For the second straight day, members of the Tennessee State Senate continued to table the vast majority of bills they’ve filed in the special session on public safety.Members of the Senate Education, Health and Welfare, and State and Local Government Committees tabled every bill on their agenda Wednesday. 

The candidates vying to become Nashville’s next mayor finally answered a question about how they plan to improve education.During Monday’s televised debate, Fox-17 anchor Scott Couch asked candidates how they’d approach struggling test scores if elected.“Metro Schools get the lion’s share of every dollar in the Metro budget, yet our students continue to score below the state average on standardized tests. What do you think the answer is to improve student performance?” asked Couch.Previous televised debates have largely ignored school issues despite independent polling that found more than 21% of likely voters consider candidate’s positions on education to be the most important quality they’re looking for.

A new poll of likely Davidson County voters found strong support for raising teacher pay, even if that meant raising taxes.More than 56 percent of those polled said they’d support an increase in property taxes to pay for teacher raises. Just under 32 percent said they wouldn’t support a tax hike.

Tennessee Senators passed legislation on a partisan 26 to 4 vote Tuesday to reduce the number of children held back by the state’s Third-Grade Retention Law.No Democratic Senator voted in favor of the legislation.

Tennessee State Senators gave their support Monday evening to legislation designed to help provide at-risk students with more accessibility to public charter schools.House Bill 1086/Senate Bill 0980 passed the full senate on a 26 to 5 vote.