Average composite scores for selected Middle Tennessee public school districts were as follows:
Cheatham County School District: 19.3 Clarksville–Montgomery County School System: 19.3 Dickson County School District: 19.0 Maury County Public Schools: 18.0 Metro Nashville Public Schools: 17.5 Robertson County Schools: 18.3 Rutherford County Schools: 19.8 Sumner County Schools: 20.8 Williamson County Schools: 25.3 Wilson County Schools: 20.4
These figures are frequently contextualized by differences in student demographics, including poverty rates, mobility, and the proportion of English Learners. Those factors are relevant and should be acknowledged.
They do not, however, alter the practical reality that students across districts compete for the same postsecondary opportunities. Colleges and employers evaluate individual applicants, not district-level explanations.
Nashville education blogger TC Weber takes a look at some well-intentioned legislation that may end up presenting more problems than it solves.
State Senator Bill Powers (R–Clarksville) has announced plans to sponsor legislation requiring school districts and public charter schools to implement a computer system for documenting what the bill describes as “early warning signs” related to student health, safety, and behavior. According to public statements, these signs would include bullying, harassment, intimidation, mental health concerns, substance abuse, and self-harm.
At first glance, the intent appears straightforward: identify concerns earlier and intervene before harm occurs. The difficulty lies in the details.
As Weber notes, information documented about students tends to remain in databases – traveling with the student, creating a profile, opening or closing options.
From a family perspective, the stakes are equally high. Students do not reset each academic year. Behavioral records can follow them for years, shaping perceptions long after the original incident has passed. Any system that formalizes behavioral data must grapple with the possibility of long-term impact based on short-term judgment.
More fundamentally, this proposal reflects a recurring pattern in education policy: diagnosing relational problems as data deficits.
Schools do not struggle because they lack information about students. They struggle because time, staffing, and structural support for meaningful relationships have been systematically reduced.
A Nashville education blogger ponders the deeper meaning of all the horn-tooting over “Reward Schools.”
A comparison of this year’s list with previous years shows designations change constantly—Reward one year, not-Reward the next. The only thing consistent is that Priority Schools almost never escape the list.
Many have been on it for a decade or more. They serve low-income, multi-cultural, multilingual communities. We know—have known—that external factors shape internal results.
Yet we cling to these lists like they’re diagnostic tools rather than PR instruments.
Unfortunately, in reading the tea leaves, when it comes to the education world, it appears to me, 2025 will provide much the same as 2024.
We’ll fight over vouchers, bemoan charter schools, while pretending that teacher shortages don’t exist.
I’m betting that conversation over funding for desperately needed updates to existing facilities will be shuffled to the back burner once again, and kids will continue to attend schools with pest problems, heating and cooling issues, and inadequate space for enrolled students.
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:
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.
Nashville education blogger TC Weber calls bullshit on the latest term meant to provide full employment for the edu-elite. In a post examining legislation Gov. Bill Lee wants in the upcoming special session on education, Weber lays bare the truth behind the bogus term and further exposes the dark side of the bills being considered.
Here’s how TC explains the issue:
The term “Learning Loss” is a made-up term, created primarily to retain and obtain funding.
We have no assessment that measures this hypothetical phenomenon. It is a tool utilized to prey upon the fears of parents as their children navigate unprecedented times and to make sure that companies who provide so-called student supports don’t lose money.
Kids may be learning at a slower pace, or they may be learning things differently than what current assessments measure, but they are still acquiring important knowledge and previously acquired skills are not fleeing their brains.
First of all, there is no data, historical or current, that can accurately support the supposition of a learning loss percentage. NWEA markets the MAP test, which does a fantastic job of measuring growth and proficiency. Both are very different than “learning loss”.
Research supports the idea that as we regularly use a skill it stays at the forefront of our brain, readily called upon. If we don’t regularly engage the skill it recedes to a storage shelf in the back in order to clear space for new skills. After a couple of months or longer, of sitting on the shelf, the ability to instantly recall fades. But the skill is not lost, and depending on the length of time between usages, can be readily recalled with some refreshers. However long it takes, is shorter than the initial learning period.
Think of it this way. Back in high school you probably read the Great Gatsby. You probably reflected on it for a bit after completion, but eventually, you put it on the shelf and made room in your brain for other books. If I gave you a test today on the book’s content, you probably would not fair very well. But if I showed you a few passages, and some reviews, before testing, you’d in all likelihood fare much better. Might even say things like, “Not sure how I remember this but…”The information wasn’t lost, it was merely shelved for future recall.
Nashville education blogger TC Weber offers some insightful commentary on Gov. Bill Lee’s speech on the state’s ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
Here are some highlights:
What you missed remains unclear because the Governor managed to address a crisis without offering any clear direction. There were a lot of suggestions, and a few warnings, but no mandates. In essence, a request was entered, that if Tennesseans planned on any social gathering, perhaps they’d be kind enough to limit them to 10 people unless they were funerals, weddings, church services, or … not social events.
