The Data Wars: Herb Strikes Back

Yes, the Data Wars continue. Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) gained new hope recently when 33 members of Nashville’s Metro Council penned a letter supporting resistance to the Achievement School District’s request for student data.

Now, Tennessee’s Attorney General has weighed-in and says the alliance of MNPS and Shelby County must comply with the ASD’s request. What happens if they don’t? Nate Rau notes in the Tennessean:

McQueen’s warning leaves open the possibility the state would dock education dollars from Metro and Shelby schools if they continue to deny her request.

It wouldn’t be the first time for Nashville, as the Haslam administration withheld $3.4 million in state funds in 2012 after the school board refused to approve controversial Great Hearts charter school.

Withholding state BEP funds is a favorite “ultimate weapon,” used in the Great Hearts controversy and also threatened during the TNReady debacle in year one of that test that wasn’t.

During the debate that ultimately saw Nashville schools lose funds in a BEP penalty, Commissioner Kevin Huffman and the Department of Education had an ally in then-Nashville Mayor Karl Dean. Joey Garrison reported in the (now defunct) City Paper at the time:

By this point, Huffman had already facilitated a July 26 meeting to discuss Great Hearts’ next move, a gathering that took place just hours before Great Hearts’ revised application would go before the Metro board for second consideration. The meeting site: the office of Mayor Karl Dean, also a Great Hearts backer. In attendance, among others, were Huffman, Dean, Barbic, Deputy Mayor Greg Hinote, Great Hearts officials Dan Scoggin and Peter Bezanson, and Bill DeLoache, a wealthy Nashville investor and one of the state’s leading charter school proponents.

As Rau points out, the current controversy stems from a newly-passed state law giving charter schools the opportunity to request student data from district schools. It seems, however, that there is some dispute over the intent of that law. Rau explains:

Slatery’s opinion also said that the student data may be used for the ASD to promote its schools to prospective students. State Rep. John Forgety, who chairs a House education committee and supported the legislation, told The Tennessean the intent was not to create a law that allowed districts to market to each other’s students.

So it seems the legislature may need to revisit the issue to clear things up.

Also unclear: Where do the current candidates for Governor stand on protecting student data vs. providing marketing information to competing districts and schools?

Stay tuned for more. Will the Shelby-MNPS alliance continue their resistance? Will Commissioner McQueen unleash the power of BEP fund withholding? Will this issue end up in court?

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


 

Metro Council Members Back MNPS in Data Wars

I’ve written before about the escalating Data Wars between the state’s Achievement School District (ASD) and the two largest school districts – Shelby County and MNPS.

Now, Nashville’s Metro Council is weighing-in, at least in the form of a letter signed by 33 Council Members to MNPS Board Chair Anna Shepard.

The Tennessean notes:

The 33 Nashville Metro Council members signed a letter, dated Tuesday, that commends the district for “taking steps to protect the personal information of students and families.”

“We understand the state has taken a confrontational position on this issue, seeking to compel Nashville and Memphis schools to continue sharing personal information in opposition to federal and without state statute supporting their position,” the letter reads. “However, as elected representatives of the same constituents whose privacy rights are being violated, we encourage you to continue to advocate for our families by the just and proper means that are available to you.”

As I’ve noted before, Commissioner McQueen has asked for an Attorney General’s opinion on the various interpretations of a new state law that some suggest mandates the data-sharing the ASD seeks.

What happens if MNPS doesn’t share the data? There’s always the possibility the state will punish them by withholding some BEP funds.

That happened back in 2012 over the Great Hearts controversy. Those who follow MNPS closely will recall that then-Mayor Karl Dean was a prime backer of Great Hearts, which put him at odds with the elected School Board at that time.

As Joey Garrison, writing for the City Paper at the time, reported:

Emails show DeLoache, long known as an unofficial education adviser to Dean, served as a resource for Huffman, as well. After the Metro board denied Great Hearts in May, DeLoache told Huffman he hoped its rejection might “provide an opportunity to highlight to the Governor” the need to push for a statewide charter school authorizer during the 2013 legislative session. (A statewide charter authorizer would effectively supersede and therefore negate authority of local charter authorizers such as Metro.)

That’s Bill DeLoache, the wealthy Nashville investor and charter proponent who has spent heavily in the past to help elect pro-charter candidates to the MNPS School Board.

Will MNPS and Shelby County Schools face fines if they continue on their current path of protecting student data from the ASD? Will more Metro leaders stand up and support the School Board?

The Data Wars continue.

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


 

The Great Heart of KIPP: The State Board and Charter Authorizing

The Tennessee State Board of Education today used authority granted to it by the General Assembly in 2014 to approve two KIPP charter schools that had previously been rejected by the MNPS Board of Education.

The decision means the State Board has decided which schools will be opened and funded by MNPS rather than that decision being left to the elected School Board.

The authority was given to the State Board because of the Great Hearts Controversy.

