“Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.”
― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
The day after an election is not unlike the first day of baseball season - hope springs eternal. Everybody likes to think they have a clear idea of how the newly elected will act throughout their tenure. The truth is nobody, including the newly elected, can forecast with certainty. History's annuals are filled with candidates who ran one way and governed another.
Nashville awakes today to a new mayor and a handful of new council members. Once again change is in the air.
Much is being made of the fact that all of Nashville's at-large council members are women, and for the first time, most council seats will be held by women. I think there is a legitimate cause for celebration of the expansion of access, but the ultimate question is, will they be any good?
We often fall into the trap of thinking success is predicated based on gender, race, or sexual preference. That would be a falsehood.
At one time we believed that having a penis offered some kind of divine guidance or inherent superior intellect for leadership. Progress is that we now recognize the fallacy of that thought. But progress is thwarted if we just instill the same belief in a separate set of genitalia. Or skin color.
I suspect some of these women will be exceptional leaders and some we'll regret electing. That's kind of the way these things work out.
It is worth noting that few cities can compare with Nashville's Metro Council when it comes to inclusion. This election produced the first Trans elected official in Tennessee.
A Muslim immigrant woman was the only at-large councilman to secure their seat without going to a run-off. Nashville easily has one of the most diverse leadership bodies in the country.
It has yet to be determined if we have one of the best.
Quality is the ultimate determiner, but expanding the pool and including everyone is equally important.
Mayor-elect Freddie O'Connell won the mayoral race by a 64% - 36% margin. Impressive, but we can't obscure the city's low voter turnout rate.
In a city with 496,468 eligible voters, only 413,100 registered voters and only 114,103 people voted in the runoff. That's up from the initial race 6 weeks ago, where only 101,837 voters turned out, but still less than a quarter of those registered.
There is a common meme that says, if you don't vote, you don't get to complain. That's bullshit.
Not voting doesn't equate to giving up your residency. When people don't vote it's usually due to a lack of engagement, either in the system or with the candidates. At some point, we have to figure out why. Just writing those folks off and repossessing their voice isn't a viable solution for a healthy democracy.
What would an election be without a little conspiracy theory? There are those who would argue that O'Connell benefited from State Senators Campbell and Yarbro getting into the initial race for Nashville Mayor. The presence of two popular democrats likely stole votes from moderate Matt Wiltshire, ensuring a runoff race between Republican Rolli and the liberal O'Connell. A runoff between Wiltshire and O'Connell assuredly would have been a closer one, but alas we'll never know.
In the aftermath of yesterday's victory, Nashville's progressives are celebrating while their conservative neighbors are fearful. O'Connell is a bonafide progressive, albeit a homegrown one.
Supporters believe he will push Nashville to the head of successfully run progressive cities - admittedly I can't name any of those - while critics fear that Nashville will inherit the many problems of other progressively run cities.
Me? I see let's wait and see. Both visions feel a little hyperbolic. The gig tends to change you a bit, negatively and positively.
Post-election everyone is full of hope and the impossible seems probable. But governing is hard, and forces you to make unforeseen choices. I've been around long enough to know that the guy winning the election isn't always the guy doing the governing.
Ultimately the success of a leader is dependent on the team they construct around them. As O'Connell starts to pull his team together, a clearer picture will emerge.
Last night at his victory celebration Freddie O'Connell told the crowd, "We’re going to begin a transition process and it’s going focus on three important things that we’ve all talked about over the past year.”
"How Nashville grows, how Nashville works, and how Nashville moves. We’re are going to organize the mayor’s office around these principles concentrating on how we make it easier to stay."
Sounds like a solid plan, just remember what the boxer Mike Tyson had to say about plans - everyone has one until they get punched in the mouth.
Last night marked the end of the prologue, starting today, we get to the meat of the story. Let's hope O'Connell makes it a good one.
- - -
Last Spring, I shared that Tennessee Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn had purchased a $1.8 million dollar house in South Nashville. A house of that size and value seemed a little out of the realm of possibility for a public servant and I openly wondered how that came about.
Well, as she moves away from her former position as head of Tennessee's Department of Education, the picture is becoming clearer.
Recent announcements had Schwinn taking on an advisory role with a couple education policy foundations. This week, despite her starting employment on June 15, it was publicly announced that she would assume a newly created role at the University of Florida as vice president for PK-12 and pre-bachelor programs.
You might be asking, what is that job? Luckily the University was kind enough to provide a word salad in response.
