Thursday 28th March 2024
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Griffey Calls For “No Confidence” Vote For Education Commissioner Schwinn

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Paris, Tenn.–With Governor Bill Lee’s call for a special legislative session to address education issues in Tennessee, House Representative Bruce Griffey, R-Paris, filed legislation yesterday afternoon urging a “no confidence” vote for Tennessee Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn.

“I don’t know where to begin with respect to the reasons why out-of-state transplant Commissioner Schwinn should be replaced immediately.  There are simply too many reasons to enumerate,” Griffey said.  “Schwinn, who grew up in California and is a graduate of the University of California at Berkley, never should have been appointed TN Education Commissioner in my opinion.  She has a minimal amount of actual classroom teaching experience – only about 2 years based on the documents I have reviewed.  Additionally, prior to being appointed by Governor Lee to her current position, she had no connection with our great state and had a legacy of controversy.  She left her prior position with the Texas Education Agency after awarding a controversial no-bid contract to a company known as SPEDx, which utilized a subcontractor with whom she had a personal relationship.  Sound familiar? It certainly seems like a pattern based on her actions here in TN,”  Griffey said.

“Indeed, here in Tennessee, Schwinn bypassed the legislature and a competitive bid process and awarded $2.5 Million (which exceeded the $750,000 budgeted by the legislature) in a no-bid contract to a Florida company known as ClassWallet to administer the financial aspects of the controversial ESA/school voucher program, which passed the House by only 1 vote and has since been struck down by our judicial system as unconstitutional,”  Griffey said.  “Then, when questioned by the legislature, Schwinn’s Chief Financial Officer said that it was decided without legislative approval to use teacher-pay funds from an expired program to fund the increased voucher program cost due to the no-bid contract awarded.  In essence, Schwinn effectively decided to rob teacher pay to finance an unauthorized and inexplicable unilateral action by the Department of Education led by Schwinn.”

“There are other parallels between Texas and Tennessee in relation to Schwinn.  In Texas, the SPEDx whistleblower Laurie Kash, who was fired by the Texas Education Agency, was awarded over $200,000 in damages for wrongful termination.  Here, in Tennessee, we now have a $1.5 Million lawsuit pending against our state by Katie Poulos, who was recruited by Schwinn from New Mexico to join her staff and now is claiming mistreatment at the hands of Schwinn,”  said Griffey.

Griffey charged that Schwinn has “created a top-heavy model with the Department of Education, increasing the number of Chiefs or Assistant Commissioners from 13 to 23, who draw an average annual salary exceeding $135,000.  This is an increase of $1.35 Million over the prior Administration with nothing to show for it.  She has grown government, not limited or minimized it and limited government is what I believe the majority of Tennesseans desire.  Limiting government should certainly be an overriding goal of our Republican super-majority legislature.”

“Apart from expanding the number of higher salaried staff working under her, Schwinn has also hired out-of-state residents – at least one of whom remains out-of-state while working for the TN Department of Education.  For example, Schwinn recently hired Sophie Mann as the TN ‘Director of Accountability’.  Mann is a resident of Chicago, Illinois.  She is not a resident of Tennessee, which would have been a requirement of prior Administrations.  This is extremely bothersome to me,”  Griffey stated.

“Another individual, Katie Houghlin, who worked with Schwinn in Texas and was recruited by Schwinn to join her as an Assistant Commissioner in Tennessee, was stripped of her title due to an investigation revealing that she verbally abused employees under her supervision.  It is my understanding that she remains employed by the Tennessee Dept. of Education and handles special projects for Schwinn and received only a $5,000 salary decrease from $140,000 to $135,000 per year after her abuse of employees was revealed.”

“To add to the laundry list of reasons why TN needs a new Education Commissioner,”  Griffey explained that “last year, Schwinn proposed a literacy bill to the TN legislature, which essentially promoted Common Core standards, which the majority of Tennessee citizens have overwhelmingly criticized and rejected and have fought to eradicate. The bill appeared aimed at certain vendors rather on the actual goal of teaching children to read,” opined Griffey.

Griffey said, “The icing on the cake has been Schwinn’s flawed handling of COVID-19.  She has completely lacked any leadership on this front in my opinion.  She drug her feet in sending out a reopening plan for Tennessee schools.  She pressured schools into reopening while keeping the doors to the TN Department of Education closed and allowing employees to work from home.  The ‘do as I say, not as I do’ model simply does not work.  It is my understanding that she failed to timely provide PPE and cleaning supplies to schools.  The nail in the coffin was her ill-conceived monthly child well-being inspections that sparked a controversy wave across TN due to not only unreasonably expanding teacher workload, but also due to unreasonably expanding government into an overly intrusive, big brother model.  I cannot say that I’m surprised by this poorly judged proposal given the fact that Schwinn served under U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.  We don’t need left-leaning, liberal policies being brought from California to the conservative state of Tennessee.”

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