Jamie Woodson: Higher Standards, Better Assessments, and Why They Matter

This article is written by Jamie Woodson, President and CEO of SCORE (State Collaborative on Reforming Education). Prior to leading SCORE, she served for more than 12 years in the Tennessee General Assembly in both the House and Senate, including Chairman of the Senate Education Committee and later as Senate Speaker Pro Tempore.

When I came to the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) in 2011, Tennessee had just put into policy a set of bold education reforms. Policymakers were appropriately excited about their work. Yet we all know that education policy changes are only words on paper until these policies are brought to life by leaders in schools and teachers in classrooms. That same year I left my role as a member of the Tennessee General Assembly with the goal of contributing to helping Tennessee turn these important policies into practices that boost student achievement.

Over the last year, some have been questioning – and at times attacking – Tennessee’s decision to raise academic expectations for students by raising academic standards, one of several foundational policies that have helped launch our students to historic and unprecedented gains in English and math. Others have tried to put the brakes on new assessments which seek to more authentically and accurately measure how our students are doing. While the debate has been lively and sometimes loud, it hasn’t always been enlightening. Quite simply, misinformation about how Tennessee chose this path has been widespread.

To put it bluntly, Tennessee decided in 2007 to start being honest with parents, policy makers, and students. We had been measuring our students by our homegrown academic standards and assessments, which were low in rigor compared to other states. While our state test results said nearly nine out of ten Tennessee eighth-graders were proficient in math, the national measuring stick said it was barely two out of ten. This disconnect earned us an F in truth and advertising and an F for postsecondary and workforce readiness in the 2007 Leaders and Laggards report card on education effectiveness.

Those failing grades, plus sound research showing how higher standards help lead to higher proficiency rates, spurred our leaders to raise Tennessee’s rock-bottom academic expectations. The first step came in 2008, when the Tennessee State Board of Education approved the Tennessee Diploma Project, a multi-state effort to improve college and career readiness. Schools began implementing the Diploma Project standards in August 2009, when students who would participate in the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were in the first or fifth grade.

Just as Tennessee began moving forward, new opportunities emerged to accelerate our momentum. One of them was the Common Core State Standards, which like the Diploma Project grew from state policymakers looking to work together to address the fact that schools in the U.S. were falling behind other nations. Already committed to helping our students advance, Tennessee took the logical next step by joining the Common Core effort in 2009 and adopting these new standards in 2010.

Tennessee began using the new standards in grades K-2 in August 2011. After summer training for 13,000 math teachers, schools began using the higher math standards in grades 3-8 and a pilot of the English language arts standards in August 2012. The NAEP assessments were administered in early 2013 to a sample of fourth- and eighth-graders, and in November we learned that the gains they showed made Tennessee the fastest-improving state for academic achievement.

This history shows the flaw in the claim that Tennessee’s Common Core State Standards are moving us forward too fast. We have been incrementally raising standards since 2007, longer than most of us have had our smartphones. This timeline also shows why it is not practical or wise to pause or roll back our progress in raising standards. We have trained more than 43,000 educators; we have fully implemented Common Core; and our students are seeing early signs of progress.

With the standards in use in all grades and schools, educators and parents need assessments that accurately measure student learning, and our schools will be ready to take that step this fall. The Partnership for Assessment of College and Career Readiness (PARCC) assessment will replace the current TCAP test for math and English in grades 3-11. PARCC goes far beyond the usual multiple choice test to measure student comprehension in multiple ways. It will includes questions that require students to provide an answer by writing an essay or graphing a problem, rather than simply picking an answer. To try a sample set of PARCC questions in both math and English, click here and then go to Sample Items at the top of the page.

PARCC is also a unique test in that Tennessee has helped build the assessment and representatives of our state have had a seat at the table for every important decision. Postsecondary and K-12 educators from Tennessee have had unprecedented input in helping to write the assessments, and Tennessee public colleges and universities have agreed to accept the PARCC assessment results as indicators of college readiness.

Most Tennesseans are not as engaged in the discussion about Common Core and PARCC as the readers of this blog. Parents, in particular, deserve to know the real history and to understand how these higher standards and new assessments are designed to help their students.

The bottom line is that Tennessee’s Common Core State Standards are designed to prepare students for success after high school by teaching them to be lifelong learners: how to read and comprehend complex material, how to think through problems and show the evidence that led to their conclusions, and how to write clearly and persuasively. I believe our state’s new assessments will provide a better, fairer, and more authentic measure of whether students are meeting the standards. Altogether it means that for the first time, parents can rest assured that when Tennessee tells them their students are proficient, it’s the truth.


