Tennessee
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen last week called for $343 million in new education spending, outlining an agenda that would triple the cigarette tax to pay for an expansion of voluntary prekindergarten, college scholarships, and other programs.
In his fifth State of the State address, the second-term Democrat pledged to use the proposed cigarette-tax increase to provide $120 million to schools that serve many children deemed at risk of school failure, such as English-language learners and low-income students.
Roughly half of Tennessee鈥檚 921,000 schoolchildren are identified as 鈥渁t risk.鈥� The governor said the state should shoulder more costs borne by districts to provide special programs for those children.
Gov. Bredesen could face opposition to the proposed cigarette-tax increase鈥攖o 60 cents per pack from 20 cents鈥攆rom a new Republican majority in the state Senate. He promised that the new cigarette-tax revenue also would provide $27 million for rapidly expanding school districts trying to keep pace with enrollment growth.
鈥淭he argument for a cigarette tax is straightforward: Our schools need more money,鈥� Gov. Bredesen said in a Feb. 5 address that was devoted almost entirely to a slate of new and ongoing education initiatives.
The governor said he would push a proposal to require high school students to take four years of mathematics. He also wants to create new community-college scholarships for C students who score at least 19 (on a scale of 1 to 36) on the ACT college-entrance exam.
The state鈥檚 voluntary prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds would receive a boost from the increase in cigarette taxes, the governor said. The program, which currently enrolls 10,580 children, would get $25 million to serve an additional 3,800 children.
Gov. Bredesen also wants to tap into the state鈥檚 $100 million lottery surplus to help school districts finance new construction and renovation projects.
This fiscal year, Tennessee is spending roughly $4.9 billion on its basic education program for K-12. Proposed spending levels for the 2008 fiscal year will be detailed later this month when Gov. Bredesen鈥檚 releases his new budget document.
Read a complete transcript of . An is also available. Posted by Tennessee鈥檚 .
