The latest results from Shelby County brought the total to 134:
The third and last batch of water sample tests brings the total number of Memphis schools affected to 39, representing about 2% of water sources in the district’s 165 school buildings and facilities. Charter schools and state-run schools in Memphis will test their water separately, Shelby County Schools officials said.
As Chalkbeat notes, the testing came about due to a new state law:
The tests were the first under a new Tennessee law requiring school districts to test water sources such as water fountains and sinks for lead at least every two years.
The alarming statewide results indicate a need for serious investment in capital improvements at school facilities across the state.
While there is a clear statewide need for school infrastructure funding, Gov. Bill Lee’s charter school slush fund began doling out millions of dollars this week and plans to award millions more in competitive grants to charter schools in districts across the state. Meanwhile, a new report indicates Tennessee remains at the bottom in nation in both funding of schools and funding effort (use of available resources to support investment in schools).
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Governor Bill Lee’s charter school slush fund is in full force, with millions in grant dollars heading out the door to charter schools and millions more slated to be awarded by a competitive grant process. Chattanooga’s NewsChannel9 has the story:
Tennessee education officials are distributing almost $5.9 million in grants to aid 117 charter schools in the state.
The Department of Education announced Monday that the grants account for about half of the $12 million allocated to the department’s Charter Schools Facilities fund in Gov. Bill Lee’s budget.
The money can be spent on property purchases to relocate or establish schools; general improvements to facilities, purchasing or leasing underused or vacant property; or existing capital outlay projects.
Lee has committed himself to a school privatization agenda that includes a school voucher scheme, this slush fund, and a state commission designed to fast-track charter schools by usurping the authority of local school boards.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Dr. Bill Smith of Johnson City clearly and succinctly describes the playbook for school privatizers in recent piece in the Johnson City Press:
A popular refrain of conservative politicians has been the assertion that America has tried everything possible to improve its schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our leaders certainly have not done everything possible to help the schools facing the greatest challenges. Instead, they have repeatedly applied one ill-conceived policy prescription: testing children and shaming and punishing educators when the results aren’t deemed acceptable.
For almost two decades we have clung to this approach as if it is a matter of faith. As economic and racial inequalities in academic performance have persisted, our leaders have doubled down with increased determination. To them there is never any consideration of the possibility that so-called accountability measures might not be the solution to all educational concerns. If schools don’t succeed, it’s their fault. They are failures.
By purposefully characterizing schools in poor urban and rural areas as “failing schools,” elected officials have promoted the view that these schools are beyond redemption. Not surprisingly, these leaders now feel empowered to suggest that the only way forward is give up on struggling schools and enact voucher and charter programs.
That’s it. That’s the game. That’s the playbook used by Governor Bill Lee and those like him who wish to advance a school privatization agenda. Former Governor Haslam played this game, too.
Test. Punish. Underfund. Repeat. Until the results are so abundantly clear that the “only hope” is privatization.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
This Facebook post from Ellen Zinkiewicz is an effective open letter to Bill Lee on what needs to be done for our schools (and students):
Dear Gov. Lee, all week we’ve been having a conversation (albeit one sided) about how to disrupt the education system to help improve achievement scores.
I’ve had suggestions from around the State on ways to use our existing and unspent Federal TANF and child care reimbursement money and fairly straightforward legislation to impact Tennessee’s education test scores by focusing on poverty reduction strategies. I keep mentioning poverty. And keep mentioning poverty; and keep mentioning poverty, because poor kids, hungry kids, transient kids, and homeless kids don’t do well on standardized tests. And Tennessee has a lot of these kids.
More than 1 in 4 Tennessee kids lives in poverty, and a bunch more who aren’t technically “poor” are still economically struggling. You have high schools asking their PTOs for washing machines because so many of their kids are homeless and don’t come to school with clean clothes. You have schools sending kids home with food on Fridays so they will have something to eat over the weekends. You have schools with mobility rates of over 100% meaning families can’t afford housing so they bounce around from place to stay to place to stay and that takes them from school zone to school zone.
Gov. Lee, until we help working families find some economic stability, nothing we do to the education system will transform test-readiness.
Poverty is the enemy here, Sir. And I hope you can lead our State in focusing on the disruptive effort of eliminating it, if for no other reason than to see test scores go up.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
That’s the grade Tennessee gets from the Education Law Center’s latest report on school funding in the United States. To be clear, Tennessee earned an F in both funding level and funding effort. We earned a C in distribution of the paltry sum our state dedicates to schools.