Back in 2012, MNPS rejected an application filed by Great Hearts to open a charter school. The State Board heard an appeal from Great Hearts and sent the issue back to the MNPS Board, recommending approval. MNPS refused. Then-education commissioner Kevin Huffman fined MNPS $3.4 million.

And legislators, ever eager to micro-manage public education to the point of absurdity, filed legislation.

As John noted at the time, a significant part of the legislation is:

This might actually be a better financial deal for charter schools.  Under this legislation, a charter school authorized by the state would get the full state, local, and federal share of per-pupil dollars, plus a “local match” from the LEA for capital outlay.  The latter portion, especially, may be a change from how things currently work when charters are authorized by an LEA.

Specifically:

(d) Funding for charter schools authorized by the state board shall be in accordance with § 49-13-112, except that the LEA in which the charter school operates shall pay to the department one hundred percent (100%) of the per student share of local funding and any federal funding in the custody of the LEA that is due to the charter school.  The department shall withhold from the LEA the per student share of state funding that is due to the charter school as well as any federal funding in the custody of the department that is due to the charter school.  The department shall then allocate and disburse these funds to the charter school in accordance with procedures developed by the department.

It will be interesting to see how MNPS reacts to this course of action. The State Board has authorized the expenditure of Nashville tax dollars in a very specific manner, directing that those funds go to support the opening and operation of two KIPP charter schools.

It’s not like MNPS is averse to charter schools. Many charter schools operate in the district and the Board did approve some charter applications this year.

In fact, in 2014, the Board signed off on a plan to give KIPP an elementary school. As Dr. Register proceeded, this action actually led to the formation of East Nashville United.

At that time, the focus of the possible takeover was Inglewood Elementary. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia even visited the school to build support for preventing a KIPP takeover there.

Ultimately, KIPP won the right to takeover Kirkpatrick Elementary.

All of this to say: The majority of the MNPS Board has not demonstrated a bias against charter schools or even KIPP.

Some, including Board Member Will Pinkston, have argued for smart growth when it comes to charters. Pinkston noted:

The school board took a fiscally conservative position. With 8,157 seats currently in the charter pipeline — including more than 1,000 yet-to-be-filed seats belonging to KIPP — that’s a total future annual cash outlay of $77.5 million.

What KIPP wants to do — expand the pipeline to more than 9,000 seats — would take our future annual cash outlays up to $85.5 million. None of this includes the $73 million in annual cash outlays for charter seats that already exist.

Pinkton’s argument and other analysis suggesting that charter schools do place a burden on the MNPS budget prompted Board Member Mary Pierce to respond with a straw man argument about the cost of closing all current metro charter schools.

The fact is, MNPS hasn’t been in the business of closing charter schools — they’ve been approving new charter applications nearly every year and have many more charter seats opening. It seems likely that the KIPP charter schools approved by the State Board today would have ultimately won MNPS Board approval.  But today, the State Board of Education decided they knew better than Nashville’s School Board when and how many charter schools should be opened in Nashville. They also obligated funds, including local funds, to the opening and operation of these schools.

One final note: The State Board now is accountable for the oversight and monitoring of the two KIPP schools it approved in Nashville:

Except as provided in subdivision (b)(3), oversight and monitoring of
charter schools authorized by the state board of education shall be performed by the state board. As requested, the department of education shall assist the state board with general oversight of any charter school authorized by the state board. (Public Chapter 850, 2014).

What happens next? Stay tuned…

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

Texas State BOE Rejects Great Hearts in Dallas

By a vote of 9-6, the Texas State Board of Education rejected an application by Great Hearts to open four schools in the Dallas area.

It’s not clear why the Board rejected the application, as the Board has a reputation for approving Charter Schools.

Of course, the Great Hearts Controversy in Nashville prompted legislation this year to create a state charter authorizer.  That legislation failed to pass due to some last-minute problems between the House and Senate, but it is certain to come up again.

Jay Steele Talks to TNEdReport

A few weeks ago, the writers behind TNEdReport met in a conference room to interview Dr. Jay Steele, the Chief Academic Officer for MNPS. We had a great conversation full of charter schools, budgeting, and the question we all want an answer to: Is Jay Steele being groomed to be the next Director of Schools?

Note: The interview is longer than we usually post, but it is full of information on the future of MNPS, so we have tried to leave almost everything in. We have, however, edited the transcript for length and clarity.  Finally, two other folks appear in the transcript occasionally: Meredith Libbey, Special Assistant to the Director of Schools (and part of the MNPS Communications team) and Joe Bass, a communications specialist and web guru, who is also part of the MNPS Communications team.

Q: When you look at Metro schools, you see a really high proportion of free and reduced price lunch students, and when you look at the rest of the demographics in Nashville, we have a large population of private school students. What jumps to my mind is that there are a lot of middle class families that are thinking about Metro and who would like to put their kids in Metro; in fact you see a fair proportion of them put their kids in elementary school. But then, on the front end–even before elementary school–and then definitely once you get into middle school and high school, you see those numbers start to drop out. They fade out and they go to private school, or they go to Sumner County, or they go to Williamson County, whatever.  It’s not a massive tidal wave, but it’s demonstrable…

Steele: It’s real.

