The Data Wars: A New Hope?

The ongoing Data Wars between the state’s two largest school districts and the Tennessee Department of Education continue, with today being the deadline set by Commissioner Candice McQueen for districts to hand over the data or face consequences.

Yesterday, Anna Shepherd and Chris Caldwell, chairs of the Boards of Education in Nashville and Memphis respectively, penned an op-ed detailing their opposition to the data demand from McQueen.

They wrote:

Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen has demanded that Metro Nashville Public Schools and Shelby County Schools surrender personal contact information for a large number of students and families in our school systems, which represent approximately 20 percent of Tennessee’s K-12 public school students.

Her argument: A new state law requires us to hand over personal information to ASD charter schools so these taxpayer-funded private schools can use the data to fill thousands of empty seats by recruiting students away from public schools.

In addition to violating student and family privacy — the right to privacy is a fundamental American principle — the problem with McQueen’s data demand is this: The ASD now is universally viewed as a failed experiment in education reform.

Shepherd and Caldwell contend that their district’s students will not be well-served by marketing efforts from charter schools operating under the banner of the Achievement School District:

Instead, McQueen proposes to shift the cost burden of the failing ASD to local taxpayers in Memphis and Nashville. She wants to confiscate our student data and information in order to stage marketing raids on our schools — which would redirect local taxpayer funds to the ASD and its charter operators at the expense of our school systems.

With today’s deadline looming, it appears school leaders in Memphis and Nashville are locked down against releasing the data demanded by McQueen. Should that position hold, the question will be: What will McQueen do about it? Will she unleash her ultimate weapon and withhold state funds from these districts as punishment?

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


 

#BacktoMNPS Problems

The first day back to school is always an exciting time! But for MNPS, there are some problems lingering over it.

Overton

MNPS announced late last week that Overton High School would start two days late because construction was not completed at the school. News came out today that Overton may push back the first day again. I was at Overton late this summer, and there were literally no exterior walls on parts of the building. A plan of action should have been put into place earlier. On July 26th, someone tweeted school board member Will Pinkston about the delays at Overton. He responded, “Don’t like it, call the charters.”

Lead in the water

Friday news dumps are used to avoid the media. MNPS used a Friday news dump to let the city know about the results of the lead testing. As one would expect, there was lead found in numerous buildings across the district. Here’s part of the report:

With results in for 138 buildings, 119 buildings had no lead levels above the public drinking water standard.  Of the more than 4,000 samples taken during the past three weeks, only 38 showed lead levels above the standard of public water systems (15 parts per billion) – that is just less than one percent of the total tested. All 38 of those sample locations, which are in 19 schools, have been disconnected and taken out of service until repairs can be made and water retested.

Hunters Lane

A family filed suit last week alleging Hunters Lane violated Title IX. From The Tennessean:

According to the lawsuit, the girl was “subjected to unwelcome sexual contact by a male student” April 17 in an unlocked classroom while another student recorded it on video.

“This practice was so widespread within the Defendant’s school system that the students nicknamed the activity ‘exposing’ the individual involved,” the lawsuit says. The videos prompt ridicule as they are circulated around the school and internet, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says when the school learned of the video, it violated Title IX by suspending the 15-year-old girl and doled out no discipline intended to stop the spread of the video. The two other students involved were also suspended, according to the lawsuit.

Teacher Shortage

It’s a yearly problem felt across the country. WKRN reports that MNPS is short 140 teachers. Most of shortages are for math and special education. We need our leadership, both central office and school board, to focus on ways to retain our teachers.

Metro Schools says it has about an 80 percent retention rate. That means in a school district with about 6,000 teachers, about 1,200 teachers leave each year. Half of those teachers leave after only a year or two of teaching.

LEAD Public Schools released the news that their CEO, Chris Reynolds, was resigning days before the start of the new school year. Without missing a beat, Will Pinkston wrote an open letter attacking the school and paid for it to be advertised on Facebook. In his letter, Pinkston wrote,  “I am writing to demand a detail explanation of the reasons behind Reynold’s departure.”