Here’s how Education Law Center defines those terms:
Funding Level – the cost-adjusted, per-pupil revenue from state and local sources
Funding Distribution – the extent to which additional funds are distributed to school districts with high levels of student poverty
Funding Effort – the level of investment in K-12 public education as a percentage of state wealth (GDP) allocated to maintain and support the state school system
The report notes that Tennessee is 43rd in the nation in overall funding level and 47th in effort. The effort category is of particular interest because it indicates that Tennessee has significant room for improvement in terms of funding level. That is, there are untapped resources Tennessee is NOT using to fund schools.
Shorter: Funding schools is NOT a key policy priority in Tennessee.
Additional evidence for this can be found in graphics shared by Think Tennessee earlier this year:
Tennessee is (and has been) at or near the bottom in school funding and even in funding effort. That’s not changing. Instead, Governor Lee and his policy acolytes are diverting education dollars to voucher schemes and charter schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
State Senator Brian Kelsey is under increasing scrutiny from the FBI into how he financed his failed 2016 campaign for Congress.
Erik Schelzig reports on a story out of the Tennessean noting individuals who have been interviewed related to the case:
Former Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey is among officials interviews by federal officials investigating fundraising related to state Sen. Brian Kelsey’s failed 2016 congressional bid, The Tennessean reports.
Also interviewed was Nashville Councilman Steve Glover, who gave money to Kelsey’s federal PAC during a 2016 after receiving money from the senator’s state PAC.
Schelzig notes:
Candidates are prohibited from using money raised for state races in federal campaigns. As The Tennessean reported in 2017 (and later augmented by a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission), Kelsey’s state committee, Red State PAC, gave thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to fellow state lawmakers, who then turned around and gave donations to his congressional account.
Kelsey was the lead sponsor of Governor Bill Lee’s signature legislative initiative, Education Savings Accounts (vouchers). While Kelsey faces an FBI probe into his campaign finances, the House vote on the voucher legislation is under a separate FBI investigation.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Educator and blogger Peter Greene offers his insight on what we can (and can’t) learn from NAEP in Forbes:
That’s the one actual lesson of NAEP; the dream of data-informed, data-driven decision making as a cure for everything that ails us is just a dream. Data can be useful for those who want to actually look at it. But data is not magical, and in education, it’s fruitless to imagine that data will settle our issues.
This is akin to the saying: “You don’t make a pig fatter by weighing it more often.”
What about those big gains in Mississippi? Greene notes:
Mississippi in 2015 joined the states that held back students who could not pass a third grade reading test, meaning those low-scoring students would not be in fourth grade to take NAEP test. It would be like holding back all the shorter third graders and then announcing that the average height of fourth graders has increased.
And, he also points out that Betsy DeVos took a shot at the very reforms she advocated:
DeVos singled out Detroit as an example of failed policies, yet the policies that have failed in Detroit are largely those reform policies that she herself pushed when she was an education reform activist in Michigan.
Is “reform” working? Do we need more “disruption” as Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee suggests?
In all discussions, it’s useful to remember that the increases or decreases being discussed are small– a difference of just a few points up or down. NAEP scores have shown neither a dramatic increase or decrease, but a sort of dramatic stagnation. That is arguably worse news for education reformers, who have been promising dramatic improvements in student achievement since No Child Left Behind became the law almost twenty years ago.
The short answer: No. The new tests (TNReady), the charters, the vouchers… none of it is making a dent in the underlying issues driving the stagnation Greene notes. Yes, there is useful information to be gleaned from the data, but it’s probably time to calm down and focus on what matters: making life (and school) better for kids.
The thing is: We know what to do, we just don’t seem to want to do it. Instead, we can talk about NAEP and gains and the need to improve and the difference between NAEP scores and state test scores and then feel like we’ve done something.
Still, too many kids show up to school hungry. Too many families don’t have access to adequate healthcare. Tennessee’s current Commissioner of Education notes:
“If we’re looking at proficiency by student group over time, the large increase in 2013 was largely from our white and non-low income students,” she said, calling for more support for economically disadvantaged students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.
The question, then, is what will Governor Bill Lee and the General Assembly do with this data? Continue to ignore it as past Governors and legislators have? Ask for more data? Add more tests? Contract with a testing company that promises results that justify the reforms Lee likes? Enact vouchers in spite of mountains of evidence against the efficacy of such programs?
