A New Board Member

Nashville education blogger TC Weber breaks down Metro Council’s appointment of a new member of Nashville School Board.

Last night Nashville’s Metro Council appointed a new school board member. Congratulations to Dr. Berthena Nabaa-McKinney as she takes over the seat vacated by the untimely death of former board chair Anna Shepherd. By all accounts, Nabaa-McKinney is a capable and exceptional replacement. Her presentation to the council yesterday was quite impressive and probably went a long way towards swaying council members to her side.

Unfortunately, last night’s proceedings were not completely free of political machinations. Education committee chair Dave Rosenberg cast his first ballot vote for Stephanie Bradford in an attempt to prevent candidate John Little from advancing. A move that was unsuccessful because McKinney and Little both tied with 11 votes while Bradford received 14. As a result, only the 4th candidate Steve Chauncey was prevented from advancing.

In the next round, Rosenberg switched his vote to Nabaa-McKinney, a move that successfully knocked Little out of contention. In the final round, the majority of Little’s votes transferred to Nabaa-McKinney, allowing her to secure the appointment by a vote of 25-14.

Mayor-to-be Council Member Bob Mendes missed the vote due to a family vacation. A curious decision seeing as he’s viewed as the city’s budget guru and MNPS takes up the largest portion of the budget. Mendes recently led the effort to raise property tax rates by 34%, in part to increase funding to the public school system. Surprisingly he was uninterested in influencing who would lead the district.

Dr. Berthena Nabaa-McKinney will hold the school board seat until November when voters will have the opportunity to vote for the candidate who will serve out the remainder of Shepherd’s term until 2022. Both Little and Bradford have announced their intention to campaign for the seat, and the assumption is that Nabaa-McKinney will as well. Convincing voters will present a decidedly different challenge as opposed to convincing council members.

TC also talks Florida Virtual School and more problems for Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn>

The Future is Now

Nashville education blogger TC Weber came out strong this week with a compelling argument that the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing an evolution in public education. His central premise: schools aren’t going back to “normal” after the crisis passes. Here’s a nice summary from his post:

My main point here is that if a district is treating its reopening plan as simply crisis management, and failing to adequately consider future implications, they are leaving themselves at a serious disadvantage. The time for crisis management was back in the Spring, we have since moved into the realm of evolution, and participation is not an option. If LEAs don’t develop their own future policies and protocols, others – including parents – will do it for them. The world ain’t returning to a shape that we are familiar with and the only option is to embrace and try to positively impact the future.

Read the rest here:

Nashville Goes to Florida

Metro Nashville Public Schools has already announced plans to start school completely online. Now, the district has confirmed it will use the curriculum of the Florida Virtual School for the entire year. More from Fox17:

 Metro Schools confirmed that students will use the Florida Virtual School curriculum during the entire 2020-21 school year.

“Will students use the Florida Virtual School curriculum all year? Yes,” Metro Schools tweeted. “K-12 students will use the Florida Virtual School curriculum for online classes as well as for in-person classes when it is safe to return.”

https://fox17.com/community/back-to-school/metro-schools-florida-virtual-school-curriculum-will-be-used-during-entire-school-year?fbclid=IwAR1WVmTH7Ng9Z9K4X1BZE7fu1yZ1sMg3JwdwTE2o7TEgUEkVGsPRpi5jvwI

Computer Teacher

In the Public Interest summarizes the evidence about the limits of online learning:

Duh! A computer screen can’t replace a real live teacher in a school filled with caring adults and other students. But that isn’t keeping some from arguing that it can.

Frederick Hess, director of the American Enterprise Institute, says that the nation’s $700 billion annual public education budget should instead be spent on “a bunch of online materials—along with a device for every child and better connectivity.”

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, says education “needn’t be ‘place-based,’ or dependent on a specific classroom.” To her, public school districts are “100-year-old concepts” and “centralized bureaucracies closely resembling feudal states.”

