Author Archives: Ed Reporter

Posted on by

What We Always Knew

A story out of Maury County highlights the education disparities we all know about. It also makes clear the problem of inequality is societal and systemic. It’s something we can conveniently ignore when school is in session because we know then all the kids are being fed and watched and loved. We aren’t forced to see the impacts of wage stagnation, wealth consolidation, and a lack of access to health care.

Here’s more from the Columbia Daily Herald:

“It took this crisis to realize that we are working on two very different dynamics in our districts,” Jennifer Enk, president of the education association, told members of the Maury County Board of Education during an online board meeting this month. “Going forward, this is something that our state and our local [district] really has to look at.”

She said the ongoing stay-at-home order has shown that students’ access to the internet and the devices to access it dramatically differs across the county.

After encouraging the school district to continue offering stipends to local educators who prepare work packets for students, Enk recommends incoming funds from the federal government be used to “equal the playing field” for the county’s students.

Maury County Superintendent of Schools Chris Marczak previously told The Daily Herald that in the northern portion of the county, in the surrounding Spring Hill area, about 10% of the school district’s students live in a home without internet. In Columbia, the county seat located in the center of the region, 24% of the school districts students don’t have internet at home.

It’s not just internet access, of course. There are wide disparities in access housing, food, and health care. A report published last year noted:


High concentrations of poverty, not racial segregation, entirely account for the racial achievement gap in U.S. schools, a new study finds.


The research, released Monday, looked at the achievement gap between white students, who tend to have higher scores, and black and Hispanic students, who tend to have lower scores. Researchers with Stanford University wanted to know whether those gaps are driven by widespread segregation in schools or something else.


They found that the gaps were “completely accounted for” by poverty, with students in high-poverty schools performing worse than those from schools with children from wealthier families.

So, while policymakers create plans focused on how much time kids are in school buildings and how to ensure they get to take tests, the real problems remain ignored.

Meanwhile, privatizing predators are on the prowl, ready to use the COVID-19 pandemic to open the doors to MORE taxpayer resources with little oversight or accountability.

Instead of trying to line the pockets of wealthy edu-profiteers, Tennessee policymakers should move forward with solutions that address the underlying challenges:

Addressing poverty would mean providing access to jobs that pay a living wage as well as ensuring every Tennessean had access to health care. Our state leads the nation in number of people working at the minimum wage. We lead the nation in medical bankruptcies. We continue to refuse Medicaid expansion and most of our elected leaders at the federal level are resisting the push for Medicare for All.

Yes, COVID-19 has highlighted inequality in our schools and beyond. It’s also highlighted the willingness of our top policymakers to simply walk by on the other side while their neighbors suffer.

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

Your support – $5 or more today – makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button
Posted on by

The Privatization Pandemic

In recent days, I’ve reported on virtual vultures seeking to profit off of the crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports have indicated that both Pearson (Tennessee Connections Academy) and K12, Inc. (Tennessee Virtual Academy) are seeking to extend their money grabs by offering their wares as a “solution” for public schools. Now, a report from the Koch Family Foundation-funded Mercatus Center further illuminates this very real privatization plan.

Instead of attempting to create new virtual platforms, school districts and physical charter schools should create public-private partnerships with virtual learning providers. Some private providers are prepared for this arrangement. K12 Inc. and Connections Academy, two of the nation’s largest K–12 online learning companies, have already created resources to assist districts. K12 Inc. has offered district school students access to the company’s online curriculum, while Connections has posted videos online and scheduled webinars to help traditional classroom teachers adapt instruction.


At least one public virtual school has also announced that it can expand its services. The nation’s largest state-based virtual school, the Florida Virtual School, is offering training for state teachers.8 VirtualSC, South Carolina’s online school, is providing similar services.9 According to local media, Florida Virtual School is prepared to increase its capacity to 400,000 students. If demand continues, the school is considering assigning students to certain times of the day to access content, staggering instruction so that servers are not overloaded.

So, go virtual and give private providers more cash with less oversight. We’ve seen how that worked out in Tennessee’s unfortunate embrace of K12, Inc.:

Take, for example, Tennessee, where K12 Inc. has spent between half a million and $1.1 million hiring lobbyists over several years. One of them was chief of staff to former Tennessee governor and current U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is the chairman of the education committee in the Senate.

The state passed a virtual school law in 2011 that mirrored model legislation written by The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative think tank. A few schools opened up, including one run by K12 Inc. through a poor, rural school district in the northeastern part of the state.

