House members have questions about a proposal from Gov. Bill Lee's administration to implement a massive $68 million literacy initiative in schools, including whether the Department of Education is moving too quickly on the measure.

Despite Rep. Mark White, R-Germantown, announcing to the House curriculum and testing subcommittee Tuesday that the group would not vote on the bill that day and would "move as slow as this committee needs," education commissioner Penny Schwinn stressed the importance of an aggressive timeline.

"There is a sense of urgency," said Schwinn, whose department is pushing legislation that would require school districts around the state to have their teachers take part in phonics instruction training this summer or in summer 2021.

Schwinn described it as a major undertaking to address Tennessee's dire childhood literacy situation, but said the state would not be trying to train over 3,000 educators in a short window just this summer.

"As all of us know, the devil's always in the details, and there are a lot of details that are not there," said Rep. John DeBerry, D-Memphis, referencing a lack of information on which outside vendors would be handling the bulk of the new initiatives and whether it would take too much discretion away from local school districts.

"There are some who feel you're overstepping with this bill being so comprehensive," he said.

The department released an amendment on Monday clarifying the timeline for how quickly districts around the state would need to adopt the new literacy training requirements for teachers.

The legislation also provides funding for literacy instruction materials for classrooms.

The amended bill calls for the state to adopt a teaching method known as the “Science of Reading,” which focuses on skills such as phonics, fluency and vocabulary.

Schwinn said ahead of the Tuesday committee hearing that the change to the timeline was made after receiving feedback from educators statewide.

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Literacy initiative targets state's widespread reading problems

The bill takes aim at Tennessee's stubbornly stalled reading scores. Only one-third of students statewide read at grade level by the third grade.

It requires training for any educator who is responsible for reading instruction or remediation, including classroom teachers, special education teachers and paraprofessionals.

The bill would allow for districts statewide to train teachers between this summer next summer, allowing for a 14-month window, according to Schwinn. The state will also allow for further retraining for teachers into future years.

It budgets $48.8 million for a new statewide literacy initiative that will emphasize teacher training and coaching for elementary teachers, including $11.25 million of that money being recurring in the budget. Another $20 million would be spent in one-time money to aid third to fifth grade classrooms.

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Rep. Mark Cochran, R-Englewood, expressed concern with adopting the program without the department and legislature receiving more feedback from teachers.

"I'm OK with the focus on phonics and the focus on science of reading, but just the hard rollout of 'this is what we're going to do,' that makes me nervous without a lot of input from folks on the ground," said Cochran.

Schwinn said the biggest issue she has heard is to ensure the change isn’t an unfunded mandate for districts. The proposed resources would have the state take on the brunt of the cost, Schwinn said.

“I think the majority of our teachers are excited about the resources," Schwinn said ahead of the meeting. "I think that what is difficult about large-scale change is that it is just that, it's change. Kids are very resilient. They want to learn and read, and they’re excited.

“But it means something different, and anything different is unknown and so there's natural caution that comes with that.”

Schwinn also said although the state is requiring districts to implement the changes, leaders in each county would be able to dictate how they want to make the changes.

Any district may request an exemption if all of its students across the district are performing 15 percentage points above the state average in the district and that number is more than half of the population at each school.

Speaker Pro Tem Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, pressed Schwinn for evidence that the program worked.

"Where has this been used, before we make something statewide?" Dunn asked. "We don’t even know if it will work at scale or not."

Schwinn said the department could provide examples of successful implementation in other states and large school districts.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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