Parent and blogger TC Weber had the perfect response detailing the scores of people that have left MNPS in just the past few weeks. According to Pinkston, the loss of MNPS staff is nonsense.

I agree with TC.  Let’s spend the necessary time and effort to make our school system better before we go off attacking others.

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


 

Maybe Someday

I reported recently on Williamson County Schools posting information that indicated a delay in the return of TNReady scores for this year. That report indicated scores would not be returned on the agreed timeline and a delay in report cards would result.

Now, word comes from MNPS that scores will not be returned to them until June. This means TNReady and EOC scores will not be factored into student grades.

Here’s the text of an email sent home to parents at JT Moore Middle School in Nashville:

Dear JT Moore Families:
TCAP grades and EOC scores will not be back in time to be included on report cards.
TCAP quick scores arriving in June
The Tennessee Department of Education has confirmed that we will not receive quick scores from state assessments before the end of the school year. Thus they will not be factored into student grades.
Infinite Campus is set up to properly adjust the weighting of nine weeks grades in the event that no exam grade is entered. Each nine-week grade will count as 25 percent of the yearly average for grades 3-8 or 50 percent of the semester average for high school courses.
As a result of this the following will apply:
No grade will go in the TCAP column in ES (3-4) and MS (5-8)
For the following HS or HS for Credit that take an EOC course there will be NO EXAM grade at all.

The grade for these semester classes will calculate 50/50:
English I, II, and III
Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry
Integrated Math IB and Integrated Math IIB
US History
Biology

Once again, the state’s testing regime is creating chaos. In some districts, the scores may end up counting in student grades — resulting in delayed report cards. Other districts (like MNPS) will simply not factor the test scores into student grades.

Imagine studying for an exam, being prepared, and doing well — knowing your performance is a significant factor in your final grade. Then, being told that the people who mandate the test simply won’t get it back in time. That’s the level of consideration being shown to our students.

This marks the second year of problems with TNReady and the fourth consecutive year of testing trouble wreaking havoc on students and teachers.

Oh, and then there’s the matter of what these tests really tell us:

An analysis of TCAP performance over time indicates that those school systems with consistently high levels of poverty tend to have consistently low scores on TCAP. Likewise, those systems with the least amount of poverty tend to have consistently higher scores on TCAP.

Of course, while the scores may or may not count in student grades (depending on district), they WILL be factored into teacher evaluations this year. This despite the fact they won’t provide any valid information.

TNReady will be ready. Maybe. Someday.

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


 

MNPS Responds To Large Number Of Bus Driver Complaints

Jason Gonzales at the Tennessean has a report out today that shows that there have been almost 400 complaints on MNPS bus drivers from August to January. These complaints range from not picking up students at the correct bus stop to some very serious accusations.

One case in the six-month span included an allegation against a bus driver of inappropriate communication with a student.

“Mom wants to report what she thinks may be suspicious activity between her 17-year-old daughter and her bus driver ‘Mr. Q.’ Mom says the driver bought her daughter a cell phone. Mom has the phone and found text messages between the two saying: ‘I’m thinking about you’ and ‘what are you doing,'” the January complaint reads.

“Also, she says that the driver has given her daughter money.”

MNPS doesn’t track the resolutions to these complaints so there is no information on if theses accusations were dealt with. Another accusation seems to read like the bus driver was okay with students fighting.

“(Parent) states when her son was on the bus in the afternoon route … three male students told her son they were going to jump him. The driver told the students, ‘whatever you do off the bus is up to you.’ Parent states after students got off the bus they jumped her son and busted his head. She feels the driver encouraged the students to jump her son, and didn’t do anything to prevent the incident,” a parent complaint to Metro Schools file in September says.

The board and district must act quickly in finding a solution to this problem and investigate all complaints. If bus drivers are having inappropriate relationships with students and encouraging violence, the punishment should be swift and harsh.

Thousands of students ride the bus each and every day. Their safety should be the top priority. This will now be the district’s top priority thanks to the reporting of Jason Gonzales. It shouldn’t have taken this long.

Palacios said the request of records for bus driver complaints “has been enlightening and identified as a serious priority” by the district. The management tool to monitor how resolutions came about from complaints would also be able to monitor discipline trends and how many drivers were disciplined, she said.

You can read the full article here.

Update (10:20am)

School board member Will Pinkston responded to the story on twitter.

Uncharacteristically good reporting by . I’ve been complaining about stuff like this since 2014. I’m glad is under new management. The new team is fixing broken processes and creating new processes where none existed. Logical follow-up reporting would be: Jesse Register systematically cut wages and hours bus drivers, causing many of the most experienced drivers to go elsewhere and leaving the remaining drivers overworked and stressed out. He left behind a mess.

The blame Register excuse is getting old from the school board. Jesse Register left Metro Nashville Public Schools on June 30, 2015. MNPS has been without Register for 633 days. The fault from this falls squarely on MNPS and the school board. Acknowledge the issue, fix it, and move on to the next set of issues facing our school system. Don’t spend time blaming others when you have the power to make changes yourself but failed to do so.

Blaming the problems of now on a leader who left 633 days ago is poor leadership.

Update (11:55am)

Nashville school board member Pinkston has responded via twitter:

Sounds like the nitwits are coming unglued and trying to blame the bus driver stuff on me. Let’s be clear about who did what and when. Let’s not forget who attacked for meeting with bus drivers to discuss their poor working conditions.

 

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

 


 

 

MNPS Budget Has Arrived! 3% raises and more…

Dr. Joseph has released his first budget as director of schools. It includes raises for teachers and support staff, adds more ELL teachers, and more. According to the Tennessean,  “Joseph is asking for $902.8 million in funds to operate the district, an increase of just over $59 million for the 2017-18 school year.” Here’s a first look at the budget, which you can read here:

 

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  • 3% raise for teachers and support staff
  • Increased substitute pay. According to Joseph, MNPS will have highest sub pay for middle Tennessee.
  • 31 new ELL teachers
  • 18 new translators
  • 11 new reading recovery teachers
  • 7 more school counselors
  • 19.5 additional itinerate staff (school psychologists, speech pathologists, and instructional technology specialists)
  • 2 SEL coaches
  • 4 more community achieves site managers
  • Every school will be required to have a literacy coach and a part time gifted instructor
  • Free Advanced Placement, Cambridge,  and International Baccalaureate exams for students
  • All middle schools will become STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) schools over the next three years
  • HR office will grow by 8 employees

Dr. Joseph will present the proposed budget to Mayor Megan Barry on April 13. The mayor and the council will have the final say in how much of the proposed budget is funded.

I wanted to share some of the graphics that went along with the budget presentation.

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


 

 

 

Stand for Children Looking Forward to New Year

Stand for Children was recently dragged through months of hearings after a politically motivated complaint was filed alleging they broke campaign finance laws. Earlier this month they were unanimously cleared of wrongdoing.

According to a new editorial by Daniel O’Donnell, it seems likes Stand for Children is looking ahead to a new year where they can return their focus on improving Nashville’s education.

There is a lot to be optimistic about in Nashville’s public schools these days. But the fact remains that a great public education remains out of reach for far too many Nashville students. In recent years, the achievement gap between kids from low-income families and their privileged peers has widened significantly; only 11 percent of Nashville graduates are considered “college-ready.”

Let that sink in. Behind those numbers are real kids with real lives – kids who deserve urgency and focus from adults.

Nashville spends an enormous amount of time debating public charter schools, and that debate no doubt colored the recent school board races. The prevailing charter narrative notwithstanding, Stand advocates for strong public schools, regardless of type.

Our record here has been consistent: In recent years we’ve fought for high-quality pre-Kindergarten expansion, high academic standards and topnotch district leadership. As a city, we should be doing more to support and learn from some of our incredible charter schools, while doing a lot more to lift up the schools that the other 90 percent of students attend. It’s really not that complicated.

Since the August election, we’ve been working with hundreds of parents in North and East Nashville to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing our school system: below-average third-grade literacy rates. Ensuring more third-graders are on track is one critical component of a larger effort to close Nashville’s achievement gap.

You can read the rest of the editorial here.

