OM DENNE EPISODE
“Fighting monsters is the easy part. Back home is where the really scary stuff is.”
― Noelle Stevenson, Lumberjanes, Vol. 3: A Terrible Plan
The relentless march towards Christmas continues, even as I fail to engage. It’s a strange thing, as one age, it seems to take longer to engage than in the past, hopefully, that’s just me and not all of us.
I moved to Nashville in 1989. It was a magical time, even though we didn’t recognize it.
Nashville was a smaller community and while opportunities seemed lesser, experiences abounded.
At that time, there was a minimal rock and roll scene, with few places to play. It wasn’t an easy task to be a rock and roller in a town that took pride in having two types of music – Country and Western.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the relationships forged at this time would shape me for life.
Sure we’d all grow older – though I’m not sure any of us grew up – and followed disparate pasts, but a common thread would always run through us. It’s an unbreakable bond and one that seems to retain its strength with minimal maintenance. Conversations often pick up without hesitation, despite years of separation.
Last week, we lost a centerpiece of those years. To refer to him as “longtime Exit-In sound man”, feels like a slight. Frank Sass, was so much more. he was the embodiment of the term “force of nature” and Nashville musicians never had a bigger cheerleader.
With him behind the knobs, bands took on new depth and their sound soared in ways previously unexplored. He was every bit the artist of those on stage. And like every artist, there was a bit of a dark side.
He could be moody, and ill-tempered. There was a set way to do things, and those who failed to adhere felt his wrath.
Sound check was not a rehearsal.
Punctuality was important.
To be fair, Frank never made a distinction of who was expected to follow the rules. The rules were for everyone – star performer – to newby. I guess you could say, that when it came to Frank’s stage, true equity existed – for good and for bad.
I also stand by the assessment that those musicians who felt his ire, were better for it in the long run. We seem to have this philosophy today that we should never be placed in a position of discomfort, but sometimes it’s that discomfort that brings growth.
I could wax poetic for hours on Frank and the times we spent working side by side trying to pull off miracles, but that would leave little time to discuss school vouchers, and lord knows we can’t have that. So I’ll try and be brief.
Last Friday, was Frank’s funeral. I debated going.
I don’t often attend these affairs, because they wreck me for days after.
It’s jarring to realize that myself, and those I’ve known most of my life, are no longer the young hooligans of 30 years ago. Despite the bodily changes, I still feel as vibrant and young as I did in those halcyon days. It’s just that rocking and rolling all night and parting every day has become a little more difficult.
In the end, because of the deep ties to Frank, his wife Lisa, and their extended family – affectionately known as the Peagram clan – I decided to attend.
It was a decision, that I am glad I made.
It was sad, losing special people always is, but it was also strengthening and inspirational, as it served as a reminder of just how blessed I am to journey through life with my tribe.
A tribe filled with more than one special person and continues to make me feel proud to belong.
Throughout the morning, I found myself talking with people I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. Yet conversation flowed as if we’d rolled out of the Goldrush last night. If you know, you know.
Some of these people have become incredibly successful, you may not be familiar with their names, but I promise, their art has been a part of your life’s soundtrack.
Some have been, unfortunately, not as successful.
And some have found success in previously unexpected ways.
None of that mattered.
Once again, I am in danger of using all of my allotted words on Frank’s passing and my amazing peers, but if you’ll be so kind as to extend me just a minute longer for a final observation.
As I sat in the rear of the church during the funeral mass, I was struck by an observation.
Scattered throughout the church, were married couples. Couple that had been together for decades. Not just one or two either, but rather, half a church full.
Frank and Lisa were high school sweethearts. Seated in the pews were couples with 40 years of shared romance. Think of the challenges they’ve faced and the joys they’ve celebrated together.
I counted at least a dozen with unions of over two decades.
That’s pretty amazing when you consider from whence we sprung. We were supposed to be rebels, running the streets in pursuit of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet somehow, we’d fallen into a life of commitment.
We may not have always followed the rules, but our commitments still mattered.
RIP Frank Sass, you will never be forgotten. Your legacy doesn’t live solely in your art but also through your love for Lisa and your two children, and the community you helped build.
