The Governor has decided
Gov. Bill Haslam announced to reporters today that he will bring forward a voucher plan as part of his legislative agenda. Beyond that, he didn’t really go into specifics. He said it would be means-tested and aimed at those who are in the state’s lowest-performing schools. He also said that BEP money would be used to fund the voucher program.
I will admit, I’m not really sure what he meant by this quote when talking about paying for vouchers with BEP money:
“I think one of the things we wanted to show is how committed we are to the funding of public education, and I think in our proposal you will see that.”
The governor said he would give specifics within the next week or two. He also mentioned he had planned to bring forward a proposal to give local school districts some flexibility in the state’s pay scale for teachers. It would be a way to pay high-performing teachers more money. However, the governor indicated it would have nothing to do with eliminating class size mandates. That plan was derided last year, and the governor ultimately dropped it. He indicated he’s not going to do go down that road again.
