Happy New Year! Can you believe it is already 2012? Tiffany and I hope you had a great Christmas season and are ready to start a new year. Lucille (my bird dog) and I managed a few days of bird hunting over the holidays and are a little disappointed to see the season come to a close at the end of January. With each hunt, I’m reminded of how fortunate we are in West Tennessee to have great natural resources.
As the legislature begins in a few days, I wanted to let you know about some issues I’ll be working on and some pieces of legislation that will affect our communities.
No one disputes the fact that in order to have a good workforce, we must have an educated workforce; one that is properly trained with the necessary skills to do the work required by area employers and that will attract new industry to our areas. For that reason, we should pay especially close attention to bills dealing with education this year.
As most people know, there is a new teacher evaluation system in place now. Not surprisingly, many educators are concerned about the new system, how it works, and how it will affect teacher morale, student achievement, and district performance. I have been very skeptical of the new measures, and I am glad to see that Governor Haslam has commissioned a group of people to review the new system over the next five months. Of course, we want the best teachers in our classrooms, because a teacher’s work environment is a child’s learning environment. The evaluation data should be used primarily as an aid to help struggling classrooms and systems. I am hopeful that we will soon have a system that evaluates schools fairly, that is not overly burdensome on our principals and superintendents, and that doesn’t punish the many hardworking public schoolteachers of our state.
Last year, the General Assembly passed a bill allowing students to attend high school via the Internet. Unfortunately, the companies that run the schools are out-of-state corporations that benefit from the tax dollars typically used for funding local schools. This bill caused me the greatest concern of all the bills that were passed last year. I did not support it. As more students enroll in virtual and online schools, your tax dollars will continue to drain away from local schools and fill the coffers of huge corporations in other states. This is not fair. The new measure took effect this year, but Governor Haslam has indicated his willingness to review this law and its effects on local systems. I hope the legislature will do so as well.
Finally, there is some discussion that changes to the Tennessee Lottery Scholarship will be in order this year. The scholarship program has not paid for itself in recent years. Thankfully, the legislature saw fit to build up a significant reserve fund, which currently has over $300 million in it. This fund is used to shore up any losses in the program in a given year, and the fund is not expected to run out of money for another 10 years. While I agree that we will need to closely monitor how the money is obtained for scholarships, pre-K classes and capital projects, I do not agree that this is the year to cut scholarships or make them harder to get. Students who lose scholarships typically drop out of college and don’t return to finish a degree. We are blessed in West Tennessee with numerous opportunities to attend institutions of higher education. I am committed to making sure those doors remain open for students of all ages and backgrounds, so that they will have the skills necessary to enter the workforce.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to keep you updated on other matters facing the legislature this year. Until then, please feel free to call upon me any time I can be of assistance to you.