Q: It’s a real thing. One of MNPS’ slogans is, “We want to be the first choice for every family.” Understandably, a lot of our efforts are going to be focused on taking care of kids in poverty, and the kids near poverty, and making sure that they get an excellent education. Part of doing that is getting people back invested in the schools, because research has shown that if you have a socioeconomically isolated school where you have massive numbers of kids in poverty, just throwing resources at it is not a complete solution.

Steele: I do agree — there is a big perception, that is a real perception, and that has shown up in some of the research that outside parties have done, even at Vanderbilt University: why parents exit the system and where those drop-offs are.  And I recently shared that in a middle school presentation; School Board Member Amy Frogge asked Dr. Register and I to speak to West End/Hillsboro cluster middle schools.  And so it is a real — it is a real perception problem.  And one of the things that came out of that research, that Vanderbilt study, was that a lot of parents who are making decisions about middle school or high school have never been in those schools.  So, it’s really on hearsay; it’s really on — um — maybe some data that does show some low achievement in certain schools, and so that is a focus that we’re working on.

So, my transition happened in February; so, I’ve only been responsible for high schools up until February 1st. Now I’m responsible [in] K-12 specifically for Middle and High.  So we are working on a complete marketing outreach plan that is being developed for middle school.  We have one in the high school levels: the Academies of Nashville. The whole branding process and the “I Can” statements from our students, the bus wraps; I mean, we’ve done it all — commercials, everything at the high school level, to get the word out about what’s happening in these schools.

But the middle schools, we’re just starting that process now.  So, we do have a strategic action plan for middle schools; I brought it with me [showing binders].  There’s several in here; I don’t want you to think it’s a hundred pages.  It’s about 25 pages for middle school.  That was developed through a SWOT analysis with principals, parents, and students, and district central office people.  We worked on that since February, and it was released to principals in July, all the principals.  And around that plan, we’re looking at how we’re completely restructuring the middle schools, to mirror what’s happening in the high schools.  On a different — not really using themes, but using teams and teaming, using student leadership; also looking at high academics.

Now, you made a reference to the parents, that we’ve got to bring up those low-achieving students, the students in poverty, we’ve got to offer them the opportunity, but we cannot forget the students who are high performing, and the students who don’t come from poverty.  And so every middle school has to offer an enriched curriculum or an accelerated; that’s what a lot of the parents who are leaving the system want.  They want the rigor; they want to make sure it’s a safe environment; they want to make sure it’s a rigorous environment. So, that’s one of the things that we’re working with the middle schools on, is offering high school credit courses in every single middle school, offering them the opportunity for virtual courses — if they need to accelerate, they can do it no matter what school they’re in, what part of town they live in, if they have access; and we can give them access through laptops — check-outing of laptops from the library.  So, our virtual school has expanded those opportunities.  And, looking at every middle school offering high school credit courses.

So, the whole strategic plan is focused on personalized learning.  No matter what part of the county you’re in, what school you’re in, that is the opportunity for that school to personalize the experience for that child.  And that is through project-based learning, virtual education, accelerated courses; or, it could be for interventions for those kids who need it.

One of the big changes we did in middle schools this year was — in the past, middle schools required every student take an intervention period, whether you needed it or not. Well, that sent the wrong message to parents. So, we did away with that this year.  Interventions should be fluid and based on the mastery of a standard.  So, and if I’ve mastered that standard, I need enrichment, I don’t need intervention for my child, or for me personally.  But, I might get to a standard that I couldn’t master, and I need intervention for a two or three week period.  So the interventions now are fluid in the middle schools, based on a child’s need, not based on adults prescribing that every student needs that.

Another thing in middle school that we’re really hoping will attract students and parents back into the system is, every child engaged, whether it’s in athletics, clubs, or Music Makes Us, or fine arts.  That’s been a big push this year in the middle schools, is to bring back all of the traditional music programs such as band and choir, and in some cases orchestra, but also infuse the, uh — we call that the “legacy” programs, not “traditional,” sorry — and the, um, — I forget what we called it — the non-traditional programs such as mariachi, world percussion, hip-hop, rock, country/bluegrass.  Those — and bring in real artists from the community — we’re able to employ those people for two periods to really come in and teach that specialty.  That is really taking off at several of our middle schools.

So, we’re really trying to personalize that experience, bring the enrichment in through the arts and the clubs, but the goal is that every middle school student belongs.  So, if you’re looking at that K-12 continuum, and we do see that dropoff at elementary going into, transitioning into middle.  It is fearful for a parent to send their baby in the fifth grade, to a middle school that might be around a 13 year old eighth grader, so that’s why we’ve divided the middle schools into teams.  So there might be a — two fifth grade teams, depending on the size of that school.  They are sheltered in a different part of the building, and they do not mix with the older students except on the bus coming and going to school, and they carry those elementary practices, such as the responsive classroom, morning meetings, all of that with them — and they start that transition into sixth, into seventh, and by the eighth grade, they’re transitioning into a high school schedule.

