Let’s play connect the dots.

Dot 1: Tennessee’s public schools are chronically underfunded. We ranked 41st, the last I checked.

Dot 2: Tennessee ranks 42nd for K–12 teacher pay. In Hamilton County, the average pay for a public school teacher with a master’s degree is $48,500. The teachers I’ve talked to feel micromanaged, unsupported, and demoralized.

Dot 3: Our school buildings are falling apart. In Hamilton County, so many small (and beloved) elementary schools are falling apart that the county wants to consolidate some into megaschools.

Dot 4: Our state government is now actively defunding Shelby, Davidson, and Hamilton County schools by forcing them to subsidize private schools one $8,000 voucher at a time. Most voucher families already had their kids in private schools. Gov. Lee wants to take vouchers statewide. 

Dot 5: The state is also forcing county school systems to subsidize new charter schools, even though most charters already operating in Tennessee have a worse track record than the public schools serving the same communities.

Dot 6: The push for charters in Tennessee has been driven by Hillsdale College, which wants to build them using taxpayer money but operate them for profit. Hillsdale is an extremely conservative and politically active Christian school in Michigan. Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s secretary of education who was famously hostile to public schools, is a major donor.

When I connect the dots, I see wealthy outsiders buying political influence to enrich themselves and indoctrinate Tennessee children using Tennessee tax dollars. Here’s how that works:

• Argue that public schools are failing.
• Use that argument to defund public schools and demoralize teachers.
• Use any negative results of defunding to support the original argument.
• Take tax dollars and (some) students out of public schools and profit off them.
• Raise a new generation of conservative voters.
• Enjoy another generation of trickle-down economics Kingdom Building.

It’s a complex picture with a simple solution. Vote blue.