State Department of Education plans to send millions to local district to support summer learning programs, Chalkbeatreports:
The Tennessee Department of Education wants a $30 million increase in summer learning funding next year, though education officials say schools need more flexibility to use the money throughout the school year for required tutoring rather than just summer learning camps.
Tennessee summer learning camps this year enrolled nearly 90,000 students, 25% of whom were rising fourth graders. School-based summer learning camps are one of several “promotion pathways” rising fourth graders can use to move on from third grade if they don’t hit the benchmarks required by the state’s third grade reading law.
Reynolds is not a certified teacher and has zero teaching experience – even though state law requires that the Commissioner of Education (who is paid a quarter of a million dollars a year) be qualified to teach in and lead the schools over which she has authority.
Reynolds is the first Commissioner in the nearly 100 years since laws were passed requiring teaching credentials for the role to NOT have them on day one. And she still doesn’t.
The latest problem? Taking trips paid for by lobbyists – which is clearly against state ethics laws.
State Rep. Caleb Hemmer of Nashville filed a formal ethics complaint about Reynolds’ out-of-state travel paid for by Jeb Bush’s education privatization group ExcelInEd.
The trip begs the question: Is Reynolds working for Tennesseans or is she a wholly-owned subsidiary of privatizers like Bush?
The good news (so far) is that despite her best efforts, Reynolds failed to advance Bill Lee’s school voucher agenda.
The bad news? She’s still collecting a Tennessee taxpayer-funded paycheck.
Lizzette Reynolds plays to her strengths and fails miserably
Around this time last year, Tennessee was preparing to welcome a new Commissioner of Education following the disastrous tenure of Gov. Lee’s first pick for the job, Penny Schwinn.
Despite all kinds of end of session histrionics, Gov. Lee and sidekick Texas Liz were unable to convince their fellow Republicans to vote to spend public money supporting unaccountable private schools.
Unlike in previous attempts to privatize (earlier voucher efforts, private toll roads), with Lizzette on the job, Bill Lee failed.
But what about funding? The debate over the move from the BEP to TISA was intense. But, now TISA is the way the state funnels money to schools. How would it go? Would TISA implementation result in an uptick in overall funding for schools? Would Tennessee start to move up in national rankings relative to teacher compensation and overall investment in schools?
Nope.
On this score, Lizzette quickly continued a Tennessee tradition: Failing to invest in public education.
Tennessee ranks 44th in the nation in average teacher pay – and among the lowest in the Southeast. The state ranks 45th in per pupil spending – again, low even among Southern counterparts.
Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia all pay their teachers more than Tennessee does.
If this is what Reynolds is good at, what are her weaknesses?
One glaring weakness: She’s not qualified for the job.
Lizzette Reynolds’ tenure as Commissioner of Education marked with many mistakes
Tennessee’s Education Commissioner is having a rough go.
From not having the required teaching credentials when she started the job to getting caught claiming a tuition waiver she didn’t qualify for to some seriously disastrous legislative hearings, Reynolds is struggling.
What signal does it send that the governor is willing to hire somebody who is completely unqualified, who would misrepresent something on a state application and seek a tuition waiver from a state university just to get on the job training. This is all completely humiliating,” Representative Clemmons emphasized.
Democratic lawmakers say Education Commissioner is not qualified
Citing a state code that says that Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education should be qualified to teach in the schools over which they have jurisdiction, some Tennessee lawmakers are calling on Lizzette Reynolds to resign her post.
Tennessee Democratic lawmakers are calling on the state’s Commissioner of Education Lizette Reynolds to resign her post, stating she lacks the qualifications for the job as described in state law.
“If she doesn’t resign, I call on the Lee administration to make another choice,” Tennessee Black Caucus Chairman Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) said. “There are plenty of qualified people out there to lead this great education system we have.”
The legislators said the state code is not ambiguous – that Reynolds (or any Education Commissioner) should have classroom experience and meet the qualifications to teach in a Tennessee public school.
Reynolds has no classroom teaching experience and does not have an active Tennessee teaching license or a license to teach in any other state.
The Tennessee Journalreports that questions are being raised about whether Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds meets the minimum standard to hold the position to which she’s been appointed.
The issue is whether Reynolds qualifies to hold the post under Tennessee Code Annotated 4-3-802, which first became law nearly a century ago.
“The commissioner shall be a person of literary and scientific attainments and of skill and experience in school administration,” according to the law. “The commissioner shall also be qualified to teach in the school of the highest standing over which the commissioner has authority.”
Lee’s press secretary, Elizabeth L. Johnson, said in a statement to The Tennessee Journal that “Commissioner Reynold’s credentials and professional experience qualify her to serve as TDOE commissioner.”
The problem is that Reynolds doesn’t have a teaching degree and has never taught in a public or other school. She doesn’t have an active teaching license in Tennessee or any other state.
In other words, she could only teach in a Tennessee public school under a waiver or emergency certificate.
Previous Commissioners with backgrounds in politics and policy also had at least some teaching experience and an active teaching license. Penny Schwinn, the Commissioner just before Reynolds, taught high school in Maryland before her career in policy.
Kevin Huffman, an appointee of Bill Haslam’s, had experience in the classroom as a Teach for America teacher.
