Amendment to controversial third grade law passes first legal hurdle
The amendment would allow students to use their most recent benchmark test score to show they are proficient in reading and move on to the next grade.
There are 126 article(s) tagged Mark White:
The amendment would allow students to use their most recent benchmark test score to show they are proficient in reading and move on to the next grade.
If the Shelby County Commission adopts a resolution of no confidence in Halbert, 88,481 voters have to sign a petition to put a recall question on the ballot. Republican state Rep. Mark White’s bill brings that down to 5,899.
The Tennessee General Assembly is the sure-fire cure for writer’s block. The problem isn’t getting 750 to 1,000 words out of whatever they’re up to; the problem is stopping.
“Tennessee is in a sound financial position and can afford to provide critical funding to Memphis to repair and replace our aging water infrastructure,” said state Rep. John Gillespie.
State Sen. London Lamar’s bill has widespread support among leaders in Shelby County, but it is unlikely to become law.
The 3G transfer might be one of the final stages of a saga that saw the brief merger of all Shelby County children under a single school system and the six municipalities’ subsequent secession and creation of their own districts.
Under the current law, 15% of registered county voters have to sign a petition to get a recall question on the ballot. State Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) wants to lower that to 1%.
The Democrats didn’t field a candidate in a district that used to be — before redistricting — one of the General Assembly’s most flippable.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools may soon begin moving to reach an agreement with two suburban districts before it loses ownership of four campuses at the end of the year.
The one-month grocery tax holiday has helped people stretch their budgets, but it has not made a dent in the issue of food insecurity, the Mid-South Food Bank’s CEO says.
An incident involving a student with a gun at White Station High School last week, following on the heels of the Uvalde, Texas, mass school shooting earlier in the week, was but the latest reminder of the increasing frequency of mass shootings. Leaders continue to struggle to find solutions.
A rundown on the fate of every bill we’ve covered since January, organized by subject.
“This bill does not ban any book,” state Sen. Jack Johnson said about the controversial Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022.
Several organizations have said the maps are a textbook example of gerrymandering and will lead to diminished voting power for people of color.
Residency requirements, reckless driving and Germantown’s namesake schools are among the issues lawmakers plan to address at the upcoming General Assembly session. School funding reform might have to wait until next year.
State Rep. Mark White confirmed he’ll file another bill in the upcoming legislative session that could determine who controls Germantown Elementary, Germantown Middle School and Germantown High. The bill could also affect Lucy Elementary in Millington.
Tennessee Republicans are firmly anti-mandate today. But in 2013, they supported a requirement that college students get vaccinated against meningitis.
More low-income people have government healthcare now that TennCare has been effectively prohibited from taking away coverage. It’s a big shift from before the pandemic when the agency frequently took people off the rolls.
A number of residents expressed their disdain of Germantown’s vaccine policy it issued and removed last week.
Otis Sanford and Mark White have a friendly, but spirited, showdown over their polar opposite views about how to talk to Tennessee school children about race and racism.
Within the span of about three days, the House and Senate imposed their Caucasian-centered, conservative will on what can and cannot by taught in schools about racism’s sordid history and harmful impact.
The two urban areas of Memphis and Nashville control the minority Democratic leadership in state politics, but Memphis and West Tennessee are underrepresented among the Republican majority.
Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, withdrew an amendment regarding ownership and operations by Shelby County Schools of three schools bearing the Germantown name. He said negotiations seem to have begun.
Legislation impacting ownership and operation of Germantown’s legacy schools is on hold. It may be reconsidered in the 2022 legislative session.
On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, state Rep. Mark White acknowledges the bill doesn’t address many of the complexities of the local schools merger and demerger that kept the three namesake Germantown schools in the Shelby County Schools system.