Families will be able to submit an eligible student application for Tennessee’s new Education Freedom Scholarship Program for the upcoming school year next month, the Tennessee Department of Education announced.
Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) said he hopes a bill making its way through the Tennessee General Assembly regarding illegal immigrant children who attend taxpayer-funded schools in the Volunteer State will be the test case for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision.
Republican lawmakers launched a broad investigation into all eight Ivy League universities Tuesday, alleging they illegally colluded to inflate tuition prices, violating federal antitrust laws and burdening students with soaring costs.
Detailed, seven-page letters were sent to the university presidents at Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University demanding documents and communications to answer whether or not their coordinated practices harm students and families.
Actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise, who played Lieutenant Dan in the hit 1994 film Forrest Gump, will speak at Vanderbilt University’s 2025 Commencement activities this spring.
Vanderbilt said Sinise will receive the university’s prestigious Nichols-Chancellor’s Medal upon speaking at the commencement celebrations on May 8, the day before the university’s official commencement ceremony.
JC Bowman, founder and president of Professional Educators of Tennessee, said he believes that the Tennessee Department of Education is “ill-equipped” to handle billions in funds that the federal government would presumably distribute under the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities,” which directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”
In a highly anticipated move on Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, calling it a “historic action that is 45 years in the making.” The East Room ceremony was attended by GOP governors from Texas, Indiana, Florida, and Ohio, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, senior advisor Stephen Miller, along with a number of students and other special guests.
“We are going to be returning education very simply BACK TO THE STATES where it belongs,” Trump said. “It’s a commonsense thing to do and it’s going to work.”
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