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) is even questioning why school buildings exist. “The old model of everybody goes and sits in a classroom, and the teacher is in front of that classroom and teaches that class, and you do that all across the city, all across the state,” he said a few weeks ago while announcing a partnership to “reimagine education” with the Gates Foundation. “All these buildings, all these physical classrooms. Why, with all the technology you have?”

Why? Because we already know that online education doesn’t work for the vast majority of students.

Virtual charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, have a terrible track record—so terrible that even pro-charter school organizations like CREDO have admitted their many faults. A Google search for “virtual charter fraud” turns up scores of stories like the two Indiana school leaders who recently were caught inflating enrollment and funneling millions to a tangled web of related companies to the tune of $85 million in state funding.

Then there’s growing body of research showing students who learn online perform worse academically. Get this: on average, only half of online high school students graduate within four years, compared to 84 percent of high school students nationally.

Then there are the privacy concerns. Edtech services often collect far more information on kids than is necessary and store this information indefinitely. Platforms like Google Hangouts collect biometric data, which has been shown to lead to racial profiling.

And then there’s the issue of access. Roughly three million children do not have internet access at home, a population more likely to be students of color, from low-income families, or in households with lower parental education levels.

Yes, technology has a place in education—especially during a pandemic. Public school districts, teachers, and staff are mobilizing nationwide to provide students with distance learning on the fly. California schools, alone, have acquired more than 300,000 devices and hotspots in the past two months, on top of providing more than 24 million meals.

But technology should be seen as a tool to help teachers teach, not replace them and the schools they teach in altogether. Because public school is about more than just filling kids’ heads with information.

As high school teacher Annie Abrams writes, “In the best cases, public education helps students situate themselves among broader communities than they may otherwise encounter while building civic trust. It helps them become adults, slowly, clumsily, day by day. There’s no app-based replacement for that.”

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

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

DeVos the Destroyer

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the COVID-19 pandemic to further her school privatization agenda. Chalkbeat reports that DeVos is tying the awarding of certain CARES Act funds to a state’s willingness to further school vouchers and virtual schools.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will use $180 million in federal coronavirus relief earmarked for the hardest-hit states to create voucher-like grants for parents and to expand virtual education.

State education agencies can apply for federal money by proposing one of three things.

The first is “microgrants” — what some would call “vouchers” — meant to give families more options for remote learning. Those grants could be used to pay for tutoring, summer programs, tuition to a private or public school online program, counseling, test prep, or textbooks, among other things. The state must allow private organizations to provide those services.

The second option is for states to create a statewide virtual school or another program allowing students to access classes that their regular school doesn’t offer. States can either expand an existing program or create one from scratch.

Tennessee is already seeing the proliferation of virtual providers as long-time troublemaker K12, Inc. is facing stiff competition from Pearson to gobble up state dollars.

DeVos wont’ rest, it seems, until her dream of destroying public education has been realized. In a time of pandemic-induced panic and uncertainty, our nation’s Education Secretary is seeking to disrupt the stability and sense of community provided by public schools.

Betsy DeVos testifies before the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee confirmation hearing to be next Secretary of Education on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

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

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

The Privatization Pandemic

In recent days, I’ve reported on virtual vultures seeking to profit off of the crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports have indicated that both Pearson (Tennessee Connections Academy) and K12, Inc. (Tennessee Virtual Academy) are seeking to extend their money grabs by offering their wares as a “solution” for public schools. Now, a report from the Koch Family Foundation-funded Mercatus Center further illuminates this very real privatization plan.

Instead of attempting to create new virtual platforms, school districts and physical charter schools should create public-private partnerships with virtual learning providers. Some private providers are prepared for this arrangement. K12 Inc. and Connections Academy, two of the nation’s largest K–12 online learning companies, have already created resources to assist districts. K12 Inc. has offered district school students access to the company’s online curriculum, while Connections has posted videos online and scheduled webinars to help traditional classroom teachers adapt instruction.


At least one public virtual school has also announced that it can expand its services. The nation’s largest state-based virtual school, the Florida Virtual School, is offering training for state teachers.8 VirtualSC, South Carolina’s online school, is providing similar services.9 According to local media, Florida Virtual School is prepared to increase its capacity to 400,000 students. If demand continues, the school is considering assigning students to certain times of the day to access content, staggering instruction so that servers are not overloaded.

