The MNPS School Board has narrowed its search for the next Director of Schools. The Board heard from four finalists last week on Thursday and Friday. After those interviews, the board eliminated John Covington from the mix and will proceed with interviews of the remaining three candidates.
Read the applications from the candidates
Read what Board Member Will Pinkston thinks the next Director should prioritize
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
The MNPS School Board has been presented with a slate of four finalists for the Director of Schools position. The Board may select from among the four presented or choose another candidate not listed. Currently, it seems the plan is to pursue further study of the four named finalists.
The Tennessean writes of the candidates:
• John Covington, consultant with the Broad Center. Covington is a former educator who has 29 years of experience in public education. He has worked in Pueblo, Colo.; Kansas City, Mo.; and served as the chancellor of the Education Achievement Authority of Michigan. The authority is somewhat similar to Tennessee’s Achievement School District.
• Angela Huff, chief of staff for the Cobb County School District. Huff, a Nashville native, oversees 110,000 students and a staff of more than 11,000 in the Atlanta school district. She has 31 years working in education as an assistant superintendent and principal in Cobb County, and she has also served as a teacher in Gwinnett County Public Schools.
• Mike Looney, Williamson County director of schools. Looney looks after a student population of 36,000, with almost 5,000 staff, in the neighboring Nashville district. He has 21 years experience as an educator, and under his leadership in Williamson, the district has been named one of the best in the state.
• Barry Shepherd, a retired Cabarrus County (N.C.) Schools superintendent. As superintendent of the Concord, N.C. district, Shepherd oversaw a student population of 31,000, with a staff of 4,000. He started his 30-year career in education as a music teacher and speaks some Spanish.
Today’s unveiling of candidates follows two weeks of controversy over who would be the interim Director of Schools.
And, this morning, Board Member Will Pinkston offered his thoughts on the priorities the next Director should emphasize.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Seems like a simple question. And, until last night, it had a simple answer. Dr. Jesse Register’s last day was to be June 30th. The interim role would then be handed to the district’s #2, Jay Steele, currently the Chief Academic Officer. Steele would run the district for one to three months until a permanent Director of Schools was hired and in place.
But, it’s not that simple. Steele was appointed to the interim role on a 5-4 vote. That vote drew criticism from, among others, TN Ed Report’s own Zack Barnes.
Steven Hale over at the Nashville Scene has a good run down of what happened.
And now, the Board has appointed Chris Henson as interim director.
The appointment came in an emergency meeting called by Board Chair Sharon Gentry to address issues raised with the vote for Steele, including the open meetings complaint.
At last night’s meeting, Gentry admitted that she was at fault, at least in part, because after the motion to appoint Steele, she proceeded with the vote without calling for discussion.
Gentry also voted against appointing Steele – this would seem to be an indication that no decisions were made in secret, since the person who chose to move forward without discussion was on the losing side of the vote. Perhaps Gentry suspected she had the votes in favor of another candidate and called for the vote on Steele quickly in order to move on to her preferred interim director choice.
Gentry last night also suggested that one remedy for an open meetings violation was a new meeting and vote with a thorough discussion. Of course, as of last night, there was only a complaint, no guidance from the Comptroller regarding any violation.
And, as referenced in the Scene story and noted by J.R. Lind, the meeting was a procedural mess:
The emergency meeting appears to have been a procedural mess, as our J.R. Lind explains on Twitter. For instance, although the board members voted to reconsider their initial appointment of Steele, they never voted to rescind it.)
This marks the second consecutive meeting in which a major decision was mishandled by poor procedural leadership from Gentry.
Back to the original question: Who is running MNPS? As of today, it’s Chris Henson. As for the Board, that’s an open question.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
That’s the argument advanced by MNPS School Board member Will Pinkston in a recent column in the Tennessean.
Pinkston uses an array of figures to make his case. He essentially reiterates research that suggests that charters typically perform on par with public schools and then notes they carry significant costs to the district. So, he says, we can either have unabated charter growth OR well-funded district schools, not both. If we choose the path of charters, it will mean closing traditional public schools.
Here are some highlights:
The push to dismantle public education in Nashville is running amok. Consider that in 2010, the entire state of Tennessee had just 20 charter schools. Later this year, in Nashville alone, 27 charter schools will operate at an annual cost of $75 million.
Even if the Nashville School board approves no new charter applications, more than 5,000 additional charter seats — costing $45 million a year — will come into existence by fall 2019 under current agreements. Yet charter operators still are seeking to create another 13 schools that would drain another $75 million a year from the school system.
To put it in perspective: This spring, MNPS is proposing to grow its annual operating budget from $790 million to $813 million — a $23 million increase. Not coincidentally, the budget plan contemplates about $23 million in additional cash outlays for charter schools.
In other words: Every dime of new revenue growth is going to charters, leaving little or nothing for traditional schools. The math is dizzying and troubling.
Pinkston makes a powerful argument: Nashville has to make a choice. More charters eating the growth of the MNPS budget, or a recommitment to supporting and improving the traditional public schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
MNPS Board Member Will Pinkston highlights some key takeaways from a recent audit of Metro Schools. Among them, the concern that charter schools are a key driver of increased costs in the district.
In an email, Pinkston notes a key finding:
Briefly: The new audit acknowledges that unabated growth of charter schools does, in fact, have a fiscal impact on existing MNPS schools. The operative language in the audit relative to charter fiscal impact can be found on Page 3-16, which states: “The key question for determining fiscal impacts is whether enrollment reductions allow a district to achieve expenditure reductions commensurate with revenue reductions. Fixed costs are incurred regardless of whether students attend traditional or charter schools. The problem is that some fixed costs, such as building maintenance, computer network infrastructure, and health services do not vary based on enrollment. Therefore, teachers and their salaries are a key cost driver tied to student enrollment … However, it is not always possible to reduce teacher costs proportionate to losses in revenue. For these costs to be reduced significantly, the school would need to close altogether.”
