The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) is celebrating 25 teachers in a “Blue Ribbon Teachers” event.
More from an email:
Please join us in congratulating the 25 educators named Blue Ribbon Teacher award winners this year! These talented and dedicated teachers demonstrate an exceptional commitment to ensuring all students thrive and have earned the Blue Ribbon Teacher designation in this year’s award categories of leadership, instruction, and student success and opportunity. We are thrilled to honor them and are grateful for all they do for our public schools and community!
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) offers the following professional learning opportunities:
Teacherpreneur
Are you a Nashville public school educator with an innovative idea for improving student outcomes? Teacherpreneur is a unique opportunity to focus on an issue you are passionate about, research the root causes of the issue, and develop a solution and implementation plan to help advance the positive change you wish to see. Teacherpreneur is a professional learning cohort experience for educators who are looking to grow as teacher leaders, expand their networks, and learn how to make changes that last.
At the end of the 5-session experience, Teacherpreneurs will present their ideas at a pitch event to a panel of judges. Top concepts are awarded a collective $25,000 in cash prizes ($10,000 for first place, $7,500 for second place, $5,000 for third place, and $2,500 for the community favorite award). The top three concepts receive access to additional seed funding to implement their ideas.
Are you passionate about supporting public schools and are looking for ways to get involved? Leadership Public Education is a leadership development cohort experience over the course of six months designed to grow participants’ knowledge and skills as public schools advocates. Cohort members will learn from experts about key topics related to Metro Nashville Public Schools, including school funding, education policy, and talent pipelines.
The Leadership Public Education program, in partnership with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, is designed to help participants learn more about the unique challenges and opportunities facing our public schools and position them to serve in community leadership roles that benefit our students, schools, and district.
Nashville education blogger and MNPS parent TC Weber suggests that some of the sloganeering over at MNPS (Metro Nashville Public Schools) doesn’t match the reality on the ground.
Metro Nashville Public Schools will gladly sell you a t-shirt stating “every child known” and then proceed to ignore those children, both gifted and struggling, whose needs fall outside of the norm.
During Teacher Appreciation Week, educators are showered with gifts and accolades while the rest of the year is spent making them feel underachieving, incompetent, and lazy. All this is done under the guise of doing what’s best for kids as if these classroom educators are unaware of the needs of the children they interact with daily.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) launched a website focused on recruiting people to teach in Nashville’s public schools.
From a promotional emal:
At NPEF, we believe teachers are the best positioned to move the needle for students and advance the positive outcomes we all want for kids. That is why we created the Teach Nashville websiteto support Metro Nashville Public Schools’ recruitment efforts by acting as a one-stop-shop for information on becoming a teacher in our district.
The online resource contains a variety of information that new and aspiring teachers need to solidify their decision to work in our district. On the Teach Nashville site, prospective MNPS educators can hear directly from teachers in our district about their experiences, find out what makes MNPS unique, learn about the teacher licensure process, explore different Nashville neighborhoods, find information about salary and benefits, and more.
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.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) released the results of its annual poll and the numbers indicate that the public now has a more favorable view of MNPS. Still, more than half of those polled hold a negative view of Nashville’s schools.
Here’s more from a press release:
A recent poll conducted by Impact Research for the Nashville Public Education Foundation shows an improvement in Nashvillians’ perception of the city’s public schools. The results show an 11-point upswing in residents’ perceptions of local public schools, from a 62% negative rating in 2021 to roughly half (51%) this year. The data further suggests that Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) families are more encouraged by recent improvements, as 50% of public school parents approve of the job the district is doing educating students – up 16 points from last year.
Director of Schools Adrienne Battle hailed the results as a sign of the district’s focus on students.
“We are excited that MNPS families are seeing and experiencing the work being done across the district to accelerate the learning progress of our students and move the district forward to ensure every student is known,” said Dr. Adrienne Battle, Director of Schools. “I’m thankful for the support we’ve received from Mayor Cooper, the Metro Council, and our Board of Education through record investments in MNPS that have helped us achieve our level 5 TVAAS status and a record 48 Reward Schools in the last school year. We look forward to building on these foundations to create even greater support for public schools in Nashville.”
A note on TISA:
The poll also asked Nashvillians about a high-profile issue affecting public schools in the past year – the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA), the state’s new school funding formula. While the overwhelming majority (69%) of Nashvillians have not heard about the state’s new school funding formula, those who are aware of TISA are generally split on their support. Within the population who say they are aware of TISA, 41% support it while 46% oppose the funding formula.
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A bus driver shortage in Nashville has reached a crisis, and bus drivers are speaking out. NewsChannel 5 has the story of a severe shortage and potentially unsafe conditions for students.
Battle said they are 200 or more drivers short, and many are doubling and tripling routes, forcing kids to sit three to a seat.
She also cited safety concerns with buses being overcrowding.
Drivers held a rally this morning to highlight the challenges currently being faced. The bottom line: Buses are at capacity at all times and there simply aren’t enough drivers.
Pam Battle, who heads up the union representing bus drivers, says the drivers want better pay and benefits.
The current situation, Battle notes, is untenable. To put it simply, the job is not attractive from a pay standpoint and the safety issues under current conditions make it even less attractive.
