch programs.”
But The Tennessean also reports the Working Group’s members have been tasked not with whether to reject the funds, but “with recommending a strategy for how to reject the federal funds.”
Democratic Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is running to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), was the target of Speaker Sexton who tried but failed to expel her earlier this year from the legislature. (Sexton successfully had expelled two Black Democrats, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who later were returned to the legislature by voters.)
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Responding to the video clip of Rep. Ragan, Johnson, a retired special education teacher, wrote on social media: “Sure, because how do we know kids with food in their bellies perform better? (there is research for that.) How do we know kids with speech problems improve w/speech therapy? (Research for that too.) Guess 7 yr olds need to prove to him they’re working for those meals.”
In 2020 Rep. Ragan targeted school students whose families were behind on paying their lunch bills. Ragan’s amendment, which passed the House according to The Tennessean, “Allows schools to deny students who don’t qualify for free or reduced lunch the opportunity to participate in school events and activities, to graduate, or to receive a diploma if they don’t use their own work money to pay off the lunch debt.”
It also “Requires schools to tell parents and guardians they may be reported to the Department of Children’s Services for investigation of child abuse or neglect related to the accumulation of meal debt,” and “Removes the word ‘stigmatize’ from the line saying schools shall not ‘publicly identify or stigmatize a student who cannot pay for a meal.'”