Breakin’ the Law, Florida Style

Over at Dad Gone Wild, Nashville education blogger TC Weber talks about the Florida Virtual School, Common Core State Standards, and MNPS. Here’s a little hint: Tennessee’s state standards are basically Common Core — but don’t tell that to the newest member of the Textbook Commission!

Here’s TC’s take on Florida Virtual School and some apparent law-breaking:

Tennessee school districts are required to teach Tennessee standards using materials drawn from the state’s approved list of materials, or in which a district has obtained a waiver of use. The emergency rules allow a little bit more flexibility when it comes to online learning, but not when a district is delivering in-person instruction.

As part of its response to the challenges presented by COVID-19, Metro Nashville Public Schools chose to purchase a curriculum from the Florida Virtual School in order to standardized instruction across the district. As an added benefit, many of the accountability requirements called for by the state were embedded in the FLVS offerings – attendance, grading, assessments. It was a plan that made a lot of sense in light of the disruption students would experience this year. But to bring to fruition, it required every school to adopt the curriculum with fidelity. Which is something, right or wrong, that did not happen.

At last week’s committee meeting, State Representative Regan brought forth a question as to whether MNPS had been granted a waiver to use the FLVS curriculum. Board spokesman Nathan James did his best to dance around the question, but Regan was relentless, and eventually, it was revealed that no such waiver had been secured despite ongoing collaboration between the DOE and MNPS. Furthermore, MNPS had received written notification that they were in violation of Tennessee state law due to a failure to secure that waiver.

This question of approval is not a new conversation for me. Back when the use of Florida Virtual School was first proposed I raised the question of it requiring a waiver. That question was posed at an MNPS school board meeting by then-school board member Jill Speering back in July. Speering’s question was dismissed and she was assured, no waiver was required.

At issue here is that Tennessee law prohibits the teaching of Common Core State Standards, it takes less than a perfunctory search to identify that Florida Virtual School curriculum is deeply rooted in CCSS. Now that might be a dismissable factor considering the current situation if we choose to ignore the proliferation of CCSS architects currently employed by the Tennessee Department of Education. Be it AchieveTheCore, the Liben Foundation, CKLA, or David Steiner, it’s pretty clear that the department is deeply invested in the theory of CCSS despite their repeated claims to the contrary. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… it’s probably a duck.

MORE from Weber>

Nathan James and Penny Schwinn?

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Taking on Testing

Four members of the Tennessee House of Representatives have signed a letter to Gov. Bill Lee calling on him to end TNReady testing and teacher evaluations this year. The move follows a similar request issued by the Tennessee Education Association (TEA) last week. The letter, signed by Representatives John Ray Clemmons, Gloria Johnson, Bill Beck, and Jason Hodges notes that the COVID-19 pandemic has created special challenges that must be taken into account.

Here’s that letter:

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Inherently Unstable

That’s how TEA’s top lobbyist described the state’s teacher evaluation system that is based on so-called “value-added” modeling. The remarks were made during testimony before the House Education Committee. Here’s more from a TEA Facebook post:

MORE on TVAAS:

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Obsolete?

Haywood County Director of Schools Joey Hassell takes outgoing Senate Education Committee Chair Dolores Gresham to task for her comments suggesting school districts are obsolete:

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Senate Education Chair Not Seeking Re-Election

State Senator Dolores Gresham will not be seeking re-election this year, the AP reports:


Tennessee Republican state Sen. Dolores Gresham says she will not be seeking reelection this year.


The Somerville lawmaker made the announcement in an email this week to constituents in her 26th District.


Gresham served six years in the state House before she was elected to three four-year terms in the Senate. She became Education Committee chairwoman as a freshman senator.

Gresham’s leadership was a critical element in securing passage of Tennessee’s school voucher program. In fact, in litigation filed by the school systems in Nashville and Memphis, reference is made to Gresham’s captaining of the voucher bill from the Senate floor.


Amendment No. 1 did not apply to Sen. Gresham’s home county of Fayette County or to any of the other six counties in Sen. Gresham’s district, despite Fayette County having two out of seven schools (28.6%) on the 2017 bottom 10% list and one out of seven schools (14.3%) on the 2018 list of priority schools.

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Library Censorship Bill in Subcommittee TODAY

The Cities and Counties Subcommittee of the House Local Government Committee will hear HB2721 today at 3:30 PM. The bill is opposed by the American Library Association, as they explain the press release below.

Today the American Library Association (ALA) released the following statement regarding Tennessee HB 2721, which would require a parental oversight board to replace policies and library experts in the development of library collections and services.  Libraries that fail to comply with the proposed law may lose local funding, incur fines, and librarians and library workers may face jail time. 

The ALA stated the following:  

“Tennessee HB 2721 threatens library users’ freedom to read and violates our professional values and ethics expressed in the ALA’sLibrary Bill of Rights. If adopted, the bill would establish ‘parental oversight boards’ whose decisions about what others can read, view, and access in the library would be final. The bill would add layers of bureaucracy that compete with elected or appointed library boards and existing library policies that govern library collection development, programming, and meeting room use. The law jeopardizes library funding and imposes fines and jail time for librarians who violate the edicts of these untrained boards.

“The belief that a small group of parents know what is best for every family in their community denies the very real fact that each community is made up of families and individuals with diverse beliefs, identities and values. ALA supports the right of families and individuals to choose materials from a diverse spectrum of ideas and beliefs. Public libraries and their professional staff members already have in place the tools and procedures that will assist parents in selecting materials that fit their family’s information needs, while not censoring materials or infringing upon the rights of other families or patrons to choose and access the resources and programs  they want and need.

