Reporter Tom Pappert: If Tennessee Parents Had a Choice, They ‘Probably Wouldn’t’ Be Sending Their Kids to Failing Institutions Like Antioch High School, Shelby County Schools

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said if Tennessee parents had the financial freedom in deciding where to send their children to school, they “probably wouldn’t” be enrolling their children in dysfunctional school districts like Shelby County Schools or failing institutions like Antioch High School in Nashville.

On Monday, Pappert reported that lawmakers in the Tennessee General Assembly are likely to pass legislation to empower the state to take control over Memphis-Shelby County Schools following the vote to fire superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins by the MSCS Board of Education.

Pappert has also been reporting on the developments surrounding Antioch High School after last week, police said 17-year old Solomon Henderson, an African American male student of the school, opened fire inside the school’s cafeteria, striking two students before turning the gun on himself.

The shooting occurred as metal detectors were not present in the school after such technology was reportedly installed at one point during the COVID-19 pandemic before being removed sometime prior to last week’s shooting.

Amid the dysfunction and failures at both Antioch High School and Shelby County Schools, Pappert made the case for the school choice bill being debated by legislators in the General Assembly, explaining how he believes parents “probably wouldn’t” be sending their children to the failed institutions if they had the financial freedom to enroll their children somewhere else.

“This fundamentally comes back to choice,” Pappert explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

The Education Freedom Act of 2025 currently being debated in the General Assembly would make 20,000 Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) worth $7,075 available for Tennessee students in the 2025-2026 school year.

In addition to creating school choice vouchers, the bill, in its current form, would also provide K-12 public school teachers with a $2,000 bonus in the 2025-2026 school year and dedicate 80 percent of all sports wagering dollars to build and maintain public school facilities.

Pointing specifically to Antioch High School, Pappert said the removal of metal detectors due to the technology being deemed “racist,” the Metro Nashville Board of Education refusing to answer media inquiries regarding the metal detectors, and the overall D rating of the school is a strong argument for school choice.

“If parents had a choice, they probably would not be sending their children to Antioch High School. Maybe if Antioch High School could get down to, say, 1700 students, the quality of education would increase and people like Solomon Henderson wouldn’t be falling through the cracks,” Pappert said.

“Why should parents have to put their children in an institution where they don’t even deign to talk to members of the media…It seems to me that Antioch High School placed the safety of students lower than virtue signaling,” Pappert added.

Pappert made similar remarks when speaking to the dysfunction surrounding Shelby County Schools, saying, “The parents in [Memphis] have no real options – when the county does something insane, they simply have to go along with it.”

Watch the full interview:

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.