Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA)
May 2, 2022

“It’s time for TISA,” TennesseeCAN Executive Director Victor Evans triumphantly declared from the steps of the Capitol in Nashville, following successful votes in both the House and Senate on a funding reform bill he and his team first started working on six years ago.

One of the key lessons from our AdvocacyLabs report on The Science of Advocacy was “Persistence Is Power.” We wrote: “Advocacy demands a long-term commitment to your cause. Typically, advocates must invest years of work before their campaign shows results.” This year, that persistence paid off in the Volunteer State.

“At its core, TISA–The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement–is about moving on from an outdated funding formula that was about adults, with schools funded based on the size of their teaching staff,” Victor shared.

“Now, education dollars will be distributed by a formula that is focused not only on the number of students in a given school but also on those students’ needs, with economically disadvantaged students, students with special needs, English Language Learners and students in rural communities and areas of concentrated poverty receiving higher per pupil funding to match their greater needs.” Schools receive an additional 25% of the per-pupil expenditure for each economically disadvantaged student in their care, for example, or up to 150% of the expenditure for students with special needs.

The new TISA law will pump more than $750 million of new spending into the system, including $32 million for charter facilities costs, which will now be permanently baked into the per-pupil funding charter schools receive. As consequential as that new money will be, equally important is the empowerment of individual schools and districts in deciding how that money will address the needs of their learners. True to our network’s commitment, the money also comes with transparency and accountability reporting requirements that give every parent line of sight into specifics of how schools and districts will spend the dollars.

The impressive policy win was powered by six years of work by Victor and his small but mighty team of advocates. Starting work on the legislation back in 2016, the TennesseeCAN team has worked with multiple administrations on shaping and advancing the legislation inch-by-inch until a policy window opened with a governor looking to make bold strides forward on education policy. “With Governor Lee’s focus on addressing the challenges of the pandemic through major investments and reforms, I had a feeling early on this might be our best shot.” As such, Victor committed early on to working side by side with Gov. Lee to make this moment count. He joined the Governor’s task force on funding reform as a subcommittee chair and put a spotlight on the urgency of the moment in multiple op-eds and media appearances, while fighting to ensure the final bill included equitable weights for the neediest students.

Behind the scenes, Victor and his team met with countless legislators to secure their support, including targeted legislative advocacy to bring co-sponsors onto the bill. The result: Tennessee is now leading the country forward to a student-centered future, making the Volunteer State the new benchmark for putting kids first that other states should emulate. As Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn told the Tennessee Holler: “I feel really good for the kids of Tennessee.”

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