Here is our interview with State Representative Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley), the Democratic Leader in the House.

What are the top education priorities for Democrats in the 2014 legislative session?

House Democrats are focused on creating quality public schools for every child. Education reform has been the buzzword at legislative plaza for a number of years, but we remain concerned that these changes have been more about style than substance.

We remain concerned about teacher evaluations and the negative impact they have on teacher moral and retention.

We have concerns about common core, not so much the standards, as the speed with which they have been implemented. We want to make sure that our schools are technologically ready for Common Core testing, especially where our rural schools are concerned with bandwidth and our urban schools with computer availability.

Democrats also strongly support a universal pre-k program. Currently, there is $64,000,000 in federal funding available to Tennessee for this purpose. We have legislation, HB 291, that would allow us to take advantage of this program and extend pre-k to thousands of Tennessee children.

What’s the Democratic view on the role of the State in public education?

Tennessee has two constitutional responsibilities: a balanced budget and a free system of public education. On the latter, we believe Tennessee must do better.

Depending upon which study you read, Tennessee ranks near the bottom in funding for public education. While we are proud of what our teachers and parents have done with little funding (in particular the spectacular improvement in graduation rates we’ve seen over the last number of years), we believe that we have to be careful in preserving these precious public dollars. Now is not the time to take public money and send it to untested charters or private institutions. This will only serve to take more money from the already small pot of funding we have for our public schools.

Will there be a move to address and improve BEP funding along the lines of BEP 2.0?

There are a few proposals before the General Assembly that deal with BEP, primarily with the state’s portion of funding. At this time, I’m not aware of any other Democratic proposals that will change the BEP, especially in light of a tight budget cycle.

Will Democrats support efforts to limit or remove TVAAS scores from teacher evaluation?

Democrats remain concerned about the teacher evaluations and their deleterious effect on teacher moral and retention. At a minimum, we believe there needs to be a moratorium on teacher evaluations as they currently stand, while a review is undertaken by the Department of Education, in consultation with educators.

Will Democrats attempt to address the state board’s action on teacher pay?

Democrats opposed the unusual decision of the State Board of Education to do away with the state minimum salary schedule. We are particularly concerned that this decision was made without any input from legislators and at a time when the General Assembly was not in session.

The State Board of Education is a group of unelected individuals who have had an outsized impact on education policy over the last year. While we don’t have a caucus position yet, I anticipate a lively discussion concerning their role.

The Democrats will be introducing legislation to require the Commissioner of Education to have teaching experience. Can you describe that bill? Is it a shot a Commissioner Huffman, who only has a few years of teaching experience?

In order to be a judge, an individual must have been a practicing lawyer for five years. We think that those who are charged with the education of our children should be held to an even higher standard.

This bill is not about any individual person, it is about a fundamental lack of respect we’ve seen for those who teach during this administration. Part of the problem is that senior officials at the Department of Education lack the in-classroom experience necessary to understand the ramifications of their policies. This legislation hopes to address the growing gap we see between public policy and practical application.

We saw last session that some rural Republicans were not happy with some of the education bills coming from the administration. Do you think the Democrats can pair up with certain Republicans to oppose vouchers and state-authorizer?

As I’ve said before, if there is one issue that unites Democrats it’s a commitment to public education. With that in mind, I would tell you that we are happy to partner with whomever we need to in order to achieve the best outcomes possible for our students, our teachers and our communities.

What is the counter argument on vouchers? If students are stuck in failing schools, and those schools aren’t going to turn around immediately, why make them stay there? Isn’t even a small lifeline for some kids better than nothing?

Vouchers are not a lifeline, they are at best a band-aid: they are only available to a limited number of students and studies have shown that those students do no better than the counterparts they leave behind in public schools. Meanwhile, what they will accomplish is a wholesale defunding of public schools. As I said earlier, we have a very limited pot of money for public education. When you start pulling funds out for virtual schools, charter schools and now vouchers, you take that limited pot of funds and make it even smaller. If we were like Ohio and were in the mid-thirties or lower on per pupil funding, I’d be in favor of this program. As it stands now, however, we can’t justify taking money from our already cash-strapped public education system.

Recently, the Metro Nashville School Board had a discussion about nonsense word assessments. Since I had recently learned the evidence around these assessments, I listened closely. I didn’t like what I heard. Many people believe these types of assessment are harmful to children. I don’t think so. A nonsense word assessment is a way to remove the effects of word exposure from the child. It also lets us see how the child will decode new words. It’s important to use these measures in early literacy. These measures can predict the reading proficiency of children.

While I wish the Tennessean asked someone outside of Pearson to comment on nonsense words, I totally agree with the Pearson scientist:

Mark Daniel, senior scientist for research innovation at Pearson, said AIMSweb draws on more than 30 years of research to accurately predict achievement and growth. The company defends the use of “nonsense words.”

“Nonsense-word fluency uses pseudo-words instead of real words to require the student to engage in decoding rather than relying on sight-word recognition,” Daniel said.

 

Let’s look at some research. A 2008 study by researchers at the University of Oregon and the Oregon Research Institute looked to see if Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) was a predictor of future reading. In their introduction to the study, the researchers explained the importance of NWF. (Fien et al., 2008)

Measures such as NWF and other pseudoword reading measures (e.g., Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised Word Attack subtest; Woodcock, 1987) specifically isolate how well students apply their understanding of phonics rules in learning to decode. That is, NWF is designed to measure how well a student has learned the underlying letter–sound correspondences and phonological recoding skills of the alphabetic principle. The measure expressly avoids tap- ping student skills in reading real words be- cause it may not be clear what strategies the student is using to accurately read real words (e.g., actually reading a word by deciphering the constituent letter–sound correspondences instead of recalling the whole word from memorization without knowledge of the constituent letter sounds).

And the researchers found that NWF was correlated with other reading measures.

Concurrent correlations between NWF administered in kindergarten, first, and second grade were consistent and moderately to strongly related to performance on ORF (Oral Reading Fluency) and the SAT-10. Also, the relations between NWF and criterion measures of reading were typically as strong for ELs as ESs.

And since Metro Nashville got rid of DIBELS, let me show you this quote from the research article:

Regarding DIBELS generally, it has been suggested that DIBELS measures reflect superficial indicators of reading, little more than students “barking at print” (Samuels, 2007, p. 563). Decades of research on ORF has established the consistent association between reading fluency and comprehension. In the vast majority of these studies, fluency is defined as a combination of speed and accuracy of reading connected text, which is precisely the definition of ORF that the developers of DIBELS used when they constructed their measures. ORF is also highly correlated with prosody (Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006). Indeed, the relationship between ORF and comprehension appears stronger than the association between prosody and comprehension, and there is only minimal evidence that reading with prosody mediates comprehension (Schwanenflugel, Hamilton, Kuhn, Wisen- baker, & Stahl, 2004). There are fewer studies on NWF than there are on ORF, and empirical investigations of these measures adjudicated through a peer-reviewed process should drive serious considerations of their quality. In this regard, we would like to further encourage the examination of DIBELS in the context of intended and actual use in education settings.

After collecting reading data from schools in Oregon:

Evidence from this study supports the use of NWF in the early grades to screen students for reading problems. Using data to intervene early and strategically is a major assessment activity expected by schools in Reading First as well as schools using RTI to assist in making decisions about instructional effectiveness and special education.

Additionally, here are some quotes from research abstracts on the topic.

“Slope of progress through the first semester of first grade on NWF was a strong predictor of first-grade reading outcomes, especially for students at risk of reading difficulty.” – Good, Baker, & Peyton (2009)

“Strong, positive relations were found between NWF gains and ORF and RC (reading comprehension) scores for students who began the year with low to moderate and relatively high decoding skills. For students at the highest end of the distribution (5% of the sample), NWF gains were not associated with ORF or RC scores. In addition, early gains on NWF more strongly predicted reading outcomes than later gains for students at the low end of the initial NWF distribution.” – Fien et al., (2010)

I completely agree that fluency does not equal comprehension. Reading something quickly does not mean that child understands what they read. But knowing if they can take a brand new word and sound it out correctly by blending the sounds together can really help the teachers know the reading proficiency level of their students. We need to find the students who need extra help and give it to them as quickly as we can. I spent over a week giving nonsense word assessments to fifth graders. After explaining the directions, the student gets 45 seconds to read a list of words. You can see a difference for those who struggle to read and those who don’t. Some of those who struggle with nonsense words also struggled with reading real words. Some did not struggle with real words but did with nonsense words.

For younger students, where this is really used, you can see if the child has trouble blending sounds. As I walk the hallways of the school where I have been working, I see the younger students receiving help with blending their sounds together and reading aloud. I think nonsense word assessments are one way to help students.

References

Fien, H., Baker, S. K., Smolkowski, K., Smith, J., Kame’enui, E. J., & Beck, C. (2008). Using nonsense word fluency to predict reading proficiency in kindergarten through Second grade for English learners and native English speakers. School Psychology Review, 37(3), 391-408.

Fien, H., Park, Y., Baker, S. K., Smith, J., Stoolmiller, M., & Kame’enui, E. J. (2010). An examination of the relation of nonsense word fluency initial status and gains to reading outcomes for beginning readers. School Psychology Review, 39(4), 631-653.

Good, R., Baker, S. K., & Peyton, J. A. (2009). Making sense of nonsense word fluency: Determining adequate progress in early first-grade reading. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 25(1), 33-56.

We welcome Dr. Diane Ravitch to our blog. Dr. Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor under Education Secretary Lamar Alexander’s leadership in the early 1990s. Her latest book, Reign of Error, is a New York Times bestseller.

1. Tennessee leaders have proposed linking teacher pay to value-added scores. Does this practice hold promise or peril for students and teachers?

Doing this has no basis in research or experience. It has failed wherever it was tried. It causes teaching to the test, which is unprofessional. 70% of teachers do not teach tested subjects, so either the state will spend millions to create new tests for every subject or teachers will be evaluated by the scores of students they never taught. Teachers in affluent districts will get high ratings. Teachers of English learners, of students with disabilities, of the gifted will get low ratings. This methodology doesn’t work. It appeals because it is simplistic. But it is ineffective at identifying the best and worst teachers. It shows who you taught.

2. Some legislators are proposing a voucher system for Tennessee students. What has been learned about the effectiveness and impact of voucher systems in other areas?

Vouchers have failed wherever they were tried. Milwaukee has had vouchers since 1990. Voucher students get the same scores as students in public schools. Meanwhile, on federal tests, Milwaukee is one of the lowest performing cities in the nation. Why should taxpayers pay for children to attend religious schools? Voters have never approved vouchers, not in any state. They were decisively rejected last fall by the voters of Florida.

3. Tennessee consistently ranks near the bottom of all states on tests like NAEP and ACT. What’s the best way for policy makers to change this?

Read my latest book. Early childhood education works. Health clinics for every school work. The arts raises student motivation to attend school. After school programs and summer programs work. Raising standards for entering teachers works. Set high standards for all educators, including the state commissioner, who has never been a principal or a superintendent and lacks the qualifications to be state commissioner.

4. Typically, state departments of education employ people with a variety of backgrounds; some have teaching experience, but others come from academic and policy backgrounds.  What is your take on having many Teach for America corps members moving into state policy positions?

Teach for America demeans the teaching profession by perpetrating the myth that teachers are qualified with only five weeks of training. Who would go to a doctor or lawyer with only five weeks training? Or fly in a jet whose pilot had five weeks training? TFA is destroying professionalism.

5. You are a frequent critic of Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman. What are the good and bad things that Commissioner Huffman has done since taking the job?

He gives the erroneous impression that a state commissioner need have no administrative experience. He lacks the basic qualifications for the job. He has punished the city of Nashville’s children by withholding $3.4 million, punishing the board for not granting a charter that he favored. He does not respect local control. He pushes privatization through charters and vouchers. He has no ideas that are constructive for public education, which is an essential democratic institution. He has demoralized teachers. If I think of something good he has done, I will let you know.

6. It’s perhaps not-so-common knowledge that legendary union leader Albert Shanker was an early fan of the charter school concept, though his vision was of teacher-run schools authorized by a school district, in contrast to most modern charter schools.  What was it that Shanker liked about the concept, and are there kernels of practice and/or organization that you like in the charter universe?

Shanker advocated for charters that sought out the weakest students, not the best ones. He thought that charters should be approved by their union and their local district.

Whatever they learned about how to help dropouts would be shared with the public schools.

This is a very different vision from charters today, which boast of their high scores, and often push out the weakest students who might pull down their scores.

7. The recession starting in 2008 hit states and local governments hard, and continuing debates in Washington leading to stalemated battles certainly don’t help the funding situation for districts and schools.  Putting aside the argument of whether states and local governments have funded schools, anti-poverty campaigns, healthcare, etc. sufficiently, what strategies do you find most promising that don’t require new funding?  Are there such strategies?

Better schools require adequate funding.

8. The education debate has lately taken an outsized role in public discourse, and includes many efforts, on both sides, to use coordinated messaging, public relations efforts, and branding efforts.  The “Reform” movement, writ large, has an easily-recited list of policies associated with it, including vouchers, charter schools, pay-for-performance, teacher evaluations using student testing data, and ending seniority rules.  For those on the opposite side, what are the list of marquee policies to point to?  What’s the alternative policy agenda?

Read my book. A thriving public school system that meets the needs of children. No privatization. No high-stakes testing. Money for arts and reduced class size, not for consultants, corporations and the testing industry.

9. In a recent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, you talked about how our education system is actually a lot better than people make it out to be. Can you explain your views on this topic?

Read my book.

Test scores for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are at their highest point in history.

Graduation rates at their highest point in history.

Dropout rates at lowest point in history.

These are 40-year trends.

Where scores are low, there is poverty and racial segregation.

None of the “reformer” ideas address the Root causes of low academic performance.

10. You have recently released a book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Can you tell us why you wrote this book? How is it different than your previous book?

I explain in the book. One, to give realistic solutions that would improve schools and society. Two, to demonstrate using graphs from the US Dept of Education website that the reformy claims of failure are untrue. Our American public schools do a great job, but they cannot overcome poverty without changes in our social and economic structures.

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

Boys Prep, an embattled Nashville charter school that is already facing threats of closure, is now facing more problems. Tennessee Education Report has confirmed that the principal for Boys Prep has been removed from his position and asked not to return until further notice.  Rev. Keith Jackson, a board member for Boys Prep, issued this statement after contacted about rumblings we were hearing about the school:

I will say that there are some serious concerns that are still being investigated.  He is not at the school and has been advised not to return until further notice.  There is a Board of Directors meeting scheduled for Oct. 24, at which time these issues will be discussed and any decisions will be made at that time.

The board consists of Paul Boersig, Rubin Cockrell, Sonya Jennings, Daniel Crews, Keith Jackson, and Karen Jackson.

UPDATE: Metro Nashville Public Schools released the following statement:

We have been in contact with the leadership at Boys Prep and understand they have taken action. We will stay in close contact to monitor the situation as it develops. Any further inquiries should be directed to Boys Prep.

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

We had the great opportunity to interview Dr. Jesse Register, the Director of Schools for Metro Nashville Public Schools. We hope you enjoy the interview.

1) Is MNPS moving towards school-based budgeting and budgetary control? If so, what’s the timeline? What elements of the budget will schools be free to spend as they wish? What elements will be outside a school’s purview?

Yes. We currently have 15 schools in a pilot program for school-based budgeting. We expect to have 50-60 schools in the program next school year, with a goal of going district-wide by 2015-16.

Schools in our pilot group get an average of around $6,300 per student on their school budgets. The rest of the per-pupil money goes to central services like transportation, food, human capital, textbooks, building services, etc. Of that $6,300, principals have direct control over 92%. Those numbers are expected to go up every year.

We’ve also seen a big, big increase in the amount of Title I money going directly to schools – rising from 49% two years ago to 85% today.

And of course we are looking at a weighted student funding formula that would funnel resources to schools more equitably, based on the kinds of students they serve. That could mean different levels of funding for English learners, exceptional education, gifted or others who might need more dedicated resources.

2) Is MNPS moving towards school-based hiring? Same questions as above — how fast, what are the parameters, etc.?

As you know, the entire Human Capital department was completely restructured. We’re looking at them as a strategy and support system more than a group that does hiring and firing.

So principals select and interview their own candidates right now. That’s district-wide. They assess the needs for teachers in their schools, select candidates from the available pool, interview them and recommend them for hire.

I say “recommend them for hire” because Human Capital needs to run background checks and actually process the hire, but principals are selecting teachers for their schools based on their specific needs.

That means we are greatly reducing the number of forced transfers. In fact, we hope to eliminate them entirely. That means principals can hire teachers, but they also have to deal with their problems and weaknesses. We don’t want inadequate performers just transferred from school to school.

The autonomy principals have also comes with accountability, and that includes staffing.

3) Will we see any more movement/changes to the salary structure?


We have a strategic compensation committee that is working on developing recommendations that link part of teacher compensation to performance. We expect those recommendations to be ready in before winter break. Our goal is to implement this plan for the 2014-15 school year. We expect to reward high-performing teachers while also continuing to pay teachers for additional education from quality programs – if it contributes to their work.

4) Given the lengthy waitlists for schools like Hume-Fogg, Meigs, and MLK, why hasn’t MNPS opened more academic magnet schools?  Understanding that other non-academic magnets (such as Rose Park, East Lit and Nashville School of the Arts) exist, why has MNPS not moved to meet that demand?

A quarter of our students attend a school by choice rather than by geography. That’s an important statistic for people to understand because it represents the diversity of attractive programs in our district, not just academic magnet schools.

Yes, the academic magnets have terrific track records and reputations. We are extremely proud of Hume-Fogg, MLK, Meigs and all of their feeder schools. But our thematic magnets and improving zoned schools can offer strong, challenging academics that meet every student’s needs.

The question we must face in Nashville is this: do we want to take our highest achieving students out of neighborhood schools and separate them into just a few academic magnets? I believe that is counterproductive. Instead let’s build the capacity in our zoned schools to challenge the high achievers while also serving the broad spectrum of all our students.

We want to improve the quality of all our schools, and we are making progress in doing that. Academically talented students can get a great education at any of our schools. If you look at our high schools, you see that in action. We have advanced academic tracks in each of our zoned high schools: Cambridge, International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, STEM courses, Vanderbilt Scientists in the Classroom and more. No matter where you live in Nashville, you can attend a school that challenges you and gives you the education you deserve.

5) Is MNPS planning implementation of a comprehensive new teacher induction program that includes dedicated mentors?


We are in discussions for that right now, but it is very early in the process. It will all come down to funding.

There is a lot of research touting the positive impact of high-quality teacher mentors on student achievement. This year we are finishing up a three-year mentor-training program with Trevecca where teachers are moved into high-priority schools to act as teacher mentors. This will be a great pool of talent to pull from to get our mentor program started if it takes off.


6) Memphis is moving forward with additional Pre-K classrooms despite a stop in state dollars for expansion.  Will MNPS move ahead with a Pre-K expansion plan?


I believe strongly in universal pre-K. I intend to pursue increased funding at the state and local levels. It is long-term the best strategy for eliminating achievement gaps between disadvantaged children and those who are not.

7) How would you describe the relationship between MNPS and the TNDOE? Commissioner Huffman?

It’s well known at this point that we don’t always see eye-to-eye.

However, we both recognize the absolute necessity of having a professional working relationship that supports improving student achievement at the local level and state level. It’s important that we have an honest dialogue in those areas where we may disagree.

8) What would you like to see as the state’s top education priority?

This is a difficult question because there are so many top priorities, as far as I’m concerned: recruiting and retaining great teachers, developing great school leaders, implementing common core, adequately preparing for PARCC testing.

But if I had to zero in one just one, it has to be funding universal pre-K. We serve a very large population of economically disadvantaged children, many of them also English learners. They must be given a jump-start on kindergarten so they are ready to start school. We generally have about 1,500-2,000 applications for pre-K every year that we can’t accommodate.

9) Dr. Register, you were quoted in the Tennessean that the district was not able to give step increases because of the rising cost of charters. Do you believe the district is reaching a tipping point in regard to charter school costs?

We need to have a conversation about the fiscal impact of charter schools. The Board of Education has already begun the budget planning process for 2014-15 because the members are concerned about the fiscal effect of charter schools on the district as a whole. Funding follows students, but fixed costs do not. The district continues to experience enrollment growth overall, so we have the same infrastructure and some increases in variable costs for teachers, transportation and other budget items, but when the transfer to charter schools is taken into account, our funding was flat this year and may even be reduced next year.

At the same time, we are moving ahead with the RFP for additional charter schools. Going forward, we might ask charter school applicants to meet specific needs. For example, a charter school in southeast Nashville could help address the tremendous growth in that area.

10) I recently toured Cameron College Prep. It was very fascinating to see a charter school slowly take over a zoned school grade by grade. Is the district looking to replicate this in other zoned schools?

We are also doing this at Brick Church Middle/Brick Church College Prep, though that is through the Achievement School District. Without our partnership with LEAD Academy through the Office of Innovation, Cameron might have also been in the ASD. We do not have any other charter school conversions on the table now.

For more Tennessee education news, follow us @TNEdReport