Q. Kind of like the idea with 9th grade academies…

Steele: Absolutely, and that’s one of the things — we’re moving that 9th grade approach down to the 8th grade. So, starting in January our middle school students will take a High School 101 course and it will be taught through Blackboard, online, for every kid during their advisor/advisee time — what’s a GPA? What are the high school academies?  What’s International Baccalaureate?  What’s AP mean?  What’s the importance of a GPA?  So that’ll roll out to every eighth grader in the district starting in January, to help them make better choices.

Q. You touched on perception, and you talked about how Metro is putting together these marketing and outreach plans.  A lot of what you’ve described are internal changes — middle school structure, offerings, more extracurriculars, personalized learning, and that kind of stuff.  What is the companion — I guess for lack of a better term — the marketing piece of that?  For example: love ‘em or hate ‘em, charter schools are great at marketing themselves.  They get branding companies to work with them. If there’s a lack of perception that our schools are where we should be — that middle class parents should be putting their kids in these schools — how does MNPS address that?

Steele:  I’m glad you asked that question because that’s one of my fortes, one of the things I’m very passionate about: outreach and marketing.  And for some reason in public education some community members feel that we’re wasting taxpayer money when we develop marketing plans. We have to compete. It’s a mindset change of principals and public school districts. You are competing with charters. You are competing with private schools and virtual schools and home school. And with school choice, you are competing with each other. You want your school, as a principal, you want your school to be branded the best school in the district and very attractive for parents to put their kids in. So I firmly believe in that.

Now, I don’t firmly believe in just throwing money at something that’s bad. I mean there has to be something to market. There has to be a change. That’s why those action plans that I told you about, the whole strategic plan of high school, the strategic plan of middle school, the district strategic plan.  Those are all pieces in there that are completely transforming the experience kids are having in those schools. We do have to market to get that word out. We do work with a branding company a branding firm called DK Brand Strategy. The Nashville Chamber helped us find her. And we are working with her in the high schools now for three years. She’s working with the middle schools now. She’s working with Music Makes Us. Because there are great things that are happening in this district that we have to get the word out.

We’ve created “brand promises” that are internal promises at the high school and middle school level that drive our decision making. And those brand promises really solidify to the staff and the leadership of the middle school or the high school tiers that our decisions have to be focused on this brand. We have to deliver this product that we’re promising. And we use kids to form those brand promises in their language. That then drives how we market what’s happening in those schools. For example, part of the brand promise at the high school is I belong to an innovative community where I’m engaged … so what does that actually mean? What’s innovation? What’s a community mean? So it’s that family atmosphere in a kid’s language, what does that mean? I belong to a team of people who are all in a sport or in a club or part of the academy or on a team in middle school.  So it’s about belonging. But it is getting the message out. Because if we let other people define who we are, they will do that.

Unfortunately, that’s what’s been happening with negative perception. People are defining what they don’t know. So as part of those outreach plans–the First Choice festival is a part of that–tours of the schools, inviting parents in on those Tuesday tours.  We’ve done VIP tours in every high school over the past two years where elected officials–local, state, and national–,ministers in the community, business leaders have come in. We’ve done Realtor tours. Because we know that as families move to this district, sometimes realtors steer them away from certain neighborhoods.  I’m a prime example. I was steered to Green Hills. I said I want to live downtown. They said, this is downtown. Green Hills is downtown. I said, no, this is not downtown. I was never shown East Nashville. So, I live in East Nashville now, that’s the community I want to live in. So, there’s a perception problem that we have to address and I think the branding is key and the marketing or outreach is key.

Q: Say you’ve got a parent who’s happy in their middle school and whose child is zoned to, for example, Stratford High School. The parent looks at the average ACT score at Stratford and says, “There’s no way, I can’t put my kid there.” How do you address that? How do you stop those parents from leaving or allay that fear? I mean, let’s say I’m a parent, and I go meet with Michael Steele and I say look, we live over here and I want to put my kid in the school just a few miles down the road, but I see the ACT scores at Stratford and don’t think I can put my child there. What’s the answer to that?

Steele: They need to go see it. I completely agree and understand that perception or that fear. I encourage those parents to go in Stratford. Vanderbilt University Center for Science Outreach — PhD professors are teaching kids in the STEM courses in the academy of science and engineering. If parents would go and sit in one of those classes and see, this is the fourth year that’s happening. Those kids are now seniors. The shifts are starting to happen there. But they are not going to happen until more families come in and take that. It is taking a chance, I understand that. But, the level of instruction from Vanderbilt professors along side Stratford teachers, you are not going to find that anywhere else. It’s only offered in two high schools in the district.

If you drill down in the data, if you look just at the overall average ACT scores it doesn’t paint the picture that is happening. If you get your kid in the right program, lets say you are in the Vanderbilt program. Their average ACT rate is much higher. Now it’s not going to reflect in the school overall ACT rate. I think in any school, if a child wants the higher level courses, advanced placement, international baccalaureate, or the new one: Cambridge advanced international certificate of education. You are going to find those in every single school and you are going to be able to get that high level college prep education. But it is a leap of faith for some groups of parents, especially in the East Nashville area. If they continue as a cohort through those schools, they will change that school. They will change the outcomes of achievement in those schools.

I firmly believe that kids rise to the level of expectation. At Stratford and other schools, at the high school level, we have raised those expectations to a very high level and they are continuing to rise. I know when I first came here, I met with the team at Stratford. My first month on the job and I was shocked at what I saw. But, after getting the right people in place and addressing the expectation then that’s when I see the change happening. The change in culture in a place like Stratford has been phenomenal. It has been night and day from what it was four years ago. The achievement is rising.

Is it rising fast enough? No. I mean, I wont be happy until every kid is at that 100% and we know that is a long stretch in an urban district. But, the expectation is there now, and kids are rising to that level of expectation in all of our high schools. If you look, and I will use the high schools, because I have been working with them the most in the last four years. It will be four years December 1st that I have been here. Last night at the board meeting, the performance data was shared on all the schools with three year trends. All of the High School either maintained their status or rose. There’s only one high school that’s in the red, which is the bottom. And they were one and half points away from moving up to the next level and that was Pearl Cohn. I have a new principal at Pearl Cohn in her second year who will turn that school. She is one of the best I have ever seen in the country. But I am proud that the high schools are on the trajectory. That’s why Dr. Register, I think, has placed me in this position, I need to replicate that now with the middle school principals. And the whole branding and restricting plan for middle schools is the first step in that. It will get there. It can’t happen fast enough for parents.

Meredith Libbey: Do you want to talk about East at all?

Steele: East [Magnet High School] is about to announce a 100% graduation rate. The only high school in the district to hit that above MLK and Hume Fogg. It was part of the data last night that shared, but nobody picked it up yet.  Lockeland Elementary — one of the highest performing — that was in the paper today, in the Tennessean. I read it this morning.

Q: Since you bring up Lockeland, let’s talk about Lockeland as sort of a microcosm for some things that are happening in the district. My question was going to be, “What did the district learn from Great Hearts” but…

Steele: I wasn’t involved in that.

Q: It wasn’t going to be, “Tell me about charter schools.” The question was more along the lines of: one of the things I took from the Great Hearts mess was that there was a group of parents and families in the Green Hills area that wanted another school like Julia Green or Percy Priest or Lockeland. That same demand is in East Nashville. It’s certainly in Green Hills. How does the district manage that?

Libbey: I’m going to jump in and say that’s not a Chief Academic Officer discussion.

Q: What’s that?

Libbey: That’s really a Board level and Director level. I mean, because this is way past the academic program. It’s into zoning and there is a whole lot of other issues there. So, a great question but I don’t know if it’s a question for him.

Q: Charters are going to be $62.2 million next year under the budget. How is that affecting the planning going forward for Metro?

Steele: Well, here’s my only piece of the budgeting. I don’t deal with that piece of the budget. I can speak of budget autonomy, and how we are moving to that. But I can’t speak of funding going to charter schools. That’s at a board level and Dr. Register level. But the whole budget autonomy piece: I do believe in school based budgeting and next year all high school and middle schools, and a few of the elementaries that are led by lead principals, elevated principal status, will have school based budgeting autonomy. We are starting that training at the next principal meeting in November. They will be completely in charge of their budgets this spring for next year. Completely support that. There is a three year plan that will phase all schools in to that. But middle and high schools I am completely comfortable with them going 100% school based budgeting next year.  Student based budgeting, which I also firmly believe in and want to get to, is going to follow that. Within three years, it will be school based and student based budgeting. That’s a little more, it’s going to take some time to develop that. Putting weights on kids in poverty, maybe putting higher weights on EL students. I am from Florida and we had that in Florida. That’s how we did our budgets there. I didn’t know any other way to do budgeting. I am very pleased the district is moving towards that. I firmly believe in school based autonomy, school based budgeting, and student based budgeting.

Q: Some charter advocates will say that we have persistently low performing schools and that Metro has had years, that it has known about this problem over two different superintendents for sure. The question is, why should someone choose a Metro school? For example, say we have a persistently low performing school — one example someone gave to me the other day was the principal turnover in the past five years at Bailey Middle School. Why would I choose that school if there is a charter option available? Why should I give  you a chance? That problem may get fixed by the time my child gets out of middle school, but…

Steele: Sure. I understand that. I am actually a charter school principal. So I understand both sides. I spent five years as a charter school principal in Florida. And I worked in traditionally zoned schools and charters schools and both post secondary and secondary. That is an issue. And you saw pieces of it last night in the school board discussion. We are not on level playing fields, I will say that. That is controversial for some people to even say that. As a charter school principal, I was allowed to take students. I was also allowed to dismiss students.

But I do know that as those things happen in a zoned school, I get who comes to me. I don’t have the option of, you misbehaved, you’re are being dismissed from this school. Or, you have missed so many days, you are not coming back to this school. So the playing field is not level there. But that is no excuse. That is why this is important to me.

Closing the achievement gap, no excuses, that is the philosophy that we are using. There are no excuses for that achievement gap. There are no excuses for those kids who are in the schools that are remaining in the red for three years in trend data. Charter or traditional or magnet school. That doesn’t matter. What we haven’t done a good enough job is, as leadership of zoned schools, is pulling that trigger. That’s bad — that’s a bad analogy. Making changes in leadership based on data when it needs to happen.

Now if you look at the high schools, I have had no problem doing that. I am very pleased. It took me three years to get to this fourth year where I am comfortable in every single principal in the high schools. I trust them. They are top notch. They are doing incredible jobs. But I can honestly say there might be some, we haven’t traditionally used that data. It hasn’t been available to us, really, until now. This is our first three year trend data. We will be using that data to make decision about leadership in the buildings. I can assure everyone in the district that we will do that. Brenda Steele, the elementary associate and I, at eight o’clock this morning sat down and had that conversation. We’ve scheduled a meeting in November for all of the executive lead principals to come together with that data and start making those notifications. I do firmly believe that every principal has strengths. They might be in the wrong position. They might be in the wrong school. So we have to identify those strengths and get those people lined up for where their strengths are going to be highlighted or used the most. It might not be in the school they are in. It might not be as a principal. It might be as an assistant principal or another kind of leader. But I’m not scared to make those decisions. I think parents in the community expect that. Dr. Register and the school board, obviously last night, they expect it. And we will be making some of those tough decisions based on that data.

Q: How do you get someone to stay at a school that is really hard to turn around? Bailey Middle School is what comes to mind because someone mentioned it to me the other day. If it’s going to take two or three or four years to get that school fixed, you might have a principal think, “I don’t want to be here; it’s tougher than I thought.” How do you get a principal to stay?

Steele: I do also believe that it takes a minimum of three years to turn a school. If you haven’t turned it in three years… I’ll use the principal at Pearl Cohn as an example. Sonya Stuart is a phenomenal lady. Incredible instructional leader. She told me when I hired her, “If I can’t turn it around in three years, Jay, fire me.” She said, “I’ll resign.” And um, that was her language. I trust her.

Number one, you gotta put the leader in there that you trust that has the skills. I think in some of the instances in some of the low performing schools, there are some incentives. Monetary incentives. But it’s not all about money. It’s also about school autonomy with your resources and your budget. Your staffing. Number one for me as a principal would be staffing. I don’t want to be given a staff. So one of the major things we did this year, that I have been doing in high school for four years, but elementary and middle have not been doing it, is letting the principal choose their own assistant principal. That’s big. So this year, we said every, we are not telling anybody who to hire. Principals choose their own assistant principal and their leadership team. But they will be held accountable for it, if it works, great. If not, you are held accountable for it. So the expectations are different now.

Human capital has been working very hard on getting the highest quality teachers and getting a large candidate pool for the principal’s to choose from. So people are not required to take displaced teachers. Sometimes, displaced teachers gets a negative image, sometimes. They are not all bad teachers that are being transferred. Or some people want to transfer. There might have been a program closing. So principal choosing their own staff. Choosing their own leadership team. Having autonomy in the building. That’s an incentive, I think, that could keep people at those schools. Along with the monetary. I firmly believe that if you are going into a low performing school, it is going to consume your life for the next three years to turn that school around. We have to reward those people.

Q: Are you being groomed to be the next superintendent?

[several people speaking at once]

Libbey: He is not.

Q: That’s fine.

Libbey: We hear that conversation out in the community.

Q: That’s why we’re asking.

Bass: The Board hires the superintendent.

Libbey: The Board hires the superintendent and we also heard that if there is ever a sense among the board that there is an inside pick, that person can walk ….. They want to make the choice.

Steele: Meredith is exactly right. The Board makes the choice. I am not focusing on that. My job right now is huge. I’ve got an incredible team around me. They are brilliant people who are working hard. I trust them. I listen to them. It’s a give and take everyday. Pushing back, challenging. So, that to me is my focus right now. I shared with someone yesterday: I do want, it would be incredible to be the leader of this district, the highest performing urban district in the next five years. But, I want to be on the team. Whether it’s Chief Academic Officer or Associate Superintendent or the Director of schools. Being part of this incredible transformation is what I want to be. I don’t want to be anywhere else then the middle of this. The Board determines who leads that. But no, Dr. Register is not grooming me. There’s too much to do to even think about that right now. But I do hear that. That’s unfortunate, that makes me a target for people. That’s not anywhere close to what we are talking about.

