Lundin Falling

Nashville education blogger TC Weber has the story of Robert Lundin, who recently was relieved of his duties as Assistant Commissioner of Education. Here’s more:

Last summer Commissioner Schwinn created two cabinet-level positions for former Texas residents Lundin and Katie Houghtlin –  positions that paid in excess of $125k. Houghtlin led her department, which oversaw the department’s “Whole Child” initiatives, into some egregious territory and early indications are that Lundin may have done the same with his. Yesterday the former TFA corp member was unceremoniously removed from his position amid rumors of mismanagement of Independent Education Accounts overseen by his department.

Unfortunately. the enthusiasm of eligible families did not match the enthusiasm of Tennessee legislators. As of January of this year, out of 40k eligible participants, only 150 students were participating in the IEAs. In a presentation to the State Disability Council, Lundin chalked the low participation numbers up to a lack of information getting out to parents and too many procedural hurdles for parents to leap. Keep in mind, that any time a disruptor says there are too many rules, somebody is about to lose some protections.

Participation may have been low, and those participating often experienced challenges navigating the system, but for the most part, things ran efficiently for the first 3 years and parents received disbursements in a timely fashion. Initially, the program was overseen by Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Fiveash, but in the Spring of 2019, Schwinn moved it under the purview of Assistant Commissioner Katie Poulos who she had recently brought in from New Mexico. Neither remains with the DOE, and Poulous has recently filed a lawsuit against the Commissioner and the TNDOE for wrongful termination.

Rebecca Wright, who oversaw the rollout of the voucher program for students with disabilities left in June and has yet to be replaced. Wright’s assistant resigned four months later and wasn’t replaced in 2019, and a third employee left Jan. 3 — all part of a staff exodus at the Department of Education under Schwinn. But there was no need to worry because Lundin and a few others were helping out. Apparently not enough though because in February ChalkbeatTN proclaimed things were falling apart.

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Penny’s Problems

An earlier story indicated some staffers in the Tennessee Department of Education are worried the current climate there means the state won’t be ready for this year’s round of TNReady. Now, a new report in Chalkbeat suggests a department in turmoil, with high turnover and chaos in the ranks. Here’s more:

Tennessee’s education department has experienced an exodus under Commissioner Penny Schwinn, with almost a fifth of its employees leaving in the nine months since she took over.


The exits include people with decades of institutional knowledge, leaving many local school leaders wondering whom to call about everything from testing to information technology to early intervention programs for students with learning disabilities. Also gone are dozens of mid- and lower-level employees responsible for executing essential department responsibilities, including the state’s testing program.

American cent

For his part, Governor Bill Lee stands by the disruption led by Schwinn at the DOE:

“The Department of Education has a clear directive to challenge the status quo by developing solutions that best advocate for students and teachers,” Arnold said. “We are confident that changes in structure reflect a desire to build the most effective team that will deliver on this mission.”

While Lee seems ready to “disrupt” both the DOE and public schools, it’s clear that he’s not on board with efforts to disrupt poverty.

An alternative explanation? Bill Lee is not exactly sure how to run state government, so he’s just keeping his head in the sand.

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Not Good Execution

Chalkbeat has the story of a letter sent to parents around the state based on guidance from the Tennessee Department of Education:


The letters inform parents that, based on state systems for rating school performance, their school has been targeted to receive additional federal resources and support because a historically underserved group of students within the school is in the state’s bottom 5% for that group. And based on guidance provided to districts by the state Education Department, most districts are telling parents which student group or groups are struggling.


“Specifically, Cedar Bluff is a Targeted Support and Improvement school based on the following student groups: Black student ethnic/racial group,” says one letter sent to parents of students at Cedar Bluff Middle School, a Knoxville school that is mostly white.


Other letters have identified Hispanic students as the source of the designation, as well as students who have disabilities, are economically disadvantaged, or are English language learners.

While lawmakers and advocacy groups have criticized the move, the Tennessee Department of Education’s Director of Communications, Jennifer Johnson, had this to say:

“This was not good execution of a template letter and goes beyond the scope of what the federal law requires,” acknowledged Jennifer Johnson, a state spokeswoman. She added that the matter will be reviewed by the Education Department.

So, Jennifer Johnson, who is in charge of communication for the state department of education is indicating that information was not communicated well by the state.

