One middle Tennessee mom says she was devastated when she learned of Tennessee’s new third grade retention law that goes into effect this year. The law requires that any third-grade student who scores at “below expectations” or “approaching expectations” on the state’s TNReady test in reading be held back unless they complete summer school and possibly enroll in a tutoring program during the school year.
Nearly 70% of all Tennessee third grade students score at that level on TNReady in any given year. In other words, even if a majority of them complete the summer program and participate in tutoring, a significant portion of third grade students will be forced to repeat third grade in 2023.
One day and one test could change the life of Anna Sturm’s son.
“I was devastated when I read it,” she said. “As a mother, it was such a disheartening thing to read that this is going to be something that could impact my child and thousands and thousands of children.”
The news report also notes that the Murfreesboro City Schools have crafted a resolution asking the state to reconsider the legislation and make changes when they return to session in January.
That’s something the bill’s sponsor says he may be open to – though he was vague on what those changes may look like:
It’s worth noting, too, that the policy is based on a single test taken on a single day – and it’s a test that has not exactly been reliable in recent years:
The legislature appropriated no additional funds to help schools support third grade students nor are there funds available for the necessary summer reading and school year tutoring programs mandated by the law.
Instead, it seems legislators just passed a law and hoped that change would magically happen.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible!
The law requires that all third-grade students who score below “met expectations” on TNReady reading be held back unless they complete a summer remediation program and possibly also enroll in a tutoring program for the academic year.
The point is to focus on improving reading scores. The reality is that nearly 70% of Tennessee third graders would fall into this category, thus requiring districts to offer extensive summer reading programs and school year tutoring. It’s likely, too, that some students will not complete the remediation and will then repeat third grade.
This means more costs for local districts – and the law, authored by Rep. Mark White, offered no new resources for districts. Additionally, since the law passed, the General Assembly has not offered districts funds to provide for summer reading or tutoring as indicated by this law.
When asked if he would consider adding funding to this bill to support schools with tutoring efforts and summer programs, White again expressed a willingness to talk about it.
“That is one of the big objections. We can look at this come January and modify the law if we think that’s what needs to be done,” he said.
That’s an interesting answer. White is not committing to providing funding or support to districts – only to “looking at” the law and the current objections. A more prudent approach would be to work with Gov. Lee to secure dedicated funding. Or, even, to change the law in such a way that districts get the supports/interventions/funding BEFORE any penalty hits students in terms of retention.
Despite all the rhetoric from Tennessee policymakers about funds for schools and teacher salaries, Tennessee teachers continue to experience a “wage gap.” That is, teachers in Tennessee earn nearly 24% less than similarly educated peers.
The Economic Policy Institute has once again published its analysis of teacher pay relative to the pay of similar professionals and found that at a national level, the wage gap is 23.5%. In Tennessee, that gap is 23.8%. As EPI notes, in 28 states, the gap is greater than 20%. Yes, even when you add the benefits package (typically more generous than in other jobs), the penalty is still well above 10%.
What does this mean, though?
Well, all those stories about a teacher shortage start to make sense. Whether there are more actual vacancies this year than in years past (as seems to be the case in some districts), the issue is being talked about more seriously this year.
The numbers from EPI indicate that the value proposition for teachers just isn’t that great. Combine that with heated political rhetoric about “groomer teachers” and book banning, and you may begin to understand why there aren’t as many qualified educators available and eager to fill all the vacancies.
Here’s more from EPI on how they conducted the study:
First, we use Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS-ORG) data for the wage analyses. We focus on weekly wages, which avoids comparisons of weekly hours worked or length of the work year (i.e., the “summers off” issue for teachers) between teachers and other college graduates.3 The sample is restricted to full-time workers (working at least 35 hours per week), 18 to 64 years old, with at least a bachelor’s degree. The education restriction is made because teachers today need at least a bachelor’s degree to teach. The sample is further limited to those who reported their wage information directly (i.e., nonresponders whose wage data was imputed by BLS are excluded).
Trends Over Time
In 1979, teachers earned $1,052 per week (in 2021 dollars), which is 22.9% less than the $1,364 earned by other college graduates. The difference in wages between teachers and other college graduates decreased slightly into the mid-1990s, falling to 15.7% in 1996, but then increased considerably during the tight labor markets of the late 1990s into the early 2000s. The wages of nonteacher college graduates jumped by 13.5% from 1996 to 2002 during an unusual time of exceptional wage growth among low-, middle-, and high-wage earners. But inflation-adjusted wages of teachers did not grow strongly during this period, in part because teacher pay is often set by long-term contracts, and public-sector wages are not as volatile (they do not rise and fall as much) as private-sector wages. Teacher weekly wages remained flat in inflation-adjusted terms from 1996 to 2002, increasing just 0.3%, leaving the real average weekly wage of teachers 25.5% less than their college graduate counterparts.
This difference remained fairly consistent, with some ups and downs, throughout the 2000s. But, a significant widening of the wage gap has occurred since 2010 as teacher wages remained relatively flat while wages of other college graduates took off. The difference increased by 7.6 percentage points between 2010 and 2021—leaving the average weekly wages of teachers 32.9% behind that of other college graduates by 2021, the largest difference recorded in our series.
Now, though, we’re still looking at wage gaps of around 24% – in part due to a tight labor market in other professions increasing overall salaries. Of course, available federal stimulus funds and states with budget surpluses have meant some increases in teacher compensation – still, it is not enough to achieve anything like parity with other professions.
As EPI notes:
Generally, the teacher wage penalty has been on a worsening trajectory since the mid-1990s. A slight shrinking of the gap in 2019 was short lived. It widened again in 2020, to 21.6%, and in 2021, the penalty reached a record 23.5%. That means that, on average, teachers earned just 76.5 cents on the dollar compared with what similar college graduates earned working in other professions—and much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.
That was three years ago. So, what happened? Well, as it turns out, the former Speaker of the House (Glen Casada) and his former Chief of Staff (Cade Cothren) have been indicted in a bribery and kickback scandal related to the voucher vote.
NewsChannel5 reports:
According to the indictment, beginning in October 2019, Casada, Cothren, as well as another conspirator engaged in a fraudulent scheme to enrich themselves “by exploiting Casada and the other conspirator’s official positions as legislators to obtain State approval of Phoenix Solutions as a Mailer Program vendor to provide constituent mail services to members of the Tennessee General Assembly.”
This reportedly began after Cothren’s resignation and after Casada stepped down as the Tennessee Speaker of the House.
While the indictment is not specifically around the voucher vote, the conspirators were directly involved in that event as well.
More to come as this process continues.
For more on education politics and policy, follow @TNEdReport
Your support-$5 or more-makes publishing education news possible.
Tennessee is on the verge of a whole lot of kids repeating the third grade – changing the landscape of schools and classrooms and increasing demand for elementary teachers during a teacher vacancy crisis.
Here’s why:
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.
So, under current law, Maryville would need to prepare for 122 new third-graders in the 2023-24 school year. Of course, some of them would take advantage of the remediation offerings. Let’s say that’s half. That still leaves Maryville needing 3 additional third grade classrooms for 2023-24.
Note, too, that the article says statewide, that number is closer to 66%.
While the intent of the law is to promote a focus on reading in the early grades as a way to set students up for success in future learning, the practical impact could be far-reaching with a range of unintended consequences.
It’s also worth noting that this law was passed without any attendant passage of new funding or new programs to promote reading. No significant increase in teacher pay, no additional funding for support staff, no improved support programs for these kids.
Perhaps the biggest consequence is this: While the law was designed to help kids stay in school by ensuring they read at grade level, the reality is that as kids age, they are more likely to drop out – so, an 8th grader who is 14 rather than 13 may be more likely to give up on school altogether.
For those students truly on the margins, the summer learning or tutoring may help keep them on track. For those farther behind, this could be a precursor to an even higher school dropout rate come high school.
In any case, it seems likely that two out three 3rd grade students statewide will be subject to the impact of this law by summer.
