Prototype System Model

A new report by TACIR staff on the prototype model prepared for the Governor’s Task Force on Teacher Pay and the Basic Education Program Review Committee (BEPRC) was released in October 2005: A Prototype Model for School-System-Level Fiscal Capacity in Tennessee: Why and How presents an overview of events leading to the appointment of that task force and subsequent attempts to improve the state’s method of equalizing funding for public schools with emphasis on the equalization model developed by TACIR staff.

The links below are to documents prepared for the BEPRC, which is appointed by the State Board of Education, and presented to the committee in various meetings over the last two years. The executive director of TACIR is a statutory member of the committee. Public Chapter 670, Acts of 2004, required the BEPRC to "prepare an annual report on the BEP and [provide] such report, on or before November 1 of each year, to the governor, the state board of education, and the select oversight committee on education." The Act also requested the BEPRC "[i]n reviewing the basic education program for fiscal year 2005-2006, . . . to give special consideration to . . . the development and implementation of a system-level fiscal capacity model."

The BEPRC voted in October 2005 to recommend implementation of a system-level fiscal capacity model along with several significant enhancements in the BEP funding formula. (BEP Review Committee 2005 Annual Report, November 2005.) The earliest any changes could be implemented would be school year 2006-07. Adoption of a system-level model would have to be approved by the State Board, the Commissioner of Education and the Commissioner of Finance and Administration. Other proposed changes would require those approvals plus legislative action. The BEPRC recommended that the improvements occur in a “comprehensive, simultaneous, and timely” manner.