“So, it is time for this district to sit down with me and let’s figure out a plan here because we’re headed in the wrong direction, and if they don’t wake up and listen to us, I promise a parent, it’s coming. So, they better get ready. They cannot say that ‘no one has told them.’ The board cannot say ‘they have no knowledge of this.’ Dr. Battle cannot say ‘she has no knowledge of this.’
That’s how the President of the Metro Nashville Education Association describes the environment students will face with in-person learning in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s here statement as reported by NewsChannel5:
“We know that online learning is far from ideal, especially for students with the most severe and profound disabilities and early elementary, and so it makes sense to begin in-person classes with these groups. We are concerned, however, that parents may believe their child will be returning to a ‘normal’ classroom, when in fact there will be little that is normal. Students will not be able to move about freely. They may be confined to their classrooms, or even an area of their classrooms. They will not be able to speak, work, or play with their classmates. They will be wearing masks all day except to eat, and their teachers will be wearing masks, face shields, gloves, and other protective equipment. There will be no reassuring hugs, and smiles will be impossible to see. For very young children, this may be a very strange and stressful situation. It is important that parents truly consider what an in-person classroom will look like in the midst of a deadly pandemic before they make the decision of whether to return in person or remain online.”
So, Nashville is now Tennessee’s largest city. In fact, it is one of the fastest-growing cities in America. Nashville is hotter than the Hot Chicken the city is known for. It’s the “It City.”
Of course, that means teachers in Nashville are earning top dollar to live in this highly desirable, rapidly growing urban mecca, right? Nope. In fact, Nashville teachers earn significantly less than their counterparts in similar cities. The Nashville School Board and Metro Council have known this for YEARS now and done nothing about it. At all. It’s not like the MNPS School Board was consistently proposing significant raises for Nashville teachers. They weren’t. They haven’t been. They’ve seen (and ignored) the data since at least 2015.
Teachers in Nashville start at $42,100 with a bachelor’s degree. In Louisville, they start at $42,700. So, starting pay in Nashville is competitive. But, let’s look longer term. That same teacher after 10 years in Nashville will earn $47,000. In Louisville, it’s $54,974.
Oh, and let me note this: The salary to live comfortably in Louisville is $49,000. Teachers in Louisville hit that pay rate by year 5. A teacher in Nashville isn’t making $49,000 even after 10 years of experience. The pay scale in Nashville simply isn’t moving up quickly enough.
So, what about after 20 years? A Nashville teacher with a bachelor’s degree and 20 years experience makes $56,000. In Louisville, that teacher makes $71,000. A teacher working in Louisville with 20 years experience earns $22,000 more a year than that city’s “comfortable living” salary. In fact, they earn more than Nashville’s “comfortable” salary.
So, what’s up? Why aren’t MNPS teachers earning the salaries they deserve? Well, SEIU Local 205 offers this handy explainer relative to the Metro budget:
The job of the mayor and council is to decide what property tax rate generates enough revenue to fund the city. In both 2009 and 2017, Mayor Dean and then Mayor Barry accepted the tax rate that kept revenues neutral without debating the impact on the city budget. Both times, the Metro Council agreed. Our elected officials collectively refused to make the politically difficult decisions we need them to make as leaders of our city. They made an irresponsible choice to lower the rate, which cost our city vital revenues and disproportionately benefited developers and commercial properties. This broke the budget. In 2010, the Dean administration restructured the city debt, pushing payments into the future. Much of our budget is paying for that debt now instead of our schools and other public institutions.
Another way to think about this is that Mayor Barry proposed a $394 million/year tax cut, and the Council accepted. Technically we did not “lose” revenues because the appraisal has to be revenue neutral, but we did lose out on $1.5 billion in potential revenue over 4 years.
So, if you wonder why all those teachers are wearing “Red for Ed” or were staging “walk-ins” this year or even engaging in sick-outs in some cases, now you know. In fact, it’s amazing to me that these teachers even show up at all. Will the current Mayor and Metro Council address the glaring needs of Metro Schools OR will Nashville need to elect a new Mayor and different members of Metro Council in order to claim “It City”-level funding for schools and teachers?
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TC Weber breaks down what’s going on at MNPS in his most recent post that follows last night’s highly contentious School Board meeting.
Here’s some of what he has to say:
Last night’s Metro Nashville Public School’s board meeting was an abhorrent display that should embarrass all of us. I try and instill in my children that making a mistake is not the defining moment, but rather what you do with the mistake. Last night, the MNPS board decided that when others go low, it will go even lower.
Some took to social media to further attempt to discredit Speering because she was not in attendance at last night’s board meeting. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume that all aren’t aware that Speering recently had open heart surgery. She attended all committee meetings during the day. My supposition is that she chose to protect her health and decide to go home instead of facing a hostile crowd. That’s not cowardice, that is just good sense.
Leadership is a lot like MAP testing, it’s an intuitive assessment. What that means is that you start off with a challenge that is perceived to be at your level. How you answer that challenge determines whether you move on to harder challenges or not. Get the question right and the assessment continues. Get too many challenges wrong and the assessment ends. Last night was a leadership challenge for Dr. Joseph. One that will not lead to the next level.
READ MORE about what’s happening in MNPS from TC’s perspective.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