 

Thoughts on PARCC and Other Tests

 

This article was written by JC Bowman, Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee. The article notes that the road ahead for PARCC and for other Common Core connected assessments is complex and requires careful navigation.

There has been a renewed focus on the role of testing across the United States. This has opened a new dialogue among stakeholders, as well as policymakers. It is clear that new policies are needed to reflect the changing landscape in education and maximize changes in technology. As assessments will also be changing, data protection is a must. The ancillary debate is “Should the state bear the expense of testing, or is it a local responsibility?”

 

The debate is not merely about the pending and still experimental PARCC or Smarter Balanced Assessments. In fact, there will be probably 10 to 15 less expensive assessment options under consideration. Additionally, there are the assessments of the states that are not Common Core State Standard members, for a total of about 20 possible assessments designed to measure a common set of standards. Some of these options may become a necessity if a “Plan B” is needed in case the PARCC exams become too costly or are proven to not be a right fit for Tennessee.

 

The purpose of testing should be to determine if a student is making satisfactory progress from grade to grade in grades 3 through 12. Our belief is that a standardized test is inappropriate within the K-2 setting. The use of assessments should allow educators to better assist students who are behind their peers to ensure they receive the help they need immediately to get back on track. In addition, those students who meet or exceed expectations can be monitored to make certain that they continue to excel. In the 9-12 setting, end-of-course (EOC) exams may still be an option if they are not discontinued. How many tests are needed? How often should they be administered? What is their purpose? These questions need to be asked frequently by stakeholders and policymakers.

 

The attraction of emergent technology is that it will allow educators to effectively identify and address student needs, if there is timely feedback. This ongoing transformation will continue to impact student learning – and advance prescriptive teaching. Students will need to demonstrate their mastery of knowledge or skills in a range of contexts. Assessments should allow educators to gauge their students more efficiently, and provide them with concise and accurate data to permit more focused support to students on an individual basis.

 

Most colleges and universities across the nation use the ACT, the SAT or both as part of their admissions procedure. The vast majority of state colleges and universities admit most of their applicants, and do not require minimum scores for admission that represent college readiness. A significant number of students require remediation. Is that a fault of the K-12 community or a failure by higher education? Perhaps greater dialogue and collaboration is needed. That is a discussion for another time.

 

The ACT test predicts a student’s prospect of earning credit in entry-level courses, but has not been aligned to states’ K-12 academic standards. This is also true of the SAT. The SAT is not designed to specifically predict college entry-level course success. However, it does provide predictors of overall college success, retention and completion. Both the ACT and SAT are in the process of fully developing their own suite of CCSS aligned assessments.

 

Stakeholders and policymakers all want what is best for public education. However, the road ahead is fraught with complexity. If we are going to take the time and expense to create standards, it stands to reason we will measure to see if students have in fact learned them. The purpose of testing is to guide educators on how and what to teach students so that education goals are met within a community, state and nation. We must keep focused on achieving our educational goals as a state and a nation.

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

 

A Tennessee Teacher Shares Her Concerns About Common Core

This article was submitted by Lucianna Sanson, a Franklin County native, who has been teaching English Language Arts for the Franklin County public school system since graduating from Sewanee. Currently, she teaches British Literature and AP Literature at Franklin County High School. The views expressed are hers alone and do not represent the views of her employer.

I was contacted and asked to write an article about why I am not a fan of Common Core – or – more specifically, the “TN Core Standards.” As I was trying to decide what to say, I ran across an interview with Diane Ravitch in Salon. As I read the interview, I realized that her reasons for disliking the Common Core are the same as my reasons. So, without further ado, here are the wise words of Diane Ravitch- edited down to focus specifically on the Common Core bit.

“The fact is, we have no evidence that the Common Core standards are what we say they are until we’ve tried them. They haven’t been tried anywhere, they’ve been tested — and we know that where they’re tested, they cause massive failure. So I would say we need to have more time before we can reach any judgment that they have some miracle cure embedded in them.

I know, and a lot of teachers know, they’re totally inappropriate for children in kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade, because when they were written there was no one on various writing committees who was an expert in early childhood education… They’re also totally inappropriate for children who have disabilities — they can’t keep up. There’s an assumption in the Common Core that if you teach everybody the same thing, everybody will progress at the same speed. And that’s not human nature. It doesn’t work that way.

