Kevin Huffman joins the Tennessee Education blogosphere! He did point out a few interesting pieces of info, especially regarding Tennessee’s PLAN and EXPLORE (basically Mock ACT) tests rising above national norms (averages?) this year.  We look forward to many more blogs from the Commissioner in the coming weeks and months!

The Chronicle also released an extensive piece pointing to higher teacher support for our state evaluation system, but I plan to do a more extensive post on that later.  You can, however, find the whole article here in the mean time.

The National School Boards Association reports that teacher evaluation metrics are improving in their effectiveness and usefulness.  Specific to Tennessee, we are only one of 4 states that (apparently, I haven’t heard of this) use evaluations for targeted PD, 13 that use it to promote teachers (more like not rehiring teachers in my experience?), 14 using it to grant tenure and 18 using it as a component to compensate educators (haven’t seen this yet).  The whole report isn’t terrible long and contains some helpful graphics.  You can find the whole thing here.

However, it does highlight that evaluation changes represent a trend across the country. From the press release:

In the past five years, 38 states have altered their teacher evaluation systems to include some measure of student performance,” said NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel. “With variations across teaching and learning models, school boards and district officials need state support and the ability to adapt teacher evaluation models to meet the needs of local schools.”

Highlights of newer systems in place across states include: the use of multiple stakeholders to design and implement evaluation tools; multiple measures to show teacher effectiveness; and data that link teacher and student achievement.

Related to the article, Jane Roberts notes the following trends related to teacher support for evaluation in Tennessee:

the number of teachers who feel the evaluation process has merit is 21 percent higher than last year. But 49 percent of the state’s teachers still don’t trust the process or feel it is worth the time.

Clay Bailey at the Commercial Appeal notes that there will be a candidate mixer for those running for the suburb’s school board seats at 6:30 PM at the Bartlett performing arts center on Oct 21st.  Though I don’t know why, they are all running unopposed anyway…

Michael Kelley writes that the issue of school facility transfers between SCS and the new municipal school districts is likely to come up soon, perhaps as early as the October 22nd School Board work meeting.  A little teaser on some of the issues involved:

Feasibility studies showed that obtaining school buildings at little or no cost was critical to the viability of suburban districts. Critics of that approach contend that taxpayers throughout Shelby County paid to build suburban schools and should be compensated at fair market value if the buildings are to be given up.

It has been noted, however, that allies of the suburban school district movement in the General Assembly may step in to resolve the issue before local leaders have had a chance to work out a deal.

Here are the current poll results from the CA website. Looks like we have a lot of municipality voters out there…

Commercial Appeal: no challengers to the Collierville school board candidates. I always hate to see this because it puts a limit on the ideas that get put out there about the quality of our education system.  This is also a trend in other municipalities as they hold their own races:

Although Collierville is the only municipality to avoid contested races, several cities only have one or two contested races. Arlington’s only contested race is in Position 2, where Barbara Fletcher and Dexter Orman are running for the seat. Bartlett and Germantown have two positions on the ballot with a pair of candidates. In Millington, voters will have a choice in three of the seven races.

CA: Congratulations to Shelby County School Board Member Dave Pickler for winning a Bammy Award from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences:

NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel praised Pickler, a local school board member since 1998, as a “strong advocate for local school governance to advance our public education system for all children.”

Memphis Business Journal: Parents are seeing a noticeable difference in their students school work as common core standards are implemented in Shelby County:

“I have siblings, and the tests we are giving them are different. They are seeing different work come home,” Pauly [a first grade teacher at Shady Grove Elementary] said. “Our spelling test even varies week to week because we are still trying to figure out what is the best assessment for them. … It’s a transition for parents and teachers and children and administration.”

Nashville Public Radio: Lt. Gov. Ramsey gives strong indications that there will be some serious debates in Tennessee’s next legislative session around the common core standards, and to expect changes specifically to the way we collect data in this state:

Ramsey says he still expects changes will be made, particularly to the amount of data that will be collected and distributed on Tennessee students. It’s ironic though, he says, because Tennessee has long-collected vast amounts of information on students – more than almost any other state – but it’s only just now becoming an issue.

Cato institute: The Cato institute gives Tennessee a “D” in school funding transparency. From the article:

While Tennessee has years of data on per-pupil costs, it does not provide an easy way for people to compare spending.

“The website does include a financial summary, which shows what broad categories are included and not included in per-pupil funding,” Bedrick said, “but you have to read through to page 18 of a nearly 200-page report to find that data.”

Given the research I’ve been conducting for future posts, I would certainly agree with this assessment.  it’s easy to find the basic data, but digging deeper is a chore and often requires multiple hours of work.

School Board: The 23 member school board holds its final meeting.  Schooling Memphis provides a summary of school board action to close out the last few weeks of August, with an emphasis on some of the missteps that have been taken by various board members.  The one high point me highlights:

An actual real-life gold star should go to outgoing Commissioner Sara Lewis who has apparently been running a free, volunteer taxi service for carless parents who are told to report to the Gray’s Creek facility for certain student services.  Commissioner Lewis noted that no public transportation is available to the office building, and that some parents just cannot easily get out there.  Hopefully, a solution will be forthcoming.

School Safety: After metal detectors were installed in a SCS elementary school, another gun was found in Cyprus Middle Tuesday.  The truly sad piece for me is that I know there are many, many more guns in our schools that aren’t found.  At one of my previous schools we had multiple gun incidents that we were not told about but learned about from the students.

Merger movement: Arlington and Lakeland are considering a cost sharing agreement in the (almost certain) event that the two municipalities split from SCS to form their own school systems.  A quote from Arlington’s Mayor on what this would accomplish:

Wissman said the potential Arlington-Lakeland agreement creates “a natural flow” of students between the two cities by maintaining the current attendance zones. He added those advising Arlington on the schools had long suggested the system should have a name akin to Arlington Community Schools in keeping with the area it would serve. Additionally, the agreement will provide parents, teachers and students a better view of what the future education system in that corner of the county will look like, the mayors said.

“I would do it if, considering what we were facing at the time, what we were facing is the threat of special school districts. That, regardless of what people say about this decision, if that was not a specter out there, there would not have been the initiative to do it,” Jones said.

Nashville Schools will study the current climate of testing.  Specifically:

MNPS Director of Schools recommended a study session where many of the questions raised by the resolution can be addressed.  Speering and fellow Board Member Amy Frogge (a frequent critic of the current testing emphasis) agreed and the Board will now examine in study session the number of hours students spend taking tests, test prep hours, cost of tests, etc.

Sam Chaltain on EdWeek on the importance of making sure we get teacher evaluations right, even if it doesn’t come as quickly, to truly invest teachers and the public in these efforts.  This carries a lot of relevance to Tennessee’s experience:

we sidestep the slow process of co-creating new norms in favor of the quick process of mandating new behaviors. Some of these ideas may even have merit; here in DC, for example, there’s a lot to like about the city’s new teacher evaluation system, IMPACT. But as school change expert Michael Fullan points out, the key to real systems change is building collective capacity, which he defines as “generating the emotional commitment and the technical expertise that no amount of individual capacity working alone can come close to matching.”

Article from Knoxville with common core standards rated by the Fordham Institute compared to Tennessee’s:

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a non-profit think tank in Ohio, which is generally supportive of Common Core, has been rating state education standards for years. In 2010, it rated the Common Core standards in English Language Arts with a B+, while the standards for math received an A-.

Compared to Tennessee’s previous math standards, this is much better. Fordham rated Tennessee’s previous math standards an overall “C.”

In English Language Arts, however, Fordham rated Tennessee’s previous standards an overall “A-” compared to Common Core’s “B+.” This is “too close to call,” said the Fordham report.

And the generally estimated cost of implementation:

In Tennessee, Common Core will be tested starting in 2014-2015 with an assessment called PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career), which will replace current TCAP and EOC state testing in math and English.

It will cost an estimated $21 to $25 million to conduct PARCC testing statewide each year, not counting the computers on which the test must be taken, according to Kelli Gauthier, state education department spokesperson.

EdWeek: twitter is a great way for teachers to get informed, but only around 5 percent of teachers are on twitter:

Having done some digging around, former English teacher Tom Whitby makes a “calculated guess” that only about 200-300,000 teachers are on Twitter—a relatively small number if you consider that, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are roughly 4 million K-12 teachers in the U.S.

For Whitby, this amounts to a large-scale missed professional opportunity. In his experience, he says, teachers who are active on Twitter and other social-media outlets are better informed and quicker to assimilate new ideas than their less connected peers:

Having discussions about specific topics within education with educators can be very different depending on their amount of connectedness. Those actively connected educators seem to need less relevant background information in order to address a topic. Discussions with the unconnected educators often get bogged down in explanations and definitions before the discussion of the topic can even take place. BYOD and Flipping were connected topics months before they became mainstream. Being connected seems to support relevance because of the ongoing discussion being framed around education. These in-depth discussions may not be taking place the same way in the hallways, or faculty rooms of schools.
Thoughts? That’s a pretty strong generalization. Any non-Twitter-users care to rebut?

Smart City Memphis advocates for Pre-K as essential for our economic future here in Memphis and Shelby County:

For every $1 spent on Pre-K, there is a $5.12 benefit.  By the time children who attended Pre-K are 27 years old, they are three times more likely to own a home than someone who did not attend Pre-K, twice as likely not to receive welfare and social services, and four times more likely to earn a higher annual income. In addition, people without Pre-K are twice as likely to be arrested by the time they are 27 years old.

A school system where children are five and six years old when they enter a classroom has not acted wisely on brain development research, which tells us that the brain is growing to 80 percent of its adult size and that vital learning is taking place before a child is five years old. This is time that cannot be wasted.

For too long, Pre-K has been seen as a worthy thing to do but not as an absolute necessity. Today, we know better. Pre-K can transform children’s lives, resulting in everything from improved vocabulary to improved school attendance to higher graduation rates.

Looks like school board members were serious about asking the state legislature to help compel Memphis to pay the money it owes for schools after voting on a resolution supporting this step July 30th:

Countywide school board members voted Tuesday, July 30, to seek the law from a legislature that has approved defining the schools merger and establishing suburban school systems separate from the merged school system.

“We seem to have the ability to go to the state to solve local issues,” said school board member Kevin Woods. “I’ve steadfastly opposed such options because I think we should be able to resolve our issues locally. But we do need to get these dollars.”

Also from Smart City Memphis, here’s a facts sheet from a Vanderbuilt Study on Tennessee’s Pre-K system. Notably:

* Vanderbilt found that children who attend PreK are promoted from kindergarten to first grade at twice the rate of peers, have higher attendance rates and are therefore less likely to engage in risky behavior and more likely to graduate from high school and be prepared for the workforce.

* Less than 1/3 of our community’s [Memphis] four year olds are enrolled in PreK. It is imperative that we provide the means for every child to attend high quality PreK and that no child will be turned away because of insufficient funds.

Smart City Memphis: Great breakdown of the realities and myths surrounding municipal school districts

EdWeek: Will Tennessee’s new teacher compensation plan reward effectiveness or perpetuate reliance on test data?

EdWeekTeacher: discussion from around the country on the best way to reform teacher compensation.  Very relevant for what is going on here in Tennessee

Commercial Appeal: Who gets the school buildings in the new municipal school districts?  Should the cities have to pay for them or did Memphis get them for free originally? Overview of the situation from the commercial appeal.

Commercial Appeal: regardless of the outcome of the property tax vote today at the County Commission, the Unified District is already guaranteed its $20 million.

Memphis Daily News: Summary of municipal election outcomes.  Districts approved overwhelmingly.

Commercial Appeal: coverage of the County Commission’s failure to approve a 6 cent property tax that had already been included in the budget.  Editorial by the ed board on why we need to stop playing politics with our children’s future.  I don’t usually include quotes in these links, but I thought this was a wonderful gem of rationality in an often irrational political world:

“Good, responsible Republicans” balance the necessities of the community against cost, Luttrell said to the commissioners last week, introducing political affiliations into the conversation.

“I don’t like to raise taxes. I’ve never been a proponent of taxes, but there comes a time when taxes are necessary,” he said.

Commercial Appeal Editorial Board: KIPP’s high expectations in Memphis are transforming lives.

Educationnext: Tennessee gets high marks for improved rigor in state standards compared to other states around the country (ranks #2).

WSMV Nashville: Governor’s Children’s Cabinet launches two new initiatives designed to help Tennessee students enter the classroom prepared to learn by connecting to state provided resources.

Hechinger Report: Jonah Edelman on the impact common core standards can have on educational outcomes for students that move frequently and the importance of national standards.

Schooling Memphis: Another local blogger’s analysis of campaign spending on the school board race between Dr. Whalum and Kevin Woods.

Looking back at the absentee votes, the only city that saw a significant change from its early/absentee voting was Lakeland.  Regardless, the change was negligible (92 to 87 percent really isn’t that significant).

A brief impact analysis of how this vote will impact our county’s kids. 

Now that separation is legal at the state level, is it possible that we will see the argument that the suburbs voted to break away for race-based reasons revived?

When this vote is finally certified and organization around the split begins, we are likely to see legal fights over who owns the rights to the buildings.  Either way, money will (or will not) change hands, the end result being less resources for students.

We are also likely to see a significant increase in county property tax once the true cost of the merger comes home to roost in the county.  Commissioner Ritz estimated back in May of 2012 that across all 6 municipalities that voted to form their own district, an average of a $1 property tax increase would be needed to fund the schools (remember: our county commission just failed to pass a 6 CENT property tax increase). This represents well over a 100 percent raise in all cities that just voted to separate.  And if these tax increases don’t go through, this represents just another way that our kids will be disadvantaged when cuts are the end result.

This vote is also likely to further damage the SCS unified district’s efforts to find a strong school leader to take over where Dr. Cash left off.   In my opinion, no quality superintendent in their right mind would want to step into this mess and try to lead a school system who’s boundaries are about to be radically altered.  And even at best, this puts a huge burden on both the SCS unified district’s search and any search conducted by the new school districts.  As a teacher, I want a strong school leader, not an interim leader put in place because we can’t get anyone better.

This vote will also further perpetuate the existing real and perceived separation between county and city residents to the detriment of regional integration.  The inaccurate myth of Memphis as a problem has been perpetuated for entirely too long.  The merger had the potential to move us towards regionalism and working to improve both Memphis and the county, but this represents a huge step backwards.

At the end of the day, the real losers are kids.  As I outlined in my previous post, when adults fight, kids lose.  The turmoil caused by this vote will likely continue to echo around the county for some time, drawing attention away from where our true focus should be; on our children.  At a time when around 5 percent of city school and 20 percent of county students are graduating college ready, we can’t afford to be devoting time and resources anything else.