No matter what the review finds, the damage is already done. Seems like someone tasked with overseeing communication at the state level would be tuned-in to how a message might sound.

Not good execution could, in fact, describe pretty much all of Governor Bill Lee’s term so far — from an FBI probe into the vote on his voucher bill to shafting teachers while boosting charter schools.

Will the man who inherited a successful HVAC company ever learn to actually be Governor? It’s not looking good.

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McQueen Leaving TNDOE

After what can charitably be called a rocky tenure at the helm of the Tennessee Department of Education, Candice McQueen has miraculously landed another high-level job. This time, she’ll takeover as CEO of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, an organization apparently not at all concerned about the track record of new hires or accountability.

In a press release, the organization says:

“Candice McQueen understands that highly effective teachers can truly transform the lives of our children, our classrooms, our communities and our future,” said Lowell Milken. “Dr. McQueen’s deep experience in developing and supporting great teachers and her proven leadership in working with so many state and local partners will enable us to expand and strengthen NIET’s work across the country. Dr. McQueen will build on the 250,000 educators, 30,000 teacher leaders and 2.5 million students already impacted by NIET to better develop teacher leaders, increase student achievement and provide greater opportunities for all students. We are so pleased to have her on board and leading us from our new base of operations in Nashville.”

Apparently, they missed most of the past four years. Certainly, they missed this key element on teacher effectiveness:

Here’s a key piece of information in a recent story in the Commercial Appeal:

The report admits an inability to draw a direct, causal link from the changes in teacher evaluations, implemented during the 2011-12 school year, and the subsequent growth in classrooms across the state.

Over the same years, the state has also raised its education standards, overhauled its assessment and teacher preparation programs and implemented new turnaround programs for struggling schools.

Whatever NIET’s motives, teachers and parents across the state are likely to breathe a sigh of relief that the McQueen era is coming to an end. Likewise, the General Assembly will no longer be subject to her broken promises of “doing better” next time when it comes to issues like TNReady.

In fact, just today, I wrote about the need for our state to move in a new direction on testing (long overdue) and the importance of selecting a new Commissioner to lead that work.

Next: Who will Bill Lee select to lead education policy in Tennessee?

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TC Goes to Kindergarten

I’ve written some about the challenges of the new Pre-K/Kindergarten portfolios and the frustration that is creating for our teachers.

Nashville blogger TC Weber has also picked up on this issue and writes about how the process is demoralizing to our teachers. Here’s some of what he has to say:

I am not going to pretend to have a full grasp of any of this process. While I understand that I am not a professional educator, I believe that education policy needs to be written in a manner that can be grasped by parents and this policy, and subsequently DOE communication,  fails that test. I also believe that this process is entirely too labor intensive. Even though the window to file grievances has been extended to October, is this really where a teacher’s attention needs to be focused at the start of school?

Some have pointed out that this is a trial year and that scores won’t actually count against teachers. That may be true officially, but do you know anybody that would be comfortable under any circumstances with a 1 on their record? Secondly, unofficially those scores are out there and there is nothing to protect teachers from opinions being formed based on those scores.

Business long ago realized that there are only a limited number of hours in the day. That’s why when you go to buy a car, the salesman is focused solely on the sale. He’s not completing your credit check, or your loan application, nor is he completing the final sale paperwork. The most effective salesman are focused on only one thing, selling the product. Everything else distracts from the primary objective. Why can’t we provide that same consideration to teachers. Instead ion just being allowed to teach, they are continually forced to devote as much time to proving they are teaching as they are actually teaching.

READ MORE from TC on this issue.

As TC points out, the DOE’s response to all the frustration over the portfolios has been to blame the teachers. This teacher blaming happened just as school was getting ready to start. So, if your child’s Kindergarten teacher seems a little extra stressed this year, it’s likely because the state is pushing down a narrative that blames that teacher for what was, at best, a very flawed evaluation process.

One other item worth noting is the issue of compensation for those teachers who reviewed the Pre-K/K portfolios. While my initial reporting on this topic indicated teachers were paid $500 for reviewing (for 45 or more hours of work), I’ve now heard from teachers in multiple districts who were reviewers and who have yet to receive promised compensation.

First, let me say that $500 is not enough compensation for what ended up being incredibly demanding work. At best, we’re talking about $11 an hour. Next, let me say that withholding payment for whatever reason is unacceptable.

