The 113th Tennessee State General Assembly is set to convene at noon on Tuesday, January 10, and preliminary indications are that the state’s Department of Education (TDOE) will not be supporting any new initiatives this year. The official position of the TDOE is that the administration sets the legislative agenda for state agencies, but in the past, the department has led the charge on several occasions – including, but not limited to, literacy, high-quality materials, and school funding.
For their part, legislators appear to be looking to amend – and in some cases expand – past efforts to improve student educational opportunities. This year’s legislative agenda forsakes the bold initiatives of the recent past in order to tweak and expand existing laws. Education Savings Accounts (ESA), TISA, and the 3rd-grade retention policy are all on the table for modification this year.
During a Special Session in 2021, lawmakers addressed low student literacy success rates by introducing historic legislation changing how reading is taught to emerging readers. Recognizing the importance of third-grade reading proficiency, they funded tutoring programs and summer school in an effort to support struggling readers as identified by the state’s annual standardized test – TCAP. Included in that legislation was a provision making it mandatory that 3rd graders who failed to meet expectations on TCAP would repeat 3rd grade unless they participated in either a summer school or tutoring program.
Last year, legislators reformed the way Tennessee funds the education of the nearly 1 million students enrolled in the state’s public school system. The new formula, Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA), assigns each student a base value and then adds funding based on individual unique learning needs. The new formula was billed as a change from the funding of systems to the funding of students.
In the aftermath of the bill’s passage, Governor Lee applauded lawmakers, “After months of engagement with thousands of Tennesseans, our state will have a new, innovative K-12 funding formula that improves public education by putting kids first. I commend the General Assembly for their partnership and desire to move Tennessee public education to a new frontier.”
Both the state’s new funding formula and the 3rd-grade retention component are slated to go into effect this year, raising objections from critics.
Regarding TISA, questions have centered around the funding weights and the potential for negative financial impacts on local districts. While the legislation has embedded safeguards designed to ensure that local districts maintain funding for the next 4 years while adjustments are made and despite reassurances from the TDOE, many district leaders are concerned about the risk of property tax increases after that period lapses. Expect those concerns to fuel conversation among legislators this session.
As House Education Committee member John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) tells The Tennessee Star in an email, “TISA is the first significant change in Tennessee’s school funding formula in over three decades. It would be exceptionally naïve not to expect some changes or adjustments, especially, those of an administrative nature.”
The provision to hold back 3rd – graders who are not making adequate progress has been on the books since 2010. Up until this year, the decision to retain a child was considered a local decision. Legislation passed as part of the 2021 Special Session changed that and made it mandatory.
Based on last year’s TCAP results, 65% of 3rd-grade students across Tennessee could face retention or be forced to participate in summer programs this year. This has led to second thoughts by local leaders. According to House Education Administration Committee Chairman Mark White (R – Memphis), “Most of the districts are pushing back on where we are on that third-grade retention.” He has expressed hope that a middle ground can be found by legislators between the new state law and school districts.
In response to an email from The Star, Representative Kirk Haston (R-Lobelville), a member of the House Education Committee, replied, “As you probably already know, some legislation has already been filed (or soon will be) in regards to 4th-grade promotion and I anticipate that there will be some more bills filed in regards to this. I do think there will be some improvement made to the process and that in addition to the promotion on-ramps that are already in place, we can add another path to promotion that involves the utilization of benchmark assessments.”
Representative Ragan, for his part, urges caution when considering changes to recent legislation, “I anticipate there could be legislation introduced by members of the General Assembly this year related to the third-grade retention law,” he writes, “Whether or not any proposed changes would be considered “significant,” or would be approved by a majority of lawmakers, remains to be seen. However, any legislation should be based, to the maximum extent practicable, on “necessary and sufficient” factual and data-based premises using logic-fallacy-free reasoning.’
He expresses a need to collect data before pushing modifications, expounding further, “A publicly announced proposal to alter a newly enacted law prior to being able to observe its implementation impacts seems questionable, at best, in terms of data-based decision-making. This is especially true since data currently exists on the situation without the law, i.e., a 66% grade-level literacy failure rate among Tennessee 3rd-graders.”
Critics of retention policies have argued that the practice can be correlated with negative academic, emotional, and social outcomes. They further argue that this is a decision best left to local administrators. An argument that doesn’t hold much water with Representative Ragan who observes, “None of the petitions and resolutions have acknowledged the long-term, potentially negative impacts of poor third-grade literacy on affected students”, he says in his email to The Star.
“In contrast, nearly all have stated, truthfully or not, retention would have ‘socially and emotionally’ devastating impacts on retained students.” He continued, “This situation begs some very obvious questions: Which is actually more ‘devastating,’ inadequate third-grade literacy which is statistically tied to life-long difficulties, or a retained ten-year-old’s ‘social and emotional’ difficulties?”
Passed during the 2019 Tennessee legislative session, Governor Lee’s signature ESA legislation has survived numerous legal challenges and is now actively enrolling students. Initially, eligibility was limited to students in Nashville and Memphis, but State Senator Todd Gardenhire is seeking to expand that by introducing a bill that would make families in Chattanooga, and possibly Knoxville, eligible. Gardenhire initially voted against the legislation but has now changed his mind, telling ChalkbeatTN, “We’ll know in a few years if the ESA program works. But we know what we’re doing now in Hamilton County is not working. It’s a total disaster.”
The Tennessee Star reached out to several Democrat representatives who serve on the education committee in order to gather a complete picture of the upcoming session. Only newly elected House Leader John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) chose to respond. He wrote, “Honored to represent Nashville and serve my fellow Tennesseans.”
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TC Weber is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. He also writes the blog Dad Gone Wild. Follow TC on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]. He’s the proud parent of two public school children and the spouse of a public school teacher.
When I lived in Texas before moving to Tennessee MANY years ago, I was very thankful that the state legislature only met every other year. Every 5 years would be even better.
Hold on to your pocketbooks. The legislature NEVER does anything to reduce government bloat or costs.
First step in improving education is to eliminate the incentive for and purveyors of fraud. To much money and to many Academic Administrators and to much legislation requiring more money.