Since then, K12’s Tennessee Virtual Academy, whose enrollment at one point ballooned to nearly 2,000 students, has been one of the worst-performing schools in the state ever since, but has so far managed to avoid being shut down.

Privatizers want to turn more of our money — and our kids — over to shady operators like K12, Inc. Also, they want ALL the money. Here’s more from Mercatus on “repurposing” current school budgets to direct additional funds to the privatizing predators:

Lawmakers should also allow districts to repurpose taxpayer resources meant for bus routes, food service, and facility maintenance, to name a few, and use this spending to purchase education services from online providers

But what about those pesky IDEA requirements that protect students with disabilities? Well, Mercatus and the privatizers agree with Tennessee’s own Lamar Alexander that “flexibility” should be offered in this regard. Here, flexibility means students with disabilities lose so for-profit prowlers can win:

While this fact sheet already offered school leaders “discretion” and “significant latitude,” the department appears to have erased any uncertainty on March 21 with another memo that said schools should not fear reprisal for good-faith efforts to move classes online, even for children with special needs. The department said, “To be clear: ensuring compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act should not prevent any school from offering educational programs through distance instruction.”

The privatizers want ALL the money, all the students, and none of the accountability. It’s not a secret. They are saying (and writing) it out loud.

Will Tennessee’s policymakers stand up to the virtual vultures?

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button
Posted on by

Voucher Leader Jumps Ship

Today, Shelby County Director of Schools Joris Ray announced new additions to his leadership team. Among them, Amity Schuyler, previously the Tennessee Department of Education’s point person on school vouchers. Gov. Bill Lee and his team have been counting on Schuyler to fast-track the state’s voucher scheme.

Here’s the announcement via tweet:

It’s unclear what this means for the future of a voucher program that Lee chose to fund in his emergency budget while cutting a planned investment in public schools.

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Money Grabber

Not to be outdone by edu-opportunist Pearson, Tennessee’s favorite virtual vultures over at K12, Inc. are seeking to cash in on the COVID-19 pandemic. Peter Greene reports that K12’s CEO serves on something called the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission — a Heritage Foundation project closely connected to the Trump Administration. When it comes to education policy, this commission has some pretty interesting recommendations.

States should immediately restructure per-pupil K–12 education funding to provide education savings accounts (ESAs) to families, enabling them to access their child’s share of state per-pupil funding to pay for online courses, online tutors, curriculum, and textbooks so that their children can continue learning. Students are currently unable to enter the K–12 public schools their parents’ taxes support. They should be able to access a portion of those funds for the remainder of the school year in the form of an ESA.

So, go ahead and rob public schools RIGHT NOW — while many have moved to alternative models of instruction and are anticipating revenue shortfalls for the next school year due to the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Then, there’s this:

Additionally, state restrictions on teacher certification should be lifted immediately to free the supply of online teachers and tutors, allowing anyone with a bachelor’s degree to provide K–12 instruction online.

Because, of course. Why pay a premium for certified talent when you can capitalize on the legions of Americans now unemployed due to a global emergency?

But, hey, we’ve seen these assholes before. Here’s more (from Education Week) on the K12 story in Tennessee:

Those issues are not unique to online charter schools—full-time online programs run through school districts have run into many of the same problems. And especially for a small, rural school system, the opportunity to enroll students in their district from across the state can offer a powerful financial incentive.


Take, for example, Tennessee, where K12 Inc. has spent between half a million and $1.1 million hiring lobbyists over several years. One of them was chief of staff to former Tennessee governor and current U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is the chairman of the education committee in the Senate.


The state passed a virtual school law in 2011 that mirrored model legislation written by The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative think tank. A few schools opened up, including one run by K12 Inc. through a poor, rural school district in the northeastern part of the state.


Since then, K12’s Tennessee Virtual Academy, whose enrollment at one point ballooned to nearly 2,000 students, has been one of the worst-performing schools in the state ever since, but has so far managed to avoid being shut down.


Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have proposed bills that would have shuttered failing virtual schools. One, sponsored by a Democrat in 2013, was killed in committee, even after the lawmaker produced a leaked email from a K12 Inc. staff member that appeared to instruct teachers to change students’ grades. Lawmakers did go on to approve a bill that session that gave the state education commissioner the power to close a failing virtual school after three consecutive years of poor performance, but they struck language from the bill that would have capped enrollment.


Republican state Senator Dolores Gresham—who sponsored the original legislation to allow virtual schools—introduced a bill in 2015 that would have also cracked down on failing virtual schools, but it never came to a vote.


That same year, Gresham also sponsored a bill to extend the state’s virtual school program through 2019.


That one passed.


