blakefarmer

Last month’s Supreme Court decision may have freed Tennessee from having to expand its Medicaid program. But Nashville’s Congressman says the state needs to think twice before opting out.

Listen Now: Teach for America is making incremental moves from the classroom to the political arena. The program recruits college grads who studied something other than education to spend two years teaching in underperforming schools. Several are going on to win elected office, and more are right behind them. A school board race in East […]

Listen Now: The Tennessee Foreign Language Institute recently surveyed dozens of refugees around Nashville and asked if English classes were taught in their apartment complex, would they attend? All of them said yes. Yet free ESL classes are already offered around town, and few were enrolled. The proposed solution is a mobile classroom.

It’s so hot in Nashville that Metro Parks have begun cancelling events over the next few days. Triple digit heat and drought have led to potentially hazardous conditions.

It’s been 50 years, almost to the day, that Davidson County voters decided one government is better than two. Thursday the living mayors of Metro Nashville will kick off a series of events celebrating a half-century of consolidation.

Candidates in the race to unseat Metro Schools board chair are trying to clarify their positions on charters. The privately-run but publicly-financed schools have become something of a hot-button.

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services is eliminating its contract with an outside agency that trains social workers. DCS is one of several state departments finding savings by doing more of its work in-house.

The threat of facing a grand jury helped convince Davidson County Clerk John Arriola to resign after a fight to keep his job. News reports and then multiple audits uncovered mismanagement in his office. Prosecutors say resignation is the most “beneficial resolution” because there were “no clear-cut violations of criminal law.”

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has been holding the police department over a barrel for the last few weeks. He says officers will lose their jobs if the Metro Council doesn’t pass his tax increase Tuesday night. And the police chief has accepted the possible outcome.

Two hundred years ago President James Madison signed into law a declaration of war against the British. The War of 1812 catapulted Tennessean Andrew Jackson into the national limelight. His home place – The Hermitage – is collaborating with Madison’s historical home on a blog that publishes letters and articles on the anniversary date they […]