Early Childhood State of the States

Tenn. Governor Wants Expanded Pre-K Opportunities

By Lesli A. Maxwell — February 14, 2006 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Education initiatives that ranged from boosting teacher salaries to driving down high school dropout rates dominated much of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s State of the State Address to lawmakers in Nashville last week. The Democratic governor, who is in the final year of his first term and gearing up for a re-election bid, pledged increased education spending amid the state’s still tight, but improving, fiscal condition.

Among his new spending proposals for schools, the governor wants to add $90 million over last year’s amount for the state’s K-12 basic education program.

He would also add $20 million to expand Tennessee’s voluntary prekindergarten program to pay for an additional 5,000 4-year-olds, bringing the total number of participants to 14,000.

Read a complete transcript of Gov. Phil Bredesen’s 2006 State of the State Address. Posted by Tennessee’s Office of the Governor.

His budget also calls for $20 million in new spending for low-income students and English-language learners. There is now one teacher in the state for every 50 English-learners, and one translator for every 500. Those funds would help lower those ratios slightly.

“Education for me is our fundamental priority,” Gov. Bredesen said in the Feb. 7 speech. “It is a big and complex subject,” he added. “It is easy to get distracted, but I want us to stay focused on the most important things.”

The governor said his new education spending—6 percent above the current $3.1 billion K-12 budget—accounts for more than one-third of all new allocations in his proposed $26 billion state budget for fiscal 2007, which begins July 1.

‘Very Ambitious Goal’

Gov. Bredesen’s most ambitious education initiative was his proposal to raise high school graduation rates in Tennessee to 90 percent by 2012, but he offered no road map for achieving that figure. The state’s high school graduation rate stands at 77.9 percent.

Gov. Bredesen also called for boosting college-graduation rates from 42 percent to 55 percent over the same time frame and challenged the state’s higher education leaders to come up with ideas to achieve that goal.

An official with Tennessee’s largest teachers’ union said boosting high school graduation to the governor’s stated goal in six years would be tough, but otherwise praised his education plans.

“It’s a very ambitious goal, but certainly a laudable one,” said Jerry Winters, the director of government relations for the Tennessee Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association.

He was also mixed on the governor’s proposal to raise teacher pay.

Mr. Winters, whose union represents 51,000 teachers across Tennessee, called Gov. Bredesen’s pledge of $42 million to boost teacher salaries modest, but important.

“That equates to about a 2 percent salary increase,” Mr. Winters said. “But it represents that this governor recognizes the importance of valuing our teachers even when times are tight.”

Mr. Winters said Tennessee’s teacher salaries “fall somewhere in the middle” compared with salaries in other states. In 2004, Tennessee teachers earned an average of $40,318, compared with the national average of $46,597.

Gov. Bredesen also highlighted the importance of providing substantial professional-development opportunities for teachers, saying, “If we train and recruit and keep and support great teachers, our kids will do fine. If we fail to do this, we can test kids every day and stack computers one on top of another, and we’ll still come up short.”

In his budget proposal, Gov. Bredesen pledged $1 million toward establishing a competitive mathematics and science high school in the state.

Gov. Bredesen also highlighted health-care issues in his address, proposing a new health-insurance program for 150,000 Tennessee children who are uninsured.

He told lawmakers that he will continue to look for ways to find balance between demands for funding education and TennCare, the state’s $7.5 billion health-insurance program for the poor. The governor has been criticized for taking 190,000 residents off of the program last year in an effort to control spiraling costs.

Related Tags:

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Artificial Intelligence Webinar
Teaching Students to Use Artificial Intelligence Ethically
Ready to embrace AI in your classroom? Join our master class to learn how to use AI as a tool for learning, not a replacement.
Content provided by Solution Tree
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Teaching Webinar
Empowering Students Using Computational Thinking Skills
Empower your students with computational thinking. Learn how to integrate these skills into your teaching and boost student engagement.
Content provided by Project Lead The Way
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
IT Infrastructure & Management Webinar
The Reality of Change: How Embracing and Planning for Change Can Shape Your Edtech Strategy
Promethean edtech experts delve into the reality of tech change and explore how embracing and planning for it can be your most powerful strategy for maximizing ROI.
Content provided by Promethean

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Early Childhood Head Start Teachers Will Earn More—But Programs Might Have to Serve Fewer Kids
A new federal rule will raise wages for Head Start employees—but providers won't get any additional funding.
7 min read
Preschool teacher with kids sitting nearby while she reads a book.
iStock/Getty
Early Childhood EdReports Expands Curriculum Reviews to Pre-K
Non-profit EdReports will review pre-K curricula to gauge its alignment with research on early learning.
2 min read
Boy raises his hand to answer a question in a classroom; he is sitting on the floor with other kids and the teacher is sitting in front of the class.
iStock / Getty Images Plus
Early Childhood The State of Teaching Young Kids Are Struggling With Skills Like Listening, Sharing, and Using Scissors
Teachers say basic skills and tasks are more challenging for young students now than they were five years ago.
5 min read
Young girl using scissors in classroom.
E+ / Getty
Early Childhood Without New Money, Biden Admin. Urges States to Use Existing Funds to Expand Preschool
There's no new infusion of federal funds for preschool, so the Biden administration is pointing out funding sources that are already there.
4 min read
Close cropped photo of a young child putting silver coins in a pink piggy bank.
iStock/Getty