Q: Are you looking at what high achieving charter schools are doing to see what you can do inside zoned schools?

Steele: Absolutely. I’ll give you an example of that. STEM Prep — Dr. Kristin McGraner — I think she is phenomenal and I have been in her school twice now. I took a group of middle school and high school principals from the STEM cluster – at Stratford and Litton — in to STEM Prep last spring to see the practices in that school. Kristin and I work very close. I brought her into the principal meeting. She met with all the principals of the middle and high school level. She presented her data, mastery tacking forms, and her philosophy on that. That was in the late spring, early summer. Many of the schools now have adopted that model and I am encouraging them to take their faculty leaders in to see what’s happening at STEM Prep.

I’ve been invited to come into one more — I won’t name it, I haven’t scheduled it yet — but I will be going in in early November to see that other school. I firmly believe we can learn from each other. Actually, Kristin from STEM prep as reached out to me about her plans to open a high school. Can we work together and help her? I have met with Todd Dickson, from Valor Collegiate, and his model of his school matches closely with the academy model at the high school level. So we’ve been working together. I just met with Justin Testerman Friday morning.

I think we can learn from each other, if the conversation is cordial and open to learning from each other. The personal attacks on Twitter and all that stuff needs to stop. It doesn’t need to become personal. It is about the achievement of every kid whether they are in charter or in a zoned or magnet or non-traditional school. Again it goes back to personalized learning. That is the lever of change that we believe will transform this district.

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


 

The Life of an Adjective or The Many Faces of Great Hearts

Following yesterday’s House Education Subcommittee meeting covering HB 0702/SB 0830, which creates a state-level charter school authorizer, most news outlets related this particular piece of legislation to the rejected application of Great Hearts Academies in their desire to open five charter schools in Nashville.  We did too.  It got me thinking about the nomenclature, having referred to the Great Hearts story more than once myself.  Without further ado, a working list (the first two are me):

There’s a dissertation here somewhere, I’m sure of it.

State Charter School Authorizer Bill Filed

It’s here.  As many (including myself) have predicted in the wake of the Great Hearts fallout in Nashville, Tennessee Republicans have filed legislation to give the state Board of Education the power to authorize (i.e., create) charter schools in Tennessee.  An amendment that rewrites HB 0702/SB 0830, heretofore an innocuous bill that increased the time to appeal an adverse charter decision from 10 days to 20 days, will be introduced tomorrow.  This caption bill has now been replaced by a bill that does quite a bit more.

The full text of the amendment can be found here.  The pertinent parts are reproduced and discussed below.

(1) The state Board of Education can now directly grant charter schools.

SECTION 1.  Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-13-104, is amended by deleting subdivision (4) in its entirety and substituting instead:

(4) “Chartering authority” means:

(A) The local board of education or the achievement school district as defined in § 49-1-614 that approves, renews or decides to to revoke a public charter school application or agreement; or

(B) The state board of education, if the state board approves:

(i) A charter school under § 49-13-141 when an LEA is the sponsor of a charter school; or

(ii) A charter school directly under § 49-13-109.

(2) There is no appeal of the State Board’s decision, if application is made directly to the State Board in the first instance.

SECTION 4.  Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-13-110(b), is amended by deleting the punctuation “.” at the end of the second sentence and substituting instead the following language:

; provided, that if the chartering authority is the state board of education, then no appeal may be made of the state board’s decision to deny a petition to amend the charter

(3) A charter submitting a renewal application can apply either to the LEA that originally authorized it OR to the State Board.  If the application is made to the state Board, there is no appeal.

SECTION 8.  Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-13-121(b), is amended by designating the existing language as subdivision (1) and by adding the following language as new subdivision (2):

(2) If the state board of education is the chartering authority of a charter school, the school may submit its renewal application to either the LEA or the state board.  If the school submits its renewal application to the state board, then the decision of the state board on the application is final and may not be appealed.

(4) Charters denied renewal or fighting revocation have ten days to appeal the decision to the state Board, except in certain cases.

SECTION 10.  Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-13-122(c), is amended by deleting the subsection in its entirety and by substituting instead the following:

(c)

(1) If the chartering authority is an LEA, a decision by the LEA not to renew or revoke a charter agreement may be appealed to the state board of education within ten (10) days of the decision, except for revocations or failures to renew based on the violations specified in subdivision (a)(2).  Appeals from revocations or decisions not to renew a charter agreement shall be in accordance with § 49-13-108.

(2) If the chartering authority is not an LEA, a decision by the chartering authority not to renew or revoke a charter agreement is final and may not be appealed.

(5)  This is the big one: This only applies to Nashville (and maybe Memphis*).

SECTION 11.  Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 49, Chapter 13, is amended by adding the following language as a new section:

49-13-109.

(a) If an LEA is located in a county having a population of more than six hundred thousand (600,000) according to the 2010 federal census or any subsequent federal census and if there have been two (2) or more denials of charter school applications remanded to the LEA by the state board of education with instructions for approval pursuant to § 49-13-108, then a charter school sponsor may apply directly to the state board for approval, and, if approved, the state board shall serve as the chartering authority.  The state board’s decision to approve or deny an application under this subsection shall be final and not subject to appeal.