So, go virtual and give private providers more cash with less oversight. We’ve seen how that worked out in Tennessee’s unfortunate embrace of K12, Inc.:

Take, for example, Tennessee, where K12 Inc. has spent between half a million and $1.1 million hiring lobbyists over several years. One of them was chief of staff to former Tennessee governor and current U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is the chairman of the education committee in the Senate.

The state passed a virtual school law in 2011 that mirrored model legislation written by The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative think tank. A few schools opened up, including one run by K12 Inc. through a poor, rural school district in the northeastern part of the state.

Since then, K12’s Tennessee Virtual Academy, whose enrollment at one point ballooned to nearly 2,000 students, has been one of the worst-performing schools in the state ever since, but has so far managed to avoid being shut down.

Privatizers want to turn more of our money — and our kids — over to shady operators like K12, Inc. Also, they want ALL the money. Here’s more from Mercatus on “repurposing” current school budgets to direct additional funds to the privatizing predators:

Lawmakers should also allow districts to repurpose taxpayer resources meant for bus routes, food service, and facility maintenance, to name a few, and use this spending to purchase education services from online providers

But what about those pesky IDEA requirements that protect students with disabilities? Well, Mercatus and the privatizers agree with Tennessee’s own Lamar Alexander that “flexibility” should be offered in this regard. Here, flexibility means students with disabilities lose so for-profit prowlers can win:

While this fact sheet already offered school leaders “discretion” and “significant latitude,” the department appears to have erased any uncertainty on March 21 with another memo that said schools should not fear reprisal for good-faith efforts to move classes online, even for children with special needs. The department said, “To be clear: ensuring compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act should not prevent any school from offering educational programs through distance instruction.”

The privatizers want ALL the money, all the students, and none of the accountability. It’s not a secret. They are saying (and writing) it out loud.

Will Tennessee’s policymakers stand up to the virtual vultures?

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

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

Donate Button

Money Grabber

Not to be outdone by edu-opportunist Pearson, Tennessee’s favorite virtual vultures over at K12, Inc. are seeking to cash in on the COVID-19 pandemic. Peter Greene reports that K12’s CEO serves on something called the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission — a Heritage Foundation project closely connected to the Trump Administration. When it comes to education policy, this commission has some pretty interesting recommendations.

States should immediately restructure per-pupil K–12 education funding to provide education savings accounts (ESAs) to families, enabling them to access their child’s share of state per-pupil funding to pay for online courses, online tutors, curriculum, and textbooks so that their children can continue learning. Students are currently unable to enter the K–12 public schools their parents’ taxes support. They should be able to access a portion of those funds for the remainder of the school year in the form of an ESA.

So, go ahead and rob public schools RIGHT NOW — while many have moved to alternative models of instruction and are anticipating revenue shortfalls for the next school year due to the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Then, there’s this:

Additionally, state restrictions on teacher certification should be lifted immediately to free the supply of online teachers and tutors, allowing anyone with a bachelor’s degree to provide K–12 instruction online.

Because, of course. Why pay a premium for certified talent when you can capitalize on the legions of Americans now unemployed due to a global emergency?

But, hey, we’ve seen these assholes before. Here’s more (from Education Week) on the K12 story in Tennessee:

Those issues are not unique to online charter schools—full-time online programs run through school districts have run into many of the same problems. And especially for a small, rural school system, the opportunity to enroll students in their district from across the state can offer a powerful financial incentive.


Take, for example, Tennessee, where K12 Inc. has spent between half a million and $1.1 million hiring lobbyists over several years. One of them was chief of staff to former Tennessee governor and current U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is the chairman of the education committee in the Senate.


The state passed a virtual school law in 2011 that mirrored model legislation written by The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative think tank. A few schools opened up, including one run by K12 Inc. through a poor, rural school district in the northeastern part of the state.


