State Representative Clay Doggett

02/02/2025

On Thursday, I voted for the Educational Freedom Act in the Tennessee Legislature. Over the past several weeks I’ve had multiple in-person conversations, phone calls, texts, and emails. Some of those conversations were “vote yes”, some were “vote no”, and others said “do what you think is best”.

Knowing a vote on the bill was coming weeks before the special session was called, I immersed myself in the language and tried to learn every detail of the bill I could. For the past six years, there have been multiple bills brought on “school choice”, and I have had ongoing conversations with constituents regarding this issue. Some say they want choice; others are concerned it will take money from public schools.

Last year there was a very lengthy bill filed that did some good things for all, but it did take money away from public schools which was the non-starter for me. For many years, I’ve tried to find a way to keep public school funding from decreasing due to disenrollment.

Counties have to maintain a maintenance of effort for funding in public schools; I always thought the state should have the same obligation. This year, a much shorter and more compact bill was introduced for the special session. Put simply, it did four things: Provided parents with a choice, created a maintenance of effort from the state (hold-harmless provision), gives a $2K one-time bonus for teachers, and created a building maintenance fund for our schools.

Some argue parents/students already have a choice. For some, I’m sure they do, since they have been doing it already.

For others, they haven’t had that option. For some, this may provide enough for them to make that decision on what is best for their child while knowing they will have to cover the remainder of the tuition cost. For some, it may provide a little relief since they have been covering the whole cost of tuition.

And for most of us, we will continue to send our children to public school. I have three children in public school and one more that will join them in two years. I’m a product of public school, my wife is a product of public school, and my kids will be, too. For my family, as well as most, it would take a lot of planning, effort, and logistics to get a child to a private school. It’s all I can do some mornings to get my three to school much less take them 30 plus miles to attend elsewhere. Choosing a private school education for my children doesn’t make sense to me. But for some parents, it does.

I have fought for and advocated for something this bill also provided, a hold-harmless provision (similar to a maintenance of effort at county level). It had always bothered me that funding was tied to attendance numbers or enrollment. The amount counties receive could, and sometimes would, fluctuate based off of the number of students the district had. When school choice bills were brought in years past, here was the greatest objection: “It will take money away from our schools.” And under previous bills, it would. When a student left the school district, so did the funding. Thursday, I voted for a bill that would NOT take funding away from our public schools. Now, our schools will never lose funding for disenrollment going forward.

Since I was first elected, the state has put over 2 billion new reoccurring dollars into public education bringing the total to over 3.8 billion dollars in the last 10 years. I’ve also voted for and passed 6 teacher pay increases/bonuses with one of those that was included in Thursday’s bill. Some called it a “bribe” or even said it was an “insult” to teachers to include it in the bill. To me, I thought it was well deserved and I wish we could have done more. But guess what? Monday we go back into regular session and we will do just that. We have a lot of work left to do this year in Nashville, and there are some great things coming for public education. This bill was not the end-all be-all for education this year.

The final thing this bill did was create a maintenance fund, which is the first time in history the state will be involved in building maintenance on a recurring basis. School buildings belong to the counties and so does the upkeep. I felt this was long overdue, and I’m sure it will prove to be a great asset to rural counties.

With all that being said, I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind if you were against it. I just want you to know why I voted for it. Even though I had several calls and messages to vote against it, I had more who said “yes” or “do what you think is best”. For the two weeks leading up to this vote, I would lay in bed thinking about any and all effects this legislation would have on the people of my district. A solid night’s sleep was rare. I knew there would be an announcement coming from President Trump regarding a federal school choice plan, but the details were unknown. I didn’t know when or what it may look like, but on Wednesday of last week, President Trump signed an executive order giving the US Dept of Education 60 days to issue guidance on how to use federal funding in the states for school choice plans. Although I don’t know what that guidance will look like, we knew two weeks ago that there would not be any hold-harmless provisions for our local schools at the federal level. But because the Education Freedom Act passed, we now have that crucial hold-harmless provision in place for Tennessee.

I’m sure there may be only a few families to choose to apply for a scholarship, but every family will benefit from what the rest of this bill did. I voted yes because I was asked to do what I thought was best, and I did.

