When Bill Haslam became governor of Tennessee in 2011, he said he wanted to improve education in the state.
Whether or not you approve of how he has spent every dollar, the governor has walked his talk on the issue.
In the recently passed fiscal 2016-17 budget, for instance, $261 million in new spending goes to K-12 education and marks the largest investment in public education without a tax increase in the state’s history.
Part of that spending includes $105 million to fund teacher raises, $30 million to bridge a one-month gap in their health insurance, $15 million for recurring technology funds for schools and $14 million to hire more English language learning teachers and translators.
Haslam also had set a goal to make the Volunteer State the fastest-growing state in the country for teacher pay. And this year’s increase follows a $97 million pay bump last year.
Higher education got another $135 million in the budget – more than half of K-12 education’s take – and will reap $275.8 million in state funds for the top capital projects in the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Board of Regents systems. Those funds include $35.9 million in renovations to University of Tennessee at Chattanooga academic buildings.
Meanwhile, while passing the Republican governor’s budget, legislators tinkered around the edge of education – which takes nearly half of the state’s general fund spending in the total $34.9 billion budget – with mixed results.
* The legislature passed a bill to allow full-time public college faculty members and workers with state handgun-carry permits to go armed at their institutes of higher learning. The goal, ostensibly, is for such gun owners to be able to respond to a random shooting of the type too many universities have seen over the last decade. The obvious downside is the increased possibility of those guns being used in individual disputes or in actual, not faux, government-named workplace violence. The first time that happens, the calls will be immediate and loud to have the law rescinded.
* The legislature passed a bill that will divert for one year funds designated as salaries from the University of Tennessee’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion to the school’s minority engineering scholarships. The measure is meant to be a slap on the wrist for the office that, during the school year, had tried to promote gender-neutral pronouns, inhibit the celebration of religious holidays and sponsor a Sex Week of questionable activities. In general, the legislature should steer clear of meddling in individual school programs, but it felt the school’s continued tone-deafness to legislator concerns deserved action.
* The legislature passed a bill that would require school boards to establish guidelines on how religion is taught in schools and to make teaching plans available to the public. In the end, states and school board have to follow constitutionally approved guidelines in making such plans – it may be taught “when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education” – so the measure seems somewhat redundant. But the public is always better informed when such information – all general teaching plans, not just religion – is transparent.
* The legislature did not pass a limited school voucher program. We hope this proposal will continue to be refined and offered every year until it becomes a reality. The best scenario would be that all public schools become high-performing, but that possibility goes way beyond the scope of money to create. As the state works toward that goal, students at the state’s lowest-performing schools deserve an opportunity to use – on a limited basis – government-funded scholarships to attend private schools. If the program was to work, expand it; if not, end it. But why not try it?
* The legislature did not pass a college tuition break for illegal immigrant students who were brought to the United States by their parents. The bill may need to be further refined, but simply allowing such students who live in the state to pay in-state tuition at public colleges seems like a measure with only an upside. The fact that they can and are willing to pay tuition to receive an education and become productive citizens and taxpayers is much preferred to hiding in the shadows and earning untaxed income from jobs they can find only here and there.
Not so long ago, Tennessee could be found in the bottom 10 of the 50 states in almost every conceivable education area. Now, it has moved into the mid-30s in many areas and has a goal of ranking in the top half of states on the National Assessment of Education Progress ranking by 2019. Such progress and goals show a state that understands that education is a key to success in so many areas.