Nearly a third of Executive Order 70 is devoted to sporting events, with nary a mention about schools, bars, restaurants, or constructions sites – all of whom would welcome, and arguably require clearer guidance. Mind you, I’m not favoring one set of mandates over another, but if you are going to promise something of substance, offer something of substance. Hell, he quoted Churchill, that alone raises the bar. Per usual with Lee and his team, we are left to debate the quality of action as opposed to the actual policy. Something that has come to define the Lee administration.
The thing that I’m more fascinated with is, what happens behind the scenes. I’m assuming that there were several meetings held prior, to devise the strategy and wording of Lee’s speech. Wasn’t anybody struck by the inadequacies of this response? Or did everybody sign-on?
Did Blake Harris his Chief of Staff, read the speech and say, “Perfect. Way to thread the needle on Government and free will. People will love this.”
Did his Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn take a look at it and say, “Nicely done. Don’t offer any guidance on schools, nobody’s interested in that. We already put those rumors about closing schools to bed. This here speech is a shining example of leadership.”
It has long been my belief that the quality of leadership is revealed by the people a leader surrounds themselves with. Between several high profile resignations and current moves by Governor Lee, I don’t think anybody can put forth the argument that he’s surrounding himself with a high-quality team focused on the citizens of Tennessee. My father used to have a plaque on the wall that read, “You can’t fly with the eagles if you surround yourself with turkeys.” Governor Lee seems to fancy himself as some kind of turkey farmer.
Nashville education blogger TC Weber asks some very good questions for those insisting we just open schools and let all the kids back in. Weber has noted in the past that while school buildings in Nashville aren’t open, schools are open. Teachers are working, instruction is happening, and children are learning.
Here’s some of what he has to say to those aggressively insisting on re-opening the buildings:
Arguments around the re-opening of schools serve to illustrate our penchant to proclaim that “students should come first”, while continually acting in a manner counter to that mantra. We are like shoppers on Black Friday, cordially sharing coffee and stories until the doors open, then it’s suddenly a mad rush, with elbows flying, to fulfill our desires. If we were truly concerned about kids, we’d be developing solutions that addressed their specific needs before shoving forth our primary desires to open school buildings.
In a rush to open schools, children’s social and emotional well-being is often cited as a core reason for re-opening. A legitimate issue, but one that falls into the aforementioned trap of ignoring existing conditions. I don’t doubt that there is ample evidence of increased student depression and anxiety, but how do you isolate the cause of that depression and anxiety? What is school closure related and what is brought forth by dealing with the effects of a pandemic? Is a child depressed because they can’t receive in-person instruction or because a parent has lost income at work and is struggling to meet the bills? Is a child anxiety-ridden because they can’t interact with their peers in-person, or is it because pandemic-related issues are causing the disintegration of their parent’s marriage?
Nashville education blogger TC Weber added a brief note on teacher evaluations in his latest post. He makes a good point: What the hell is the point of teacher evaluation this year? Is there a design for evaluating teachers who are teaching all online one week and hybrid two weeks later and fully in-person the next? Are we really going to rate and rank teachers this year in the midst of a global pandemic? We’re in a state where teachers are getting sick with COVID at a rate that exceeds the general adult population. We’re also in a state where the Governor canceled a planned teacher pay raise and the legislature followed his lead. Now, we’re going to continue with what is, in the best years, a highly flawed evaluation system that could be jobs on the line.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Here’s what TC has to say:
In a similar vein, let’s talk about teacher evaluations. What is the purpose of conducting teacher evaluations under present circumstances? Are we trying to weed teachers out at a time we need every single one of them? Are we trying to increase the usage of best practices when under present circumstances we don’t even know what those are? Or are we trying to make sure that the chain of command remains firmly established? I continue to see no upside in doing evaluations in the midst of a pandemic, and oh so much downside.
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Amid this interesting post by Nashville education blogger TC Weber is a note on the challenges of teacher evaluation in the age of COVID-19. While groups like the TEA have called for halting TNReady and teacher evaluation during this trying time, Gov. Lee and Commissioner Schwinn seem intent on moving forward.
Here’s more from Weber:
Furthermore, at the urging of Commissioner Schwinn, despite her public position, MNPS leadership is continuing to push forward with teacher evaluations. Principals have been given direction that evaluations need to be completed by the beginning of December. I’m really curious since the majority of instruction has been delivered remotely and remote instruction is a new frontier, who is qualified to do these evaluations? Will these evaluations take in the hours of uncompensated time that teachers have put into self-teach themselves on delivery remote instruction? Will the stress from trying to meet student needs while taking care of their families be factored in? Will the challenges associated with students not showing up be included? What about middle school teachers who found themselves suddenly creating new lesson plans for students based on the halting of the district re-entry plan?
The whole idea of evaluations at this time is inappropriate and should be suspended until a sense of stability is achieved. Unfortunately, Schwinn and the Governor need those evaluations to generate data in order to support their dastardly deeds. One long term DOE employee recently responded to an inquiry of mine by saying, “I have no idea. My sole job these days seems to be focused on forwarding the career of Penny Schwinn.” Teacher evaluations at this time reek of the same odor.
