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Reading Scores Show Promise as 3rd Grade Retention Law Takes Effect

Nashville education blogger TC Weber takes a look at a recent Comptroller’s report on literacy in the state and finds some reason for encouragement. There’s a bit of confusion, too, in terms of whether or not the growth reflected in the results shared will translate into better overall reading scores.

The issue is particularly salient this year, as a new law takes effect requiring retention for any third grader who fails to meet state benchmarks in reading.

New Third Grade Law “Devastating”

Here’s more from Weber on the Comptroller’s report:

A recently released report from the Tennessee Comptroller’s office shows that Tennessee K-3 students are making positive, albeit slight, growth in acquiring reading skills. Those conclusions were drawn from state-mandated K-3 universal reading screeners (URS), which all school districts are required to administer as part of legislation passed in 2021 during a Special Session of the General Assembly on education.

Based on graphs included in the Comptrollers report, third-grade students saw the most movement, with students starting at 43 percent in the Fall of 2021, growing to 45 percent in the Winter, and then achieving a Spring 2022 score of 46 percent.

books
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SCORE Hires Consultant to Help Charter Schools Maximize Take of Local School Funding

Nashville education blogger and new Tennessee Star reporter TC Weber reports that Bill Frist’s education reform organization – SCORE – has hired a national education funding consultant to help charter schools extract public funding for their private operations.

Afton Partners, a national organization specializing in school funding and education policy, has announced via social media a new partnership with the Tennessee State Collaborative for Reforming Education (SCORE) and The Tennessee Charter School Center (TCSC). The stated purpose of the budding collaboration is to help Tennessee’s charter school leaders better understand the operational and financial implications of Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) – the state’s new funding formula for public schools.

The bottom line: The consultant is being paid to help charter operators get the most money from TISA – meaning a greater negative impact to local school system budgets.

This comes as no surprise, as SCORE has been driving the TN education reform bus for more than a decade:

Bill Frist and the BEP

It’s kind of amazing to watch the people who have been the key drivers of reform tell us that 1) schools are failing and 2) they NOW know the solution. If their first claim is true, why in the hell would we let them dictate education policy going forward?

Make no mistake: SCORE is all-in on the privatization of Tennessee’s public schools – and this collaboration is further evidence of where they stand.

businessman man woman desk
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Should it be Easier to Become a Teacher in Tennessee

The Tennessee State Board of Education is looking at ways to smooth the pathway into teaching, including by eliminating a key hurdle faced by some candidates – a test of teaching aptitude.

NewsChannel9 in Chattanooga has more:

Currently, all teachers in Tennessee must pass the education teacher performance assessment, whether they have a degree in another field or they’re in the process of student teaching.

But some are looking to drop the requirement for this assessment.

If adopted, the exemption would only apply to about 800-900 teacher certification applicants a year – those who are already “job-embedded” candidates doing teaching under the supervision of a mentor teacher.

The idea, according to officials at the State Board of Education, is to eliminate a barrier to teacher certification for those with a high level of training.

However, as the story notes, schools of education and even recent teacher applicants say the certification process, including the testing, is a key element of preparation for the classroom.

It was about a decade ago when then-Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman pushed the State Board to increase the rigor of requirements to become a certified teacher.

This was supposed to dramatically improve education quality in Tennessee.

Now, facing both a teacher shortage AND a reluctance by policymakers to significantly improve teacher compensation, the State Board is seeking to lower requirements so more people will be eligible for these positions.

It’s noteworthy that in each case, the reform in question did NOT result in any increase in compensation or improvement in working conditions for teachers.

It’s as if investing in teachers is a bridge too far – instead, so-called education “reformers” will continue to try everything possible EXCEPT dramatically raising pay in order to address the issue at hand.

The Teacher Shortage Crisis is Here
crop man getting dollars from wallet
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MORE EDUCATION NEWS

The New Yorker Comes to Tennessee

Some Words on NAEP

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MythBusters

Nate Rau at Axios has the story about a new nonprofit group that has the stated goal of highlighting the fiscal impact of charter schools on local school district budgets.

The group, Public School Partners, is in the myth-busting business. That is, they seek to dispel the notion that charter schools have little to no fiscal impact on local budgets.

This is an especially important project given a state charter commission with the power to override local decisions and force charter schools in districts where they are not wanted.