I predict there will be a demand for more weighing of the pig.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
As if any voter in Kentucky cares, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has endorsed fellow Republican Matt Bevin in Bevin’s bid to hold on to the Governor’s seat in Kentucky.
Erik Schelzig of the Tennessee Journal reports:
Lee appeared at a Bevin campaign stop at the Casey Jones Distillery in western Kentucky on Friday. The first year Tennessee governor said Bevin had encouraged him to run last year, and that he was inspired by Bevin’s “outsider” status.
“He, too, came from the business world and he understands that the status quo and establishment is not the way to move the Commonwealth of Kentucky forward,” the Hoptown Chronicle quoted Lee as saying. “The way to move forward is to break and challenge the status quo.”
Lee and Bevin have a lot in common, including a stunning incompetence when it comes to governing.
On education issues, Bevin has advanced charter schools, sought to destroy teacher pensions, and suggested teacher strikes caused children to be vulnerable to sexual assault.
A charter school in Memphis that makes big promises to students and parents is failing to deliver, according to a report from WMC-TV. Apparently, Southwest Early College High is on the verge of closing following the outcome of a district investigation into the school that found:
SCS posted the results of its investigation along with a presentation online, outlining why the school’s charter should be revoked immediately.
The district says SECH relied on unlicensed teachers in multiple classes; failed to provide proper services to special needs students; and lost its partnership with Southwest Tennessee Community College, where the school is located, because students weren’t receiving the academic and socio-emotional support needed. The presentation also said the school had “no institutional control.”
Now, students are left behind — victims of a market-based approach to education. This approach, advanced by conservatives and neo-liberals alike, is a distraction from the real challenges facing students. It’s easier for some adults to chase the shiny, new object than to actually dig in and make systemic change.
Governor Bill Lee, for example, is all-in on the voucher and charter agenda because that’s easier politically than tackling challenges like access to healthcare and generational poverty.
Solutions to these problems exist and they’d help kids and families get ahead. Instead of pursuing them, though, our policymakers and their privatizing friends keep making new promises.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Private school advocates attempting to secure public funding from Governor Bill Lee’s Education Savings Account (ESA) voucher scheme made clear this week they want taxpayer cash without any real accountability. Specifically, Chalkbeatreports these groups, including Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children, are resisting proposed rules requiring strict background checks on school employees.
Leaders of the Tennessee-based Beacon Center, the Florida-based ExcelinEd, and the Washington, D.C.-based American Federation for Children say the rule is unclear as written and could force private schools to run background checks that are far beyond the requirements for public schools. Such a mandate, they say, could place an “undue burden” on private schools wanting to participate in Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program, as well as on their employees.
Voucher supporters say they want participating private schools to face the same requirements as their public counterparts when it comes to employee background checks. At the same time, they don’t want private schools to be judged academically using the same state tests used by Tennessee public schools.
While voucher advocates, eager for taxpayer cash, expressed concern about having to follow the rules, a Department of Education representative indicated the rules are clear:
Deputy Education Commissioner Amity Schuyler, who is developing the program on behalf of her department, added that the state’s new law is clear that participating schools must conduct criminal background checks through the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The resistance to employee background checks from voucher advocates comes just months after a horrifying story out of a Nashville charter school in which a student was in a class taught by a substitute teacher who was also the woman who killed that student’s brother:
But that feeling of safety was shattered Friday when the twins had a substitute teacher in their math class. It was Khadijah Griffis, the same woman who had shot and killed their older brother last month.
This incident happened at RePublic Charter School. The school was using a New Orleans-based firm to source substitute teachers.
Additionally, voucher proponents are attempting to avoid accountability when it comes to state tests:
On the testing issue, the proposed rules would allow either Tennessee’s standardized tests or “any nationally normed assessment” already in use when the state determines if a school will be suspended or terminated from the program for poor results by voucher students. The inclusion of national tests was a concession to private schools, which don’t administer state tests. Board member Wendy Tucker expressed concerns last month that the accommodation wasn’t in keeping with the spirit of new voucher law, which requires all voucher students to take annual state tests in math and English language arts to track student performance.
The voucher vultures are making it clear: They want Tennessee taxpayer dollars and they want minimal accountability. While Bill Lee attempts to fast-track this ill-conceived initiative, perhaps the antics of the money hungry DeVos devotees will boost the chances of a budding repeal movement.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