“… Common Core standards should be decoupled from the testing …the standards need to be reviewed by expert teachers, and wherever a fix is needed, fix them. That’s my position. I’m not opposed to them, I’m opposed to them in their current form, and I’m opposed to the standardized testing that’s linked to them.

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/12/public_schools_under_siege_diane_ravitch_warns_salon_some_cities_soon_will_have_none/

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Make sure you click the link, read the article, and share Diane’s words of wisdom.

For more from Lucianna Sanson, follow her on Twitter @Lucianna_Sanson

A Letter on Common Core from Bluff City Ed and TN Ed Report

As adults, we constantly need to master new skills and adjust our thinking to new information to solve the many challenges facing our world.  Our schools should be designed to empower our children to accomplish the same.  To accomplish this, it’s essential that our teachers have a rigorous set of standards to guide them.  Currently our existing standards don’t adequately prepare students for these challenges.  They don’t push our kids to fully build the critical thinking skills necessary for college and career readiness, let alone to lead the next generation.

That is why the Tennessee Education Report and Bluff City Education jointly support the adoption of the Common Core state standards here in Tennessee.  These standards represent a dramatic improvement over our existing state standards.  They reduce the amount of content required for teachers to cover and give teachers more time and freedom in how to pursue their goals.  This in turn empowers educators and schools to push their kids to higher levels of critical thinking every day throughout the year.

These standards also represent a crucial transition for our state’s future.  In recent months we’ve focused on increasing the number of students with access to a college degree through Governor Haslam’s Drive to 55 initiative.  However, college access is not enough if our students are not prepared for the rigors of a post-secondary education.  We believe that the Common Core standards should be viewed as a crucial component of this effort.  If we want our state to be truly competitive in a global economy, we cannot afford to allow our public education system to linger in the limbo of the status quo any longer.  Failing to do so will ensure that we fall compared to others raising their academic standards.  In this way, the fight to adopt Common Core represents a fight for Tennessee’s future.

However, we have some serious questions about the common core standards as it relates to testing.  We are concerned about the implementation of the new PARCC tests and their potential impact on teachers and schools, particularly in the area of evaluations.  Other states that have enacted the common core have seen dramatic declines in test scores.  This is to be expected if we are truly holding students to a higher level of critical thinking.  Over time we expect these scores to rise as teachers and schools become more comfortable with these standards and the state continues to support their implementation.

However, this becomes a concern when these scores are used to evaluate teachers and schools in the existing evaluation system.  Teachers and schools will likely see their scores drop dramatically for the first few years.  This will impact their evaluation scores and by association is likely to cause a decline in support for these important standards.  We are also concerned that we may see strong schools placed on the failing list in these first few years of common core implementation simply by virtue of the fact that they have not had the time to fully adjust to the new standards and their accompanying assessments.

Another concern is that while these tests have been field tested throughout this year, there will still be kinks that need to be worked out of the system in regards to data and implementation.  For example, test questions will likely need to be dropped, added or modified and the standards themselves may need to be tweaked to improve them as time goes on.  Additionally, over the years we’ve given students their yearly assessments in paper form.  They will need time to adjust to taking assessments online, which is a crucial component of the PAARC assessments.  Lastly, the entire TVAAS system will need to be adjusted from analyzing a complete multiple choice assessment to a mixed multiple choice-open response assessment.  Teachers and schools should not be held accountable for these factors which are outside of their control.

We propose three modifications to the current process to ensure a successful Common Core implementation.  First, we propose that the state board of education issue a moratorium stating that the first year of tests scores will not be used on teacher evaluations.  In the second year, test scores would increase to 15% of evaluation score and in the third year they would return to the full 35%.  This would allow teachers adequate time to adjust their instruction to the new standards and their accompanying assessments and give students a full three years to accustom themselves to the higher level of thinking demanded by the common core.

In addition, during the moratorium year, the state Department of Education should seek feedback on the TEAM model from teachers around the state and make necessary changes as it relates to common core. These could include a broader rollout of portfolio-based assessments for teachers in related arts, for example.  It could also include ways to factor in teachers in non-tested, academic subjects, such as using AP scores in place of whole school value-added data.  If teacher evaluation is to be tied to student performance data, we should ensure that data represent students taught by the teacher being evaluated.

Second, we propose that the state place at minimum a one year moratorium on using these test scores to evaluate schools.  This should give schools additional time to adjust to these new tests and adequately prepare their teachers and students for the new format.  We would never teach students the entirety of calculus in a month and then penalize schools when they fail to pass the advanced placement exam.  We shouldn’t do the same to schools.  Students need time to adjust to the new content and the new ways of thinking demanded by the standards before schools are assessed on their performance, which a one year moratorium will provide.

