In short, we don't know the full extent of what Gov. Bill Lee has planned for this legislative session.

Dawn White explained there would be more coming from the Lee administration as they get settled in and develop their full priorities.

White got to talking about caption bills when she along with the rest of Rutherford County's legislative delegation -- Charlie Baum, Bryan Terry, Shane Reeves, Tim Rudd, and Mike Sparks -- were answering questions from the public at the Chamber of Commerce's monthly Capital Connections breakfast on Feb. 8.

She explained that because the inauguration was so close to beginning of the session and the bill filing deadline, the Lee administration hadn't filed all the completed bills it will be pushing this year.

"The Lee administration have filed a bunch of what they call caption bills," White explained.

A caption bill is one that is filed in order to amend it at a later date. Sometimes these are needed for late-breaking developments in the session. Sometimes they are just a sneaky way around the committee system and therefore the full law-making process. Tom Humphrey wrote a great piece in 2009 on how they can be used to dodge the filing deadline.

Some of those late-breaking amendments may be about testing, vouchers, funding (BEP 2.0), or school security.

So stay tuned to developments and amendments, the Lee administration and the Rutherford County delegation has more to come. 

Testing and the future of Questar

Testing in Tennessee has been jacked since we moved to TNReady and White said no one is happy about continuing the contract with Questar.

"It was such a failure," White said.

But that didn't stop the previous education commissioner from staying the course with Questar.

White said the contractor did a series of tests in the fall and the computer network held up to the traffic, data was actually saved and the test might actually work this year.

Questar will do another test this spring before testing begins and if that doesn't work students will take their tests with old-fashioned No. 2 pencil and paper.

But we'll see. That's what they said last year too.

White said regardless of what happens the state will be looking for a new vendor for next year.

School health and safety

When teachers in Los Angeles went on strike earlier this year, one of their demands was for more school nurses.

The teachers said nurses are important to the well-being of their students, who might have medical problems and a liaison to the health care system for many at-risk families.

So they demanded a full-time nurse in every school.

When the demand was met, the possible need for more school nurses traveled throughout the nation and now the idea has settled in Tennessee.

But it's not that easy, White said the funding for school nurses is in the BEP formula.

And the state is also looking at funding an SRO in every school in the state through BEP.

Even though all schools in Rutherford County have either a full-time or part-time SRO, rural counties in the state aren't as lucky.

"We are always looking at how to improve the BEP formula ... and that would be up to Gov. Lee," she said.

The subtext being, you have to choose between rural schools getting a state-trained armed guard or students getting state-funded medical supervision.

Tech in schools

"I think Gov. Lee is going to emphasize technical institutes. The Haslam administration was very supportive of higher education, but I think Gov. is going to shift that focus," Charlie Baum said.

Baum was referring to Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology, and Lee's Governor’s Investment in Vocational Education (GIVE).

“It is time to make sure education in Tennessee embraces multiple pathways to success,” said Lee. “We believe GIVE is a key step for the future of our kids and ensuring we can fill the jobs of tomorrow.” 

The GIVE initiative will expand access to vocational training with GIVE Community Grants and GIVE Student Grants.

GIVE Community Grants will grow work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities by providing funding to school systems to build programs that best reflect local needs and work directly with local business. (Like we've down in Rutherford County for several years. Thank you, Beth Duffield.) 

GIVE Student Grants will provide funding for high school juniors and seniors to enroll in four, fully-funded dual enrollment credits for trade and technical programs. Previously, high school students only had access to two fully-funded dual enrollment credits.

The emphasis on secondary education and beefing up high school trades programs will be a focus of the state for the foreseeable future.

Just a few days after the Capital Connections meeting, the Lee administration released an outline for beefing up technical education in high school and college with the Future Workforce Initiative, which will increase science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) training in K-12 schools.

“Our agenda advocates for increased access to career and technical education for K-12 students and a key part of this includes prioritizing STEM training,” Lee said in a press release. “The Future Workforce Initiative is a direct response to the emerging technology industry and making sure our students are first in line to be qualified for technology jobs.”

The initiative was developed to Tennessee Department of Education’s “Tennessee Pathways” Certification process, as well as the STEM School Designation partnership with groups like Tennessee STEM Innovation Network and Code.org.

It also hopes to keep the Volunteer State near the top of for job creation in the technology sector by 2022 by emphasizing CTE programs, increasing the number of teachers qualified to teach work-based learning and advanced computer science courses and expanding post-secondary STEM opportunities in high school through increased access to dual credit, AP courses and dual-enrollment.

Lee said the initiative was developed because 58 percent of all STEM jobs created in the country are in computing but only 8 percent of graduates study computer science in college.

“By exposing Tennessee students to computer science in their K-12 careers we are ensuring our kids have every chance to land a high-quality job,” he said.