Image Credit: CDC & Canva
The Tennessee Conservative [By David Seal] –
During the term of the Biden Administration, education grant funding was used as a control mechanism to inject political ideology into public schools.
For example, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were among federal agencies that had a liberal agenda, pushing a trainload of transgenderism, racial hiring quotas, and other democrat ideology into schools.
Some of this ideology was imposed through “mental health” service grants, namely the Resilient School Communities Grant, while other left-leaning controls were imposed directly by other federal grants.
When President Trump took office, the CDC quickly scrubbed its “Transgender Youth” education page from its website. One of the images, captured before scrubbing, is linked here.
The residue from these ultra-liberal federal initiatives is still in Tennessee public schools, including so-called “mental health” services provided by third-party contractors that employ transgender affirming practitioners.
In many cases, parents of students that receive mental health counseling from these providers are not advised by the school district of their transgender affirming ideology, nor are they advised of left-leaning “data mining” surveys given to students cleverly disguised as “questionnaires” or “get-to-know-you exercises.”
Some of these subversive quota-driven practices may change if federal grant money is impacted by Burchett’s proposed legislation. Certain federal grant funding currently requires racial diversity and other practices that align with ultra-liberal democrat ideology based on DOE formulas.
“I come from a family of career educators. I know schools’ top priority should be what’s best for the students, not meeting a diversity quota. If the Department of Education is providing grants to schools, it shouldn’t be able to discriminate which schools it funds based on the race of the teachers.” – said Representative Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville)
Burchett’s May 3, 2025, media release states, in part, “The BLOCK Act [H.R. 847], would replace the U.S. Department of Education’s formula grants with a system that would require the Department of Education to provide each state with a block grant in the amount they received the previous year. This system would prevent the U.S. Department of Education from using formulas to direct more grant funding toward schools with policies that fall in line with the democrat’s political agenda.”
About the Author: David Seal is a retired Jefferson County educator, recognized artist, local businessman, 917 Society Volunteer, and past Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. He has also served Jefferson County as a County Commissioner and is a citizen lobbyist for the people on issues such as eminent domain, property rights, education, and broadband accessibility on the state level. David is also a 2024 winner of The Tennessee Conservative Flame Award & has received an accolade from the Institute For Justice for successfully lobbing the TN legislature to protect property rights. David can be reached at david@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
