State Senator Shane Reeves (R-Rutherford County) can trace his family’s history in Rutherford County all the way back to 1780.
Reeves says those deep-rooted ties to Tennessee played a big role in his decision to run for office when friend and former State Senator Jim Tracy decided to leave the Senate District 14 seat.
“The primary reason I did it is I love the state,” said Senator Reeves. “I’ve tried to be a serious legislator and focus on things I care about, and I know about.”
One of those things is improving education in the Volunteer State and Senator Reeves has a very personal reason to champion the issue. His mother was a teacher and used education to improve her life.
”My mother grew up in a small, very very poor family in Spring Hill Tennessee and education ended up being the ticket for her to get out.”
Senator Reeves says he approaches education legislation with three things in mind; improving the environment for kids, supporting teachers who want to teach, and supporting parents.
“Not only parental involvement at home but giving parents the opportunity to put their kids into the right environment to succeed. That can be public school. That can be private school. That can be charter school. That can be home school, but parents need to be involved at home and they need to have the ability to put kids in the right environment.”
The Senate district 14 he represents includes parts of Rutherford County where school choice has received a lot of attention lately. The county approved its second public charter school this year and Senator Reeves believes the charter school concept can provide a positive benefit to families in other suburban and rural counties that don’t have them.
Currently only Davidson, Shelby, Knox, Hamilton, and Rutherford Counties have public charter schools approved to operate in the fall.
“Every child is different, and you need to be able to put kids into schools that you feel like best aligns with their gifts and their talents and their abilities and it’s not all academics. You may have a child that’s more creative that needs to be in a school that has maybe more of an arts focus,” said Senator Reeves. “At the end of the day there’s absolutely no way in the world anyone knows what’s better for their child than mom and dad.”
This year Senator Reeves began working on legislation that could be filed next year to provide a new innovative way to establish those public charter schools. The concept would make it easier for colleges and universities to establish their own public charter schools.
Reeves believes the idea makes a lot of sense in a community like Murfreesboro that has a state university and a challenge building new schools for a growing population.
“If MTSU wanted to take it upon themselves to support a charter school or get something in place and work with our local superintendents in the counties and the cities, I think it’s a great idea.” Said Senator Reeves. “We have such an issue in Rutherford County with school growth and with so many people moving in here.”
This year Senator Reeves sponsored legislation to help improve the financial literacy of public school students and last year he was a big supporter of the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) Act.
TISA updated the way the state funds public schools to be more student focused and added a billion new dollars to education, including vital funds to support early literacy and tutoring.
Reeves believes it will be a positive step forward from the outdated system Tennessee had been using the last four decades to fund public schools.
“It can’t be anything but a positive. I mean you’re providing the school systems with more money, and you’ve got the money following the kids based on their needs.”
