2023-2024 Gessell Fellowship for Research in Social Ethics

During the 2023-2024 academic year, Bonner service intern Stewart Miller conducted community based research with the support from the Gessell Fellowship for Research in Social Ethics. A junior American Studies major, Miller examined the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) law, which went into effect in fall 2023.

When Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed the bill into law, the state touted this new funding reform as a means to increase per-capita funding in Tennessee public schools and to address gaps in resources between urban and rural school districts. Miller’s study evaluated whether TISA had begun to fulfill its promise. He interviewed public educators from across Southeastern Tennessee to understand their perceptions of TISA’s efficacy and what TISA might mean for the future of Tennessee rural public education. The study included data from seven one-time interviews that generated qualitative research-derived themes that were then analyzed using emergent thematic coding. The study found that familiarity with TISA was low among educators and that the State of Tennessee had neglected to train or update its educators on TISA and how the law will affect their lives, the lives of their students, and their school districts. Miller also found that the public educators he interviewed were vehemently opposed to tying funding to standardized testing performance, one aspect of TISA. Despite TISA increasing resources in Tennessee public schools and raising the salaries of public educators, the study’s participants were pessimistic that the law would improve rural public education across the state. Several respondents thought that although TISA could help, it neglects to significantly remedy resource and educator recruitment challenges that rural public schools face.

Miller’s increased knowledge about TISA enabled him to take on two tasks to deepen familiarity with TISA among educators and to meet some fiscal needs in one rural public school. He is currently building a website with Dr. Christopher Silver of the Sewanee Psychology Department that will run for two years and will centralize information the state has posted regarding TISA. The website will be shared with the faculty of Marion County Schools to bring information regarding TISA to educators and allow them to fully understand the new reforms. Miller also wrote a $950 grant from the Bonner Foundation to provide Richard Hardy Memorial School in South Pittsburg with science lab equipment.

On April 11, 2024, Miller presented the findings from his year-long research project to the Sewanee community. He then participated in Scholarship Sewanee on April 26, 2024, sharing his research through a poster session.  He is grateful to Dr. Christopher Silver for mentorship throughout the year-long project, and to the Gessell Fellowship for financially supporting his project.