Tennessee Governor’s Education Funding Overhaul Passes Legislature
Gov. Bill Lee's plan to change how Tennessee funds public education passed Thursday out of the legislature, setting the stage to replace the state's 30-year-old funding formula next year with one that provides more money for students with higher needs.
"Change is hard. Even positive change is hard," said Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican who chairs his chamber's finance committee. "But this is transformational, and it's time to transform education in Tennessee."
Beyond the base and weights, the plan allocates funding of $500 per K-3 student to improve reading, as well as money to pay for literacy tutoring for struggling fourth-grade readers and to support career and technical education for older students. It also sets aside funding to help charter schools pay for their facilities and to help fast-growing districts with infrastructure needs.
Watson, the Senate's finance leader, called the literacy goal "one of the most critical pieces of this piece of legislation."