Schwinn’s position will explore strategic opportunities for the University of Florida to (1) develop and expand innovative opportunities in the PK-12th grade space in areas like space and aeronautics, pre-apprenticeship programs, etc; (2) to develop possible “master-class” and exploratory high-end hybrid opportunities for high school students that may provide and expand access to collegiate level work that can support college readiness, align with workplace internships and apprenticeships, support existing courses and instruction, supplement summer school enrichment offerings, and/or allow for opportunities to use successful completion to advance university coursework; (3) support the School of Education to expand their already impressive array of programs and services; (4) explore partnership possibilities with LEAs and public charter schools to make UF the marquee service provider for state requirements, academic acceleration opportunities, and as a center for education innovation.
For that, she'll be drawing a salary of $367,500 annually.
That's $367K at a publicly funded university, as in taxpayer-funded.
If I didn't know better, I would fall under the assumption that this is just another perk provided by her membership in Chiefs for Change, the education policy non-profit founded by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
My favorite line in the press release is this one:
"After working with both Republican and Democratic Administrations in Washington, D.C., Dr. Schwinn earned praise from First Lady Jill Biden and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona for her work to make it free for candidates to become a teacher while they are paid to do so."
Those paying attention likely recognize that this work across party lines in DC was done while she was supposedly acting as Tennessee's Education Commissioner. So hopefully she'll send a thank you card to the citizens of Tennessee in appreciation. Since they helped build her resume or at least helped fund its construction.
When Schwinn resigned from the TDOE in May, she indicated to The74 that she had grown weary of the "cultural battles." She lamented the time spent weathering culture war battles over the way race and gender are taught in the state’s classrooms.
“I see it as extraneous politics and my job is to educate kids,” she said. “I knew that my charge, first and foremost, was to move our state forward.”
Just makes sense that her next move would be to ground zero of the culture wars.
Let's see how that works out for her.
- - -
This week also marks the wrap-up of the TDOE's town hall series on "A-F" grading. With everything going on in Tennessee, ExcelinEd decided, excuse me, Commissioner Schwinn, I mean Reynolds - it is all so interchangeable - has decided that priority should fall to grading schools. Because parents need to know if their kids are going to an "A" or "F" school, right?
Coupled with this initiative, is another driven by ExcelinEd - damn did it again - Bill Lee, that allows parents to know exactly what their student's education costs. TISA allows for individual calculations and in November parents will receive that information along with their school's letter grade on the state report card. It's almost like the state is encouraging parents to go shopping.
Unless of course, you happen to be a white student with no learning challenges in a suburban school awarded an "A". But that's another story for another day.
Little background info, the "A-F" grades were mandated in 2016 by the State General Assembly, with implementation planned for 2017. At the time a decision was made, for simplification's sake, to base that formula on the one required for the federal Department of Education.
Here's where things get a little muddy. The Feds also updated their requirements for schools via ESSA. The Federal requirements serve as an accountability system for schools. There are awards and penalties associated with the results.
The state grading system, in contrast, is for information purposes only. It's simply a grade generated through a calculation that includes elements of federal requirements with the option to add additional elements.
The decision to couple state initiatives and the federal requirements was never codified, but elements were written into the state's ESSA plan. That might make uncoupling a little more complex.
For various reasons, mostly tied to incompetence, the grading formula was created but grades were never generated for public consumption.
Local superintendents have access to the data and the formula, so most run their own calculations and use the data to assess their status.
Promises were made, because lawmakers were losing patience, to release grades this year. While maybe not thrilled about it, nobody was too concerned, because they knew the formula and had a general idea of where they would fall. The only wrinkle this year would be that grades would be available to the public.
To help you follow along, EdTrust has a simplified explanation available: Making it Count: Revising Tennessee’s ESSA Accountability System Memo
That brings us to the present, 2 months before grades are due, Commissioner Reynolds tinkering with the formula in an effort to change the weights to favor achievement overgrowth. Word starts to leak out to local officials, and suffice it to say district superintendents are less than thrilled, and can you blame them.
It's like if the week before Game One of the World Series teams were suddenly informed that starting immediately, an out would be two strikes and a walk would be 5 balls.
Or going into the NFL playoffs and being told that a first down would be 15 yards instead of 10. you'd be pissed and superintendents are equally so. And they aren't the only ones.
According to the Nashville Scene, at Nashville's town hall, MNPS weighed in,
“There seems to be a rush to put a model in place without any of us really understanding what it’s gonna be,” said MNPS chief of academics and schools Mason Bellamy. “That’s a little concerning to me in that it’s been a law for seven years now, and now there seems to be a rush to implement, in a way that wasn’t the case originally.”
A legitimate gripe assuming anyone cares, and trust me, I don't believe they do.
This week in Gatlinburg, at the annual Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents (TOSS) annual conclave, supes had an opportunity to present their case to Commissioner Reynolds. Word is she divided them into groups, to discuss opinions and then never brought them back together again to review. Imagine that.
