The Voucher Fight Is Only the Beginning: How Blackburn, Green and Pinkston Compare on Education
Tennessee’s next governor will inherit an expanding private-school scholarship program, rising teacher salaries and unresolved questions about testing and school funding.
by Brandon Burley and The Redemption Project
Tennessee’s next governor will inherit an expanding private-school scholarship program, rising teacher salaries and unresolved questions about testing and school funding. Marsha Blackburn, Jerri Green and Lauren Pinkston offer three different ideas about what should happen next.
The easiest way to compare education plans in Tennessee’s governor’s race would be to ask one question:
Do you support school vouchers?
That would also miss much of the story.
Tennessee’s next governor will inherit an Education Freedom Scholarship program that is already operating statewide and expanding. The state increased the program to as many as 35,000 scholarships for the 2026-27 school year, with each scholarship worth $7,530. The money can be used toward expenses at participating private schools.
But the next governor will also face decisions about teacher pay, testing, public-school funding, early childhood education, workforce preparation and how much influence parents, educators and state government should have over classrooms.
That gives voters a better question:
What kind of education system does each candidate want Tennessee to build?
With the August primaries complete, this comparison focuses on Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn, Democratic nominee Jerri Green and independent Lauren Pinkston.
The evidence is not identical.
Blackburn has a long federal legislative record but has not served in Tennessee government during the current voucher debate. Green has a local public-service record and a detailed gubernatorial platform. Pinkston has not held elected office but is a former public-school teacher with an increasingly detailed campaign plan.
A vote is not a platform.
A platform is not a governing record.
The comparison works only if we keep those categories straight.
Blackburn: school choice, parental authority and workforce training
Blackburn’s clearest education position is also the clearest continuation of Gov. Bill Lee’s approach.
She supports Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program.
Her gubernatorial campaign says she would fully implement the existing law and continue working with lawmakers to provide families with more educational choices. Her campaign places that position within a broader argument that parents, rather than government officials, should have the strongest voice in determining where and how their children are educated.
That position is consistent with Blackburn’s federal record. In the Senate, she has supported federal school-choice proposals, including scholarship programs intended to help families pay educational expenses at public and private schools.
But that record has limits when evaluating a governor.
Blackburn did not vote on Tennessee’s current Education Freedom Scholarship law as a state legislator. Her federal record tells voters something about her governing philosophy. Her gubernatorial campaign tells them what she says she would do with the Tennessee program.
Those are related pieces of evidence, not identical ones.
Blackburn has also proposed making Tennessee classrooms phone-free from the beginning to the end of the school day — what her campaign calls “Bell to Bell: No Cell.”
On higher education and workforce development, she proposes expanding vocational education, encouraging public-private partnerships at colleges and universities and strengthening Tennessee’s 529 college-savings program.
There are still significant gaps.
Blackburn’s published gubernatorial platform does not currently provide a specific teacher-pay proposal, detailed position on Tennessee’s TISA public-school funding formula or a plan for TCAP and the state’s A-F accountability system. A current Tennessee Firefly review reached the same conclusion.
That does not mean she opposes those policies.
It means voters do not yet have a detailed public position to evaluate.
Green: put the money back into public schools
Green starts from the opposite side of the Education Freedom Scholarship debate.
Her campaign says Tennessee should fully fund public schools rather than continue directing additional money toward what she calls voucher programs. She proposes raising teacher pay, expanding counselors, nurses and support staff, investing in universal pre-K, strengthening special education and increasing support for rural schools.
Green has also called for redirecting voucher spending toward traditional public education. Her campaign specifically identifies teacher compensation and school resources as alternatives for that money.
Her education agenda extends beyond funding.
Green says she would appoint an education commissioner with classroom experience, expand early-childhood programs, create additional support for special-education teachers and increase mental-health resources available through schools.
Her local record provides some evidence beyond campaign promises. Her campaign biography says she advocated successfully for additional pre-K funding in Memphis and supported youth mental-health and educational programming while serving locally.
But local government experience is not the same as managing Tennessee’s statewide education system.
Green has not published a detailed proposal for restructuring TISA itself, nor has she publicly laid out how she would change TCAP testing or Tennessee’s A-F school accountability system.
So her direction is clear.
Some of the machinery is not.
Pinkston: teachers, testing and redirecting voucher growth
Pinkston’s education platform has changed significantly since the earlier version of this comparison.
She now offers considerably more detail.
Pinkston, who previously taught fourth grade, says education policy should be shaped more directly by teachers and communities. She supports increasing teacher salaries while reducing administrative burdens, reducing what she considers excessive benchmark testing and giving classroom educators a larger role in state policy discussions.
Her position on Education Freedom Scholarships requires careful wording.
Pinkston’s campaign says she supports shifting the increased budget for the scholarship program toward early-childhood education. That places her in opposition to continued voucher expansion, but her published language is more specific than simply promising to abolish the entire existing program.
She also proposes diversifying public-school models, particularly in rural Tennessee, expanding technical and career education, increasing access to TCAT scholarships and allowing qualified professionals to serve as adjunct instructors in high-school career programs.
And there is an unexpected point of agreement with Blackburn.
Pinkston also supports phone-free schools from bell to bell, though her plan goes further by endorsing broader limits on smartphones and social media for younger children.
That overlap is useful.
Candidate comparisons become less informative when every policy is forced into a partisan box.
Two candidates can arrive at similar classroom policy from very different political philosophies.
The real differences are about money and authority
Put the three plans beside one another and several lines become clearer.
On vouchers, Blackburn would preserve and implement the statewide program. Green wants public money redirected away from vouchers and toward public schools. Pinkston opposes additional voucher expansion and proposes moving the increased scholarship budget toward early-childhood education.
On teacher pay, Green and Pinkston have both committed to increases.
Blackburn has not published a specific gubernatorial teacher-pay proposal.
On testing, Pinkston has called for reducing benchmark testing.
Green and Blackburn have not yet provided detailed positions on Tennessee’s statewide TCAP and A-F accountability structure. And Pinkston’s benchmark proposal should not automatically be treated as a plan to eliminate TCAP; those are different forms of assessment.
On workforce preparation, all three have proposals.
Blackburn emphasizes vocational education and higher-education partnerships.
Green includes vocational training and a proposed public-service year for high-school graduates.
Pinkston emphasizes TCAT pathways, trade education and bringing working professionals into career classrooms.
The disagreement is therefore larger than vouchers.
It is about where Tennessee should place its next education dollar and who should have the strongest voice over what happens after that dollar reaches a school.
The questions still unanswered may matter most
Campaign platforms are useful partly because they show voters what candidates have chosen to emphasize.
They are also useful because of what remains missing.
Tennessee’s next governor will inherit the TISA funding formula that determines billions of dollars in public-school spending.
Exactly how much should Tennessee spend?
Should TISA change?
What happens to teacher salaries after the state reaches its scheduled $50,000 minimum starting salary?
Should the Education Freedom Scholarship program continue expanding?
How should Tennessee measure whether voucher students are succeeding?
Should TCAP or A-F school grades change?
What should happen when rural districts cannot recruit enough teachers?
Those questions move beyond political identity.
They are governing questions.
Blackburn, Green and Pinkston have given voters enough information to see three distinct directions.
Blackburn’s education agenda centers parental authority, school choice and workforce preparation.
Green centers public-school investment, teacher support and expanded student services.
Pinkston emphasizes classroom-level reform, teacher input, early-childhood spending and workforce pathways while resisting further voucher expansion.
None of those descriptions tells voters which approach is correct.
That is not the purpose of the comparison.
The purpose is to make the choice more precise.
Every candidate can say they support children.
Every candidate can say they support teachers.
Every candidate can promise a world-class education.
The better questions are harder:
Where does the money go?
Who gets the authority?
What changes in the classroom?
Those answers tell voters considerably more than whether someone says they are “pro-education.”
The judgment belongs to them.
I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I am a commentary write for Tennessee Lookout and a weekly columnist with Knox TN Today. My work examines public policy, public safety systems and civic responsibility. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.