Now, I’m the same guy I’ve always been. I’m just Clay. Some of you have known me your whole lives, while some for just a few short years. I’ve made over 4200 votes while serving in the legislature. And just as with all my previous votes, no one twisted my arm to vote one way or another on this one. Despite allegations of corruption or “back room deals”, my vote was my vote.

I know we will not agree all the time, but if this is the first time we are on opposing sides, I’d say we are doing pretty good. At the end of the day, I love the community in which we live, I love the school my children attend, and I love the people I have been fortunate to serve.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out with encouragement, for your prayers and for your support, even if we disagreed. Please continue to pray for me and my family as we enter this new legislative session.

01/24/2025

This has been a busy week! We received a new office assignment and have been going through the grueling process of moving, but I wanted to follow-up on last week’s post, as we have had numerous questions.

Next week begins a special session to address flood relief funding, immigration, and education freedom scholarships.

I want to preface my (somewhat lengthy) explanation below with this: whether I agree with the calling of this session and all that was included in this agenda or not is now irrelevant. It is happening, which means I and my fellow legislators must now weigh everything presented in the bill carefully and cast our votes.

Having said that, the education bill that is being proposed has prompted several questions, and there is a lot of information floating around about what this bill will do, could do, take from, etc. Hopefully I can share with you here what research I've done, what I have learned, and at least attempt to address some of the concerns I've heard over the past few days.

The program is a scholarship for K-12 students who are admitted to a private school in our state. It does not mean that you have to be currently enrolled, but if a family wanted to leave public school to attend a private school, they could apply for the scholarship to do so.

The scholarship program is open to 20K students but the first 10K must be filled before the second 10K is open. There are currently about 1,039,050 students enrolled K-12 public/private combined. Roughly 2% of that population are eligible to participate. It is very narrow and not a true universal plan due to limited scholarship funds.

The funds for these scholarships were set aside by the previous General Assembly. Like many scholarships, it is not expected that each scholarship will provide full tuition but may be a viable option for families who wish to explore such opportunities for their children. Prior to scholarship funds being disbursed, a student must apply and enroll in a qualifying private school. Upon gaining acceptance, the student may apply for the educational freedom scholarship.

If a student accepts a scholarship at a participating school, there are accountability requirements that must be met. Participating students must take a year-end or yearly assessment such as a nationally standardized achievement test or the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program test (TCAP) that is currently offered in public K-12 schools. Those results are shared with the Office of Research and Educational Accountability housed within the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. Reports shall be submitted to the General Assembly each year to monitor and evaluate outcomes and proficiency.

The second concern I am hearing is that the program will take away funds from our public schools. There is a graphic that has been circulated recently showing Giles County was estimated to lose approximately 3.1 million dollars if this proposal passes. Those numbers were based off a different bill from the previous General Assembly that did not pass. Under that bill when enrollment dropped in a school district, so would the funding. That is current law as school funding is dispensed through TISA (which replaced the BEP a couple years back).
The previous legislation awarded scholarships to students and if they left public schools, the funding was reallocated through the TISA funding formula to other areas/districts. There were also provisions in that bill that would fund teacher health insurance and provide funds for capital improvements, construction, school busses, etc...

It was projected that some districts could lose funding for loss of student enrollment, but would gain funding due to the other provisions and potentially offset (in some counties) the difference. This current proposal would not allow any county to receive any less in state funding from this year forward. Funding is based on a per pupil amount through TISA allocations so if enrollment goes down, so would (in theory) state funding. However, with this plan a funding floor would be created that keeps school districts at the same amount and in the event their future allocations increase from the state, the floor would move with those funds and create a new floor. This is the hold-harmless provision. Rural districts like Giles would not lose funding going forward, but could only gain and grow.

County commissions must have a Maintenance of Effort in place as required by state law. The MOE states that the commission can not decrease their funding from one year to the next. This bill would, for the first time, hold the state to the same standard local commissions must meet for maintaining consistent funding in regards to public education.

Within the proposal is a grant fund created with 80% of the Sports Wagering privilege tax to the tune of approximately 77 million dollars for year one. Grant funding could be used for construction or remodel projects similar to what we have seen locally over the past couple of years.

