Key Senator Says Change in Teacher Assessment Needs to be Meaningful

Next week the General Assembly will enter a special session focused on education. The main legislation up for debate would change how the state assesses teachers. A key senator says test scores should play a significant role.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is still working out whether insurance will help cover the cost of the massive coal ash spill at its Kingston plant in December 2008. TVA ratepayers are already making payments on the billion-dollar cleanup effort, though falling fuel costs have, so far, offset the added expense to electric bills.

The studies, tests, and research are done. Now, Franklin-based Biomimetic Therapeutics is ready to ask for FDA approval of its only product.

There are winners and losers in the most recent Farm Bill, and Congressman Lincoln Davis says Tennessee cattlemen are on the losing end right now.

The Obama Administration is having success reforming education through its bully pulpit. States are positioning for piles of federal grant money from a program dubbed “Race to the Top.” Governor Phil Bredesen has even scheduled a special session next month. But a Vanderbilt researcher questions the Obama Administration’s direction.

Nashville tourism officials want to make Thursday’s New Year’s Eve celebration downtown an annual event on par with the 4th of July festivities.

An East Tennessee man is facing his busiest time of the year – shipping the famed, rare Perigord Black Truffle to chefs across the nation. The nubby, round, aromatic fungus worth hundreds of dollars a pound grows wild in France, but it has stubbornly resisted commercial production in the United States. From WUOT in Knoxville, reporter Ann Lloyd introduces us to truffle farmer Tom Michaels.

The state is looking to emulate the apparent success of a program to reduce unemployment in its hardest hit county. That title had belonged to Perry County, where unemployment peaked at one in four earlier this year. Now as the job market improves there, the state is turning its attention to a new effort, in Lauderdale County, north of Memphis.

A bear sighting this fall has become a big draw for Savage Gulf State Natural Area. Park rangers report a 50% spike in visitors.

A private psychiatric hospital near Fort Campbell says 40 percent of its patients are active duty soldiers.