Emily’s Got Questions

MNPS school board member Emily Masters has some questions about a survey recently publicized by the Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF).

Masters took to her campaign blog to post some thoughts about the survey – and took issue especially with the idea that there is significant support among Nashvillians for the state’s new school funding formula, TISA.

While Masters goes into some detail about survey methodology and survey questions, she also uses a paragraph to point out her belief that NPEF is not aligning itself with the goals of MNPS.

The thing I find most interesting about NPEF is that their NTEE (National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities) code is B11 (Single Organization Support: Educational Institutions and Related Activities), and the mission they state on their FY20 990 filing (the most recent one publicly available) with the IRS is “to ensure every child in Nashville has access to a great public education,” so clearly that “single organization” they’re supposed to be supporting is Metro Nashville Public Schools. And yet – they do things that contradict that, such as supporting legislation that clearly isn’t in the best interests of public school students in Nashville and conducting surveys about education without collaborating with the very organization they’re created to support.

You can read more from Masters about the poll, the press release, and the results here.

question marks on paper crafts
Photo by Olya Kobruseva on Pexels.com

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Perception of Nashville Schools Improving

The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) released the results of its annual poll and the numbers indicate that the public now has a more favorable view of MNPS. Still, more than half of those polled hold a negative view of Nashville’s schools.

Here’s more from a press release:

A recent poll conducted by Impact Research for the Nashville Public Education Foundation shows an improvement in Nashvillians’ perception of the city’s public schools. The results show an 11-point upswing in residents’ perceptions of local public schools, from a 62% negative rating in 2021 to roughly half (51%) this year. The data further suggests that Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) families are more encouraged by recent improvements, as 50% of public school parents approve of the job the district is doing educating students  up 16 points from last year.

Director of Schools Adrienne Battle hailed the results as a sign of the district’s focus on students.

“We are excited that MNPS families are seeing and experiencing the work being done across the district to accelerate the learning progress of our students and move the district forward to ensure every student is known,” said Dr. Adrienne Battle, Director of Schools. “I’m thankful for the support we’ve received from Mayor Cooper, the Metro Council, and our Board of Education through record investments in MNPS that have helped us achieve our level 5 TVAAS status and a record 48 Reward Schools in the last school year. We look forward to building on these foundations to create even greater support for public schools in Nashville.”

A note on TISA:

The poll also asked Nashvillians about a high-profile issue affecting public schools in the past year – the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA), the state’s new school funding formula. While the overwhelming majority (69%) of Nashvillians have not heard about the state’s new school funding formula, those who are aware of TISA are generally split on their support. Within the population who say they are aware of TISA, 41% support it while 46% oppose the funding formula. 

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

$4000 Less

That’s the impact of inflation on starting teacher pay in Metro Nashville.

Teachers in Nashville have seen significant pay bumps in recent years, but as inflation takes a toll, those increases effectively mean a starting teacher today makes less than a starting teacher did back in 2015.

Adam Mintzer at WKRN has more:

According to data from the National Council on Teacher Quality, a new teacher with a bachelor’s degree made $42,082 during the 2015-2016 school year.

This year, a new teacher will make $48,121.

But when you take into account inflation and run the 2015 and 2022 salaries through the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $42,082 has the same buying power as $52,242 now.

Therefore, a new teacher is making $4,121 less now compared to what they would’ve made in 2015.

That’s a number that hits particularly hard in one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities – where housing costs have been steadily on the rise.

As Mintzer notes:

There are more than 120 teacher positions still open as of a couple of weeks ago in Metro Nashville Public Schools, according to a spokesperson for the district.

cardboard illustration of paper money and coins on blue background
Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

NPEF Issues Call for Equity Metrics for Nashville

The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) is celebrating its 20th anniversary and calling for “equity metrics” for Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Here’s more from a press release:

The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF), founded in 2002, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this coming school year. For two decades, NPEF has worked to improve public schools first through fundraising and more recently by supporting teachers and leaders, celebrating success, and advocating for change. The foundation will celebrate its anniversary at the 2022 Public Schools Hall of Fame on September 8 at the Music City Center and throughout the year.

“For 20 years, we’ve worked to help shape our city’s schools to better meet the needs of our students and families,” said Meg Harris, NPEF Board Chair. “We are so proud of all that we’ve been able to achieve, but there is still much more to be done to ensure that all children can thrive in Nashville’s schools.”

Evolving as an organization to meet the changing needs of a growing and diversifying community, NPEF has seen its mission expand to eliminate systemic barriers that prevent too many students from thriving in school. This evolution led to the release of the documentary By Design: The Shaping of Nashville’s Public Schools, which explores how schools were designed within a larger system of social structures that collectively inhibit students of color and their families from gaining access to resources that help them succeed.