Concerns have been made that the money will be taken away from the Hope Scholarship. These funds were used in years past to aid scholarship reserves but is no longer needed for that program. There will be no changes or shortfalls to the hope scholarship due to the reallocation of these funds to the construction/maintenance grant. The grant program will be housed by the Dept. of Treasury and be available to school districts once/if the program is implemented.

I will say that since my time in the legislature, we have put over 2 billion new dollars into K-12 education. We continue to place substantial amounts of money each year into the budget for public education and will do the same again this year. At the end of the day, I can understand each side's thoughts on the scholarship program.

For me, having a hold-harmless program in place is a great advantage going forward. If the County Commissions cannot cut local funding to public schools, why shouldn't the state be held to the same standard? I hope I've answered your concerns and if you have any others, please do not hesitate to reach out.

01/18/2025

Good evening everyone! I hope you all have had a great week! I have spoken with many who have called and emailed over the past couple days. (If you haven’t received a return call or email just yet, I will get back with you as soon as possible.)

There have been many posts made over the past few days concerning the governor’s education bill. With the 114th General Assembly beginning this week, HB001/SB001 was filed well over a month ago detailing a proposed education plan that would include school choice, a hold-harmless provision for student disenrollment of public schools, a one-time bonus for teachers K-12, and funding for construction and maintenance of public school buildings. This bill has only been introduced and not yet voted on.

On 1/17/24, Governor Lee called for a special session that would include his proposed education plan, funding for East TN disaster relief, and immigration. During this time of special session, new bills will be introduced to fit the call as described. The current proposed education plan will be re-filed as a new bill specifically for the special session. In addition to what was in the previously filed bill, there is anticipated language that will provide additional funding to high performing school districts.

This week, a graphic has been circulated on social media depicting numerous financial estimates on how Giles county stands to lose funding if the current proposed plan is implemented. The graphic displayed is based off of a different plan proposed last year with many specifics not found in the most recent proposed language (based off of HB1183 as amended not HB001).

https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/113/Amend/HA0653.pdf

HB001’s language can be found below:

https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/114/Bill/HB0001.pdf

I hope all will read through each bill, check the cross references, and see how proposed language aligns/pairs with current TCA code.

HB1183 is a very lengthy bill while HB001 is 11 pages. Link to TN Code Annotated below.

https://advance.lexis.com/container?config=014CJAA5ZGVhZjA3NS02MmMzLTRlZWQtOGJjNC00YzQ1MmZlNzc2YWYKAFBvZENhdGFsb2e9zYpNUjTRaIWVfyrur9ud&crid=1648d899-1fd3-4ecf-a6d5-40f3922f6d06&prid=c0586e47-7960-4151-9b2d-8f9dcfb0863c

I hope to do a more in-depth post over the next few days to explain each facet in detail.

I understand there are a lot of concerns- many of which are based on inaccurate and/or outdated information.

Like you, I want only the best for our community, and please know that no matter how you choose to educate your child, be it in the public school system, a private school in another county or in your own home, I am considering the pro’s and con’s for all of Tennessee students. My own children are blessed to be in our local public school system, so I am fully invested in supporting our teachers, just like many of you.

I hope that in the coming days, we can work through some of your concerns as I address several different facets of the updated version of this bill.

Thank you all for being such engaged citizens. It is an honor to represent you.

Questions/comments can be sent to [email protected]

07/27/2024

So proud of our Tennessee State Parks!!
Because everyone deserves dignity!
Changing Spaces Campaign State Representative Clay Doggett

02/29/2024

https://mailchi.mp/9bf23a9824b7/the-chiefs-come-to-nashvilleThe Chiefs Come to Nashville!

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02/05/2024

No Vacancy - All Bill Spots Filled! -

01/30/2024

“Post Snow” Week at the Capitol

01/17/2024

I hope everyone is safe and warm this evening! We have been getting some calls about road clearings. TDOT has told me they are working hard to get to all state roads throughout the district cleared. There have been multiple challenges due to the amount of snow we received as well as the extreme temps over night. They ask for your patience as they pull trucks from other counties to help clear some of the state roads that haven’t been serviced yet. We are grateful for all they do, it’s been a tough week!

01/13/2024

Time to Get Back to Work!