It seems that some districts went ahead and paid teachers based on the promise of state funds while others are still waiting for those funds to arrive before stipends are paid. But let’s be clear: The responsibility for this failure lies with the Tennessee Department of Education.

Let me make this comparison because I like football and because football season coincides with the start of school. As teams get ready for that first official game, they want their players absolutely focused on getting the job done. Whatever their role, coaches and programs want the team members ready to do the job. No distractions. Ohio State, a perennial top 5 team, is facing a distraction right now because of their coach. No matter how it ends up, this type of distraction, just as a season is about to start, throws off the rhythm of preparation. It takes away from being the best.

Now, think about that in comparison to being a Tennessee teacher. You’ve gotten questionable TNReady results and if you’re teacher under the portfolio system, you’ve been told mistakes were made and they’re all your fault.

This is not the playbook of a leader focused on winning.

For more on education politics and policy, follow @TNEdReport

 


 

Enough Already

Today, amid another round of testing problems, Williamson County Director of Schools Mike Looney tweeted:

Testing Update: TnReady testing challenges persist this morning. This has been the worst state testing process I have ever seen and it’s beyond ridiculous! Nevertheless, I am proud of WCS students and teachers for handling this with grace.

We’re now in the third week of the TNReady testing window and we’ve seen problems of some sort on a majority of those days. In fact, last week, Williamson County posted a list of TNReady problems by day:

Monday, April 16: Login problems affecting approximately 15,000 students.

Tuesday, April 17: Login problems affecting approximately 8,000 students.

Wednesday, April 18: WCS suspended testing to give the TDOE time to correct problems.

Thursday, April 19: Login problems affecting approximately 1,000 students.

Friday, April 20: No significant issues reported.

Monday, April 23: No significant issues reported.

Tuesday, April 24: System defaults caused 100+ students to take the wrong grade level test.

Wednesday, April 25: Delays and canceled testing affecting approximately 8,000 students.

Thursday, April 26: System lockout affecting approximately 15,000 students.

Friday, April 27: No significant issues reported.

That’s just one district, and the problems have been reported by a number of districts large and small across the state.

The Department of Education has blamed the problems on mysterious forces such as hackers and dump trucks, but it seems clear testing vendor Questar is not quite prepared for the job Tennessee is paying them $30 million this year to do.

Oh, and sometimes students get the wrong test.

All of this has caused an outcry among students, parents, and teachers. While one legislator says all the “whiners” should just suck it up, the TNReady trouble this year has caused legislators to take matters into their own hands, passing bills on “holding harmless” and “adverse actions” in order to make clear these tests should not negatively impact teachers, students, or schools.

One might recall that before our state’s testing window started, there was a bit of a warning that trouble might be headed our way. Despite the signs of potential trouble, Questar and the TN DOE expressed confidence in TNReady:

State officials said Thursday they are confident the new digital platform will work under heavy traffic, even as their new testing vendor, Questar, had headaches administering computer-based tests in New York on Wednesday. Some students there struggled to log on and submit their exam responses — issues that Questar leaders blamed on a separate company providing the computer infrastructure that hosts the tests.

It seems that confidence was misplaced.

I’ve talked with testing coordinators who tell me districts will be testing all the way up until graduation. I heard today that even when the login and submission problems were “resolved,” some students returned to their computers only to be issued a test for a subject other than the one they had started earlier in the day.

Student answers have been deleted or lost. Because of the legislation passed at the end of legislative session, TNReady will likely not count in many student’s grades. Teachers and administrators report that whether the scores count or not, students have no confidence in the system and no longer take the test seriously.

Even today, as I began seeing reports of issues around the state, I realized that TNReady being down is no longer news, it’s the norm.

Of course, Tennessee has had some sort of problem with testing or test results for five years now, dating back to the last administration of TCAP.

Here’s what else I realized: This test will just keep going. No one will stop it. Governor Haslam has yet to seriously weigh-in and appears to be fully behind Commissioner McQueen despite years of testing failures. While Directors of Schools complain about the ridiculous excuses from DOE and poor execution from Questar, so far, no district has permanently suspended testing.

Representatives from the Department of Education told lawmakers last week that there will be some valid data from this administration of TNReady. They even said it with a straight face.

So, why won’t this stop? Will any district refuse to subject students to further testing in this environment? Who will finally stand up and say “Enough?”

