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."