Tennessee School Privatization Group Seeks to Build Propaganda Machine
Group with ties to state's GOP leadership, including Gov. candidate Marsha Blackburn, looks to expand influence on state policy
Over at the job site Indeed, there’s an interesting posting from a “confidential” Tennessee organization looking to hire a Director of External Affairs.
This super secret employer seems to be looking to build quite the PR enterprise:
The organization is hiring a Director of External Affairs to own the organization’s voice across every channel, earned media, owned media, social, podcast, and our flagship digital outlet. This is not a traditional communications role, and it is not a newsroom role.
We are looking for a strategist and operator who sees communications as an advocacy function that drive public opinion and outcomes: someone who can build narratives that move Tennesseans, legislators, and the policy influencers; produce content that performs across formats; and lead a small team toward measurable advocacy outcomes. The right person thinks like a marketer, writes like a journalist, moves like a campaign comms director, and treats the flagship digital outlet as a powerful platform to advance the company’s policy and political priorities, not as a traditional newsroom operating in a vacuum.
The desired candidate will, among other things:
Serve as Managing Editor, setting the editorial vision, content calendar, and growth strategy in alignment with the organization’s policy and political objectives.
Build the outlet into a multi-format platform: articles, podcast, video, social-first content, newsletters, that drives audience growth and shapes the education narrative in Tennessee.
So, who is this top secret group looking to hire a rockstar political comms operative who will build an all channels propaganda network?
Well, they say on the ad:
The organization champions effective education policies that give every Tennessee child access to a quality public education. We combine data, political impact, and the collective power of parents, advocates, and policymakers to make Tennessee the gold standard in public education and to hold leaders accountable for student outcomes.
Which sounds a lot like the mission of school privatization advocacy group Tennesseans for Student Success:
Tennesseans for Student Success champions effective education policies that provide access to a quality public education for every child in Tennessee. Our strategy is to leverage data and political impact — along with the collective power of parents, advocates and policymakers — to make Tennessee the gold standard for the rest of the nation and hold policymakers accountable for how their actions impact student outcomes.
Oh, and the email address to send your application?
TNSShiring@gmail.com
Who is Tennesseans for Student Success?
The 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organization was formed just over a decade ago by former staffers of then-Gov. Bill Haslam and some other GOP political operatives.
The group initially seemed innocuous - a mouthpiece for Haslam’s education agenda.
In time, though, they became more aggressive. Including by attacking legislative Republicans who dared oppose school privatization schemes.
On Monday, I noted that shadowy “non-profit issue advocacy group” Tennesseans for Student Success was on the attack, placing online ads against Republicans who opposed Governor Bill Lee’s destructive state charter authorizer legislation in the House Education Committee.
Today, it appears the attacks worked, at least in the case of Rep. Chris Hurt. The House Education Committee heard and ultimately approved Governor Lee’s school voucher plan. While one victim of the TSS attacks, Mark Cochran, stood strong in defense of public schools, Hurt caved to the pressure of being labeled a defender of “Hillary Clinton’s NEA.”
Hurt now receives regular campaign support from TSS.
The group’s most recent, available IRS form 990 indicates 2024 income of $4.2 million from undisclosed sources. The group’s President and CEO earned slightly less than $300,000 that year.
One recent report ranks them in the Top 20 political spenders in the state.
What is TSS Doing Now?
The group backed a number of candidates in the recent GOP primaries, including in the Governor’s race, where they backed the winner, Marsha Blackburn.
"Tennessee voters made a fundamental choice tonight to continue investing in high-quality public education by electing leaders like Marsha Blackburn, who won't rest on the laurels of Tennessee's progress," said Lana Skelo, TSS President and CEO. "While some candidates questioned the need for high standards and ignored the critical role that public schools play in our state, Blackburn boldly put students first by committing to ending one-size-fits-all solutions to education and breaking down barriers so that every student has an opportunity for success."
While the statement from Skelo references public education, TSS and Blackburn both have made clear that expanding school privatization is their goal.
And, it’s worth noting that within hours of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Voting Rights Act, Blackburn called for the disenfranchisement of Black voters in Memphis.
The legislature followed suit, and went all-in on an agenda designed to erase the political power of voters based on race in an effort to eliminate any semblance of resistance to the extreme agenda of Blackburn and the TN GOP.
TSS sat in silence as Blackburn cheered the removal from committees of lawmakers who dared oppose the racially-motivated redistricting.
What Has TSS Accomplished?
Sure, TSS has secured some election wins - likely helping shape a Tennessee GOP strongly committed to school vouchers and other avenues of privatization.
In the decade+ that TSS has been seeking to influence Tennessee education policy, the state has seen the creation of a universal school voucher scheme that costs $300 million, including millions of dollars in payments to a private vendor to administer the program.
Tennessee Lookout reports that the state’s school voucher vendor will now receive nearly $130 million a year to help parents access and navigate the state’s voucher system.
Tennessee lawmakers are giving a $356 million raise to the company handling the state’s two private-school voucher programs, despite the vendor’s woes in two other states.
The legislature’s Fiscal Review Committee approved the increase Wednesday, pushing the maximum contract amount for Student First Technologies, LLC to nearly $637 million over the life of its five-year contract to run an online portal where parents can apply for the funds and receive payments.
While private schools and private vendors are cashing in, Tennessee schools, their students, and communities are losing:
Tennessee now ranks last in the nation in investment in public education and would need $1.9 billion to catch up to our neighbors in Mississippi.
Thanks in part to the policies advanced by the lawmakers backed by TSS, Tennessee teachers are now making less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they were when TSS was just starting:
After adjusting for inflation, Tennessee teacher pay has fallen 6.5% over the last decade — meaning teachers are being paid less today in real dollars than they were 10 years ago.
In fact, the state’s investment in schools in real dollars has dropped by 10% over the past two budget cycles - budgets dominated by education policies championed by TSS.
Tennesseans for Student Success has spent just over a decade leading the state down a destructive road in education policy.
Now, they seem eager to play an even larger role - and with a GOP supermajority and a Gov. Blackburn, they just may succeed.