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Driving Teachers Crazy

State Representative Jeremy Faison of Cosby says the state’s teacher evaluation system, and especially the portion that relies on student scores on TNReady is causing headaches for Tennessee’s teachers.

Faison made the remarks at a hearing of the House Government Operations Committee, which he chairs. The hearing featured teachers, administrators, and representatives from the Department of Education and Tennessee’s testing vendor, Questar.

Zach Vance of the Johnson City Press reports:

“What we’re doing is driving the teachers crazy. They’re scared to death to teach anything other than get prepared for this test. They’re not even enjoying life right now. They’re not even enjoying teaching because we’ve put so much emphasis on this evaluation,” Faison said.

Faison also said that if the Department of Education were getting ratings on a scale of 1 to 5, as teachers do under the state’s evaluation system (the TEAM model), there are a number of areas where the Department would receive a 1. Chief among them is communication:

“We’ve put an immense amount of pressure on my educators, and when I share with you what I think you’d get a one on, I’m speaking for the people of East Tennessee, the 11th House District, from what I’m hearing from 99.9 percent of my educators, my principal and my school superintendents.”

Rather frankly, Faison said both the state Department of Education and Questar should receive a one for its communication with local school districts regarding the standardized tests.

Faison’s concerns about the lack of communication from the TNDOE echo concerns expressed by Wilson County Director of Schools Donna Wright recently related to a different issue. While addressing the state’s new A-F report card to rate schools, Wright said:

We have to find a way to take care of our kids and particularly when you have to look at kids in kindergarten, kids in the 504 plan and kids in IEP. When you ask the Department of Education right now, we’re not getting any answers.

As for including student test scores in teacher evaluations, currently a system known as Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS) is used to estimate the impact a teacher has on a student’s growth over the course of the year. At best, TVAAS is a very rough estimate of a fraction of a teacher’s impact. The American Statistical Association says value-added scores can estimate between 1-14% of a teacher’s impact on student performance.

Now, however, Tennessee is in the midst of a testing transition. While McQueen notes that value-added scores count less in evaluation (15% this past year, 20% for the current year), why county any percentage of a flawed score? When changing tests, the value of TVAAS is particularly limited:

Here’s what Lockwood and McCaffrey (2007) had to say in the Journal of Educational Measurement:

We find that the variation in estimated effects resulting from the different mathematics achievement measures is large relative to variation resulting from choices about model specification, and that the variation within teachers across achievement measures is larger than the variation across teachers. These results suggest that conclusions about individual teachers’ performance based on value-added models can be sensitive to the ways in which student achievement is measured.
These findings align with similar findings by Martineau (2006) and Schmidt et al (2005)
You get different results depending on the type of question you’re measuring.

The researchers tested various VAM models (including the type used in TVAAS) and found that teacher effect estimates changed significantly based on both what was being measured AND how it was measured.

And they concluded:

Our results provide a clear example that caution is needed when interpreting estimated teacher effects because there is the potential for teacher performance to depend on the skills that are measured by the achievement tests.

If you measure different skills, you get different results. That decreases (or eliminates) the reliability of those results. TNReady is measuring different skills in a different format than TCAP. It’s BOTH a different type of test AND a test on different standards. Any value-added comparison between the two tests is statistically suspect, at best.

After the meeting, Faison confirmed that legislation will be forthcoming that detaches TNReady data from teacher evaluation and student grades.

Faison’s move represents policy based on acknowledging that TNReady is in the early stages, and more years of data are needed in order to ensure a better performance estimate. Or, as one principal who testified before the committee said, there’s nothing wrong with taking the time to get this right.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport


 

A Familiar Refrain

While discussing how the state’s new A-F report card that rates schools will impact districts and students, Wilson County Director of Schools Donna Wright pointed out that the attendance calculations could be problematic for both high school seniors and students in Kindergarten.

The Lebanon Democrat reports on Wright addressing the issue:

“That doesn’t even make sense that they would hold schools hostage and keep students in schools after they have completed all of their assignments and everything that they’ve met. But they’re looking at that 180 days of instruction. It’s getting so complex. I want this board to understand. We have to find a way to take care of our kids and particularly when you have to look at kids in kindergarten, kids in the 504 plan and kids in IEP. When you ask the Department of Education right now, we’re not getting any answers.”