I agree with O’Donnell that we spend too much time fighting over charter schools when we could be spending that same amount of time on the abysmal literacy rates of our students. Let’s focus on all the students in our district and work together to make MNPS better.

Teachers collaborate every day to do what’s best for students. It’s time for organizations, school board members, and district leaders to collaborate to help all of our students.

 

 

Test Scores Are In! How Did Our Nashville Students Do?

Today, the Tennessee Department of Education released TNReady results for individual districts. The data only show results for high schools because elementary and middle schools did not take the full assessment last school year.

For those of you who just want the gist of it, Nashville’s public high schools are struggling to get kids to proficiency, and they’re particularly struggling with math.

Let’s dig a little deeper, using some screenshots from the state’s Report Card website.

ACT Achievement

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I have written previously about the ACT scores of the district. TNReady is trying to be more aligned with the ACT.

Math and ELA Achievement 

screen-shot-2016-12-13-at-10-21-30-am screen-shot-2016-12-13-at-10-21-34-am

The data show that our high schools are struggling more with math than English language arts (ELA), though each section has only a small percentage of students who are scoring within the top two tiers of TNReady.

Here’s the more in-depth breakdown of the data, including individual subjects. As we see from the graph below, we have new terminology to use when discussing the data.

screen-shot-2016-12-13-at-10-24-19-am

The data clearly show that too many high school students are not “on track” nor have achieved mastery of the subjects. We have given our high schools a makeover, but has that makeover really improved the achievement of our students? That will be hard to tell because this is a brand new assessment.

The achievement of high school students are more than just a problem with high schools. We need more support in lower grades to give students the skills they need to achieve in high school so that they can graduate and move on to college or a career.

Growth

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It’s great to see that we are showing growth in literacy, but we have to do better in math.

We Have to Do Better

Our district has to do better. We have too many students not achieving at the level they should be. I hope our school board will really delve into this issue, instead of spending so much time on petty resolutions that will only hurt the district in the long run.

Turning around our district is not something that will make the newspaper tomorrow. It’s not something that you can brag about in your monthly email in a few weeks. Turning around our district takes time, resources, and a vision to help all students achieve. It means that everyone involved in the education system must work together, which can be hard for some.

It’s results like this that draw people away from Davidson county and into the suburbs and private schools. We can’t let it continue.

Let’s get to work!

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


 

Changes Are Coming To Nashville Middle Schools

Dr. Joseph heard a lot of critiques about Metro Nashville’s middle schools when he arrived in Nashville. He later found out that those critiques were spot on, according to Nashville Public Radio.

The newly-hired administrative team held 30 parent listening sessions over the first few weeks. And moms and dads kept talking about middle schools and how they’d like to see them add rigor, more advanced courses and even just a bit more homework.

As a former middle school principal, superintendent Shawn Joseph thought maybe parents were just misunderstanding their pre-teen children. But then he visited many of the district’s middle schools, and the concerns about academics were “validated.”

As a middle middleprepschool teacher, I’ve clearly seen the need for the transformation of middle schools. The district spent so much time transforming high schools that it felt like they forgot about middle schools.

While elementary schools are now getting more resources, middle schools got a new name in 2014 (Middle Preps) and were left alone. It’s like needing stitches and throwing a bandaid on it. It’s time for a real transformation and not just a quick fix. It didn’t work in 2014 and it won’t work now.

As I wrote in September following the release of ACT scores,

Preparing our students for graduation starts before the students even get to the high school level. MNPS transformed our high schools years ago towards the academy model. I think it’s time to start looking at the transformation of elementary and middle schools.

Elementary and middle schools need more supports in place to help close the gaps before students move on to high school. I don’t have all the answers, but I hope MNPS will be looking into ways to give more support to our lower grades.

It looks like Dr. Joseph is answering this call. I think too many students are still coming to middle school without basic skills that middle school teachers are not usually equipped to handle. I hope Dr. Joseph will continue to add more support to elementary schools while he is working to transform middle schools.

So when will these changes start to take place?

“Now is the time to give middle schools the love and attention they need to help strengthen our high school programs,” Joseph says.