Third, we also propose that the state of Tennessee leave open the possibility of switching tests if it appears that PARCC is not working by including an exit clause in any new contract created with PARCC to hold it accountable for continuing to provide a high quality assessment. After the second year of PARCC, the State Board of Education should issue a report on its effectiveness in meeting the goal of assessing achievement of Common Core State Standards.  Factors for making this judgment should include the cost of PARCC relative to similar tests that also assess the standards. To facilitate this, the governor should appoint a committee to establish metrics which would be used to evaluate the effectiveness of PARCC as an assessment tool in meeting the academic goals established by the common core state standards.

A comparison of new tests in states like Kentucky and Florida is also warranted. We should not be locked into a test if it is found that PARCC has not met the state goals.  If in a worst case scenario Tennessee decided to continue to delay or even pull out of PARCC, including such a clause would mean we would not need to end our use of the Common Core State Standards.  Other states, notably Kentucky to our north, continue to strongly support Common Core implementation in their state but have chosen to create their own assessments.

We support Common Core and sincerely hope that PARCC is successful in our state.  Above all, we should constantly evaluate both the quantitative data gleaned from the new PARCC assessments and the qualitative data we hear from teachers, students and parents.  Common Core represents a necessary change for our state, but there will be challenges along the way that demand adjustments.  Only by listening carefully to those directly impacted by these new standards will we truly be able to fully implement them and alter the trajectory of the future of public education here in Tennessee.

Tennessee Education Report Endorsers: Andy Spears, Zack Barnes, John Haubenreich

Bluff City Education Endorsers: Jon Alfuth, Ryan Winn, James Aycock, Tamera Malone, Elana Cole, Casie Jones

Follow these Tennessee education writers on Twitter @BluffCityEd and @TNEdReport

 

Huffman Chairs Pie-Slicing Task Force

Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman is chairing Governor Haslam’s Task Force on the Basic Education Plan.  Haslam appointed the task force after districts began complaining that the current structure of the BEP is unfair.  In doing so, he essentially ignored the work of the standing BEP Review Committee, which annually reviews and recommends changes to the BEP formula.

After the committee’s initial meeting, Huffman said, according to the Chattanooga Times-Free Press:

“The purpose of the task force is not to say Tennessee needs to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more of money that we may or may not have,” Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, said following the meeting. “The purpose of it to look at are the right components included as part of the formula, and given a fixed pie, how would you distribute that pie based on capacity.”

So, Huffman is in charge of a committee that’s tasked with deciding how to divide up an already inadequate pie.

If he’s serious about the work, he’d do well to go back to the reforms proposed under Governor Bredesen with the help of then-state Senator Jamie Woodson. Those reforms, dubbed BEP 2.0 changed BEP allocations and also added some new funding allocations.

The cost of fully funding BEP 2.0 would be around $150 million.

Finding that money may mean making difficult choices.  Just north of us, in Kentucky, Governor Steve Beshear has proposed a budget making tough choices in order to fund education.  While many departments see budget cuts in his proposal, K-12 education sees budget increases.

While Governor Haslam and his legislative partners seem intent on eliminating the Hall Income Tax and reducing revenue, education suffers.  And if that agenda is what they believe is absolutely essential to Tennessee’s future, surely some cuts in other areas can be found in order to boost investment in public education.

Of course, proposing a budget that cuts most departments but increases funding for public schools requires leadership and tough choices.

Instead, it seems we have a committee focused on redistributing the slices of a shrinking pie.

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

 

TEA Files Second TVAAS Lawsuit

Suit Names Haslam, Huffman as Defendants

The Tennessee Education Association has filed a second lawsuit challenging the use of TVAAS data for teacher merit pay.  This suit, like the one filed last week, was filed in Knox County.

In this case, a science teacher was denied a bonus under the APEX system as a result of TVAAS scores associated with just 16% of the students he teaches.

Here, it seems the principles behind incentive pay didn’t work.  That is, proponents of merit pay suggest that teachers will be more motivated to perform if they know there’s a monetary incentive attached to their performance.  In this case, the teacher knew his pay was tied to performance in only one of the classes he taught and yet it was the scores in that class that were not high enough on TVAAS to earn him a bonus.

The perverse incentive created by such a system is that a teacher would focus on only a few of his or her students in order to achieve a raise.