Given the deep disparities in opportunities and outcomes for our students, the foundation is calling on the community to push for equity metrics that assess the experience of children and youth in Nashville. Equity metrics would provide a clear picture of how young people are doing in our city, whether progress has been made toward goals, and whether opportunities are in place to support future progress. This aggregation of data would help to contextualize student achievement and other education outcomes within the ecosystem of a child’s life to promote better public policy. 

“We cannot continue to expect different outcomes if we do not change the way the system is designed,” said Katie Cour, President and CEO of the Nashville Public Education Foundation. “That means changing the way we support children and youth in all aspects of their lives – not just the quality of schools they attend, but also their access to transportation, housing, healthcare, and other core services. Equity metrics would allow us to get a more accurate picture of what our students are truly experiencing and are an important step in building the Nashville we all want.”

Equity metrics build on the foundation’s prior work around literacy, professional development, school funding, teacher pay, principal quality, and more. Among the foundation’s achievements in the last 20 years, NPEF has:

Opened the Martin Professional Development Center, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated solely to the quality of teaching and instruction in the classroom

Honored more than 350 teachers as Blue Ribbon Teacher award winners to recognize and reward the exceptional work of Nashville’s educators

Supported the district to develop its approach to recruiting, developing, and retaining great principals, establishing a framework and improving strategies 

Catalyzed $30 million in investments for Nashville to invest in college strategies through its Bridge to Completion series

Released By Design: The Shaping of Nashville’s Public Schools, a documentary driving critical conversations about reimagining our public schools

Helped to close the digital divide during the COVID-19 pandemic by raising substantial funds for technology and access to broadband for Nashville’s students and families

Led the study on teacher pay in partnership with the Mayor’s office that resulted in the Mayor’s $49 million investment to increase teacher salaries and make Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) teachers the best paid in the state

Co-convened the Nashville Literacy Collaborative to sharpen the community’s focus on literacy, resulting in the Blueprint for Early Childhood Success; and

Celebrated over 100 community leaders, educators, and organizations making a difference for Nashville’s public schools through the Public Schools Hall of Fame
cardboard illustration of paper money and coins on blue background
Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

NPEF Adds Board Members

The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced the addition of three new board members today. Here’s more from the press release:

The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) has appointed three new members to its Board of Directors, including Michelle Gaskin Brown, manager at Amazon; Kate Chinn, former vice president at AllianceBernstein; and Dr. L. Gregory Jones, president of Belmont University. Additionally, Meg Harris, the current board vice-chair and vice president of people at Ancestry, will take over as the foundation’s board chair on July 1, 2022. Harris succeeds Tony Heard, a partner at InfoWorks.

Readers may recall that NPEF first warned about the dangers of Bill Lee’s new school funding formula (TISA) and then ended up backing the plan that, by their own admission, would mean less funding for Nashville’s schools.

Above is the announcement of support for TISA from NPEF. Below are the warnings the very same group issued:

It’s interesting that NPEF noted that the BEP created an “unattainable burden” for districts like Nashville and then supported a funding scheme that actually leaves Nashville worse off than before the BEP.

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Pinkston Talks Partisan School Board Races

Former MNPS School Board member Will Pinkston talks about what partisan school board races could mean in Davidson County in a compelling Twitter thread:

As a former reporter, I’ve been patiently waiting to see if any vestiges of local media would explain to voters what partisan local school board elections could actually mean. Seeing no explanatory journalism, I’ll unpack it on this thread. 1/ cc @TheAndySpears @TNRepParkinson

Because the Davidson County Democratic and Republican parties decided to opt-in to the legislature’s plan for partisan school boards, they’re now responsible for policing candidates to ensure that they’re bonafide — in the same way they vet legislative races. This means … 2/

… ensuring that candidates subscribe to the county parties’ “platforms” — which mirror the national parties’ platforms. While the GOP didn’t adopt a platform in 2020, the education plank in their 2016 platform is a love letter to vouchers and their kissing cousin — charters. 3/

Meanwhile, the edu-plank in the Democrats’ platform includes language that won’t sit well with all the local charter zealots who masquerade as Democrats but who, under the party’s platform, would be easily disqualified from running as Democrats. For example … 4/

… the Democrats’ platform rightly calls for increased accountability for charters, which are not public schools but rather taxpayer-funded private schools. Specifically, they call for the same standards as “traditional public schools” in areas like admissions and discipline. 5/

Back in 2015, the Nashville School Board — in a move foreshadowing the Democrats’ platform — adopted charter accountability rules that have since been relaxed but now almost certainly will be revisited during partisan local school board elections. 6/

https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/nashville-stands-powerful-charter-industry-sets-new

Setting aside the Democrats’ official platform, major constituencies go farther. For example, the National Education Association wants elected officials to fight efforts to strip local control — something Nashville School Board members gripe about but don’t do anything about. 7/

Meanwhile, the nation’s leading civil-rights organizations have demanded a moratorium on new charter schools, due to the now-undisputed failure of the charter movement and negative fiscal impact that unabated charter growth has on public schools. 8/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/07/26/naacp-report-charter-schools-not-a-substitute-for-traditional-public-schools-and-many-need-reform

Bottom line: The 2022 Nashville School Board elections will be a fascinating case study in whether the Davidson County Democratic Party is going to toe the party line and vet candidates — or thumb its nose at the party platform and crawl into the charter bed with Republicans. 9/9

Originally tweeted by Will Pinkston (@WillPinkston) on December 15, 2021.