Since then, K12’s Tennessee Virtual Academy, whose enrollment at one point ballooned to nearly 2,000 students, has been one of the worst-performing schools in the state ever since, but has so far managed to avoid being shut down.


Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have proposed bills that would have shuttered failing virtual schools. One, sponsored by a Democrat in 2013, was killed in committee, even after the lawmaker produced a leaked email from a K12 Inc. staff member that appeared to instruct teachers to change students’ grades. Lawmakers did go on to approve a bill that session that gave the state education commissioner the power to close a failing virtual school after three consecutive years of poor performance, but they struck language from the bill that would have capped enrollment.


Republican state Senator Dolores Gresham—who sponsored the original legislation to allow virtual schools—introduced a bill in 2015 that would have also cracked down on failing virtual schools, but it never came to a vote.


That same year, Gresham also sponsored a bill to extend the state’s virtual school program through 2019.


That one passed.


When Kevin Huffman, a former state education commissioner, tried to shutter the Tennessee Virtual Academy with the authority given to him under that 2013 legislation, it devolved into a years-long saga. Parents sued state officials to keep the school open and a judge ruled in their favor. The school could stay open through the 2015-16 academic year.
Then K12 Inc. caught another break.


A botched roll-out of Tennessee’s computerized testing system in 2015-16 forced officials to toss out all student testing data. That extended the life of the Tennessee Virtual Academy another year.


K12 Inc. said the school has persisted not because of lobbying on behalf of the management company, but because it should never have been targeted for closure in the first place. Although company officials acknowledge that the Tennessee school has struggled academically, they say the school was unfairly singled out by state education officials.
The experience led Huffman, a staunch supporter of charter schools who is now a fellow at New America, a Washington-based think tank, to shift his stance on full-time online schools and for-profit companies that run them.


“I don’t see evidence of for-profit models that work,” he said in an email to Education Week. “Theoretically, a for-profit operator could run effective schools, but in practice, the top charter school operators are all non-profits, and I don’t think it’s accidental.”

In spite of K12 consistently failing both students and taxpayers in Tennessee, the state’s Treasury Department apparently sees the company as a sound investment:

The Tennessee Treasury Department has INCREASED its stake in problematic virtual school operator K12, Inc. The news comes from a report from market analysts:


State of Tennessee Treasury Department purchased a new stake in K12 Inc. (NYSE:LRN) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 12,460 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $329,000.

Yes, Pearson wants ALL the money. But, they’ve got some pretty stiff competition from K12, Inc.

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

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

Donate Button

Pearson Wants ALL the Money

Following the maxim to never let a crisis go to waste, Pearson (the company that turns education into cash through testing and online learning “solutions”), is now marketing its Tennessee Connections Academy even as the COVID-19 outbreak has ended school for this year and thrown the 2020-21 school year into uncertainty.

Here is a mailer that landed in the mailboxes of public school parents recently:

Because Pearson’s Connections Academy is an online public school, they receive state dollars to operate.

Pearson has a long history of swooping into Tennessee to “solve” problems. Last summer, the company signed a two-year, $40 million contract to rescue the state’s TNReady test. Of course, the 2020 test wasn’t administered due to COVID-19, but there’s talk of using Pearson for benchmark testing when students return to school for the next school year.

Pearson also jumped in to bail-out the state back in 2016 when original TNReady vendor Measurement, Inc. failed to get the job done:

Jason Gonzalez at the Tennessean notes:

The Tennessee Department of Education has contracted with its previous test vendor Pearson Education in an emergency maneuver to score TNReady high school tests.

The contract with Pearson is only for scoring and reporting of 2015-2016 assessments, according to Education Commissioner Candice McQueen in a letter Monday to school directors statewide.

Pearson was paid $18.5 million for these “emergency” services.

Pearson wants to run the schools, administer the tests, and provide the materials. They want just one more thing: ALL the money.

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

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

Donate Button

Virtual Profits

When a company is essentially stealing from taxpayers by failing to provide promised services, and when those services are for kids, well, surely the state would not invest in said company, right?

Wrong.

