Three rounds and thousands of votes later, and we are down to our final four contestants for Tennessee Education Commissioner Madness! We don’t get to legally vote for our education commissioner in Tennessee, but today you do! The polls for the Elite 8 open at 8 PM on Monday, December 1st and run through 8 PM on Wednesday, December 3rd. Please vote for each candidate race, don’t just vote for one and leave!
Recap of the Elite 8
In round three, we saw several titanic match ups. In the superintendents bracket, Lyle Ailshie defeated Wanda Shelton by only a few hundred votes with over 3,000 cast. In a hard fought battle, Jason Vance from Loudon County brought down Mike Looney from Williamson. In the Policy Makers and Advocates matches, PET’s JC Bowman handily defeated Kathleen Airhart, Deputy Commissioner of Education and prior director of Putnam County Schools. Lastly, blogger and consultant Andy Spears took down Senate Education Committee Chair Dolores Gresham.
Gov. Candidates(?) out: A few interesting notes from round 3. Frist, we saw the elimination of the final ‘likely’ candidate. I’ve seen Kathleen Airhart, Jim McIntyre, Jamie Woodson, Candice McQueen and Jesse Register all mentioned as potential candidates. However, none of them remain at this point.
Rise of Small District Superintendents: Of the remaining candidates, we see two successful superintendents from Kingsport and Loudon County, both relatively small compared to other systems. In fact, Kingsport only operates 11 schools total according to Wikipedia (8 elementary, 2 middle and 1 high school). At least among our voters, we’ve consistently seen a trend against big districts, with only Hamilton County’s Rick Smith making it out of the first round.
And now we are down to our final four contestants. One will make it out of the policy makers category and one will make it out of the Superintendents for our final showdown, which will begin at 8 AM on Thursday, December 4th.
How to Vote
Simply scroll down the page and select the candidate in each match up that you believe would be the best of the two in the Commissioner of Education role for the state of Tennessee. Below each match is some additional information about each candidate to help in making your selection. We highly recommend that you also research each candidate yourself. Happy voting, and may the best candidate win! Also, share the page on your social media accounts to let you friends know that you voted! Thanks to Dan for suggesting it in the comments. To clarify; you can vote in each race shown below! You are not just limited to one.
One additional note: we saw some votebots get active in the final hours of the elite 8. After removing those votes, it would not have impacted the outcome of who advanced, only the vote totals and only for one of the races. To rectify this, I’ve added an authentication code box that voters need to fill in before voting. If you can’t read the text, fear not, just click the circle arrow to get a new text code. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but I feel its necessary to maintain the integrity of the vote.
Like what you see? Check out our coverage of the Achievement School District in Memphis and our breakdown of their performance in year 2. Follow ProEdTN, TNEdReport and BluffCityEd on twitter! You can also follow TNEdReport and BluffCityEd on facebook.
Superintendents Final Four Matchup
Lyle Ailshie (Kingsport schools) – Superintendent, former Director of Greenville City Schools (TN) – Greenville schools recognized during tenure as a high performing system, past president of Tennessee Organization for School Superintendents, 2005 Superintendent of the year. School district ranked second in the state by niche.com.
Jason Vance (loudon County) – Director of Schools. School district ranked thirty third in the state by niche.com. Received unanimous approval when selected. Holds an education specialists degree from Tennessee Technological University, former principal and assistant director of schools prior to being appointed superintendent.
Policy Makers and Advocates Final Four Match
JC Bowman (ProEdTN) – Executive Director and CEO of PET. Fomer school teacher and VP of the National Association of Professional Educators. Served as chief policy analyst for the Education Policy Unit for Gov. Jeb Bush. Received 2003 SMART award from the National institute for Education options.
Andy Spears (consultant, Nashville) – Tennessee Emergency Communications Board, president of Spears Strategy, editor/writer at TNEdReport. Formerly a press secretary in the Tennessee State Senate.
My preferred candidate is not among the final four. I am hopeful none of the finalists in this runoff will be ultimately selected by the governor.
Who was your preferred candidate Carol?
That’s a pretty negative way to frame your comment, Carol. I’d suspect there’s not much chance the Governor will choose any of the four — and this has been mostly for fun, but also to see how we can engage people in the discussion of the process.
Like Jon, I’d be curious to know who your favored candidate was … and, more importantly, what qualities you’d suggest the governor seek in the next commissioner.
I have enjoyed watching both the debate and the discussion on Twitter and here on the web page. It has been fun, but it has made me realize that we are passionate about education in Tennessee. We are willing to debate and to encourage our state to select a leader of the Department of Education who can understand teachers, politics, the Governor’s office, our legislative process, and our children’s educational needs.
Building trust is the first step toward the creation of successful dialog. Reform is necessary for us to excel in the world we live in, but we need to remember that our teachers have huge jobs, kids are still kids, and our task is to help Tennessee’s children grow into healthy, productive citizens. I do not know who the best person is to do that job, but I want our next commissioner to be smart, loyal, driven, caring, passionate, and willing to help me help my students reach their full potential. I want us to grow productive citizens, not just good test scores. I want a leader that I can follow to the top of the mountain and who will believe that I can really make a difference. I am glad that I am not the one selecting the Commissioner….it is a huge job.
Jason Vance is the GREATEST!!!
Yes he is
Words of wisdom Wanda! You are one of the great leaders in the state, and we would indeed be fortunate if you were selected. This has been a great opportunity to engage the education community, and many lessons learned for all of us. I do hope the Governor has looked at this! We have some very talented people in our state, with a mission to improve public education. I consider all of you friends. All the Best!! JC