Polk Foundation – The Polk Foundation

Mission objectives

The Polk Foundation is an organization focused on uniting people
to a common goal of promoting the values and issues that will enable our
children to have access to better performing schools and teachers, and
creating education environments where they can achieve their full potential.

Receive updates from the Polk Foundation

our current project

The Tennessee Star
Constitution Project

"To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race."
Calvin Coolidge

The Tennessee Star Constitution Project is a process to do more than simply teach the basic tenets of the United State Constitution.

We will empower our students with the understanding of the Constitution in its entirety and the fundamental ideas that are its underpinning.

Students will learn how our founding documents came to be, and how its application effects their every day lives from the judicial system to the very classroom they're sitting in, right now.

Our comprehensive course study of the Constitution provides vital knowledge that is the cornerstone of the unique nature of America's culture of freedom.

Tennessee Star Constitution Project participation is open to educators of secondary and middle school students, and is fully compliant with the most current Tennessee law (TCA 49-6-1028).

join the project
Participate in this important project in three ways
The Guide
Get your pilot project edition of The Tennessee Star Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students.
The Pilot project
Introduce The Tennessee Star Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students to your class this fall.
The Constitution Bee
Secondary school students are eligible to participate in the Tennessee Star Constitution Bee, September 23rd.

Meet the team

Polk Foundation Tennessee Star Constitution Project Leaders

MICHAEL G. SHEPPARD

Polk Foundation President

A Chase Law honor graduate, Mr. Sheppard has lived all over the world, serving as an executive for a number of companies. He now serves teachers as Associate Director for Professional Educators of Tennessee and has been nationally recognized for his advocacy of veterans rights. He lives in Franklin with his wife Sharon.

Michael Patrick Leahy

Author

Michael Patrick Leahy is the CEO and Editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, a Breitbart News Contributor, and the author of the book, Covenant of Liberty. A graduate of Harvard University, he has an MBA from Stanford University. Michael lives in the Nashville area with his wife and two daughters.

CLAUDIA HENNEBERRY

Author

Claudia Daniel Henneberry graduated from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1979, with degrees in History and Secondary Education. She taught Social Studies and English in North Carolina and is now retired. Since her retirement, Claudia has substitute taught, tutored, and has been involved in reviewing textbooks. She testified before the Tennessee Textbook Commission and the Tennessee Senate Education Committee in 2013 on inaccuracies, biases, and omissions in the social studies texts. Claudia started a “Ladies for Liberty” group with a neighbor to encourage women to learn about the Constitution and get involved in the political arena. She also helped organize several summers of Camp Constitution held in Brentwood, Tennessee.

John Harris

Author

John Harris graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1983. He obtained his law degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1986. Since 1986 he has maintained a law practice in Nashville, Tennessee. Mr. Harris serves as the Executive Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, Inc., he has served as a legal consultant for four of the NRA-ILA’s lobbyists in Tennessee, and he has also served as the registered lobbyist for the Tennessee Firearms Association Legislative Action Committee.

Before anyone can debate whether the Constitution is to be understood using its specific language as originally written, as most conservatives argue, or is a ‘living document’ as many liberals argue, they must first have a comprehensive understanding of what the Constitution actually says and the national discussion that was undertaken to ratify it and the Bill of Rights during the years between 1787 and 1791.

Michael Patrick Leahy
Co-author
The Tennessee Star Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students

All writers on government agree, and the feelings of the human mind witness the truth of these political axioms, that man is born free and possessed of certain unalienable rights – that government is instituted for the protection, safety and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honour, or private interest of any man, family, or class of men — That the origin of all power is in the people, and that they have an incontestable right to check the creatures of their own creation, vested with certain powers to guard the life, liberty and property of the community.”

Mercy Otis Warren

The Constitution that was actually enacted and formally amended creates islands of government powers in a sea of liberty.

Since the adoption of the Constitution, courts have eliminated clause after clause that interfered with the exercise of government power.

The judicially redacted Constitution creates islands of liberty rights in a sea of of governmental powers

Professor Randy Barnett
Author
Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty

We think of the Framers as revolutionary, and they were. But they were also rooted in the sense they tried to use history to defy history. Because they knew if you looked at the classics you have umpteen reasons of why freedom never lasts.

So, they wanted to create a political equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. A free republic that could stay free forever.

The Framers’ Golden Triangle is this: Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith of some sort. Faith of any sort requires freedom.

Oz Guiness
Author
A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future

Does the Constitution have a fixed, objective, ascertainable meaning, applicable to the changing economic and social realities of succeeding generations? Or does a five-Justice majority on the Supreme Court have a legitimate right to read into law its own notion of justice, equality, and social justice?

Originalism is quite a commonsensical idea after all. It has many flavors, but we can define it broadly as the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted as its words were originally understood by the Framers who wrote the Constitution in 1787 and by the public that ratified it between 1787 and 1789

Ilan Wurman
Author
A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism

WELCOME TO THE POLK FOUNDATION

Mission objectives

develop

support

promote

Receive updates from the Polk Foundation

our current project

The Tennessee Star
Constitution Project

Meet the team

MICHAEL G. SHEPPARD

Michael Patrick Leahy

CLAUDIA HENNEBERRY

John Harris

More information

Compete in the Tennessee Star Constitution Bee September 22, 2018

Be A Constitution Mentor

The Polk Foundation Launches The Tennessee Star Constitution Project Featuring September 23 Constitution Bee for Students

An Exclusive Sneak Peek Inside The Tennessee Star Guide to the Constitution and The Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students

How to Join The Tennessee Star U.S. Constitution Project

Donate to The Polk Foundation to Support The Tennessee Star Constitution Project

Who Should Join the Tennessee Star Constitution Project

Mission objectives

develop

support

promote

Receive updates from the Polk Foundation

our current project

The Tennessee StarConstitution Project

Meet the team

MICHAEL G. SHEPPARD

Michael Patrick Leahy

CLAUDIA HENNEBERRY

John Harris

More information

Compete in the Tennessee Star Constitution Bee September 22, 2018

Be A Constitution Mentor

The Polk Foundation Launches The Tennessee Star Constitution Project Featuring September 23 Constitution Bee for Students

An Exclusive Sneak Peek Inside The Tennessee Star Guide to the Constitution and The Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students

How to Join The Tennessee Star U.S. Constitution Project

Donate to The Polk Foundation to Support The Tennessee Star Constitution Project

Who Should Join the Tennessee Star Constitution Project

The Tennessee Star
Constitution Project