When the Tennessee General Assembly returns to Nashville next Tuesday, Representative William Slater will be among 19 new members in the State House.
Slater won the Republican primary for House District 35 last August and then ran unopposed in November to represent Trousdale County and part of Sumner County. He’s succeeding former Representative Jerry Sexton who decided not to seek another term in office.
“Running for political office is all about timing and for me it had to do with not only political timing for our family and really God’s timing,” said Slater.
The new State Representative places improving K-12 education in Tennessee among his highest priorities and it’s an issue that’s personal. Slater says he comes from a family of educators including his mother who was a kindergarten teacher and multiple siblings who work in the field.
Slater himself has more than 30 years of experience in education leading Christian schools in Florida and Tennessee and most recently serving as the dean of Adult and Online Studies at Welch College in Gallatin.
“Education is important for every citizen in Tennessee, not just our students, but for Tennessee as a whole,” said Slater. “ As it relates to our workforce development, as it relates to the quality of life for all Tennesseans, we need to be focused on students and what is best for families and for students.“
Slater says he’ll approach legislation with the goal of ensuring all students have access to the parental engagement, funding, and innovation necessary to produce a quality education. He says both teachers and even school systems themselves need to be innovative to succeed.
“When it comes to opportunities for families there needs to be innovative ways for us to deliver education, whether that’s home education, charter school, private schools, and the public schools as well,” said Slater. “Those that are innovative, they succeed. They provide a quality education.”
The new State Representative is also a big supporter of providing families with choices for where their children go to school. Slater says decisions about what school is best for a student should be made around the kitchen table and not by elected officials.
“Parents know what’s best for their children. Who is at the best position to know what school or what situation for delivering education than the parents,” said Slater.
Slater says he believes Tennessee has made progress in recent years to improve education, but he’s concerned about deficiencies that have shown up, especially third grade reading and math proficiency.
The recent 2021-22 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) results for example, showed positive progress for students recovering from pandemic-related learning loss but less than a third of elementary students are proficient in English Language Arts and even fewer are proficient in math.
“I think we’re on the right track when it comes to education in Tennessee but have a lot of work to do. What I hope to do in the legislature is to help with the policy making so we can move our students forward,” said Slater.