When Kevin Huffman, a former state education commissioner, tried to shutter the Tennessee Virtual Academy with the authority given to him under that 2013 legislation, it devolved into a years-long saga. Parents sued state officials to keep the school open and a judge ruled in their favor. The school could stay open through the 2015-16 academic year.
Then K12 Inc. caught another break.


A botched roll-out of Tennessee’s computerized testing system in 2015-16 forced officials to toss out all student testing data. That extended the life of the Tennessee Virtual Academy another year.


K12 Inc. said the school has persisted not because of lobbying on behalf of the management company, but because it should never have been targeted for closure in the first place. Although company officials acknowledge that the Tennessee school has struggled academically, they say the school was unfairly singled out by state education officials.
The experience led Huffman, a staunch supporter of charter schools who is now a fellow at New America, a Washington-based think tank, to shift his stance on full-time online schools and for-profit companies that run them.


“I don’t see evidence of for-profit models that work,” he said in an email to Education Week. “Theoretically, a for-profit operator could run effective schools, but in practice, the top charter school operators are all non-profits, and I don’t think it’s accidental.”

In spite of K12 consistently failing both students and taxpayers in Tennessee, the state’s Treasury Department apparently sees the company as a sound investment:

The Tennessee Treasury Department has INCREASED its stake in problematic virtual school operator K12, Inc. The news comes from a report from market analysts:


State of Tennessee Treasury Department purchased a new stake in K12 Inc. (NYSE:LRN) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 12,460 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $329,000.

Yes, Pearson wants ALL the money. But, they’ve got some pretty stiff competition from K12, Inc.

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

Your support — $5 or more — makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button

Posted on by

Staying the Course

While Nashville’s schools are looking at budget cuts in the upcoming year, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris is proposing maintaining current operational funding and investing in school construction, according to Chalkbeat.

Shelby County Schools could receive the same funding as last year for day-to-day operations and possible additional funding for school construction in the next budget year under a proposed $1.4 billion county government spending plan unveiled Monday.

Mayor Lee Harris recommended maintaining the $427 million the county allocated this year for the operating budgets for all seven of Shelby County’s school systems. Shelby County Schools, the largest district in the state, receives the bulk of that funding.

Additionally, the mayor proposed spending an additional $33 million for school construction needs in all the districts. On top of that, he proposed another $65 million for schools, including $50 million for Shelby County Schools, that he hopes will be an incentive for school leaders to rapidly build new facilities “and give more kids a first-rate learning environment.”

Harris is proposing a $16.50 increase in the vehicle registration fee in order to cover the cost of this investment.

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Pearson Wants ALL the Money

Following the maxim to never let a crisis go to waste, Pearson (the company that turns education into cash through testing and online learning “solutions”), is now marketing its Tennessee Connections Academy even as the COVID-19 outbreak has ended school for this year and thrown the 2020-21 school year into uncertainty.

Here is a mailer that landed in the mailboxes of public school parents recently:

Because Pearson’s Connections Academy is an online public school, they receive state dollars to operate.

Pearson has a long history of swooping into Tennessee to “solve” problems. Last summer, the company signed a two-year, $40 million contract to rescue the state’s TNReady test. Of course, the 2020 test wasn’t administered due to COVID-19, but there’s talk of using Pearson for benchmark testing when students return to school for the next school year.

Pearson also jumped in to bail-out the state back in 2016 when original TNReady vendor Measurement, Inc. failed to get the job done:

Jason Gonzalez at the Tennessean notes:

The Tennessee Department of Education has contracted with its previous test vendor Pearson Education in an emergency maneuver to score TNReady high school tests.

The contract with Pearson is only for scoring and reporting of 2015-2016 assessments, according to Education Commissioner Candice McQueen in a letter Monday to school directors statewide.

Pearson was paid $18.5 million for these “emergency” services.

Pearson wants to run the schools, administer the tests, and provide the materials. They want just one more thing: ALL the money.

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

Your support – $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button
Posted on by

CLOSED

Today, Gov. Bill Lee called on all Tennessee school districts to close for the remainder of this school year. Here’s a statement from the Tennessee Education Association on the issue:

“The coronavirus pandemic has already negatively impacted students, educators and communities, and will continue to do so for some time. Educators are as eager as parents for school to resume, but every decision on how and when to reopen classrooms must consider health, safety and well-being first.

Following Gov. Bill Lee’s announcement today, it is now time to look toward the 2020-2021 school year. The prolonged break in classroom instruction has disrupted student learning and will cause serious challenges for students and educators when school resumes. As the professionals who work with students most closely, Tennessee educators must have significant input in the planning and implementation of efforts to overcome learning loss.