It was a life fully lived.
– – –
With Christmas just weeks away, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee continues to play the role of the Grinch for his fellow Republican legislators.
It was pretty much accepted that his ill-advised pursuit of vouchers was going to cost some sitting lawmakers their seats. It was assumed that Democrats would draw additional money and support, but now news of a new wrinkle is starting to appear.
In the coming weeks, expect to hear announcements from Republicans mounting a challenge to fellow Republicans who support vouchers. It should not come as any surprise that in a state where public schools are the primary employer in 50% of the state’s counties, vouchers would earn bipartisan opposition.
Curious about which counties?
Campbell, Cannon, Carter, Clay, Cocke, Cumberland, Decatur, Fayette, Franklin, Gibson, Giles, Grainger, Grundy, Hamilton, Hancock, Hawkins, Henderson, Henry, Hickman Houston, Jackson, Knox, Lawrence, Lewis, Macon, Madison, Marion, Lawrence, Lewis, Macon, Madison, Marion, McNairy, Meigs, Montgomery, Overton, Perry, Pickett, Polk, Putnam, Scott, Sequatchie, Sevier, Shelby, Stewart, Sumner, Tipton, Union, Van Buren, White, Williamson, and Wilson.
Maybe those sitting Republicans will lose their seat, or maybe they won’t, but at minimum running for office looks to get a whole lot more expensive.
Furthermore, primaries often expose candidate weaknesses that can be exploited in the general election.
Expect things to get a whole lot more interesting in the coming months and not very helpful for Republicans.
Especially with Michael Lotfi, a former operative for ex-House Speaker Casada, and American’s For Prosperity state director Tori Venable leading the group’s push for vouchers statewide.
Often your friends say more about you then your enemies.
– – –
While a final bill has yet to be filled, a few details on pending voucher legislation have emerged. (As a side note, I’m not referring to vouchers as Education Freedom Scholarships, any more than I’m calling Twitter, X)
There are a couple things in the preliminary details that give me some cause for pause.
The biggest is the creation of two funding sources.
According to the Governor, the General Assembly will be asked to appropriate money to two different pots of gold – vouchers and the newly passed, Tennessee Invent in Student Achievement (TISA).
Reportedly, the root of this comes from Lee’s leeriness at being portrayed as a hypocrite.
Apparently at some point, when no one was listening, he said that TISA was not being passed as a tool for expanding school choice.
I think there may be one or two people under a rock in the middle of Big South Fork Park who actually still believe that, so I’m not sure who he thinks he’s fooling,
Me? I thought it was such a ridiculous statement that I just blacked it out.
Here we go again, it is not the lie that presents the bigger problem but rather, the cover-up of the lie. I guess we never learn anything.
For his part, Lee probably ought to be more concerned with the fib he told the Nashville Post in the aftermath of the passage of the current ESA plan in 2019,
“I don’t have any plans for that,” he said at the time. “I think rural schools don’t have the opportunity that an urban center does for that kind of change. I have no plans to expand that beyond the counties where it exists now unless the people in those counties wanted that change.”
I doubt anybody from Madison or Lewis County called Lee and said, “Man…you know what we need?”
If Lee’s pipe dream passes, ten years from now, or maybe sooner, legislators could be faced with a decision to cut the budget for one or the other of the education funds. The dilemma would be, do you take money out of one system or both. Keep in mind, that to put $100 million into TISA you have to actually put in almost $300M because of the weights.
TISA was supposed to be a simplified solution to the previous BEP plan, yet barely a year later efforts are afoot to add more layers to education funding.
There has been some talk of creating a surplus in TISA, that could be used for special education initiatives. Any student who collects a voucher forgoes their draw from TISA. In some cases, because of the weight connected with individual students, a family could be giving up $13K to accept $7K.
Unless that’s some of that new California math, that doesn’t appear to be a prudent decision.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Not every family in a private school is wealthy. Nor do they have more disposable cash than the average citizen. For whatever reason, and far be it for me to judge their personal experiences, public schools are not meeting their child’s needs and they have decided to pursue other options, despite the cost.
Parents in those families are often working two jobs while sacrificing trips and luxuries to meet tuition and give their kids a shot at a better life. Are they not deserving of consideration? Or are they considered less a priority because they don’t believe the narrative that all public schools are serving all kids?
Vouchers are not necessarily designed to meet the full cost of tuition any more than state funding meets the full public school funding.
With vouchers, the family supplants the local portion of funding.
TISA provides a base of approximately $7K, the same rate as a voucher. Again the issue comes into play when the weights associated with TISA are applied. That’s when parents will be expected to do more with less.
What about those kids currently enrolled in the state’s education saving account pilot?
Currently, they are receiving roughly $9000 to go to the school of their choice. While there is an argument over how effective the program has been in its inaugural year, there is nearly universal support from participating parents. There are a couple thousand of them, who I don’t think will be thrilled to receive less money should the current plan be allowed to sunset and they are rolled over into the new plan.
Where I come from, that’s called using people as political guinea pigs and it is frowned upon.
Again, this all seems ridiculously complicated when you’ve already created a means to fund school choice without the increased need for oversight and risk of legal action due to equity in funding.
The other area that continues to be a head-scratcher for me is universal accountability for all schools.
It wasn’t six months ago that former ExcelInEd Executive and current Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizette Gonzales launched an initiative to release letter grades for schools. Gonzales claimed, “Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, policymaker, or an interested community member, school letter grades will empower all Tennesseans with the information they need to support K-12 public education and our local schools.”
By the way, those letter grades are so important that they will not be released next week, amid the holiday festivities.
While Gonzales believes that these letter grades are essential, House Education Chairman State Representative Mark White (R-Memphis) apparently doesn’t see it that way. According to The Tennessee Firefly, White is skeptical of adding accountability requirements beyond the TCAP.
Representative White says he doesn’t believe the data is available to require something similar for private schools taking part in the Education Freedom Scholarship Act.
Huh? He does realize that the new accountability measure for public schools is based on TCAP, right?
Under the old model, there were things like attendance and graduation rates that counted, but Reynolds made letter grades almost exclusively reliant on TCAP testing.
So the capacity for collecting the data does exist, you just have to pass legislation that requires all public schools, as defined by those who take public money, to administer the same screeners, and benchmark tests, and participate in TCAP testing. There you have it, the issue is resolved.
The same holds true for third-grade retention. White is reticent to require third-grade students who receive scholarships to face the new advancement requirements under the state’s Third-Grade Retention Law.
“That’s something we’re going to have to really study,” said White. “I think a lot of private schools, if we hold to the fact of high-quality privates, they’re going to have something in place to make sure that the children are moving along through grade level.”
Huh? Why would you assume private schools do but public schools don’t? let’s collect a little data before we leap to that conclusion.
As a parent, actively pursuing private school options, I’m not necessarily opposed to assistance from the state, but let’s level the playing field.
If we are going to pass voucher legislation, let’s remove the government oversight from all schools, or subject all schools to the same oversight.
Am I the only one who catches the irony of a governor who worries about appearing hypocritical while promoting hypocritical policies?
– – –
Tennessee’s recent hearings on the usage of Federal Education dollars produced a lot of noise. Lost in that noise is some potential benefit for students.
In the wake of the state hearings, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona wrote a Nov. 20 letter to the nation’s chief state school officers, urging them to take advantage of longstanding—but little used—federal flexibility with standardized testing.
ESSA requires states to test students using the same assessment in grades 3-8 and once in high school. But it also allows states to explore new types of assessments that break the fill-in-the-bubble mold, including performance tasks, competency-based assessments, and more, through the pilot program.
Whether is causation or correlation, is debatable, but the USDOE surely noticed that during hearings, the amount of testing required of students was brought into question. While not solely a by-product of federal requirements, national policy certainly facilitates a trickle-down effect that serves to increase the testing of students.
If talks on the role of Federal funds on state education policy lead to fewer and better student assessments, I’d say that alone makes the conversation one that was worth having.
– – –
Time to rattle the cup a little bit before I head out the door.
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