In other words, in order to support the continued unabated growth of charter schools, MNPS will need to systematically close zoned schools. Conversations about closing zoned schools may need to occur, but cannot happen in a fiscally responsible manner as long as MNPS continues recommending unabated approval of charter schools with no offsetting reductions in the budget. All of this is further evidence that the Nashville School Board needs to consider a moratorium on new schools until all of this can be resolved.
The full report – The Operational and Performance Audit of MNPS can be found here.
An earlier report by an outside group found a similar conclusion.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
That was the theme of an event last night sponsored by Tennesseans Reclaiming Education Excellence (TREE) and Gideon’s Army for Children and held at the East Park Community Center.
The event featured parent activist Karran Harper Royal of New Orleans and Dr. Kristen Buras, a professor at Georgia State University who has studied the Recovery School District in New Orleans.
Between 60 and 70 people were in attendance for the event, including MNPS School Board members Will Pinkston, Amy Frogge, Jill Speering, and Anna Shepherd.
The event coincides with a discussion happening in East Nashville regarding MNPS Director of Schools Jesse Register’s proposal to create an “all choice” zone for schools there. Parent advocacy group East Nashville United has been critical of the plan and continues to ask for more information. For their part, MNPS says it wants to continue dialogue on the issue.
Royal spoke first and outlined the systematic takeover of schools in New Orleans by the Recovery School District. The Recovery School District is the nation’s first charter-only district. The takeover began with a state law that allowed for the takeover of low-performing schools, similar to a Tennessee law that allows the Achievement School District to takeover low-performing schools.
As schools were taken over, they were handed over to charter operators or reconstituted with charter management. Entire staffs were fired and replaced and students were moved to different locations.
Royal said some of the successes claimed by the RSD are deceptive because the district would close schools, move out the students, and bus in new students. Then, the RSD would claim they had improved the school when achievement numbers were released even though those numbers were not from the students who had been attending when the school was taken over.
Royal also claimed that the choice of a neighborhood school was foreclosed for many families, but that in two majority-white ZIP codes, families are still able to choose a school close to their home.
Buras used her time to expand on an op-ed she wrote earlier this year about the parallels between New Orleans and Nashville. She pointed to data suggesting that the RSD has done no better than the previous district in terms of overall student achievement. This point is especially important because the RSD has had 9 years to show results. Tennessee’s ASD has also shown disappointing results, though it is only now in its third year of operation.
Among the statistics presented by Buras:
Buras also noted that the RSD was used as a tool to bust the teachers’ union. The district fired some 7500 teachers and new teachers in the RSD report to charter operators. The resulting turnover means nearly 40% of the city’s teachers have been teaching for 3 years or less.
Both Royal (who was at one time on the RSD Advisory Board) and Buras noted that the RSD started with the mission of improving existing schools in New Orleans. However, like the ASD in Tennessee, the RSD began gradually acquiring new schools before data was available to indicate success.
The presentations served as a warning to parents in Nashville that while reform and innovation can be exciting, it is also important to closely monitor school takeovers and choice options to ensure they meet the community’s needs.
It’s also worth noting that the experiment in New Orleans and the ASD’s experience in Memphis on a smaller scale both indicate that just offering more choice does not solve education problems or improve student achievement. Any plan or innovation must take into account community input and feedback. Additionally, while choice plans are often sold on the perceived benefits, it is important to be mindful of potential drawbacks, including disruption and instability in communities that badlyneed stability and support.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
MNPS Board Member Will Pinkston had this to say about last night’s board action:
“I regret to report that, last night, the Nashville School Board moved to deprive four teachers of their careers and livelihoods without adequate process. Here are the facts: Director of Schools Jesse Register called for the teachers’ firings. Under state law, the school board had to vote on it to get the ball rolling. Dr. Register and his staff failed to provide the board with enough advance notice about these teachers and the details of their evaluations. Rather than deferring the process for two weeks in order to allow for additional fact-finding by the board, Dr. Register demanded that the process proceed immediately even though board members were given only two business days to review details of the teachers’ evaluations. Unfortunately, a slim five-member majority of the board agreed to go along with Dr. Register’s directive. You can watch the 45-minute conversation on the MNPS YouTube channel beginning at the 1h18m time mark. As someone who knows intimately the history and origin of Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system, I can assure educators: This kind of railroading approach to teacher dismissal is not what state policymakers and members of the Tennessee General Assembly intended to happen. Dr. Register and his staff are doing a disservice to the teaching profession. Teachers across Nashville should speak up and demand change.”
The Metro Nashville School Board this week suggested that the state revise and improve its funding formula for schools, known as the BEP.
A resolution drafted by board member Amy Frogge and passed unanimously by the MNPS board indicates that the current formula does not allow districts to properly implement rigorous news standards and provide improved salaries for teachers.
If legislators and Governor Haslam want to take a look at improving the BEP, they need only take a look at the BEP 2.0 formula developed under Governor Phil Bredesen with significant input from then-state Senator Jamie Woodson, who now heads SCORE.
Of course, current Metro board member Will Pinkston was a key Bredesen staffer when the BEP 2.0 formula was developed, so he’s quite familiar with how it would improve the funding situation not just for MNPS but for most districts in the state.
Fully funding BEP 2.0 may take incremental steps and perhaps could be complete in two to three years with some focus and budget prioritization from the General Assembly and the Governor.
If the current formula is not re-examined and improved, it seems likely that districts large and small will continue to complain of mandates coming from the state without adequate funding for their implementation.
For more on Tennessee education politics and policy, follow us @TNEdReport