Joseph cautions that he doesn’t anticipate any “mid-year, shoot-from-the-hip shifts.”

“We’ll take a bite at the apple next year with more comprehensive plans in year two and three,” he says.

Good luck, Dr. Joseph.

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


 

TFA Donates $1.3 Million Worth of Printers to MNPS

Wow! Teach For America has donated $1.3 million worth of HP printers to MNPS. That’s a lot of printers for teachers to use! From the MNPS blog:

On Oct. 10 2016, Teach for America announced that they would be donating $1.3 million worth of printers from Hewlett Packard (HP) to Metro Nashville Public Schools. Why? To help offset the amount of out-of-pocket spending that teachers do every school year.

“Across the district, our children will benefit directly from this donation, which provides essential educational tools to boost student achievement,” said Ken Stark, executive officer for operations of Metro Schools. “We thank Hewlett Packard and Teach for America for their support.”

According to Time magazine, a report from the Education Market Association says that on average, teachers spend around $500 on supplies for their classrooms, with one in 10 spending $1,000 or more. Teach for America arranged the donation from HP to reinforce the resources needed in Metro schools every day.

Printers started being delivered to every Metro school on Oct. 10, 2016.

“We are grateful for the incredible investment HP has made to better the educational opportunities of thousands of public school children throughout the Greater Nashville area,” said Ben Schumacher, Teach for America-Greater Nashville Executive Director.

Teach for America has been a partner of Metro Schools since 2009, working to close the opportunity gap for students in low-income communities. Today, 670 Teach for America alumni call Nashville home, with 75 percent of those working full-time in education. Others are working in education policy or for education technology companies like GoNoodle and LiveSchool.

“Collaboration is critical for advancement, and we are thankful for our partnerships with HP and Metro Schools, to name a few,” said Shumacher. “Our collective investments allow us to serve more Nashville students and prepare them for success beyond high school graduation.”

Thanks to HP and TFA for the printers!

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

 


 

Four Reasons Why We Need Later Start Times For High School Students

The Metro Nashville school board will begin investigating later start times for their high school students. Right now high schools start at 7:05 in the morning.

We know teenager’s body need more sleep (over 9 hours each night) and they also tend to go to bed later and sleep later, which is known as delayed phase preference. Their bodies have a preference to go to bed later.

When looking at this issue, we should be asking: What is best for the student?

What’s best for high school students are later start times. Here are four reasons why.

  1. Students are prepared for school with a later start time. A longitudinal study found when high schools changed their start times from 7:15 am to 8:40 am, students had “improved attendance and enrollment rates, less sleeping in class, and less student-reported depression.”
  2. Students are safer drivers. Researchers investigated the rate of high school students involved in car crashes in a county where high school start times were pushed back one hour. The results showed that there was a 16.5% decrease in car crashes after the school start time was changed. While the state’s rate of crashes went up, this county saw a decrease. Another report found that “the number of car crashes for teen drivers from 16 to 18 years of age was significantly reduced by 70% when a school shifted start times from 7:35 AM to 8:55 AM.”
  3. Students may have better attention and creativity. High school students will accumulated sleep debt throughout the school week. Allowing them to sleep more each day will help alleviate that debt. According to researchers, “Sleep debt (cumulative sleep loss) also has been shown to contribute to an inability to concentrate, memory lapses, difficulty in accomplishing tasks that require planning or following a complex sequence of actions, and a decrease in creative thought” They go on to say, “it would seem plausible that setting early school start times for adolescents sufficiently impairs their ability to effectively perform school-related tasks.”
  4. Later start times are correlated with higher achievement. Researchers spent three years following 9,000 high school students in three states. When the start time was later, students showed improved academic outcomes. “Academic performance outcomes, including grades earned in core subject areas of math, English, science and social studies, plus performance on state and national achievement tests, attendance rates and reduced tardiness show significantly positive improvement with the later start times of 8:35 AM or later.”

We all know that it will be difficult, and even expensive, to change the start times for our high schools. If it’s in the best interest of our students, we must do everything possible to make it work. The evidence is out there, so let’s make the policy change and do what’s best for our students.

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