There is no better place for Tennessee students than public schools, and every educator from the bus driver and cafeteria worker to the counselor and school nurse will be needed to support students. Use of federal emergency funds must first prioritize the ability to reopen public schools for the 2020-2021 school year.”

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

CLOSED FOR THE YEAR

McNairy County Schools becomes possibly the first school district in Tennessee to announce it is closing for the remainder of this school year, according to a story in the Jackson Sun.

The McNairy County School System won’t be returning to school for the rest of the semester and will be utilizing online instruction under the Tennessee Department of Education’s recently approved instructional plan.

The decisions come as districts around the state continue to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis.

On Thursday, the McNairy County board of education accepted the Continuing Instructional Plan (CIP) at the recommendation of superintendent Greg Martin, who said the recommendation stemmed from the rural county’s inability to test for coronavirus.

Many districts have indicated they will be closed until May 4th as Gov. Bill Lee has recommended the state’s residents stay home when possible until the end of April. Reports indicate Lee will be making recommendations regarding schools at his daily COVID-19 briefing tomorrow (April 15th).

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button
Posted on by

Just the Facts on Vouchers

Advocacy Group Public Funds for Public Schools is out with a fact sheet on the impact of school vouchers. Here are some highlights:

Many public schools around the nation are chronically underfunded. Diverting muchneeded funding from public schools to pay for private school vouchers makes that situation worse. For example, the cost of Arizona’s private school voucher program has increased 50-fold in 16 years, even as private school attendance in the state has decreased. A study of the voucher program in Wisconsin found that the program’s expansion posed “a significant fiscal threat to public schools.” Moreover, these diverted funds are often mis-spent. In Florida, investigative journalists found voucher recipient schools had hired teachers without college degrees and falsified health and safety records. In Arizona, an audit of the voucher program found parents received funds after enrolling students in public schools and after purchasing items that were not permitted.

For many years, studies of voucher programs across the country have found no improvement in student achievement. Studies in Washington, D.C. and Alabama found no significant improvement in student test scores. Studies in Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio found that students who attended private schools using vouchers actually performed worse than their similar peers in public schools. These negative effects persisted over years, meaning they were not a temporary result of students’ transition to a new school. The negative impact on academic achievement of attending a voucher school may be even worse than the impact of high teacher turnover and feeling unsafe at school. Additionally, the Louisiana voucher program did not increase the rates of college enrollment among high school graduates. And parents do not report greater satisfaction with schools, nor a greater sense of safety, with the use of private school vouchers.

READ MORE and find links to all the studies cited.

It’s worth noting here that in spite of this evidence, Gov. Bill Lee insisted on funding vouchers in the emergency budget the General Assembly passed before recessing due to COVID-19.

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes reporting education news possible.

Posted on by

Explainer

The State Board of Education met yesterday to adopt emergency rules for schools in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Board noted there may be a need for additional changes, but for now, these changes address issues like grades and teacher evaluation. Here’s a great explainer from Knoxville-based online publication Compass.

Highlights:

  • School systems cannot require attendance or mark students truant for failure to participate in any remote learning activities they make available while schools are closed. Many school systems, including Knox County, are providing some level of instruction or review materials either online or via paper packets. Many teachers are also engaging students online via email or video conferencing. (Knox County’s resource page, consisting mostly of PDF worksheets, is here.)
  • High school seniors will receive grades for their classes no lower than what they were as of March 20 (This is true for ALL students). School systems have the option of providing extra work to allow seniors to raise those marks so that they can graduate with higher GPAs.
  • All year-end state testing is suspended, although school systems can choose to administer the tests if feasible.
  • Student performance data from this year won’t be used in teacher evaluations, but school systems can use information from classroom observations performed earlier in the year to make decisions about personnel placement and to provide professional feedback.

Mike Krause, executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, told the board that students may be nervous about having grades sufficient to qualify for the state’s HOPE lottery scholarship program, which requires a 3.0 GPA.

But he noted students can also qualify by scoring at least a 21 on the ACT college entrance exam or a 1060 on the SAT test. He also said the HOPE scholarships are not the only vehicle for post-secondary aid.

The article also referenced the controversy surrounding a survey sent by the Department of Education and subsequent revelations of a plan of action pushed by Commissioner Penny Schwinn.

The state survey caused some initial confusion, because the original version included questions that made it sound as if the state was considering adding instructional days during the summer in 2020 and/or 2021. But then those questions vanished, so that people who opened the survey Sunday saw different options than people who opened it when it was first sent out.

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

Your support — $5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button