Voters in Tennessee House District 34 got a chance to ask GOP primary candidates – incumbent Tim Rudd and his opponent Tucker Marcum – questions about hot button education issues like public charter school funding and protections for LGBTQ students during a Monday debate hosted by WGNS.
During the debate, both candidates lauded efforts across the state to ban books with sexual content or material that’s considered age-inappropriate, as mandated by a new state law that took effect this month. Rudd said he has supported moves such as these, as well as a law signed by Gov. Bill Lee in 2022 that penalizes public schools for allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports. He said both are part of a broader fight against “woke” ideology in schools that conservatives believe is encouraging LGBTQ lifestyles and identities.
“It’s not really a matter of protecting LGBTQ and transgender rights. It’s protecting [the rights of] those who are not transgender,” he said. “We’re losing focus on what’s right and wrong and what’s normal and what’s acceptable and what has to be done. It is ridiculous to say that a boy who feels like a girl can participate in girl sports and take their scholarships away from them, their championships away from them, because regardless of the way you feel, your bodies are built differently.
“In most cases, if you take two athletes of the opposite sex, a boy is going to be stronger, their muscles are built differently, their muscle mass is different, their bone structures different, the thickness of their bones are all different,” he added. “No matter what type of treatments or plastic surgery you have, you’re not going to change that. You can’t change the DNA.”
Marcum didn’t have much to disagree with when it came to the topic of LGBTQ issues in schools and noted his support for such measures as well.
“We’ve passed great pieces of legislation that keeps this stuff out of our K-12 public education system, which I think is absolutely fantastic and great. I think that a lot of those conversations should happen between parents and their child,” he said. “So, I’ll continue to support those efforts as well. But I think we’ve been in a good place with that.”
When asked about recent criticism of state charter schools funding mechanisms , Rudd said he believes “there’s a lot of misinformation that’s been out there” about charter schools and how they work in terms of state funding.
“First of all, charter schools are an extension of public schools. They’re still a part of public school system. They’re authorized to operate independently so that they can have different rules within the public school system. The employees are still considered public … They also have outside investors that come in and build the buildings and invest in that, so it reduces the burden on taxpayers,” he said. “But a few issues did pop up, and we are addressing those with the State Department of Education. I have also contacted the Charter School Commission, as well as the Charter School Association and the State Department of Education to get all this kind of worked out.”
Marcum said he believes much of the debate around charter school funding plays into a broader need to rethink how public education is funded. He said one recent problem with charter school funding mechanisms is the fact that school officials in the region only had 45 days until the coming fiscal year when they received the state guidelines for a new state-authorized charter school.
“I would also like to see us address how public-school systems are funded, period, and when and how they’re funded. We’re adding between 1,200 to 1,500 students a year throughout the school year in the Rutherford County school system and we’re missing out and losing out on millions and millions and millions of dollars because we are funded that way,” he said. “As much as possible, especially around funding, needs to be worked out and figured out in policy and in statute and not left up to Department of Education and not elected officials.”
To listen to the full discussion, visit wgnsradio.com
