Once again, a Sumner County School Board meeting will involve a review of a library book – and the possible removal of that book. The district has been down this road before:
Here’s more from NewsBreak on the current controversy:
The Sumner County School Board will meet in a study session on Tuesday, January 10th at 6PM. The meeting will include a discussion of whether or not the book “Ways to Make Sunshine” should be removed from the school system’s libraries.
The review process comes as a result of a challenge to the book subject to Tennessee’s new law allowing members of the community to suggest to the School Board that a book currently circulating in the school system’s libraries violates “community standards.”
After receiving a challenge to the book “Ways to Make Sunshine,” the board referred the book to a review committee.
That committee has recommended keeping the book in the system’s school libraries.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
While Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher scheme started this year in Memphis and Nashville, legal challenges to the plan continue. All of this while some lawmakers are seeking to expand the program to Chattanooga and possibly beyond.
Metropolitan Nashville and Shelby County governments, which jointly challenged the 2019 law that applies only to their counties, notified the Tennessee Court of Appeals late last month that they will appeal the latest ruling. Attorneys representing parents and taxpayers in a second lawsuit submitted a separate notice of appeal.
The appeals will extend the 3-year-old legal battle over Gov. Bill Lee’s controversial Education Savings Account program for at least several more months. The program provides taxpayer money for eligible families in Memphis and Nashville to help cover private school tuition for their children.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Pro-charter propaganda machine Tennessee Firefly is out with the story of a bevy of new charter school applications across the state.
The story that’s gotten the purveyors of privatization so excited is that as of now, there are 23 “letters of intent” from charter operators planning to open schools in districts across Tennessee.
School districts across the state received 23 letters of intent this month for applications to open new public charter schools next year. That’s the first step potential charter operators must take before submitting their formal application by February 1, 2023.
The letters of intent include proposed schools in four counties that do not currently have public charter schools and they’re coming from both existing charter operators in Tennessee and those who were rejected this year.
The applications come from a range of operators, including Christian Nationalist Hillsdale College – a group out of Michigan seeking to open schools in five Tennessee counties – Madison, Rutherford, Montgomery, Maury, and Robertson.
The Knox County School Board has joined a number of districts across the state calling on lawmakers to make changes to the state’s new third grade retention law.
The Knoxville News-Sentinelnotes that as written, the law could mean about 2700 third grade students in Knox County will be held back this year – unless they undergo summer tutoring and/or remediation during the 2023-24 school year.
A state law that goes into effect this year requires that students not testing at “met expectations” – reading at grade level – according to TNReady results, must be retained or complete a summer remediation program.
An article in the Maryville Daily Times explains what this might mean in practice.
The law applies to students who score at the “below expectations” or “approaching expectations” performance levels on the TCAP exam. Statewide, that could mean two-thirds of third graders, Winstead explained. However, Maryville’s third grade ELA performance last spring was ranked sixth in the state, with 60% meeting or exceeding expectations.
That left 40%, 174 children, potentially affected if the law had been in place. However, with exemptions for new English learners, students with disabilities that affect reading and previously retained students, the number drops to 122.
Across the state, districts are asking policymakers to tweak the law to give them flexibility.
It should be noted that the state has provided zero additional funding to districts to support the required remediation.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Just days after it was revealed that Gov. Bill Lee’s privatizer of choice, Christian Nationalist Hillsdale College, will be again attempting to open publicly funded schools in the state, a move is underway to expand the state’s voucher program.
This despite Lee’s pledge when the program was approved in 2019 that it would be at least five years before vouchers moved beyond Memphis and Nashville.
Readers might well remember all the scandal surrounding that original voucher vote:
Now, Chalkbeatreports that Hamilton County state Senator Todd Gardenhire has introduced legislation that would expand the program to schools in Chattanooga.
Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican, wants the legislature to expand the eligibility criteria for the education savings account program to include students in districts with at least five of the state’s lowest-performing schools, as identified in the last three “priority school” cycles since 2015.
Under those criteria, Hamilton County Schools, which is based in Chattanooga, would qualify
Make no mistake – the ultimate goal is full privatization of public education in Tennessee. It has been Gov. Lee’s goal all along:
In spite of years of evidence of where Bill Lee stands when it comes to supporting our public schools (he doesn’t), many school board members and county commissioners across the state supported his successful campaign. These local elected officials often touted his business acumen and support of vocational education as reasons to back him. However, it’s difficult to imagine these same officials just “didn’t know” Bill Lee backs a scheme to divert public money to private schools — a scheme that has failed miserably time and again in other states and localities.
More likely, they just didn’t care. Bill Lee was on the right team and spoke the right, religiously-tinged words and so earned the support of people who will look at you with a straight face and say they love Tennessee public schools.
Much the same can be said of 2022 – Lee spent four years assaulting public education and yet many local officials stood by him because he wears an “R” on his jersey and is affiliated with a familiar brand of Christianity.
Will these same elected officials be surprised when local taxes rise and public education is replaced by Hillsdale’s theocracy-promoting charters?
Or is this the future they’ve been waiting for?
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
The Wilson County School Board this week voted to remove two books from school libraries following a hearing on the content of the books and whether they were appropriate for a high school audience.
The books are “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins and “Jack of Hearts” by L.C. Rosen. The board determined that the content of the books was not appropriate for students in high school and therefore should not be available in any Wilson County High School library.
The board had an option to label the books “mature” and only available to students who had parental permission. The board rejected that option and chose to completely remove the books from all libraries in Wilson County Schools.
American Classical Education filed letters of intent in recent days with school districts in Madison, Montgomery, Maury, Robertson, and Rutherford counties — all growing suburban areas near Nashville. The proposed schools would open in the 2024-25 school year.