“ALA vigorously opposes HB2721 and other bills like it that advance censorship under the guise of parental control.”

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Faison Pushing for Teacher Pay Raise

House Republican Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison of Cosby has indicated he’ll be pushing for a significant pay raise for Tennessee teachers when the legislature reconvenes in 2020. WJHL has more:


“Our teachers are some of the hardest-worked people in Tennessee and I definitely see a raise coming in,” says House Republican Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison who was voted into the leadership position this past August.


Few doubt the K-12 teachers’ low pay compared to other states, but Representative Faison says the issue is especially acute in those districts away from urban areas.


“Our teachers in rural Tennessee are struggling,” said Faison in a recent interview. “If you are a single parent and you are a teacher and you have two kids, that’s like poverty wages.”

A recent analysis indicates that over the last 10 years, Tennessee has seen inflation-adjusted revenue growth of 7%. Over that same time period, teacher pay is down by 2.6%. That’s not surprising, given that Tennessee receives an “F” on a rating of funding effort for schools according to the Education Law Center.

In fact, Think Tennessee highlighted two important numbers relative to school funding in our state:

So, we’ve got some work to do — both in teacher pay and in overall investment in schools.

Back in 2014, I wrote about the state’s broken school funding formula, the BEP. The fact is, it’s still broken today. The solution propose then would also work now:


There’s an easy fix to this and it has been contemplated by at least one large school system in the state. That fix? Moving the BEP instructional component to the state average. Doing so would cost just over $500 million. So, it’s actually NOT that easy. Another goal of those seeking greater equity is moving the BEP instructional match from 70% to 75%, essentially fulfilling the promise of BEP 2.0. Doing so would cost at least $150 million.

The state should absolutely make a significant investment in teacher pay in 2020. We can afford it, with billions of dollars in surpluses coming in over the last five years. Frankly, we can’t afford NOT to do it. Ignoring the problem will just further exacerbate a growing teacher shortage.


For the past five years Tennessee has been running huge revenue surpluses as education needs go unmet. Over this five-year span the state collected nearly $3 billion more in general fund revenue than it anticipated. Last year alone the state general fund had a $580 million surplus. These are millions that could have gone to classrooms. 

Combining an improvement in teacher pay at a level of 5% or more with a move toward full funding of BEP 2.0 (a cost of some $500 million) would go a long way toward giving Tennessee teachers both the pay and resources they need. We have the money. The only question is will lawmakers like Faison find the collective political will to make the investment.

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Not a Single Member

Yesterday, the House Education Administration Subcommittee met for the first time. The meeting was the first chaired by admitted sex offender David Byrd.

Readers will recall that while both former House Speaker Beth Harwell and current Lt. Governor Randy McNally called on Byrd to resign from the legislature last year, current House Speaker Glen Casada gave Byrd a key leadership role on education policy.

At yesterday’s meeting, Byrd asked each committee member to introduce himself (the committee is made up of seven men) and state an interesting fact.

Each member proceeded to attempt humor. Not a single member used the opportunity to call on Byrd to resign from his committee leadership post. Instead, they acted as if having an admitted sex offender at the helm of a legislative committee was just business as usual.

Here’s a link to the committee membership.

And here’s a picture of the six men who sat in silence while an admitted sex offender chaired a committee:

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Admitted Sex Offender Earns House Education Post

What a difference a year makes. Last year, former House Speaker Beth Harwell was calling on state representative David Byrd to resign amid allegations he had improper sexual relationships with high school students he had coached. Now, new House Speaker Glen Casada has appointed Byrd to Chair the House Education Administration Subcommittee.

The Tennessean has more:

Despite calls from protesters — and the previous House speaker — for his resignation, a state lawmaker accused of inappropriate sexual conduct against multiple teens has been named chairman of an education subcommittee.

Rep. David Byrd, R-Waynesboro, has been assigned by newly-elected House Speaker Glen Casada, R-Franklin, to lead the education administration subcommittee.

The announcement came Thursday when committees were assigned on the floor of the House, immediately following required sexual harassment training.

As the Tennessean story notes, Byrd was 28 and a basketball coach when he is accused of having inappropriate sexual conduct with two players who were then 15 and one who was 16. Despite Byrd’s denial of wrongdoing, a recorded phone call provided to Nashville’s WSMV-TV has Byrd apologizing to one of the women accusing him of misconduct.

The story also notes that in addition to Harwell, Lt. Governor Randy McNally called on Byrd to resign last year. Instead, Glen Casada has elevated Byrd to a key leadership role overseeing our state’s education policy.

Casada’s indifference to Byrd’s misconduct should come as no surprise to legislative observers. After all, Casada was well-known as mentor and adviser to former State Rep. Jeremy Durham, the first Tennessee House member ever to be expelled from the body. Durham was expelled after multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct that took place during his short time in office.

Despite his penchant for enabling sex offenders, Casada received 75 votes in the Speaker’s race, including the support of Democrats Johnny Shaw, John Mark Windle, and John DeBerry. Republican Bob Ramsey was absent, but all other Republicans voted in favor of Casada. DeBerry, like Casada, is a long-time supporter of school vouchers – a priority apparently more important to him than protecting children from sexual predators. While Windle received a committee chairmanship, there’s no clear explanation for why Shaw supported Casada over Democrat Karen Camper.

Now, instead of being returned home to repent of his sins, Byrd will remain in the House and be a key player in state education issues.

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