A Note on Test Scores

A Nashville education blogger ponders the deeper meaning of all the horn-tooting over “Reward Schools.”

A comparison of this year’s list with previous years shows designations change constantly—Reward one year, not-Reward the next. The only thing consistent is that Priority Schools almost never escape the list.

Many have been on it for a decade or more.
They serve low-income, multi-cultural, multilingual communities.
We know—have known—that external factors shape internal results.

Yet we cling to these lists like they’re diagnostic tools rather than PR instruments.

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

The Florida School Voucher Swamp

Of Vouchers and School Closures

On Acting and School Administration

Nashville education blogger TC Weber talks about what passes for leadership in school system central offices:

Most district administrators began their journey as classroom teachers. They know kids. They know learning. They know what works and what absolutely does not. Deep down—buried under layers of jargon, compliance documents, and motivational posters—they recognize the absurdity of much of what they’re pushing.

Nobody who has spent more than 10 minutes with actual children believes that forcing every kid to be on the same page at the same time in the same way is a kid-centered practice. It’s not even an adult-centered practice. It’s a bureaucrat-centered practice.

No one with chalk dust buried in their bloodstream believes loading down a teacher with mandates, trainings, videos, forms, surveys, dashboards, rubrics, walk-throughs, and “fidelity checks” is a recipe for success. It’s a recipe for burnout, and we’ve watched that soufflé collapse again and again.

Go ahead, read it all>

cityscape of nashville tennessee at dawn
Photo by Cesar G on Pexels.com

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Tennessee Parents Sue Over Private School Coupon Scheme

Killing Public Schools in Tennessee