Beacon Center of Tennessee

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1200 Clinton Street #205, Nashville, TN 37203, USA

EIN Number: 20-1808567

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contact information

Phone: 615-383-6431

Hours: No Set Business Hours - Call to Inquire

Website: https://www.beacontn.org/

Email: Jamie@beacontn.org

NTEE Code: W05: Research Institutes & Public Policy Analysis

MISSION - WHAT WE DO

The Beacon Center empowers Tennesseans to reclaim and protect their freedoms, so that they can freely pursue their version of the American Dream.

SERVICES - HOW WE DO IT

Innovation Freedom and Emerging Technologies Beacon is working to ensure that Tennessee remains a place where entrepreneurs and small business owners can start their businesses without fear of the government getting in their way. Or that new products and services aren’t shut down by competition looking to win through lobbying politicians rather than proving their value in the marketplace. Tennessee should create an environment that allows new businesses and innovators to develop and bring their businesses to the market, creating jobs and improving the lives of all. To do so, the state should follow the lead of other states and countries by creating a regulatory sandbox, where entrepreneurs can ensure their new product or service won’t be subject to archaic and onerous regulations that don’t apply well to new technologies. Additionally, Tennessee leaders should look to study and work with industry leaders to ensure Tennessee’s business landscape is ready for new technologies, whether that is drones, autonomous vehicles, or other innovations. Why can’t Tennessee lead the nation in innovation freedom or be the next Silicon Valley? Or perhaps more importantly, what will our lives look like if we don’t? Protecting Worker Freedom Beacon believes that Right to Work is so fundamental to our economic success that it deserves constitutional protections. Right to Work should be recognized as a fundamental right, not just the longstanding policy of our state. Expanding Access to Quality Healthcare With ever the increasing costs of healthcare, Tennesseans are looking for innovative solutions to increase access, improve outcomes and lower costs. While much focus on healthcare is at the federal level, there are many things that can be done right here in our home state. Beacon continues to work with state lawmakers to be incubators of freer market healthcare options for Tennesseans that expand quality and access to patients across the socio-economic spectrum. One example was when, lawmakers repealed more than half of the state’s certificate-of-need laws. These antiquated regulations, which ban providers from investing in services and locations without their competitor’s approval, range from restraints on the number of hospital beds to the number of MRI machines available to patients. Beacon also continues to fight for new alternative delivery models for healthcare, like when the Tennessee General Assembly overwhelmingly passed direct primary care, allowing patients with unaffordable deductibles or those who are uninsured to contract directly with their primary care for an average cost of $30-$50 per month. In doing so, patients across the Volunteer State will now have greater access to essential services and care, while costs decrease as the ceiling expands to new competition in the healthcare marketplace. Expanding Educational Freedom Access to a quality education is the greatest equalizer in society. Every child deserves access to a quality education that best fits their unique educational needs. However, when we continue to rely on a ZIP code to determine a child’s access to education, we trap low- and middle-income families in a system with no options. If a child is zoned for a school that can’t meet their unique needs, that family’s only option is to take the financial responsibility upon themselves find an alternative for that student—a cost barrier that prevents the majority of families across the state from being able to send their child to the school that best suits their needs and prepares them for a bright future. The Beacon Center believes the state should fund children, not systems. Tennessee began to change that paradigm in 2015 when by passing the Individualized Education Account program (IEAs) for students with special needs—making the Volunteer State just the fourth in the nation to pass these savings accounts (otherwise known as Education Savings Accounts or “ESAs”), considered to be the most state-of-the-art and modernized approach to education reform out there today. We followed that victory with another win for Tennessee families by passing the Course Access Program in 2016—a program that gives public high school students statewide access to course curriculum not offered at their individual school.

Causes

Services Offered

  • Advocacy
  • Children's Rights
  • Employee & Workers' Rights
  • Public Policy

Populations Served

  • Children & Youth
  • Economically Disadvantaged People

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