(b) The department of education shall assist the state board with general oversight of any charter school authorized by the state board, including assisting with monitoring compliance with § 49-13-111 and the school’s adherence to the charter agreement.

(c) For accountability purposes under § 49-1-602, except for schools authorized under § 49-13-141, the performance of a charter school authorized by the state board shall not be attributable to the LEA.

(d) Funding for charter schools authorized by the state board shall be in accordance with § 49-13-112, except that the LEA in which the charter school operates shall pay to the department one hundred percent (100%) of the per student share of local funding and any federal funding in the custody of the LEA that is due to the charter school.  The department shall withhold from the LEA the per student share of state funding that is due to the charter school as well as any federal funding in the custody of the department that is due to the charter school.  The department shall then allocate and disburse these funds to the charter school in accordance with procedures developed by the department.

(e) The department shall determine the amount of the state BEP non-classroom component for capital outlay to be distributed to a charter school authorized by the state board according to § 49-13-112(c).  The LEA shall pay to the department the required local match under the BEP for capital outlay as a non-classroom component for distribution to the charter school.

(f) A charter school authorized by the state board may contract with the LEA in which the school operate for school support services or student support services, including, but not limited to, food services and transportation.

A few things to note:

  • This is the political compromise I alluded to before.  There was a potential for a split in the Tennessee Republican Party between rural and urban Republicans, especially over an issue like local control.  This legislation is crafted so that rural Republicans can vote for it, without worrying that it will affect their districts.  Again, most rural Republicans (and urban ones, for that matter), have no problem “putting Nashville (or Memphis) in its place,” when they feel it’s warranted.
  • There’s a bit of a hidden hammer: While Nashville (and Memphis?) are the only places that currently qualify, other large cities (Knoxville, Chattanooga) could potentially qualify if they establish themselves as non-compliant when it comes to authorizing charter schools.  All it takes is the requisite population, and two charter school denials that are overturned by the State Board, and you qualify for state authorization in your city.  (Note: Knox County only stands at about 440,000 residents, and Hamilton County at 340,000 so there’s quite a ways to go for both of them to qualify.  This is pretty squarely aimed at Nashville, but there’s nothing to say the General Assembly couldn’t drop the population threshold either this year or in coming years).  Either way, having one of the qualifications for state chartering authority be that an LEA has twice denied schools, but been overturned by the state, is a none-too-subtle reminder not to deny applications lightly, or at all.
  • This might actually be a better financial deal for charter schools.  Under this legislation, a charter school authorized by the state would get the full state, local, and federal share of per-pupil dollars, plus a “local match” from the LEA for capital outlay.  The latter portion, especially, may be a change from how things currently work when charters are authorized by an LEA.
  • The performance of state-authorized charters will not count for or against the LEA.  This one’s pretty straightforward, and is likely to make it into the final legislation, on pure fairness grounds.
  • There are a fair number of incentives for new charters to go the state route.  Including the possible funding advantage discussed above, state-authorized charters would have a much smaller bureaucracy to contend with, and likely a set of administrators more ideologically inclined to support charter schooling.  The fact that this legislation permits existing charters seeking renewal to switch over to state authorization further confirms that the state appears to be actively seeking to charter schools, not just as a fallback for an inefficient or contentious local process.

* I can’t say for sure that this applies to Memphis, because I don’t know if MCS/SCS has had two charter denials go up on appeal and get reversed.  Memphis certainly qualifies in terms of population.

A Conservative Remedy to the Great Hearts Mess

In the wake of the Great Hearts mess in Nashville, there has been much discussion of a statewide charter authorizer.  The Tennessee Charter Schools Association, the Tennessee Charter School Incubator, and the powerful lobbying group StudentsFirst, led by Michelle Rhee, are on the record supporting a statewide authorizer.

The political question has been, however, whether rural Republicans would support such an entity, given that it would supplant local control with an appointed, statewide body.  It looks like this split between urban and rural Republicans might be real.  Speaker Harwell (R-Nashville), for instance, looks like she would support such a measure.  Just within the last few days, however, Rep. John Forgety (R-Athens) has filed a bill (HB 0446) that would change the existing charter appeal law.  This could well be taken as a signal that some part of the Republican caucus (or perhaps just Rep. Forgety — there doesn’t yet seem to be a Senate sponsor) would rather just fix the existing law than create a new statewide authorizer.  Here’s the pertinent text:

(D) Either the local board of education or the sponsor proposing the charter school application may appeal the final decision of the state board of education within thirty (30) days of its entry to the chancery court in the judicial circuit in which the local board of education is located. The review of the court shall be de novo on the record and shall be undertaken in accordance with the procedures governing common law writs of certiorari.

Does this foreshadow a split in the Republican caucus on this issue?  We shall see.