Education

Every child deserves an excellent education, and an excellent education begins with a quality teacher in every classroom.  Throughout my time in the legislature, I have pushed for more emphasis on teacher quality.  If we recruit, retain, and support powerful instructors, we will see the results in better educated citizens and a higher quality workforce.

As a member of the Education Committee and the Education Oversight Committee, I have put education first by sponsoring legislation to:

• Place 90% of education dollars into classrooms to make sure our money is being spent to help our children reach their full potential.
• Improve parental involvement in our schools to help our children and teachers.
• Create scholarships for our best students who wish to become teachers
• Fought for funding of projects at public universities, including the UTC library.
• Co-sponsored legislation that helped bring the $500 million Race to the Top grant to Tennessee
• Been intimately involved in higher education reform and improving college graduation rates

See below for links to a few editorials on Education issues:

Chattanooga Times Free Press- Targeting teachers is wrong

Senator Berke Sounds Off On Recruiting and Retaining Quality Teachers

Give Tennesseans leadership, not stunts