Teachers unions and other critics view the efforts as a way to siphon money away from traditional public schools.
"This feels like he's taking advantage of the pandemic and the pandemic relief to further his ideological goal of defunding the traditional public schools," said state Representative Gloria Johnson, a Democrat and retired teacher.
In the initial wave of funding, governors were given $3 billion with few strings attached but the expectation that it be used to help schools and colleges"most significantly impacted by coronavirus." In Tennessee, Lee has long been an advocate of launching more charter schools—institutions that are publicly funded but operate outside traditional school districts. In a feature that appeals to many conservatives, they usually do not have unionized teachers.
"Education is not one size fits all, and the pandemic showed us just how important it is to provide families with better access to high-quality school options," he said in an email."Using pandemic relief money to open new charter schools is an insult to the public school teachers who have worked tirelessly since March 2020 to keep public schools open," said Brown, a high school English teacher in rural Grundy County.
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