In this case, it could be that the teacher wasn’t at his best in this particular class.  Or, it could be he treats all his courses the same and the results he achieved in this particular class were good, but not high enough to reach the bonus level.

The challenge of merit pay is that it assumes that if there’s a monetary bonus attached to pay, teachers will work harder than they are.  The very premise is insulting because it assumes that teachers aren’t working at their best right now and if only they had a small financial incentive, they’d work a little harder. The facts of this specific case suggest otherwise.

Another takeaway from this case is that the system is not paying teachers based on the totality of their work.  This teacher taught other, upper level science courses that were not tested.  He didn’t have TVAAS data for those, but there is surely some form of test data that could be used to assess value-added if that’s the desired way to establish performance.  That’s not being done, either.  Maybe this teacher does an outstanding job in the upper level courses.  We don’t know.  And, based on the pay structure in place in Knox County, the system sends that message that his performance in those courses is irrelevant to his pay.

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

 

 

House Overwhelmingly Votes to Delay Common Core, PARCC

The Tennessee House of Representatives this morning voted to delay any further implementation of the Common Core State Standards in Tennessee and to delay the use of the Pearson Assessment of  Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) until July 1, 2016 — effectively a two-year delay in the process.

The vote in favor of the legislation was a resounding 82-11.  The vote was a surprise, as two amendments offered by House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh were adopted.  An amendment to delay further Common Core implementation, including the adoption of new standards in science and social studies was approved by an 80-6 vote.

On delaying the PARCC testing, the vote was 88-0.

If Tennessee goes forward with a delay in PARCC participation, it will join Florida and Kentucky, who have already decided to stop using PARCC to assess their students’ mastery of the Common Core State Standards.

Procedurally speaking, the bill has already passed the Senate in a different form.  It will now be sent back to the Senate to ask that body to concur in House amendments.  The Senate can choose to adopt the House amendments, in which case the bill would be sent to Governor Haslam for his action.  If the Senate does not adopt the House amendments, the bill goes back to the House.  The House can then either 1) remove the amendments or 2) refuse to remove the amendments.  If the House refuses to back down from its original action (which passed with more than 80 votes), a conference committee will be appointed to sort out the issue.

The vote to delay Common Core and PARCC ended a particularly bad week for Governor Haslam’s education policy agenda.

First, the TEA announced a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of TVAAS-based merit pay for teachers, a measure supported by the Haslam Administration.

Then, the House Finance Committee did not take up Haslam’s proposal for school vouchers, instead delaying consideration for one week.  The bill barely eked out of House Finance Subcommittee with Speaker Harwell having to break a tie vote.

A TEA-backed bill prohibiting the use of TVAAS in teacher licensure decisions also passed key committees in the House and Senate this week.

 

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

 

TEA Files TVAAS Lawsuit in Knox County

Use of TVAAS is Arbitrary and Violates 14th Amendment, TEA Alleges

The Tennessee Education Association (TEA) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Knox County teacher who was denied a bonus under that school system’s pay plan after Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) data for 10 of her students was unknowingly attributed to her.

TVAAS is Tennessee’s system of measuring student growth over time. It generates data based on student test scores on TCAP and end of course tests.

In this specific case, the teacher, Lisa Trout, was assigned TVAAS data for 10 students after being told her evaluation would be based on system-wide TVAAS data because she taught at an alternative school.

The TEA lawsuit cites two different memos which indicated that Ms. Trout could expect an evaluation (and bonus eligibility) to be based on system-wide data. At the conclusion of the school year, Ms. Trout was informed that her overall evaluation score, including observations and TVAAS data was a 4, making her eligible for a bonus under the Knox County pay plan.

When she did not receive the bonus as expected, she began asking questions about why the bonus had not been paid.  She ultimately determined that without her knowledge, a school counselor had assigned 10 students to Ms. Trout for the factoring of TVAAS scores.  The students were in an Algebra II course Ms. Trout taught, even though she does not hold an endorsement for teaching Alegbra II.

Though the suit does not specifically mention this, it should be noted that 10 students is a particularly small sample size subject to significant statistical anomaly.

The TEA lawsuit contends that Ms. Trout was owed the bonus based on Knox County School Board policy and in this specific instance, the bonus should have been paid.

Arbitrary?

The TEA goes on to contend that Ms. Trout and similarly situated teachers for whom there is little or no specific TVAAS data are held to an arbitrary standard in violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Specifically, the suit notes: ” … the majority of teachers in the Knox County Schools … have had their eligibility for additional compensation (under the APEX bonus system) determined on the basis of the test scores of students they do not teach and/or the test scores of their students in subjects unrelated to the subjects they teach.”

