TENNESSEE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
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TENNESSEE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
TEA LEGISLATIVE REPORT | APRIL 7, 2015 | VOL. 1, ISSUE 6
LONG PUSH FOR MORE HEALTH INSURANCE
FUNDS GETS RESULTS
TEA continues to make progress in the fight for more school funding and protecting the health insurance benefits of all educators.
Gov. Bill Haslam announced a budget amendment to fund an extra month of teacher health insurance, adding an additional $30 million in recurring funds to the BEP. This comes at a time when TEA has been pushing a bill through the General Assembly to up the state’s insurance contributions in the BEP from 10 months to 12. “This is great news for teachers and districts struggling to cover insurance costs,” said Jim
Wrye, TEA chief lobbyist. “This amendment is a strong step by the administration on helping teacher compensation. So many teachers who are paid the least also have to pay the most for health insurance, and this will have an impact on that unfairness. It will benefit every teacher across the state. The most important thing is that this money will be reccuring, not just a one time expenditure. The governor deserves credit for this step.” The state currently funds a percentage of health insurance premiums for teachers for only 10 months out of the year. This policy has forced school districts into a
Voucher threats alive and growing With $130 million of public education funds at stake, TEA is fighting deeppocketed out-of-state organizations as they attempt to push through vouchers in the Tennessee General Assembly.
“We defeated vouchers in the two previous legislative sessions and we’re fighting them again this year,” said TEA Executive Director Carolyn Crowder. “It’s an everchanging minefield.” The Senate Finance Committee tacked on an amendment to the principle voucher legislation, SB 999. The amendment adds the words “public or nonpublic school” to the bill, which means that students could use the so-called Opportunity Scholarship to pay “out of district” tuition to a
neighboring school district.
For instance, if a family lives in Davidson County but wants their child to attend school in Williamson County, the new language allows them to use the voucher to send their child to school in Williamson County if they meet all the other voucher requirements. This is problematic on several fronts. First, there’s no way for districts to predict how many students will apply for admission from outside their district. This makes planning for growth/space needs difficult. Also, the voucher amount may or may VOUCHERS go to page 3
A tale of two towns illustrates lawmakers’ concern over the state minimum salary schedule Last year, TEA won the legislative fight to make sure school systems could value teacher experience and degrees by keeping their traditional salary schedules. It was an important victory that protects many teachers’ earnings and retirement. This year, TEA has been asking for another change in the state salary schedule law: when the General Assembly passes a teacher raise in the state budget, the
TENNESSEE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
baseline of the State Minimum Salary Schedule goes up automatically. The measure has great momentum in the House, though recent actions show the Senate will move slower on the issue. Hearings on the bill have brought some issues to light about the direction the administration would like to take on
difficult position of fully covering the expense of premiums for two months each year.
“Many districts are drowning under the weight of unfunded state mandates and rising operating INSURANCE FUNDING INCREASE go to page 2
$30 million
in recurring funds!
Radical “parent trigger” bill, measure to gut tenure and other rights stop in committee A measure that would have allowed a simple majority of parents of a school to fire half of the teachers and the principal failed to advance out of committee on the final day of March. SB600/HB651 would have created a radical expansion of the so-called “parent trigger” provision, but was pulled before a vote in House Education Instruction and Programs committee after hearing withering criticism from TEA members and other public school advocates. The bill would have allowed a simple majority of parents to initiate either a charter conversion, or the forced adoption of turnaround or transformation models for a school. It doubled the number of schools eligible for restructuring, making eligible the bottom 10 percent according to standardized test scores. The effect of this bill would be to severely damage a parent’s
STATE MINIMUM SALARY SCHEDULE go to page 4
PARENT TRIGGER go to page 6
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