The Tennessee Treasury Department has INCREASED its stake in problematic virtual school operator K12, Inc. The news comes from a report from market analysts:


State of Tennessee Treasury Department purchased a new stake in K12 Inc. (NYSE:LRN) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 12,460 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $329,000.

The report indicates this investment is a “new” stake in K12, meaning the State of Tennessee is ALREADY investing in a company that has demonstrated little concern for taxpayer dollars or for the kids it is supposed to educate.

Here’s a bit of history on K12, Inc., the operator of the Tennessee Virtual Academy:


Here’s the portion of the Education Week piece focused on the Tennessee experience:


Those issues are not unique to online charter schools—full-time online programs run through school districts have run into many of the same problems. And especially for a small, rural school system, the opportunity to enroll students in their district from across the state can offer a powerful financial incentive.


Take, for example, Tennessee, where K12 Inc. has spent between half a million and $1.1 million hiring lobbyists over several years. One of them was chief of staff to former Tennessee governor and current U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is the chairman of the education committee in the Senate.


The state passed a virtual school law in 2011 that mirrored model legislation written by The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative think tank. A few schools opened up, including one run by K12 Inc. through a poor, rural school district in the northeastern part of the state.


Since then, K12’s Tennessee Virtual Academy, whose enrollment at one point ballooned to nearly 2,000 students, has been one of the worst-performing schools in the state ever since, but has so far managed to avoid being shut down.


Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have proposed bills that would have shuttered failing virtual schools. One, sponsored by a Democrat in 2013, was killed in committee, even after the lawmaker produced a leaked email from a K12 Inc. staff member that appeared to instruct teachers to change students’ grades. Lawmakers did go on to approve a bill that session that gave the state education commissioner the power to close a failing virtual school after three consecutive years of poor performance, but they struck language from the bill that would have capped enrollment.


Republican state Senator Dolores Gresham—who sponsored the original legislation to allow virtual schools—introduced a bill in 2015 that would have also cracked down on failing virtual schools, but it never came to a vote.


That same year, Gresham also sponsored a bill to extend the state’s virtual school program through 2019.


That one passed.


When Kevin Huffman, a former state education commissioner, tried to shutter the Tennessee Virtual Academy with the authority given to him under that 2013 legislation, it devolved into a years-long saga. Parents sued state officials to keep the school open and a judge ruled in their favor. The school could stay open through the 2015-16 academic year.
Then K12 Inc. caught another break.


A botched roll-out of Tennessee’s computerized testing system in 2015-16 forced officials to toss out all student testing data. That extended the life of the Tennessee Virtual Academy another year.


K12 Inc. said the school has persisted not because of lobbying on behalf of the management company, but because it should never have been targeted for closure in the first place. Although company officials acknowledge that the Tennessee school has struggled academically, they say the school was unfairly singled out by state education officials.
The experience led Huffman, a staunch supporter of charter schools who is now a fellow at New America, a Washington-based think tank, to shift his stance on full-time online schools and for-profit companies that run them.


“I don’t see evidence of for-profit models that work,” he said in an email to Education Week. “Theoretically, a for-profit operator could run effective schools, but in practice, the top charter school operators are all non-profits, and I don’t think it’s accidental.”

MORE on the failures of K12, Inc. in Tennessee:

An Actual Failure

Cash vs. Kids

So, let’s be clear. Tennessee State Treasurer David Lillard and his staff are well aware that K12, Inc. is not living up to its promise AND is actually harming kids. Still, they not only continue to hold stock in the company, they actually expand their position.

Of course, this is the same Treasury Department that has chosen to expand investment in private prison profiteer CoreCivic.

David Lillard doesn’t give a damn about whether or not taxpayers lose … and he sure as hell doesn’t care about Tennessee kids. As long as his investment positions make money, he’s good.

To be sure, Tennessee’s Treasury Department could make money by investing in businesses that don’t defraud taxpayers or hurt kids — so, one wonders why Lillard allows these actions to continue.

Lillard is elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to hold a position that pays more than $200,000 a year. Perhaps it’s time legislators heard that we need a new state treasurer — one who puts people first.

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

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