The group’s website features a fiscal impact calculator that allows users to determine the cost of operating a charter school in any district in Tennessee.

Here’s more from Rau’s piece:

The expansion of charter schools has spread beyond Nashville and Memphis in the last few years. As charter schools have applied to open in suburban and rural counties, scrutiny of their financial impact has escalated.

Charter schools are funded with tax dollars but operated by independent nonprofit organizations.

The issue reached a crescendo this year as charter schools affiliated with Hillsdale College applied to open new schools in Tennessee.

businessman man woman desk
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State’s Negligence Puts Millions in Federal Funding for Schools At Risk

Newschannel 9 in Chattanooga has the story of how the Tennessee Department of Education’s lack of proper documentation and inappropriate spending could jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for schools.

$328 million in school money could soon be lost, after a federal report says the state used the money inappropriately or didn’t provide documentation.

The money is part of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and is designed to support migrant education, low income community schools and special education.

What’s most shocking about this story is that the state was first advised of issues with how it tracks and spends these federal dollars back in 2018. Then, they were warned again in 2021.

Now, they are under a tight deadline to demonstrate they can accurately track and account for this federal money. If they don’t, the cash will stop flowing – leaving school districts with less money on which to operate.

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

NAEP Notes

A Teacher Shortage Warning

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Story Time in Sumner County

It turns out, all those legislative attempts to have books removed from school libraries are bearing fruit. That is, a policy that allows community members to challenge school library books and creates a process for removing those books is in full effect.

Sadly, one of the first books in question is one that makes certain white people uncomfortable.

Or, in other words, the law the General Assembly passed is doing EXACTLY what a majority at the General Assembly wanted.

Here’s more from a public meeting in Sumner County over a request to ban Zetta Elliott’s “A Place Inside of Me”

To be clear: 5 members of the Sumner School Board voted to keep the book, 1 voted to remove it, and 2 abstained – 6 votes were required for a final decision, so the matter will be back before the Board in November.

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1583133356342272000?s=20&t=oeh3YYYFs9Fpg8dSi7zmUg
https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1582832088134619136?s=20&t=oeh3YYYFs9Fpg8dSi7zmUg

MORE on the Tennessee General Assembly’s radical agenda:

Criminal Librarians?

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The Erosion of Local Control

Gov. Bill Lee is no fan of local school boards or public education. Even before he was a candidate for governor, he was advocating for statewide privatization of K-12 education.

SHOCKING!

Now, Lee’s handpicked charter school commission – an agency of unelected bureaucrats tasked with advancing school privatization – is going about the business of handing taxpayer dollars to private entities.

NewsChannel5’s Phil Williams reports on the Commission’s unanimous decision to overturn a vote by Nashville’s school board:

A state board voted Wednesday to overrule the Metro Nashville school board, approving two new privately operated charter schools in southeast Nashville that local school officials say they don’t need.

By an 8-0 vote, the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission approved a request from KIPP Nashville to open an elementary school and middle school — both funded by taxpayers.

Later this month, the commission will hear an appeal from Founders Classical Academy, a group previously associated with the controversial Hillsdale College, to open charter schools in Franklin and Hendersonville over the objections of the local school boards.

This is no surprise – Lee has consistently expressed a desire to suppress the voices of voters and advance a school privatization agenda.

Bill Lee wants to Raise Your Taxes and Silence Your School Board

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Lawmaker Shocked that Gov. Lee Means What He Says

Gov. Bill Lee has been shocking policymakers and pundits for a long time now simply by telling the truth about his school privatization agenda.

SHOCKING!

At a recent legislative hearing, lawmakers – some of whom supported creating the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission – expressed surprise that the law they passed back in 2019 actually does what it says.

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1575487115722227712?s=20&t=OrTFinies5Ueh76rY-s27w

Gov. Lee has been saying this since BEFORE he was even a candidate for governor.

Now that his policies are potentially impacting their districts, policymakers are starting to pay attention. Still no indication they’ll actually do anything to stop it.

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A Plague of Snakes?

Will a plague of snakes soon shut down Tennessee’s rural schools? Watch a clip from a recent legislative hearing to find out:

James Wainscoat/Unsplash

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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).

Perception of Nashville Schools Improving

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
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