We want students to have opportunities to learn more, but not at the expense of school or teacher accountability.
That was the message this week when the Tennessee General Assembly’s state Senate Education Committee turned down a proposal from state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, to make local school districts reimburse the costs of remedial course work for recent high school graduates who were so ill-prepared in high school that they had to take high school classes on their college dime.
Three other Gardenhire bills on education passed out of the committee handily, including one that would let some undocumented students pay in-state tuition rates to attend Tennessee public colleges.
One way of looking at the committee’s actions is that they are all for giving undocumented students a cost break to go to college in Tennessee, but not Tennessee youngsters whose teachers and schools did not adequately prepare them for college.
Make no mistake, the bill aimed at not gouging undocumented students is a good one. As Gardenhire appropriately says, this bill makes sense even for economic conservatives. The undocumented students were brought here by their parents and aren’t leaving Tennessee anytime soon. A college degree or certificate will help them land better jobs and make them far more productive and less of a burden to taxpayers, he says.