State Rep. Needs A Fact Check on Pre-K: Edlinks 10/20

Several edlinks from the past few days:

State Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) has written a decidedly anti-Pre-K editorial in the commercial appeal.  I have a couple thoughts on this.  First, why is a representative from a small government part who represents a constituency on the other side of the state injecting himself in a decidedly local matter that he has no stake in?  Second, he seriously misrepresents the research and provides no links to the studies he cites, which is broken down by Smart City Memphis.  When you actually READ the study he cites (I assume its the vanderbuilt study I found on their site) that (he says) claims that the PreK program in TN hasn’t produced results, you see clearly stated in its executive summary that participants experienced academic gains 38% greater than those who did not participate (a graph can be seen below). Please fact check yourself next time sir.

Richland Elementary Principal Sharon McNary has been selected by the National Association of Elementary School Principals to receive its highest honor in Washington DC. A bit from the article about McNary:

McNary has spent her career in Memphis public schools, starting as a special-education teacher who moved up because even as a new teacher, superiors saw leadership in her.

Congratulations!

TN Ed Report notes that two more counties in TN have voted in favor of resolutions that ask the state to stop using TVAAS in teacher evaluations and licensure.  While I will go on record as saying I support TVAAS’ use in my evaluation and licensure, I do believe that it constitutes too large of a percentage in those decisions (a reduction to 33% in evaluations sounds much more appropriate).  I’m also interested in seeing a suspension of this data’s use in educator evaluations once we implement PARCC until we get the kinks ironed out.

Shelby County educator Joy Singleton-Stevens describes how she continues to be a leader in education while remaining in the classroom.

Last but not least, the commercial appeal reports that the fiscal impact of municipal school districts could sap over $50 million from the unified school district.