Happy November to all the educators out there!  Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner.  Here are your edlinks for the past few days:

Dorsey Hopson sends a memo to Shelby County educators in the municipalities addressing concerns about jobs without really addressing anything:

First, I know that rumors about potential staffing changes within our district have come up. So I want to be very clear that no such decisions or recommendations have been made. Shelby County Schools is absolutely committed to retaining a high-quality workforce, and we will do that with care and consideration. Also, last night, our school board approved a resolution that allows our district to prepare for educating all Shelby County students who will not attend schools in a suburban, municipal school system. We have proposed some recommendations regarding how best to serve our students, but no final decisions have been made. The board’s resolution simply allows the district and our school board to negotiate with municipal officials and engage with these communities about these decisions. There is still much to learn about how this process will unfold in the months ahead. I want to assure you that as we move forward, I am committed to providing fact…

Teach for America and MTR get high marks for teacher training in the state’s new report card, while UM and CBU take a hit.

Another county (Robertson) joins Bradley County, Cleveland City, Marshall and Roane counties in expressing no confidence votes on Kevin Huffman and Tennessee’s education reforms.  Interestingly, if you look at the data from these districts, the worse TVAAS growth data among them is -1.7 in Marshall county, so these seem to be counties that would have the least to lose under these reforms…

A Memphis educator advocates for paying teachers for performance on the SCORE sheet.

And last but not least, former Mayor Herenton has been forced to close his charter schools for troubled youth after they were severely under enrolled.