The suit alleges that such a system violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because some teachers are evaluated and receive bonuses based on the scores of their own students while other teachers are held accountable for students they do not teach and over which they have no influence or control.

In short, the entire system is flawed and should be discarded.

A spokesperson for TEA confirmed that the organization does not believe that teacher pay should be tied to TVAAS data.

On a related note, the Metro Nashville Public Schools recently announced it is putting plans to pay teachers in part based on TVAAS scores on hold indefinitely.

A TEA press release announcing the Knox County suit indicated that the organization anticipates additional lawsuits along these lines.

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

 

Shielding our Teacher and Student Data

This article was submitted by JC Bowman, Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee (PET)

Since the passage of First to the Top legislation in 2010, as our organization has travelled across the state, we have heard from both parents and educators with concerns about the collection, use and potential misuse of student and teacher data.  While it is correct that the newly adopted PARCC exams will not collect any more additional data than TCAP that is not the concern of Tennessee parents or educators.

 

In 2009 an audit raised concerns about the state education department vendor Tennessee Rehabilitative Initiative in Correction (TRICOR) using prisoners to count, inventory and shred various materials in bulk quantities. According to the audit, included in the files were students’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and test performance data, all of which was handed over without prior consent from parents. The access of highly sensitive information to maximum security prison inmates is a significant security risk according to the report.  We must take steps to make sure this never happens again.

 

Therefore, those who are trying to make this debate about Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) are misinformed and misleading policymakers and stakeholders about the issue.  The public has sent a very strong message that policymakers must make individual student data-mining in Tennessee illegal.   Schools and schools systems need better policies in regard to school personnel having access to an educator’s personal summative and evaluation scores.  Any legislation adopted must clearly set out the conditions and restrictions on the use of confidential student and teacher data.  We must prohibit intrusive data tracking, which is an invasion of the rights of students and their families.  Any data collected should be used for the sole purpose of tracking the academic progress and needs of students by education officials at the local and state level.

 

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)[1] is a Federal privacy law that gives parents certain rights with regard to their children’s education records, such as the right to inspect and review your child’s education records.  In December, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education revised its regulations governing the implementation of FERPA by schools, districts, and States. These revisions change several of the exceptions to FERPA’s consent rule.  What parents and educators are seeking is a guarantee from the state that they are putting additional measures in place to protect students and educators.   Some legal experts believe that according to FERPA, the district, not the state, is the controlling party for the use of personal student data.

 

The 2011 changes permitted schools to disclose information on students if it has been properly designated as directory information. By law, directory information includes things that would generally not be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed, such as name, address, photograph, and date of birth. Directory information may not include things such a student’s social security number or grades. State policymakers may wish to go further than federal law in protecting student information. Why would a 3rd Party need photographs of children for example?   Why any individual, personalized student data is necessary is questionable, since comparisons are commonly done and are already widely available through de-identified aggregated student data.

 

Before a single child’s information is turned over to any 3rd party, policymakers should give assurance to parents and educators that no harm will come to Tennessee school children by adopting the following principles:  The state and districts should be required to publish any and all existing data sharing agreements in printed and electronic form, and include a thorough explanation of its purpose and provisions, and make it available to parents and local school authorities statewide;  The Department of Education should hold hearings throughout the state or testify before the legislature to explain any existing data agreement, and answer questions from the public or their representatives, obtain informed comment, and gauge public reaction;  All parents should have the right to be notified of the impending disclosure of their children’s data, and provide them with a right to consent or have the right to withhold their children’s information from being shared;  The state should have to define what rights families or individuals will have to obtain relief if harmed by improper use or release of their child’s private information, including how claims can be made; and finally, any legislation must ensure that the privacy interest of public school children and their families are put above the interests of any 3rd Party and its agents and subsidiaries.

 

We must be committed to protecting student and teacher data.  There are several pieces of pending legislation being considered by the General Assembly that can be used to accomplish this task.  Representatives Kevin Brooks, Bill Dunn, Vance Dennis, Jeremy Faison and Senators Dolores Gresham and Farrell Haile have been leading on this issue.  We strongly support these efforts, and encourage passage of legislation to address parent and educator’s concerns.

 

 

Footnote:  [1] For more information about FERPA, please see “FERPA General Guidance for Parents” on the Family Policy Compliance Office Web site: www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/parents.html. If you have a question or wish to report a potential FERPA violation, contact FPCO at: 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327).

 

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