There may not have been a single piece of legislation that was more impactful in 2022 than the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act.
TISA as it was called, invested a billion dollars into K-12 education and fundamentally changed the way public schools are funded to be based on individual student needs.
Still, the chair of the Tennessee Senate Education Committee says he wasn’t entirely sold on TISA at first.
“Frankly when it was debuted, I was unsure. I had great concerns about it,” said Senator Jon Lundberg. “As it went on, as I learned more, it’s like ok, and talked to school systems and [asked] how will this effect and is this the right thing to do and what do we need to change. At the end I was a huge supporter of it. “
Senator Lundberg’s support helped guide TISA through the committee process and eventual bi-partisan support in the 112th General Assembly. The Bristol Senator believes it’s one of the most important pieces of legislation he’s worked on as a legislator and committee chair.
“It’s the right thing to do long term for us and the way we should fund it,” said Sen. Lundberg. “We know what we’re putting money in. We’re not just, you know when we put money in before for coordinated school health, we just dumped this amount of money in there and hey hope it works. And now we’re specifically budgeting for every student, everywhere, it’s in the budget pie.”
Early Years and Move to Tennessee
Senator Lundberg was born in Michigan and his family later moved to Colorado where he graduated from Colorado State University and embarked on a more than a decade-long career as an anchor and managing editor with television and radio stations in Colorado Springs, Aspen, Reno, Wichita, and finally WCYB-TV in Bristol.
Lundberg met his wife in Tennessee and founded The Corporate Image in 1993 where he later worked with then State Representative and current Comptroller Jason Mumpower. That expanded his interest in running for election.
In 2006, Lundberg successfully ran for State Representative and later won the District 4 State Senate seat. The Bristol Senator took over the chair of the Senate Education Committee in an interim role last year after former Senator Brian Kelsey stepped down.
Lundberg says he decided to stay on permanently despite having more experience with the Judicial Committee.
“When asked which committee would you more like to be on, I think education was it. I felt a need, I think it’s critically important,” said Sen. Lundberg. “Many really really important things going on right now that I wanna make certain we make the right call.”
This year will offer more opportunities to make the right call.
Proposals to expand public charter schools into suburban counties is growing. There are currently none in the district Lundberg represents, but he’s supportive of public charter schools and believes school choice can help families and children succeed.
Another big issue this year will involve whether or not to repeal or alter Tennessee’s Third-Grade Retention Law , which Sen. Lundberg supported. It was designed to ensure students who a need additional supports in reading, receive them before being promoted to fourth grade.
Lundberg says he’s open to tweaking the law but believes it serves a valuable purpose.
“I’ll listen. I haven’t heard a good argument of what to change,” said Sen. Lundberg. “It’s not about retaining kids but how do we solidify their abilities before they go into fourth, fifth, sixth grade, so they can read and comprehend what they’re doing. It has an amazing difference in their opportunities. Not only to graduate high school but to go on. There are even health issues that are impacted by strangely enough your ability to read.”
With the Third-Grade Retention Law and other legislation that’s proposed this year, Lundberg says his main priority is to keep raising the bar for Tennessee students and ensuring equally high standards for children in all three grand divisions.
“I want people to say educationally, Tennessee is doing it right and has done it right for a long time,” said Sen. Lundberg.
