Tag Archives: Beth Brown

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$3 Billion

Tennessee consistently receives low grades when it comes to investment in public education. Year after year, Tennessee ranks between 44th-46th in total investment in schools and our state also typically earns among the lowest grades in the nation when it comes to funding effort.

F for Effort

I mean, our neighbors in Kentucky far outpace us when it comes to investment in schools – and, this investment gets results when it comes to student achievement.

Tennessee Education Association President Beth Brown points out the significance of this disparity in a recent email to educators. In it, she notes:

“It’s not about how the funds are divided, it’s about how many state dollars are put into education,” said TEA President Beth Brown. “To get to the Kentucky level of school funding, Tennessee needs $3 billion added to the state education budget.”

That’s just embarrassing. Here’s the thing: Tennessee can afford to do much better. In fact, we have a huge surplus. This means we can invest in schools without raising taxes. A boost of billions of dollars in state money for public schools would also have the benefit of helping to keep local property taxes low.

A Bountiful Harvest

As the BEP reform discussion heats up, remember that any reform that fails to include significant new funding – in the billions of dollars – is not going to make a serious change in education in our state. We’re at least $1.7 billion behind where we should be according to state analysts. We’re $3 billion behind Kentucky. The overall formula is not the real problem – a huge lack of investment is the real problem.

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Pitiful

That’s how Tennessee Education Association (TEA) President Beth Brown described the state of education funding in Tennessee.

The Chattanooga Times-Free Press reports on Brown’s remarks, which come just as Gov. Bill Lee prepares to deliver his State of the State address tonight.

Brown notes:

“Our funding is so low the only neighboring state we beat is Mississippi,” wrote Brown, a Grundy County teacher. “To meet Kentucky’s per student investment, the state would need $2.6 billion; to match Arkansas, the increase would be $860 million; and to be on par with Alabama would require $560 million this year alone.”

Brown’s criticism of the state’s poor track record of investment is noteworthy as the state now sits on a $3.1 billion surplus due to better than expected revenue flow during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Brown says the state can do more, the Tennessee House Republican Caucus is bragging about what are rather dismal numbers over the past 10 years.

Last year, Lee proposed a 4% increase the BEP allocation for teacher pay, but then cancelled that planned raise when the pandemic hit.

Even the state’s own bipartisan group of policymakers assigned to the task of assessing government policy as it impacts state and local issues suggests we need big, new investment in schools in order to adequately fund the BEP:

Still, I’ve yet to hear anyone in the state’s legislative leadership call for bold, new investments in public schools. Yes, a bipartisan group of policymakers has suggested that our school funding formula – the BEP – needs $1.7 billion just to be adequate. Still, Gov. Bill Lee has not come out and mentioned that he’ll be proposing using these surplus dollars to fund schools.

Tune-in tonight and see whether Lee makes any attempt at meeting this challenge.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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TEA Pushes School Funding, Voucher Repeal

The Tennessee Education Association is pushing for increased school funding and a repeal of the state’s voucher law in this legislative session, according to a report from WMOT radio.


TEA President Beth Brown notes that the state’s per-pupil school funding is the second lowest in the Southeast. She says it’s time for lawmakers to spend Tennessee’s excess revenue on education.


“We actually have a $7.6 billion cash reserve. …and so we will be pushing very hard to see some of that revenue that’s going unbudgeted invested in our schools.”


Brown says the TEA will also support efforts this session to repeal Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher plan passed by a single vote last year.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Not Really Listening

Governor Bill Haslam was in Knoxville today on his “listening tour.”

Here’s what TEA President Beth Brown had to say about how the event unfolded:

A message from TEA President Beth Brown:

I am a high school English teacher, so word choice is very important to me. When the governor announced his TNReady “listening tour” earlier this week, I envisioned Tennessee teachers and parents finally having a real opportunity to share their experiences and frustrations with TNReady failures. I envisioned Gov. Haslam and department officials listening to teachers and parents – the real experts on this topic – about how the state could improve assessments in the best interest of all students.

What I did not envision was a closed-door, invitation-only, inconveniently scheduled, no-parents-allowed event that only created more frustration and distrust among teachers and parents. What happened in Knoxville today tells teachers and parents this administration doesn’t really want to listen at all. Instead, this event just shut down a school library and provided another example of TNReady creating more work and inconvenience for students and educators. Meaningful change in the best interest of our students will never happen if the state sticks with this dog-and-pony show model.

