Tennessee Senators passed Governor Bill Lee’s legislation to raise teacher salaries on a partisan 25 to 6 vote Thursday.The plan would raise teacher salaries to at least $42,000 next school year, $44,500 for the 2024/2025 school year, $47,000 for the 2025/2026 school year, and $50 thousand for the 2026/2027 school year.

The McGavock Cluster in Donelson and Hermitage serves close to ten percent of the Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) student population and houses the largest high school in Middle Tennessee.Despite the diverse population, leaders of the proposed public charter school Invictus Nashville say enrollment data shows many students leave the area to attend middle and high school elsewhere.It’s among the reasons they’ve chosen that section of eastern Davidson County to provide an alternative education model that includes two teachers per classroom.

The education chair of the Chattanooga NAACP wants her organization’s Knoxville branch to reconsider its opposition to proposed public charter school Knoxville Preparatory School (Knox Prep).Dr. Edna Varner also serves on the board for three Hamilton County public charter schools, including Knox Prep’s affiliated school Chattanooga Prep. Wednesday she wrote a letter to the Knoxville NAACP to assure its leaders that Knox Prep will help students of color succeed with a high-quality education that may not currently be available.

The Senate Education Committee advanced two controversial bills Wednesday that have faced criticism from LGBTQ and civil rights activists.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced four important updates,  including one school closure, for students and families in the coming 2023/2024 school year.

Legislation designed to limit the appeal options for public charter schools who’ve had their applications wrongfully denied by school districts, saw a quick exit in the House committee process Tuesday.Members of the House K-12 Subcommittee voted 6 to 2 against Franklin Representative Sam Whitson’s legislation.  It would have prevented proposed public charter schools from appealing denied applications to the Public Charter School Commission if the school district they’re applying in has no priority schools.

Governor Bill Lee told Middle Tennessee’s business leaders his proposed investments in education are needed to keep Tennessee moving forward.Those comments came Thursday morning as Governor Lee provided his annual address to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

Tennessee’s private school voucher program, currently limited to eligible students attending public schools in Memphis and Nashville, would expand to all four of the state’s urban districts under new legislation.A bill to extend the program to Chattanooga-based Hamilton County Schools passed last week in the Senate. And under a new GOP measure filed recently in the House and facing its first vote next week, the bill could be amended to include Knox County Schools, too.

Members of the House Education Administration Committee advanced Governor Bill Lee’s proposal to raise teacher salaries to at least $50 thousand by the 2026/2027 school year, but not without a lengthy debate over the bill’s paycheck protection provision.That section of the legislation would prohibit school districts from deducting dues from teacher paychecks for organizations and unions, including the Tennessee Education Association (TEA).

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s proposals to create home school charter schools and to study the potential impact of opting to decline federal education funding appear to be dead for the year.

Interim Memphis schools leader Toni Williams has applied to be the district’s superintendent, a role she once said she was not interested in assuming on a permanent basis.

In 2020, Faith Miles saw her kindergarten year broken up by the pandemic. Already slower to pick up language skills than her older siblings, Faith was further set back by months of remote learning.Now in third grade, Faith is among the nearly 3,900 students in the Metro Nashville Public Schools — and thousands more throughout Tennessee — who risk failing the state reading test this spring.