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Power Grab

Nate Rau in Axios highlights conversations happening at the Nashville Chamber of Commerce regarding moving Nashville from an elected to an appointed School Board.

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce is considering a push for a major change to Nashville public schools — switching from an elected school board to one where members are appointed.

The chamber has had high-level talks on the topic with key education stakeholders, including the school board chair.

Not surprisingly, some Board members are not at all happy with this move. To be clear, the idea of appointed school board members was also floated by pro-charter former Mayor Karl Dean.

Here’s current board member Abigail Tylor talking about this latest effort to shift power away from the people:

We have to take a minute and think about why any group – be it the state or our own chamber – would want to take away local control from the people and make the school board appointed. Would the outcome be better for students if parents weren’t allowed to vote for who they think best represents their interests? Would it be better for students if the board was no longer required to have a representative from each area of the city? Would it be better for students to only have people able to garner enough attention from the mayor to get appointed? 

We actually already have a blueprint of what happens under appointed leadership. The State has the power to appoint who oversees the Achievement School District (ASD) because they claimed they knew the people who could make the best educational decisions for the worst performing schools. Within three years, the appointed superintendent who started the ASD left, admitting they cannot do any better than the locally controlled schools. He wrote, “As a charter school founder, I did my fair share of chest pounding over great results. I’ve learned that getting these same results in a zoned neighborhood school environment is much harder.” He also admitted to underestimating the needs of struggling schools and, in the end, did not provide the gains he was so sure he knew he could produce. Were those students served better under appointed leadership? The answer has been, and continues to be, no. 

That’s the crux of it. Politicians who have never studied educational policy and have no experience working in schools constantly underestimate the true needs of our schools. The people who know what our schools need are the ones living it – the people who work in our schools and see the needs every day and the people whose children are in our schools and know what their children need to succeed. 

Is it that the Nashville Chamber really thinks the mayor would do a better job choosing a school board than the voters, or is it that they want to consolidate power and control over schools regardless of what’s truly best for our students? 

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

New State Commission Pushes Charters on Nashville

Gov. Bill Lee won approval of a “super charter commission” back in 2019. Now, that commission is imposing an unwanted charter school on Nashville.

The Commission voted today to overturn the decision by the MNPS School Board to reject the charter application from Nashville Classical, which already operates an elementary and middle school in East Nashville. The new school is proposed for West Nashville.

Nate Rau has a great explainer on the fight over Nashville Classical in the Tennessee Lookout.

Nashville Classical, which has already been rejected once by the school board with a 7-1 vote, submitted its appeal last week.

But, the starting point for the local debate over Nashville Classical’s application is a new state law that says the Nashville school board’s decision is functionally irrelevant. If the appeal is rejected, as expected, the school can simply appeal to the new Republican-backed state charter school commission, which would likely grant its approval. Unless a political meteor strikes and creates some unforeseen circumstance, Nashville Classical will be open to enrolling kindergarten beginning next year.

This was written back in June. Now, here we are in mid-October, and Nashville Classical has gained the predicted approval from the Charter Commission.

This should come as no surprise given Gov. Lee’s strong penchant for privatization.

School Board member Abigail Tylor is speaking out on the decision, but the reality is this type of top-down privatization is exactly what Bill Lee wants and exactly why the super charter commission was started.

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

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

So This Actually Happened

Here are some responses to a Facebook Post by Metro Nashville Education Association (MNEA) President Amanda Kail from MNPS School Board member Fran Bush.

Enough of your bull! We are going to open in person soon. Either you want to teach or quit your day job with MNPS, I am sick of your tactics and your agenda!! Our kids deserves better than this and they will not be held as pawns to your demands. Girl bye!!!😡

Franchata Goodrich-Bush

Oh, and I failed to mentioned, parents are signing up to be subs to mitigate the loss of teachers in the union who wants to leave. We are prepared to fill the gaps!! We are ready to lead!!!!

And a response from Board member Rachel Elrod:

As a MNPS Board Member and the Vice Chair of the board, any harassment, threats, or taunting of our teachers or staff by board members is unacceptable. Thank you to all MNPS teachers and staff for your continued dedication to our students and families, especially since March. I am grateful for your work and deeply appreciate you.

To read the entire thread and see for yourself, go here:

https://www.facebook.com/amanda.kail.73/posts/10158069246399157

pexels-photo-987585.jpeg
Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com

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

Your support$5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.