I reported in September on the early withdrawal of Hillsdale’s initial applications – in Madison, Montgomery, and Rutherford counties:
The withdrawal of the appeals, of course, doesn’t mean Hillsdale is no longer interested in Tennessee. It simply doesn’t make sense to conduct such an aggressive campaign and just walk away.
Here’s what NewsChannel5’s Phil Williams reported on the premature exit:
“We made this decision because of the limited time to resolve the concerns raised by the commission staff and our concerns that the meeting structure and timing on Oct. 5 will not allow commissioners to hear directly from the community members whose interests lie at the heart of the commission’s work,” board chair Dolores Gresham wrote in a letter delivered Thursday to the commission.
Gresham, it’s worth noting, is a former Chair of the Senate Education Committee and a legislator with a long history of supporting efforts to shift public money to private schools.
As Williams notes in his story, Hillsdale had asked for a delay in the vote – that is, they had still hoped to appeal and to win those appeals.
This seems to indicate the schools will continue their PR offensive and hope to shift public opinion in order to secure public funds for their Christian nationalist vision.
In short, those predicting Hillsdale’s return were right.
Gov. Lee made his pact with Hillsdale clear in his State of the State in January of this year. Now, it seems Hillsdale and Lee are ready to make good on that promise – the promise of turning over local tax dollars to support what is essentially private, Christian education.
This comes at a significant cost to local taxpayers, of course.
I’ve noted before that if the schools were to open according to Hillsdale’s stated plan, school districts would lose millions in funding in year one alone – and that funding loss would be compounded going forward:
Here’s the deal: 2023 is the first year of school funding under the new, TISA model. This means the charters stand to get more money – based of just under $7000 per student PLUS weights for a variety of categories.
Taking it at just the base, though, each of these districts stands to lose nearly $2.3 million in funding in YEAR ONE of the charter school opening.
Another area of concern? Hillsdale’s call for violent revolution to “overthrow” public education.
In a recent issue of Hillsdale’s newsletter – Imprimis – President Larry Arnn talks about the current “culture wars” and notes that the battle for public schools has “not yet” necessitated violence.
I have said and written many times that the political contest between parents and people who make an independent living, on the one hand, and the administrative state and all its mighty forces on the other, is the key political contest of our time. Today that seems truer than ever. The lines are clearly formed.
***
As long as our representative institutions work in response to the public will, there is thankfully no need for violence.
What does this mean? Does it mean that in states like Tennessee, where political pushback caused Hillsdale to pause its attempt to establish charter schools, violence may eventually be necessary?
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
While the Sumner County Commission issued a resolution calling for two books to be removed from school libraries, the Sumner County School Board voted (7-3) on Tuesday to keep “A Place Inside of Me” in schools.
The Sumner County School Board last night voted in favor of keeping “A Place Inside of Me” on the bookshelves in the school system’s library. The move comes following a complaint that the book violates a new state law around objectionable content. Seven members (out of 11) voted in favor of keeping the book.
The School Board’s action came just one night after the Sumner County Commission passed a resolution calling for the book to be removed from school libraries.
That resolution said the book contained objectionable content, including “hatred of police, overthrow of the government, destruction of the nuclear family, and communism.”
Commission passes resolution calling for removal of two books from all school libraries
Using a new Tennessee state law about “appropriate” texts in school libraries, the Sumner County Commission this week passed a resolution calling for the removal of Zetta Elliott’s A Place Inside of Me and Laurence Yep’s Dragonwings.
The Sumner County Commission passed a resolution at its meeting last night (11/14/22) that states that two books currently circulating in libraries in Sumner County Schools violate state law and should be removed from all libraries in the county. The move comes as the Sumner County School Board is prepared to hold a hearing on the books at a meeting this week.
The resolution states “text found in the books has examples of racism, underage drinking, foul language, violence, drugs, prostitution, alcohol, hatred of police, overthrow of the government, destruction of the nuclear family, and communism.”
The Sumner County School Board previously held a meeting on A Place Inside of Me. At that meeting, there were 5 votes to keep the book, but six are needed. Two members of the Board were absent.
The board will meet tonight (11/15) to hear discussion on the book and vote again.
A local advocacy group says the County Commission’s action was intended to influence tonight’s vote:
Local advocacy group Sumner For Good is urging citizens to show up in support of the books. The group specifically called out the Commission’s vote as a “strong arm” tactic designed to change votes on the School Board.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
This year, teachers in Tennessee who teach in subjects that take state standardized tests (TNReady) will see the quantitative portion of their evaluation increase by 10%.
Previously, TNReady scores in tested subjects counted for 35% of a teacher’s evaluation score and “other achievement measures” accounted for 15%. The remaining 50% came from observation scores.
Under the new law and updated State Board of Education policy, “other achievement measures” will now account for 25% of a teacher’s evaluation. TNReady will still count for 35%. Observation scores are reduced to 40%.
Other achievement measures include items like ACT scores.
TNReady is a notoriously unreliable measure of both student achievement and teacher performance. In fact, the test is not even designed to evaluate teacher performance. Additionally, the value-added model used to assess teacher impact has repeatedly been called into question in terms of its validity.
It’s also noteworthy that just as more colleges are dropping standardized test scores from admissions requirements, Tennessee is placing stronger emphasis on them in teacher evaluation.
The disconnect between Tennessee education policy and reality continues to grow.
The Tennessee Education Association has noted its opposition to the move:
“We know that test scores have never been a valid measure of teacher effect and that our kids are more than a score,” said TEA President Tanya Coats. “TEA wholly disagrees with the state’s continued push to increase its reliance on test data over other methods of evaluation like observations that are more meaningful in improving our practice as educators.”
The move also comes as Tennessee is experiencing a teacher shortage:
