NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A proposal to delay further implementation of the state’s Common Core standards was approved in the House on Thursday, even though Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and other supporters say they are key to Tennessee students’ improvement.
The measure was approved 82-11 after being amended to delay implementation of the standards for two years. The testing component for the standards would also be delayed for two years.
The governor has joined other supporters who say the standards - developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers - are needed to better prepare students for the future. They’re intended to provide students with the critical thinking, problem solving and writing skills needed for college and the workforce.
“Tennessee’s Common Core state standards, and the aligned PARCC assessment, are fundamental to Tennessee’s efforts to improve student achievement,” Jamie Woodson, president and CEO of the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, said in a statement. SCORE is part of a statewide alliance of more than 400 business, community and education organizations that support the standards.
Haslam spokesman David Smith told The Associated Press in an email after Thursday’s vote that the administration was going to review the amendments to assess their impact, but he made a point to say where the governor stands.
“Tennessee has come too far to go backward,” Smith said. “The governor will continue to stand up for higher standards and relevant testing of those standards.”
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee is a step closer to joining more than 20 states and the District of Columbia that have approved laws that add insulin to medications that school staff may volunteer to be trained to administer.
The House overwhelmingly approved the legislation 76-11 on Thursday, a few days after the Senate unanimously approved it. The measure now goes to the governor, who is likely to sign it into law.
Kentucky made the legislation a law this month, and other states proposing similar bills are Alabama, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Even if a child is able to self-administer the insulin dosage, supporters of the proposal say a nurse - or specially trained individual - should be available to assist if necessary. However, a group representing school nurses says the experience of a nurse is needed in case a dosage needs to be adjusted.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - In 1960, Simon Bouie - a black student at Allen University - was arrested for the only time in his life while leading a sit-in aimed at integrating a lunch counter in South Carolina. With hundreds of fellow students, Bouie went to a Columbia drugstore, sat on a stool, and was taken to jail for trespassing.
“It was kind of a fiery time, and everybody had their guards up,” Bouie, 74, said by phone recently, from his home in Philadelphia, where he is a pastor. “Local people, it was just a shock to them to see all of us come in and sit there. They were seeing something they had not seen before.”
Even decades later, Bouie’s voice is animated as he describes the desire he and other young people had to see such places desegregated. The Columbia drugstore itself has been closed for years, although the building that housed it still stands.
Bouie’s conviction was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled it was illegal to charge people with trespassing without prior warning. More than 50 years later, he is returning to Columbia to celebrate a renewed interest in discovering the civil rights past of South Carolina’s capital city.
On Friday, he will be one of a number of former activists on hand for the unveiling of a series of commemorative markers with images and information of notable events that took place in the Southern city. Several will be near the site of the former drugstore.
The event is part of Columbia SC 63, a retrospective effort undertaken by city officials to mark Columbia’s place in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
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CROSSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee judge has set bond at $1 million for one of the people charged in four slayings on Renegade Mountain last year.
WVLT-TV in Knoxville reports that the bond was set Thursday for 25-year-old Lina Yvonn Moser during a brief court appearance in Crossville.
The same judge also denied motions by co-defendant 26-year-old Jacob Bennett to dismiss the indictment and rule out the possibility of the death penalty in the case.
The pair stands accused of trying to rob Dominic Davis and Rikki Jacobsen during a marijuana deal. Authorities say they ended up killing Davis, Jacobsen, Stephen Presley and Jonathan Lajeunesse.
Bennett and Moser are charged with four felony murder counts and two attempted aggravated robbery charges. Bennett is accused of being the gunman.
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