The good news is the governor has five more opportunities to get this right and provide a forum to truly listen to teachers and parents. Our students need those in positions of power to swallow their pride and have the tough conversations. Our students deserve better.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport


 

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TEA on TNReady Tour

Yesterday, Governor Bill Haslam announced a TNReady listening tour that will start Friday in Knoxville.

Today, Tennessee Education Association (TEA) President Beth Brown emailed the association’s members with a message about the tour:

There are many education accomplishments Gov. Bill Haslam can be proud of, including the consistent increases in state investment in our schools during his tenure. However, repeated failures of his administration’s high-stakes testing system are a major shortcoming in his education record.

Gov. Haslam’s announced “listening tour” is a positive step toward making state assessments something that we can all agree improves teaching and learning. If a stop is planned in your district, I encourage you to participate and share your honest experience with this testing system and your meaningful feedback for how to improve this for our students.

Assessments need to improve teaching practice and identify students who need additional assistance. We do that with mandatory benchmark testing, which allows differentiated instruction to more effectively meet students’ needs.

TNReady has not provided meaningful data to improve teaching practices or help students because of serious failures in administration, the lateness of data getting to teachers and schools, and major questions on what constitutes grade level-work. TEA supports high academic standards, but when proficiency rates of TNReady do not match other important measures like ACT scores and graduation rates, there is growing concern the test isn’t fair or measuring student achievement properly.

TEA hopes part of the dialogue includes transparency of state tests, where parents and teachers can gain access to a large portion of actual questions and answers in any given year. Publishing state tests allows teachers, parents and all Tennesseans to review how constructive responses are scored, what is being asked of students, and assurance that tests align with what schools are directed to teach.

I know how many demands you have on your time, but this is an important opportunity to ensure teachers’ voices are part of the discussion on how to improve testing in Tennessee. According to the governor’s website, the tour will begin this Friday, Aug. 24, in Knoxville, and be followed by stops planned for Hamilton County, Shelby County, Williamson County, Greene County and Gibson County. Specific locations and times are being finalized.

Thank you for your continued to commitment to Tennessee students.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport


 

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Failure to Communicate

It seems Governor Bill Haslam is having some trouble advancing his education agenda.

But why? Why is a governor with a supermajority from his own party not able to advance key pieces of his legislative agenda?

He hosted an Education Summit last week designed to “reset” the education conversation in the state. More than anything, it seemed an attempt to save Common Core from a potential political demise. That summit failed to address one key education topic. And he received a response from a teacher (TEA Vice President Beth Brown) indicating he may be missing the point when it comes to what matters to students and teachers.

Earlier this week, a report from a Vanderbilt study indicated support for Common Core among Tennessee’s teachers has dropped dramatically. Teacher Lucianna Sanson explained it this way:

“What you’re seeing in that survey is the difference between what we were told it was and a year of implementation,” Sanson says. “And that is why you have that drastic, drastic change. Because you start implementing it, and you’re like, ‘What is this?’”

Back in August, Haslam sent a note to teachers welcoming them back to school. But, teachers were not amused. Instead, they reminded him that he’d broken his promise to dramatically improve teacher pay in the state.

Of course, during the legislative session, Haslam suffered a major setback as the Common Core-aligned PARCC tests were delayed by the General Assembly.

Before that, Directors of Schools from around the state sent a letter to Haslam complaining that Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman wasn’t listening.

What do all of these issues have in common? Here’s a video that briefly illustrates the problem:

 

 

 

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TEA Elects New Leadership

From a TEA press release:

Nearly 800 educators from across the state gathered at the Nashville Convention Center this weekend to elect a new president and vice president of the Tennessee Education Association. This year marked the 81st annual Representative Assembly for the state’s largest professional association for educators.

Barbara Gray, a Memphis-Shelby County Schools administrator, was elected TEA president. Gray has served as the association’s vice president for the past four years. She has been in the education profession serving Shelby County Schools since 1972, where she currently works as an assistant principal at Northaven Elementary School. Gray has been an active member of the Shelby County, Tennessee and National Education Associations for many years.

Beth Brown, an English teacher at Grundy County High School, was elected TEA vice president. Brown has been an active member of the Tennessee Education Association since she began her career. She has served in numerous leadership roles at the state and local levels of the association.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport