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What’s Amy Frogge All About?

She takes a moment to talk about her race on Facebook.  Here’s her post:

This article outlines what’s really going on in this year’s school board races: Well-funded special interests pushing unabated charter school growth and vouchers are trying to take down school board incumbents who won’t comply with their agenda to privatize schools. Why are they so interested in public education? There is much money to be made on the backs of our children.

At great personal cost, I have stood up against this effort for four years now. I’ve dealt with all sorts of lies and attempts to malign my character, because I’ve been a strong, effective voice against this agenda, which has nothing to do with educating children. Although it has taken a toll on my family, I am running again because it’s vitally important to prevent special interests from gaining control over the future of Nashville’s schools, and Dr. Joseph’s arrival on the scene marks a pivotal time of hope for our children, who deserve much more.

Remember that nasty push poll maligning me with false allegations? Stand for Children (which endorsed my opponent) paid $80,000 for polling this quarter alone. Stand for Children is also sending out numerous attack mailers on me. My personal favorite was their latest claiming that I don’t listen to parents, which is pretty comical given that I’m a public school parent myself who talks with other parents (and teachers) on a daily basis! Please don’t pay attention to these silly lies.

Here is what I’ve fought for (often successfully) over the last four years:
-evidence-based school policies
-less standardized testing
-whole child education that provides each child with a rich, broad curriculum that includes art, music, recess, and physical activity
-wraparound services for children in need
-high-quality pre-k
-individualized instruction and services for all students, including advanced and gifted learners, as well as those with special needs
(and much more!).

Over the last four years, I’ve watched the conversation about education (both locally and on a national level) turn toward this direction, and I’m proud that I’ve been even a small part of helping to change the conversation.

Regardless of what happens in this election, I will continue to use my voice to stand up for the best interests of our children. My involvement in this ongoing battle over our schools has absolutely nothing to do with politics and everything to do with standing up for what is right. I am grateful for the opportunity to make a positive impact on Nashville’s children and will continue to speak up as long as I can make a difference.
Please be informed and go vote!

Here’s more on the article she references from the Nashville Scene and the spending in her race and others.

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


 

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Testing Time Reduced for 2016-17

The Tennessee Department of Education announced yesterday it is reducing the amount of time students will spend testing in the upcoming school year. The release comes shortly after the announcement of a new testing vendor.

Here’s the full release:

Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced significant changes to state assessments today that respond to feedback from educators, parents, and students—including eliminating Part I in all subjects, restructuring the test to better fit within the school day and year, and reducing overall testing time. The changes come as the department finalizes its contract with Questar, the primary vendor for the 2016-17 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP).

“We have learned a tremendous amount from our testing experience this past year, and we want to make the right adjustments to create a positive, balanced culture around testing in Tennessee’s classrooms,” McQueen said. “These adjustments will give educators a greater ability to maximize rich, well-rounded instruction for all our students. We are still working toward the same goal of providing aligned, rigorous assessments to measure what our students know and can do, but now we have a smarter logistical approach and a strong partnership with Questar to achieve this goal.”

Overall, testing time has been reduced by nearly a third. The exact reductions vary by grade. In grades 3-8, students will have tests that are a total of 200-210 minutes shorter. As an example, for a typical third grader, the 2016-17 TCAP assessments will be shorter by three and a half hours compared to last year. In high school, most individual End of Course assessments have been shortened by 40-120 minutes. For a typical eleventh grader, this would mean the 2016-17 TCAP End of Course assessments will be shorter in total by 225 minutes—or three hours and 45 minutes—compared to last year.

One assessment window at the end of the school year

TCAP has been the state’s testing program since 1988, and it includes state assessments in math, English language arts, social studies, and science. As the state has transitioned to higher academic standards in math and English language arts over the past several years, those tests have become better aligned to what educators are teaching. The assessments now include rigorous questions that measure students’ writing, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.

The 2016-17 TCAP will be given in one assessment window at the end of the school year, and the tests for the four subjects have been divided into shorter subparts. This change is in response to feedback from district and school administrators, who expressed some difficulty with fitting the longer sections into the regular school day. The new timing is outlined on the department’s website. These reductions and adjustments reflect Commissioner McQueen’s desire to reduce testing and streamline administration while still providing students with ample opportunity to do their best work. The specific changes to each subject area are included in the department’s fact sheet.

In addition, the 2016-17 social studies test in grades 3-8 will be a field test. Field tests are not reportable and do not factor into students’ grades or educators’ evaluations, and they will provide the department with information to develop an assessment for the 2017-18 school year. There will also be a separate field test for the English and U.S. history writing prompts. One-third to one-half of students will participate in the field test each year on a rotating basis. Based on educator feedback, the department is administering these writing field tests at a separate time to address concerns about students’ stamina to complete two writing prompts during the main testing window.

Tennessee teachers already have significant input in the test development process as they review and approve every TCAP question, including those that will be on the 2016-17 assessment. Starting this fall, Tennessee teachers will also be engaged in developing and writing questions for future TCAP administrations.

Contract finalized with new vendor

As part of today’s announcements, Commissioner McQueen shared that the department has fully executed a two-year contract with Questar, a national leader in large-scale assessments, to administer the 2016-17 TCAP. Questar has experience developing a statewide test on a similar expedited timeframe as well as with administering it at a scale even larger than Tennessee’s.

Last week, the department announced it intended to award the contract to Questar. As part of that announcement, Commissioner McQueen also announced that the department would phase in online testing over the next three years, with a paper option always available for the youngest students. In the 2016-17 school year, all testing in grades 3-8 will be done on paper. High schools will have the option to test online if they and Questar show early readiness for online administration, but districts can choose paper for their high school students if they prefer.

As part of its contract with Questar, the department has made a number of improvements to testing timelines, including working with the vendor to expedite the overall scoring process so the assessment can be administered in one window and ultimately, results can be delivered to schools and families more quickly.

Resources for schools, educators, and families

Following the execution of the contract, the department immediately began to finalize resources to familiarize students, parents, and teachers with the 2016-17 TCAP.

The assessments are designed so that the best test preparation is strong teaching and learning every day. Questions on the 2016-17 test will be similar to those students saw last year. To help students become familiar with the test format in advance, this fall students and teachers will have access to sample test questions. Practice tests will also be available in EdTools, an online platform for educators and district leaders, in August.

The department is also finalizing test blueprints, which map out exactly what standards will be covered on the test, and expects to release these by the end of July. In addition, the department is also working on guides for families and educators, which will be shared with district leaders and on the department website within the month.

To help address questions about today’s announcements and next year’s test, the department has prepared a Q&A document that can be accessed here and will be updated as more details become available.

 

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


 

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MNPS School Board Race Spending

Amanda Haggard has an interesting piece out about the MNPS School Board race and the key players.

She covers groups like Project Renaissance/Nashville RISE and Stand for Children.  And she notes their top targets: Will Pinkston and Amy Frogge (they are less aggressively against Jill Speering).

It turns out, the same donors and backers supporting Renaissance/RISE are also spending to unseat Pinkston and Frogge.

Frogge penned a pieced not long ago about why school board race spending is skyrocketing.

Here’s Haggard on the spending this year:

And then, of course, there’s the money. So far, Druffel has outraised Frogge by $10,000, bringing in almost $37,000 — $20,000 of which came from donors in District 8. Pinkston has secured a little under $70,000, along with endorsements from Mayor Megan Barry and former Gov. Phil Bredesen, for whom Pinkston was a top aide.

Miller has brought in around $90,000, with the largest contributions coming from charter school backers like DeLoache and Trump supporter and English-only backer Lee Beaman. Stand for Children’s O’Donnell says checks are on the way from his organization and mailers have already been sent out in support of its endorsed slate. Additionally, Beacon Center board members other than Beaman have donated the maximum amount in multiple races.

It’s worth noting that Beaman and the Beacon Center are supporters of school vouchers. Likewise, as was noted in an earlier piece on Nashville RISE, the umbrella group Education Cities is backed in part by voucher advocates:

And here’s something interesting about all that: The funders of Education Cities include The Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and The Gates Foundation — the Big Three in corporate education reform.

Perhaps more interesting is the group of partners, including the pro-voucher Fordham Institute.

Early voting begins tomorrow. Stand for Children says it is sending mailers and more money is coming to defeat Pinkston and Frogge (and ostensibly Speering). This in spite of some rather odd reasoning around Stand’s endorsements.

What does all this mean? The next few weeks will likely see the MNPS School Board races turn a bit ugly, as those who want a new agenda spend aggressively to defeat the very incumbents who have brought about mayoral collaboration and the arrival of a much-heralded new Director of Schools.

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


 

 

 

 

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TC Weber, Amy Frogge, and The Tennessean

TC Weber is up with a post today on the Tennessean’s recent endorsements in Nashville’s School Board races.

He provides a thorough rundown of each endorsement, but I want to focus on his comments regarding Amy Frogge and the Tennessean’s decision to not only endorse her opponent but also chastise her for her social media and other behavior.

Here’s what TC had to say:

This brings us to District 9, quite possibly the most egregious of all the endorsements. The Tennessean chose to endorse challenger Thom Druffel over incumbent Amy Frogge. In doing so, they didn’t only endorse Druffel, but utilized this opportunity to take Frogge out to the proverbial woodshed in a manner that runs counter to their call for greater civility among board members and honestly, came off as a personal attack. They wrote, “A passionate parent and attorney, Frogge also has served as a disruptive force unwilling to step outside her box and has shown a pattern of being responsive and respectful only when constituents agree with her. Whether it involves social media behavior like writing acerbic posts and deleting comments that are critical of her, this behavior is not conducive to productive community engagement.”

Hmmm… let’s take a look at some of those posts and you be the judge. There was a piece Frogge wrote on excessive testing that was picked up by the Washington Post, another from The Tennessean about the importance of teacher voice in the national discussion on education, and one that Diane Ravitch picked up on her blog where Frogge discusses discipline issues in a local charter school. The tone throughout these posts is direct, factual, and research-based. The one on discipline caused the most uproar, but tell me, how is that different from the what Secretary of Education John King has been recently saying about discipline practices in charter schools? I guess when the Secretary of Education says it, it’s thought provoking, but coming out of the mouth of an intelligent and vocal woman, it’s being a disruptive force. (emphasis added)

Here, TC nails it. In the same endorsement piece where the Tennessean endorses Will Pinkston in spite of what they claim is his bad behavior on social media, they call out Frogge for being disruptive and endorse her “nice” opponent.

What else did the Tennessean find disruptive? The fact that Frogge advocated to have a woman included among the finalists for MNPS Director of Schools. They claim her push for this inclusion could have derailed the entire process. First of all, there’s little evidence that simply adding a candidate for consideration, even fairly late in the process, would have taken the whole search off track. Second, let’s look at the MNPS directors of the past — all men.

Frogge should be commended for raising the issue. And likewise, when her colleagues pushed to move on without adding a candidate, Frogge didn’t throw a fit or leave the game, she kept on going. She stayed engaged. And she was part of the team that helped bring Shawn Joseph to Nashville. The same Shawn Joseph the Tennessean is excited about having here.

Amy Frogge is a fierce advocate for her schools and constituents and a strong presence on social media. She raises issues that are sometimes uncomfortable but that need to be addressed. As TC intimates, the Tennessean appears to be applying a double standard.

Fortunately, Frogge overcame a significant tidal wave of spending and negativity when she was first elected in 2012 and she’s well-equipped to weather the storm this time.

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


 

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Curlee to Resign

The Tennessean reports that controversial Williamson County School Board member Susan Curlee will resign:

“While it has been an honor to serve our community, I will be resigning from the Williamson County School Board effective August 1 for family & personal reasons,” Curlee, using her personal account, wrote in a post to The Westhaven/West Franklin Conservative Alliance Facebook group.

More on Williamson County Schools:

Just South of Nashville

What’s Going on in Williamson County?

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


 

 

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Will Pinkston Responds

In the District 7 School Board race, Zack posted recently about Jackson Miller’s allegations about negative, personal attacks.

Here’s a response from Will Pinkston:

Regarding Jackson Miller’s attack on me: Apparently, it’s easier for him to point fingers at someone else rather than to take responsibility for his own actions. Since Miller moved from East Nashville to a rental house in 12 South at the last minute to run against me, I’ve been inundated by his former associates with all manner of strange information — everything from his checkered social media behavior as well as his extensive legal problems, including criminal contempt charges and a litany of lawsuits. I have not, until I was attacked, publicly referenced these issues. And I’ve got no interest in dwelling on them.

Bottom line: I’m running on my record. As an aide to Gov. Bredesen, I was part of the team that helped write the policies that made Tennessee the fastest-improving state in the history of the Nation’s Report Card. As a member of the Nashville School Board, I stood up to a bureaucracy that was failing students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers. Now, Nashville’s schools are under new management and we’re moving in the right direction. As a product of MNPS and a public-school parent, I am more optimistic than I’ve ever been about the future of this school system. For the first time in nearly a decade, the Mayor’s Office, the Metro Council, and the school board are rowing in the same direction. And that’s a great thing.

As a 12 South-area resident since 2008, I have seen our neighborhoods change a lot — and as a board member, I was proud to play a role in returning the historic Waverly-Belmont building back to service as an elementary school. I will keep focusing on the positive developments happening in our school system. I will not, as Jackson Miller wants me to do, get drawn into a tit-for-tat. Early voting begins Friday, July 15, and runs thru July 30. Election Day is August 4. I would appreciate your vote and the opportunity to serve Nashville’s students for another four years. Thank you.

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

 

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MNPS Unveils New Pay Scale

WSMV reports that MNPS has unveiled its new teacher pay scale:

Metro Schools has unveiled a new pay scale for teachers, which will show as soon as their next paycheck.
The school district says the pay scale will deliver a “significant pay increase” for many teachers.

According to the old scale, teachers with eight years or less of experience were paid $42,082 and teachers with 10 years of experience were paid $44,536.

With the new pay scale, salaries will range between $42,100 and $44,750 for teachers with under 10 years of experience. Teachers with 10 years of experience will earn $47,000.

Here’s a link to the complete pay scale for certified teachers.

A previous analysis found that MNPS lags behind several similar districts in terms of teacher pay.

The upgraded scale shows that teachers with 10 years of experience are now closer to their peers in similar urban districts. However, teachers at the top end of the scale still lag behind their peers in similar districts. Still, the move marks progress and an important investment in the teachers of MNPS.

More on Teacher Pay:

The Importance of Teacher Pay

The Value Proposition for Teachers

You Can’t Buy Groceries with Gratitude

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


 

 

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Jackson Miller’s Ex-Wife Speaks Out and Endorses Miller

The race for the District 7 school board seat is one of the toughest fought races in Nashville.

It has included the Tennessean saying that Will Pinkston will use his power to “bully, demean and intimidate critics and adversaries” while they also said that Jackson Miller’s “court filings on child support stemming from a messy divorce, and past crass, sometimes hostile tweets” played a role in their endorsement process.

Social media is full of reports on Jackson Miller’s divorce. The screen shots of his divorce proceeding have been happily spread by Miller’s opponents on social media.  

Miller’s campaign has released a video endorsement from Miller’s ex-wife, Sabrina, who is a District 7 resident.

In the video, Sabrina discusses how these attacks have hurt their kids.

View the video and transcript below.

My ex-husband, Jackson Miller, is running for District 7 school board, and my kids are extremely proud of him — and I think they should be. I didn’t really intend to get involved in this race, but what started to happen is that personal and private details of our divorce — things that I don’t think have any bearing on this election — have been publicized and so it’s really impacted my kids. It’s really hurt them.

And so I felt like I needed to say something: and that is that I support Jackson. I think that throughout this campaign, he’s stayed positive and he’s shown the things that he can do and will do for the community, and for the kids, and for the schools. And I think that integrity is what we need in office. I, like many voters, think that how somebody runs their campaign really reflects their character, whether they win or lose.

So when someone decides to drag another person’s family through the mud in order to win, I just question their integrity. I’m a District 7 mom who wants the best for my kids, and I think the best choice here is Jackson.


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


 

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Questar’s Challenge

After missing a self-imposed deadline to select a new testing vendor, the Tennessee Department of Education finally announced Questar as the choice to design and implement TNReady for the 2016-17 school year and beyond.

Questar is tasked with picking up the pieces of the mess left by Measurement Inc’s testing failures last year. There’s plenty of information about the struggle leading up to last year’s debacle, and it’s information Questar may want to study closely.

Questar does have a record of coming in to fix a previous vendor’s mistakes. Most notably, in New York. Interestingly, Questar used questions designed and developed by Pearson (the previous vendor) in the first year of new tests in New York.

This arrangement is not uncommon and in fact, is similar to Measurement Inc’s contract with AIR to provide questions from Utah’s test for TNReady.

However, such an arrangement is not without problems.

Politico reported on challenges last year when Questar took over New York’s testing. Specifically:

An error found in the fifth- through eighth-grade English exam, and one that the state education department already has advised will be in the math exams, hasn’t helped the situation.

The tests directed students to plan their written answers to exam questions on “Planning Pages,” however no planning pages were included in the test booklets, according to a report from the Buffalo News.

Pearson immediately released a statement saying the design error was not its fault and Questar said the tests were still valid and blamed the transition for the error.

It’s the type of blame game that may sound familiar to those who watched this year’s TNReady fiasco.

A blog post from a parent blog in New York describes how the error unfolded. Schools were notified well into the test administration:

The message was sent at 9:09 AM from SED and I saw [it] at 9:30 …when most students are done and have turned in their books…. Even if an administrator is on their email all day (which they aren’t) it is too late to walk around on tests that started at 8:00 to interrupt testing rooms to correct the mistake.

And while Questar gets high marks for its transparency efforts, some see a bit lacking in that department as well:

It is true that the amount of operational test material and the number of items disclosed is more than was given out in each of the prior three years of Pearson’s core-aligned testing. And since 2012, this is the earliest this has happened. [Note: When CTB/McGraw-Hill was the test publisher during the NCLB years, the complete test was accessible to the public on SED’s web site within weeks of its administration, along with answer keys. Item analysis data followed shortly thereafter.]
Upon review of the just-released spring 2016 testing output, however, certain useful data have not been made available. SED has been moved to offer us a translucent view of the exams, but it still is not being entirely transparent.

The bottom line: Questar is walking into quite a mess in Tennessee. It’s something they are surely aware of and something they have experience handling.

Going forward, the question will be how does Questar work with TNDOE to bring transparency and efficacy to a process that lacked both in 2015-16?

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


 

 

 

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Tennessean Endorses in Nashville School Board Race

Today, the Tennessean released their endorsements for the upcoming Nashville school board race. The endorsements bridge the gap between those who are viewed on different sides of the education debate in Nashville. 

The endorsed candidates included both incumbents and challengers. 

Early voting starts July 15 and Election Day is August 4.

District 1: Sharon Gentry:

The first search for a new director under her chairmanship failed to yield a new CEO. However, she showed wisdom, prudence and humility by pivoting and embracing the help of new Mayor Megan Barry and the Nashville Public Education Foundation the second time around to invest in a monthslong community-focused search that led to the hiring of Shawn Joseph in May.

As public officials become more experienced, they should show growth, and Gentry has done so and helped move the board in the right direction.

She deserves another term.

District 3: Jill Speering:

Jill Speering has served on the school board for a term and has made literacy her key priority. Her passion comes through.

An opportunity for growth is to work on ensuring that she is not beholden to the Metro Nashville Education Association and that she can be a voice for all students and parents.

She has occasionally aligned herself with other board members who have taken a hard line on charter school growth in the county. However, she has shown restraint by not engaging in social media verbal sparring and staying focused as an advocate for the educator’s point of view.

District 5: Miranda Christy:

The candidates show passion and a commitment to unifying the board and advocating for children’s interests, but attorney Miranda Christy showed the greatest promise as a future school board member.

Her combination of experiences serving on boards, advocating for quality education and being willing to engage in public discussion clearly and in productive ways make her candidacy stand out.

District 7: Will Pinkston:

Incumbent Will Pinkston brings a profound intellect and sharp political skills to the school board.

His passion for prekindergarten, English language learners and greater funding for schools has helped move the needle on these important issues.

However, this endorsement came reluctantly and painstakingly because of Pinkston’s behavior on social media, where he has used his platform to bully, demean and intimidate critics and adversaries, real or perceived.

The Tennessean expects much more of elected officials, especially those who are advocating for the children of our community.

So do the residents of Nashville, whose children probably would be tossed out of classrooms if they displayed some of the behavior we have seen.

District 9: Thom Druffel:

Aside from extensive business experience, he has been a volunteer in Big Brothers Big Sisters and with the innovative Academies program at Nashville high schools, which gives students vocational training in addition to a liberal arts education.

He also has served on several nonprofit boards, which gives him deep insight into how to operate on a board. His temperament is such that he will show respect and discipline to fellow board members, MNPS staff and the public.

It should be noted that The Tennessean walked through the reasoning behind not endorsing Amy Frogge, the only incumbent in the race not endorsed by the Tennessean.

A passionate parent and attorney, Frogge also has served as a disruptive force unwilling to step outside her box and has shown a pattern of being responsive and respectful only when constituents agree with her.

Whether it involves social media behavior like writing acerbic posts and deleting comments that are critical of her, this behavior is not conducive to productive community engagement.

During the 2015 Project RESET initiative by the Nashville Public Education Foundation to restart the conversation on public education priorities, Frogge refused to review the research regarding proposed improvements to MNPS and questioning the firm The Parthenon Group’s credibility.

By not reviewing the material before leveling the public criticism, she missed an opportunity to show that she was open to being engaged by ideas that might challenge her viewpoint.

During the 2016 MNPS director search, her motion to add a candidate after six finalists had already been interviewed threatened to torpedo the delicate process for a school district reeling from one failed search. One finalist dropped out.

To her credit, she agreed to support the final outcome that led to Shawn Joseph’s hiring.

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