Anybody who has raised a concern with the new commissioner has had a similar experience - some acknowledgment, limited redress.
One group she has courted is state legislators, and they by all accounts seem good with whatever is being brought forth. Most report pleasant interactions with Reynolds, She is the proverbial breath of fresh air whose best trait may be that she is not Schwinn.
At this juncture, I think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that the "A-F" grading system is changing. Those who attended the town halls may believe that they exerted some influence over the process, but seeing as probably 90% of those folks were career educators, I think they are more savvy than that.
What's the old saying? If you want to act like you are doing something without actually doing anything, convene a focus group, conduct a survey, or hold a town hall. In this case, do all 3.
The final formula will need to be run by the State Board of Education, but seeing as results from the previous formula were never released, they have limited say in what the TDOE brings.
For those of you who believe that the state government doesn't generate enough lawsuits, here's some hope for you.
The folks in Texas, former home to both Reynolds and Schwinn, are currently trying to revise their own "A-F" grading stem. This week The Texas Education Agency decided to delay the release of "A-F" accountability scores for the state’s public schools until later this fall in order to tweak a new formula that would have sent many districts’ grades plunging. The Houston Chronicle reports, "The proposed changes have drawn criticism and a lawsuit from district leaders who say they’re unfair and could lay the groundwork for state sanctions."
The paper goes on to report:
Specifically, the planned changes relate to a section of the A-F formula known as “growth” scores, which looks at year-over-year STAAR test scores to measure what percentage of students are on track. Schools are entitled to be graded based on whichever score is higher: their raw performance on STAAR tests or their growth scores.
The percentage of campuses that used the “growth” score to calculate their A-F rating surged to more than half last year, up from only 19% in 2019.
The spike was due to COVID-19, Morath said: STAAR scores decreased in the early years of the pandemic, before rising significantly in 2022 when students returned back to schools. The result was an exceptionally high growth year.
The agency had planned to use the 2022 growth numbers as part of the new grading baseline, but then the 2023 growth numbers dipped closer to the pre-pandemic scores. As a result, many schools would have seen their accountability grades suffer.
Morath said the amount of catch-up students played in 2022 skewed the numbers, and the edited formula would aim to fix the anomaly.
Superintendents around the state have been preparing their communities for lower A -F grades due to the agency’s proposed changes.
The biggest challenge in all of this is figuring out who's driving the change. Is it Lee? Reynolds? or is it ExcellinED?
If it's the latter why does a national organization get to decide what school ratings look like for Tennessee schools devoid of meaningful input from state residents?
- - -
If you are one of those folks still laboring under the impression that Charter Schools are a Republican tool for undermining public education, you might want to look at a new tool provided by the TN Comptroller's office. That includes former MNPS board chair Christian Buggs.
Last July, at a board meeting evaluating charter school applications, Buggs claimed charters aren’t looking to serve African-American students in North Nashville.
“When we look at our choice schools across Nashville, most of them do not come from low-income housing projects, they don’t come from low SES (socioeconomic status) families, they more often than not come from middle-class families,” said Buggs in the July meeting.
A dashboard provided by the Comptroller refutes that myth, with actual data. The dashboard allows users to research the racial demographics and enrollment numbers of districts that offer public charter schools, and the specific info for each school.
In case you are wondering, for Metro-Nashville Public Schools, the Comptroller’s dashboard shows less than 14 percent of public charter school students are white, with the majority (83.5 percent) either African American or Hispanic.
Ouch.
- - -
Time to rattle the cup a little bit before I head out the door.
If you could help a brother out…and you think this blog has value, your support would be greatly appreciated.
To those who’ve thrown some coins in the basket, I am eternally grateful for your generosity. It allows me to keep doing what I do and without you, I would have been forced to quit long ago. It is truly appreciated and keeps the bill collectors semi-happy. Now more than ever your continued support is vital.
If you are interested, I’m sharing posts via email through Substack. This has proven to be an effective way to increase coverage. Readers have the option of either free or paid subscriptions. Paid subscriptions will potentially receive additional materials as they become available. Your support would be greatly appreciated.
If you wish to join the rank of donors but are not interested in Substack, you can still head over to Patreon and help a brother out. Or you can hit up my Venmo account which is Thomas-Weber-10. I don’t need much – even $5 would help – but if you think what I do has value, a little help is always greatly appreciated. Not begging, just saying, Christmas is right around the corner.
If you’d like less opinion and more news, check out my writing for The Tennessee Star. It’s a bit drier but equally informative.
The quote from Buggs mentions SES, not race. Yet, you quote percentages on race, not SES. There are lots of middle class Black families.