Oh, and the entire law is based on the results of a TNReady test that has been anything but ready in the few years since it has been a part of Tennessee’s education landscape.
In addition to facing challenges in finding and keeping teachers, school districts across Tennessee are struggling to find support staff. One middle Tennessee district still needs 40 bus drivers.
Here’s a post from the Sumner County Schools Facebook page highlighting the high number of bus driver vacancies:
We currently have 40 openings for bus drivers. We appreciate parent’s patience and understanding as our Transportation Department continues to make every effort to maximize the speed and efficiency of every bus route. If you are interested in a career as a bus driver with Sumner County Schools, please click the link below:
That seems like a lot of openings.
What’s going on in your district? Are there enough bus drivers and other support staff?
What’s it like to be a Tennessee teacher during what can best be described as a “War on Knowledge” being waged by Gov. Bill Lee and the General Assembly?
Well, one teacher shares her story – with thanks to The Tennessee Holler for sharing it.
Policy decisions have practical consequences. Maybe Gov. Lee or House Education Committee Chair Mark White would like to go to TN classrooms and start cataloguing the books?
Or maybe they could just repeal ridiculous laws like this one?
Unfortunately, instead, they’ll just keep pushing relentlessly toward full-on privatization of our public schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Four Tennessee schools are now returning to local control after getting taken over by the state ten years ago. The Memphis-area schools were brought into the Achievement School District with the promise from state leaders to turn things around.
But the schools are now returning to Shelby County Schools with no significant improvement in test scores.
“The state has failed miserably in running schools and the state should not be in the business of being a school district, period,” State Rep. Antonio Parkinson said. “The Achievement School District came in and aggressively divided these communities and took over these schools, and then they performed worse than the schools they actually took over.”
The latest data from the Department of Education shows each of the four schools report less than five percent of students performing at grade level. ASD as a whole reports just 4.5 percent of students performing at grade level.
That’s lower than Shelby County schools, with 11 percent of students testing at grade level.
Despite the repeated failure, Gov. Lee has added $25 million to ASD coffers this year.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Hillsdale College Larry Arnn is mad that people in Tennessee are telling the truth about his intentions. He’s even more mad that he was caught on tape making disparaging remarks about teachers and colleges of education. He’s not sorry about what he said. He’s made that clear. He IS sorry that when he told the truth, it disrupted his plans to shift public money to his private school pushing a Christian Nationalist agenda by way of Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools.
Now, Hillsdale is texting Tennesseans with a link to a page that tells the “truth” about Hillsdale.
Phil Williams of NewsChannel5 has more:
After the huge backlash against @Hillsdale president Larry Arnn saying public school teachers come from "the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges," @GovBillLee's friends are now texting parents with a PR message that Arnn was "telling the truth." https://t.co/KBJEXBwWr5
Here’s the deal: Hillsdale-affiliated charters were rejected by three Tennessee school boards. All three have since appealed to the State Charter Commission. If those appeals are successful, Hillsdale-affiliated charters will open in Tennessee in 2023. They’ll get public money to advance their extreme agenda.
The dark money, pro-privatization group spent heavily to influence key races in the August primary. As Adam Friedman in the Tennesseannotes, Team Kid was joined by other privatization groups in spending that ultimately resulted in the defeat of Republican incumbent House member Terri Lynn Weaver and Senate member Bob Ramsey. Both have opposed using public money to fund private schools.
Some of education groups support charters and others vouchers. Some back both. They operate using the political actions committees of Team Kid PAC, Tennessee Federation for Children PAC and Tennesseans for Putting Students First.
Tennesseans For Student Success, the American Federation for Children Action Fund, 50Can and The Campaign for Great Public Schools are all national education groups with donors that are nearly impossible to track.
The Internal Revenue Service classifies these organizations as 501c4s. This means their donors are only available through nonprofit tax forms, but those forms don’t clearly show where the money comes from.
These groups are spending big to elect even more pro-privatization candidates and that spending is overwhelming the efforts of public education advocates.
Here’s more on the kinds of attacks used by Tennesseans for Student Success when lawmakers fall out of line with their privatization agenda:
