In the World of Education Policy, You Can Be Anyone You Want to Be
“People do not change, they are merely revealed.”
― Anne Enright, The Gathering
Summer is definitely upon us. And when I say upon us, I mean upon us, as most of the nation suffers under extreme heat.
Here in middle Tennessee temperatures have broken the mid-90s with regularity.
Pundits call it an abnormally hot summer, but nothing will top my first exposure to Tennessee heat.
It was 1988, and Fan Fair was still called Fan Fair. it was held on the blacktop at the Nashville Fair Grounds. Nothing will ever top those days for me.
Summer is a time that is perceived as being one of rest and rejuvenation for teachers. Maybe for some, but for others it comes with its own sources of stress.
Waking up with nothing to do is fine for a few days, but as the summer stretches on, finding purposeful ways to fill the days becomes a little harder.
A break from routine may provide a welcome reprise, but separation can become difficult to navigate as it stretches on. Teachers, like most of us, are creatures of habit.
Financial necessity requires many to spend the summer working less fulfilling second jobs. Which creates additional stress.
Summer is also a time when politicians and legislators, perhaps empowered by a false sense of anonymity, make some of their most puzzling moves. Moves that seldom make life easier for teachers and principals.
This past week provides plenty of examples.
First up is a grade-changing scandal.
In this case, Anderson County is the scene of the alleged crime. A small district that sits slightly northwest of Knoxville. The school in question is Clinton High School, home to just over 1100 students. According to the TNDOE, the school received a "B" on the latest Tennessee State School Report Card.
Demographically, the district is nearly 90% white, with 30% considered economically disadvantaged.
Achievement-wise, the school has a success rate of 33.7%, congruent with the district level, but 4 points behind the state average.
Allegedly, at the direction of the principal and the football coach, 1500 grades were altered during the last school year.
If you've done this for a while, you instantly start to look for a familiar accomplice. Unfortunately, it didn't me long to find this one.
Edgenuity is a company that provides a credit recovery program to districts nationwide. Credit Recovery provides a means for at-risk students to retake a required course that they've previously failed. It is intended as a way to keep students on track for graduation with their class. Unfortunately, it is often abused.
The Tennessee Lookout notes:
The online programs, purchased by county school boards, have been the subject of controversy in recent years for their lack of oversight by state education officials and the ease with which grades can be manipulated, according to Carolyn Heinreich, a Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University.
The programs allow students to retake coursework, then take multiple tests that assess their mastery of a course, module by module..
But the module grades can be easily changed by instructors who are able to manually override grades or put students in “test only” mode allowing them to skip computer instruction and go straight to taking tests.
Heinreich said her research, which focused on the Edgenuity credit recovery program that was also utilized by Anderson County, has shown that kids working in test-only mode can easily cheat, relying on Google for answers
Metro Nashville Public Schools became a client with Edgenuity after credit recovery questions with another provider arose last decade. Initially, the company was seen as part of a strategy to combat teacher shortages.
Since 2019, the company has provided content and a platform for MNPS's credit recovery program. The annual cost for the program is capped at a million dollars. Edgenuity's district contract is scheduled to end later this week but is likely to be extended. For the most part, there have been few problems between the company and MNPS, but there are always questions and the program is hard to monitor because it's overseen primarily at the local level.
Periodically, grade-changing scandals occur. While I certainly don't condone these crimes, I'm fully empathetic.
In most cases, there is no financial reward to the crime, simply an attempt to preserve a career dedicated to serving students. No million-dollar payoffs. No kickback trips to Porte-de-Prince.
When you place so much emphasis, and accountability, on an arbitrary system that doesn't accurately measure student learning, you are fertilizing a field of deception.
At this point in the game, defending the accuracy and usefulness of standardized tests should be a foregone conclusion. Instead of burning brain cells on the well-documented shortcomings of existing practices, we should focus on creating a more accurate measurement system.
We can tsk-tsk over the events at Clinton High School, or we can examine what led to the alleged crimes.
We can demand fidelity to a flawed system of accountability, or we can figure out how to build a better system.
Unfortunately, too often we choose the former over the latter.
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One of Tennessee's leading education policy advocacy groups is getting new leadership.
Five years ago, national advocacy group Ed Trust, established a branch in Tennessee. Former MNPS school board member Gini Pupo-Walker was tapped to lead that branch.
As a side note, the national branch of Ed Trust was led by former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. For his efforts, he drew an annual salary of $550K. Walker never drew that kind of money, but she wasn't under-compensated either.
In an email to supporters, Walker talks about that founding and the success of the ensuing years:
Since then we have more than tripled in size, launched the TN Alliance for Equity in Education, the TN Coalition for Truth in Classrooms, have a record of policy wins, and a reputation as a trusted and formidable advocacy organization not only in Tennessee, but also in the region. It’s been inspiring to see students, advocates, educators and parents build a shared agenda and participate in our movement and lead on the issues that matter to them.
I suspect one of the wins being touted by the former executive director is the overhaul of Tennessee's student funding policy. Despite, concerns by other advocacy groups, Ed Trust's commitment was unwavering.
Earlier this year, they announced the launch of Southerners for Fair Schools Funding, with the goal of helping advance better school funding across the South.
Prior to her employment with Ed Trust, she led Nashville's Hispanic advocacy group Conexion.
Pupo-Walker is now poised to begin a new role as the Director of National Education Strategy at the Raikes Foundation.
"Gini brings a wealth of proximate and systems leadership to our work for educational equity,” said Dennis Quirin, Executive Director of the Raikes Foundation. “I am confident that under her leadership, the Foundation will continue to make durable, transformative progress toward a public education system that supports economic prosperity, the health of our communities, and our democracy.”
While the non-profit has offices primarily in Washing state, Pupo-Walker will reportedly remain in Nashville.
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Atlanta's school district is getting a new leader, and it is one familiar to folks in Middle Tennessee.
Bryan Johnson, a former superintendent of the Hamilton County school district in Chattanooga, is the Atlanta school board’s sole finalist for superintendent.
Before his time in Chattanooga, Johnson and his wife were fixtures in Nashville. Candy Johnson is a well-respected philanthropic fundraiser.
"The Atlanta Board of Education is thrilled at the prospect of collaborating with someone as accomplished as Dr. Bryan Johnson," said ABOE Chair Erika Y. Mitchell. "His diverse leadership roles throughout his career will be a tremendous asset, as he helps propel our District by pushing students toward success while advocating for the District’s needs."
Johnson was named the 2021 Tennessee Superintendent of the Year by the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents and was a National Superintendent of the Year finalist. Furthermore, he was listed as a "Superintendent to Watch" by the National School Public Relations Association.
He abruptly ended his tenure with Hamilton County Schools in 2022 to take an executive position with U.S. Express Enterprises, a trucking company. At the time he alluded to challenges with Tennessee's changing state education policies as a contributing factor for seeking new employment.
He left his trucking company position to join UTC as executive vice chancellor and chief strategy officer at UTC.
The former Chattanooga director of schools has been a member of the Jeb Bush-funded Chiefs for Change for nearly five years. In that role, he penned an op-ed supporting Tennessee's literacy law changes and supporting since departed State Superintendent Penny Schwinn.
The progress is also a testament to the leadership of Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn and her team at the Department of Education. The department has taken a number of important steps that I believe contributed to the recent progress.
In hiring Johnson, the Atlanta board cited a desire to increase district literacy rates.
The Atlanta area has become a popular landing place for Tennessee Executives. Former Williamson County, and briefly MNPS, leader Mike Looney leads the Fulton County School District. Former Chattanooga executive Nakia Townes was a Deputy Superintendent with Gwinnett County Public Schools before transitioning to COO at Accelerate, a start-up non-profit, launched in the context of the national achievement gaps that have worsened significantly post-pandemic.
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While we are on interesting hires, Jared Myracle has been tapped by new MCMS Superintendent Marie Feagins as their director of literacy.
“As a longtime leader in this work, Dr. Myracle is guided by a fundamental principle — which I share — that literacy is the foundation of all learning,” Feagins said in a press release. “He is dedicated to achieving ambitious results for kids.”
The self-proclaimed literacy expert has taken an interesting path to his new role. The former Jackson-Madison County School's Chief Academic Officer once penned a book called Common Core Standards for Parents for Dummies. Even as Tennessee moved to disassociate itself with Common Core, Myracle has continued to advocate for the failed experiment.
Myracle, the author of Common Core for Dummies, ironically became the state’s Senior Director of ELA in 2021. Before taking the gig with the state, he also pitched products for Great Minds, both for ELA and Math. Yes…that Great Minds. Wit and Wisdom Great Minds.
A few years ago, in the wake of the pandemic, Myracle announced the formation of a company that would help districts with curriculum adoption. Keep in mind, that prior to the pandemic few LEA’s had the funds from which to draw in order to undertake large-scale curriculum adoption. The problem was solved with the influx of federal dollars.
As I've previously noted, just for the record, and not to disparage any of the work done by the teachers and students of Jackson–Madison County Schools, during Myracle’s tenure, according to the Tennessee State report card, literacy scores declined and the district was a Level 1 in growth in Literacy.
Who knows, maybe he's gotten a whole lot better at this.
To take his new position, Myracle returns to Tennessee from Florida, where he has been serving as senior director of programs with Impact Florida, a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of classroom instruction in Florida schools since 2022.
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And we are still talking about vouchers.
Today an article in The Tennessean outlines how the state's GOP primary is turning into a referendum on school vouchers.
Governor Lee has vowed to bring the issue to the General Assembly during the upcoming session. To achieve better results this time around, he's actively supporting sympathetic candidates. Helping him is the national advocacy group American's for Prosperity.
According to the daily paper, "The upcoming Republican primary is likely to become a referendum on the issue, as dissatisfaction with incumbent positions on school choice — whether in support or opposition — is among the issues that have driven several challengers to run."
Interestingly enough, one of the races cited is that in the southeast Tennessee city of Cleveland, between Troy Weathers, a 20-year school board veteran, and incumbent Rep. Kevin Raper, R-Cleveland. It's a rematch of a race narrowly won last cycle by Raper.
The paper touts Weathers as an anti-voucher candidate.
I’ve been on the school board 20 years. I know enough to tell you that vouchers are not the saving grace of education for Tennessee,” Weathers told The Tennessean. “It’s another entitlement program. I’m a Republican, and I don’t believe in entitlement programs.”
Ironically, Raper, who is a vice-chair of the of the House Education Instruction Committee, was a staunch opponent of voucher legislation during the last state session despite pressure from Lee.
While he is a proponent of school choice, he doesn't include vouchers in that equation, and further voices his commitment to his constituents.
"Now, it wasn't easy in the fact that I'm an education Chairman, and there was sort of an expectation that, hey, you go along with... what the governor is suggesting. I try to do that most of the time," Raper said. "But I have to remind myself that, hey, I'm representing District 24. And if they're adamantly against something, even though the governor or the speakers, or even the legislature is feels the opposite way, I'm ultimately gonna vote the direction of District 24."
What the race in Cleveland indicates is a blurring of the lines statewide, along with uncertainty about how votes will translate. Governor Lee has limited influence as his term runs out, and candidates' positions remain unclear.
As demonstrated by Ray Jeter who is challenging Murray County Rep Scott Cepicky.
“I am fundamentally for school choice,” Jeter said, noting the high number of students in Maury County that are not enrolled in public schools. “But I think private education has to remain private. My only fear is that if we start moving funds from public education into private, that soon thereafter, government regulations are coming.”
Cepicky, long a supporter of public schools despite words to the contrary being recorded in private, remains supportive of a state voucher plan.
"I have spoken to many parents in my district and most parents want the option of being able to remove their kids from a public school that is not meeting their student's needs and put them into another alternative," Cepicky told The Tennessean in a text message.
I don't doubt that he has.
But this ain't the time for nuance.
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Per usual, I need to rattle the cup a little bit before I head out the door.
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