Tennessee State Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) claimed the new letter grades assigned to every Tennessee school are “flawed.” Akbari represents Memphis, where more than 40 percent of schools did not receive passing grades.
Akbari (pictured above) released a statement on Thursday declaring the “flawed letter grades will never define a school, their students and families, or their teachers and staff.” She asserted the grades instead reflect what she claimed is inadequate state funding for education.
The letter grades were released for the first time on December 21, with years-long delays preventing Tennessee from complying with a 2016 law mandating the grades be assigned each year.
About 90 schools in the Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS) received failing grades, about 43 percent out of a total of 222. About 37 percent received a C, 16 percent received a B, and just nine schools, or 4.5 percent of all Memphis schools graded, received an A.
In her statement, Akbari urged Tennessee state lawmakers to “come together around policies that will nourish every child’s learning potential” rather than “weaponizing these grades.”
When the data was released, MSCS released its own statement citing “the real world struggles affecting students learning,” and noting that about 60 percent “of students in the District come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.” The district also claimed about half of five-year-olds “are not kindergarten-ready when they enter MSCS classrooms.”
The district also cited the city’s “17-year high in violent crime,” asserting that “such communitywide trauma has a devastating effect on academic achievement.”
A total of 242 Tennessee schools received either a D or F grade, meaning they could face corrective action from the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) to increase student academic achievement. About 74 percent of schools in Tennessee received passing grades.
Akbari, who has served in the Tennessee General Assembly since 2013, previously supported restoring voting rights for some felons and was an early endorser of President Joe Biden in 2019.
Still, when Governor Bill Lee ordered a special session to pass gun control legislation, Akbari celebrated, declaring, “It really is starting to feel like we’re on the same team.” She complimented Lee for breaking “from his caucus, from his party,” to push for gun control legislation. No such legislation passed the special session.
In November, Lee unveiled his “Education Freedom Scholarship” bill that will eventually enable all Tennessee parents and families to select which schools their student will attend using education savings accounts (ESAs).
Education expert Corey DeAngelis recently told The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy that similar programs are wildly successful in Arizona and Florida, where thousands of students are now enrolled in alternative to normal public schools.
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to pappert.tom@proton.me.