Wright is referring specifically to policy implications that would result in requiring high school seniors to attend school even after they’ve completed all requirements and attended a graduation ceremony. On the other end of the spectrum, Kindergarten students often phase-in in small groups in order to ease the transition to school.

At issue is the 180-day instructional requirement. In some cases, high school seniors complete all requirements and exams ahead of graduation and end their school year several days “early.” This would result in less than 180 days of instructional time. Kindergarten students who phase-in also end up having slightly less than the 180 required days.

Strict adherence to the guidelines behind the Report Card would mean schools could be penalized for the phase-in and graduation issues Wright raises.

Final guidance from TNDOE might help address this, but as Wright noted:

When you ask the Department of Education right now, we’re not getting any answers.”

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport


 

Federal Grant Helps 4,000 Students Pay for AP Exams

The U.S. Department of Education announced $28.4 million in grants to 41 states and Washington, D.C to defray costs of taking the Advanced Placement (AP) fees for low-income families.

From the U.S. Department of Education:

The grants are used to help pay for students from low-income families taking approved advanced placement tests administered by the College Board, the International Baccalaureate Organization and Cambridge International Examinations. By subsidizing test fees, the program encourages all students to take advanced placement tests and obtain college credit for high school courses, reducing the time and cost required to complete a postsecondary degree.

The grants included $362,985 awarded to the Tennessee Department of Education for the 2016 fiscal year, which means the department has already had the money and used it for students taking exams this past spring.

The Department had this to say:

More Tennessee students than ever before are taking AP exams and — more importantly — scoring high enough to become eligible for college credit. That’s key. One of our top priorities for the 2016-17 school year is strengthening pathways for students to be able to seamlessly transition into college and careers, and in order to do that, we have to provide more opportunities for students to earn postsecondary credit and industry certifications while in high school.

Sometimes these opportunities carry a price tag that may prohibit some of our students from being able to attain the college credit and/or certification they could otherwise earn if they were able to afford to take a specific exam. And in Tennessee, we want every student to be as equipped as possible when they graduate from high school. The funding announced today provided exam fee assistance on Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and Cambridge exams for about 4,000 economically disadvantaged students.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport.


 

Emotional Rescue

Tennessee won’t be a part of a national collaboration around social and emotional learning in schools and, according to state Senator Jim Tracy of Shelbyville, we have Jim Tracy to thank (or blame?) for that.

Just last month, the Department of Education announced our state’s selection to participate in a multi-state collaboration around social and emotional learning.

Since then, the plan has faced some criticism, including from lawmakers.

Chalkbeat’s Grace Tatter reports that Rep. Sheila Butt of Columbia questioned the need for such collaboration at a recent hearing:

The recent pushback over social-emotional standards also has included a wariness of collaborative work across state lines, an attitude that contributed to the state’s decision to scrap the Common Core academic standards for math and reading in favor of “homegrown standards” that Tennessee will roll out in 2017.

“I don’t understand why we have to constantly collaborate with other states,” Rep. Sheila Butt said during a summer study session last month. “We don’t have to do it that way.”

Oh, and there’s Jim Tracy. He penned an op-ed in the Daily News Journal of Murfreesboro taking credit for Tennessee rejecting the funding for the project.

Tracy:

After hearing from many constituents about potential funding for this controversial program, I contacted the Department of Education. This action helped in the decision making process by the DOE to decline funding for it.

Tatter explains the “controversial” initiative this way:

The social and emotional standards developed with CASEL would have set benchmarks for what students should know or be able to do in each grade when it comes to skills such as decision-making, self-awareness, social awareness, self-control, and establishing and maintaining healthy relationships.

And here’s how the program was described when it was announced:

The standards will be developed in collaboration with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, also known as CASEL, which announced this week that Tennessee will join the initiative along with California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Washington. The national organization previously has partnered with urban districts including Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools but is branching out into state policy to spread strategies around social and emotional learning.

Tennessee’s new standards will be drafted beginning Sept. 1 by a team that includes researchers, parents and educators. The final product will be reviewed next July by the State Board of Education.

A multi-state collaboration with both national experts and Tennessee educators and parents on an issue shown to have a clear impact on student behavior and performance — that’s what we just scrapped.

For its part, the state says it will still focus on social and emotional learning, just without the input of CASEL or the collaboration from state partners.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport