Lee backs in-person learning
Governor opens special legislative session by saying virtual classes are hurting students’ progress.
Gov. Bill Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly have a narrow focus this week: Quickly passing bills aimed at helping schools navigate the coronavirus pandemic and allowing them to prepare for the next academic year following 10 months of significant learning disruptions.
Lee on Tuesday opened the special legislative session he called with an address to House and Senate members seeking to convey the long-term consequences of students falling behind — and subtly rebuking the state’s two largest districts that have remained largely closed throughout the pandemic.
“Here’s the bottom line,” Lee said. “You can’t say ‘follow the science’ and keep schools closed. You can’t say ‘I believe in public education’ and keep schools closed.”
The governor cited virtual learning’s particularly negative impact on students of color. While most districts across the state have brought students back for in-person learning at some point this school year, Shelby County Schools has remained virtual all year, while middle and high school students in Davidson County have yet to return to the classroom.
“Months ago, when critics were loud and the scare tactics were louder with all the reasons why we couldn’t safely return students and teachers to the classroom, we traded that speculation for science,” Lee said.
“I commend those districts, those local leaders and educators for not settling for the path of least resistance and hiding behind month after month of virtual learning with no end in sight.”
Senate proceedings at the General Assembly, meanwhile, remain closed to the public, while only a limited number of visitors are allowed into House hearings and floor sessions.
The forthcoming summer and afterschool tutoring programs being funded through this week’s legislation must be held in-person, even in school districts that have not returned to the classroom, Lee told reporters after his speech.
Meanwhile, Lee is once again asking the legislature to pursue 4% raises for teachers in the coming year, a budget initiative the governor announced last February but was forced to cut as lawmakers slashed new spending during the pandemic.
The governor called the special session to prioritize education bills before the General Assembly is bogged down in the coming months with other legislation, an initiative that has been widely welcomed by education interest groups across the state, despite differences of opinion on which issue is paramount.
“We’re meeting today because it’s time to intervene for our kids who are staring down record learning losses, that in the short-term, mean an inability to read at their grade level or understand basic math,” Lee said. “But in the longterm, those learning losses mean higher incarceration rates and poverty as adults.”
Learning loss, literacy among legislative initiatives this week
Legislators this week will attempt to ensure teachers and students aren’t punished for poor standardized testing scores this year; to allocate resources for tutoring and other programs to bring children back up to speed after months away from the classroom; and to implement a new phonics program to help boost literacy rates among the state’s elementary school students that were already lagging pre-pandemic.
One bill, Senate Bill 7002, would create after-school or summer learning programs this year for struggling students, as well as establish the Tennessee Accelerated Literacy and Learning Corps to provide ongoing year-around tutoring.
Senate Bill 7003, introduced just weeks after the Tennessee Department of Education launched a $100 million literacy initiative, Reading 360, would ensure local school districts use a phonicsbased approach for teaching children to read. It would also require and provide training and support for educators to teach phonics-based reading instruction.
Lee and Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn in recent months have frequently cited data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress that revealed only 34% of Tennessee students are proficient or advanced readers by fourth grade.
Widely accepted research shows that students who don’t achieve reading proficiency by third grade are more likely to drop out of high school, be incarcerated or experience poverty as adults.
Last year, the Tennessee Department of Education and Lee advocated for a $68 million literacy initiative that ultimately failed due to lawmakers’ concerns over the fast rollout of the plan and as the General Assembly made budget cuts because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following Lee’s speech, Democrats criticized the governor for touting a science-based approach to learning, but declining to implement a statewide mask mandate throughout the pandemic.
“It’s amazing that he wants to use data and science when it applies to education, but we can’t use data and science when it applies to wearing masks,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Vincent Dixie, D-nashville. “That is ridiculous when Tennessee is the No. 1 hotspot in the nation.”
Dixie was apparently referencing Tennessee’s ranking last month as it led the nation in rate of cases adjusted for population.
Recent studies suggest that schools may not be playing as big a role in the spread of the virus as many feared early last year.
A Duke University study of schools in North Carolina, published earlier this month in the journal Pediatrics, found measures, such as masks, social distancing and hand hygiene, successfully mitigated the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Other recent studies, while they vary, indicate that schools do not contribute to community spread of the virus or increased hospitalizations, but only as long as the virus is under control throughout the community.
In addition to the governor’s main initiatives, legislators have filed their own bills to take up during special session.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton signed on to a bill filed by Rep. Scott Cepicky and Sen. Joey Hensley that puts in place restrictions on a program offering online courses to students. The courses are held by various school districts in the state, nonprofits and other entities.
Rep. Brandon Ogles, R-franklin, is gathering support for a bill he and Hensley filed that would provide school districts with liability immunity if they choose to adopt their own policies regarding contact tracing and quarantine protocols.
Legislation with less of an obvious education connection is one filed by Rep. Bruce Griffey, R-paris, who argues that a bill implementing a fee on foreign wire payment transfers — one he has previously filed in an effort to target those in the country illegally — is relevant to the special session because it could increase school funding by $270 million in future years.
Education advocacy groups weigh in as special session begins
While the proposed salary increase will come as welcomed news to teachers whose anticipated raises were eliminated last year, the state’s teacher union says the increase isn’t enough.
Tennessee Education Association president Beth Brown said in a statement the increase is “far less than what educators have earned and deserve,” arguing that teachers put in extra hours this fall to help student learning during the pandemic.
During a call ahead of Lee’s speech, representatives from Better Student Outcomes Now, a new statewide initiative focused on increasing student performance, said figuring out how to help schools combat learning loss is the most important thing lawmakers can tackle this session.
“We know this learning loss is most likely to harm low-income and disadvantaged students,” said Sarah Carpenter of Memphis, who spoke during the call. “This is unacceptable.
“Prioritizing support for underperforming students, launching additional interventions and summer camps and launching additional literacy supports is important.”
Tennesseans for Student Success, meanwhile, has launched a multi-platform media campaign, including televised commercials and online advertisements, urging members of the public to contact their legislators to voice support for Lee’s literacy education.
SCORE, or the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, one of the state’s leading education nonprofits, also praised the governor’s proposed education legislative package.
Lee addressed the General Assembly in the War Memorial Auditorium, a different venue from the House floor, where the two chambers typically squeeze in for joint conventions and where the governor historically holds annual State of the State addresses.
In order to accommodate additional space between the 132 members due to coronavirus concerns, joint conventions and this year’s State of the State will be held in the auditorium, located across from the Capitol but accessible through the underground Legislative Plaza, where General Assembly offices and committee rooms were located until 2017.
This is the third special session Lee has called, though the last two were held during the 111th General Assembly — first in August 2019 to officially elect a new House speaker, and then in August 2020 to pass multiple bills that the chambers couldn’t reach an agreement on earlier in the summer.
Yue Stella Yu contributed.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@ tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.
“We’re meeting today because it’s time to intervene for our kids who are staring down record learning losses, that in the short-term, mean an inability to read at their grade level or understand basic math. But in the long-term, those learning losses mean higher incarceration rates and poverty as adults.”
Gov. Bill Lee — J. Fitzgerald, VA