Gov. Phil Bredesen was signing legislation to revamp accountability in the state’s education system.
Student performance would be used in evaluating K-12 teachers, and graduation and retention would be the determining factor in funding higher education.
Novel ideas? Not really, but after years of resistance to the application of student progress as a primary measure for keeping a teacher in the classroom, those barriers fell with the stroke of the governor’s pen.
At the signing, however, a different question surfaced.
The political gristmill was pushing out that a Democratic governor was preparing to switch political allegiance.