The Band Is Back Together, Lets Hope They Don't Go On Tour
“Wait for the real problem, Your Excellency. Don’t borrow trouble that doesn’t come to you on its own.”
― Arkady Martine, A Desolation Called Peace
The 113th Tennessee General Assembly gaveled back into session this week. As expected, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton(R-Crossville) and State Representative Justin Jones(D-Nashville) proceeded to suck all the air out of the room.
These two need their own reality show, or perhaps, a sitcom. The duo could slip into the tights and stage a Saturday night cage fight for charity. But this show in the people's house is unsustainable.
During the sessions establishing this year's rules, Jones took to the floor claiming that Sexton was "drunk with power". Which quickly ended his speaking opportunities for the day.
Sexton in turn removed Jones from the House Education committee, moving him to Government Operations.
That committee is headed up by Representative John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge). Also on that committee is Minority Leader Karen Camper(D-Memphis), along with Rep John Ray Clemmons(D-Nashville. Republicans include Rep Gino Bulso(R-Brentwood) and Rep William Lambeth(R-Portland). Maybe this is where the cage match will take place.
Other than that, House Education Committees remain pretty much the same. save for, newly elected Rep Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) being put on both House Education Instruction and House Instruction Subcommittee. The latter is chaired by House Rep Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka).
Jones regularly complains, along with fellow Tennessee 3 members, that his voice is repeatedly silenced and he is not provided ample opportunity to be heard. Well, let's go to the tape Jim.
According to a list produced by Rep Jason Zachary(R-Knoxville), if accurate, show Rep. Pearson(R-Memphis) leads in total talk time at 3 hours 52 minutes, Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons at 2 hours 27 minutes, Rep. Jones, comes in at 2 hours 25 minutes, followed by House Majority Leader William Lamberth of Portland at 2 hours 6 minutes, Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis at 1 hour 31 minutes and Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville at 1 hour 30 minutes.
The least talk comes from, Rep Kevin Vaughn at 38 minutes.
“I’m sorry you have not been getting your daily dose of wit and wisdom,” Vaughan told his fellow lawmakers. “I hope this is being logged in so I can continue to rise in the power rankings.”
And so it went.
At some point, both Jones and Sexton are going to have to put the needs of the people over the needs of their egos.
Everybody loves a fighter, but punching somebody in the nose after they've just kicked you, only ensures another kick, likely followed by another punch - rinse, wash, repeat.
A good fighter delivers fewer punches than they receive,. Neither Rep qualifies for the title, and both more closely resemble characters from the old Mike Tyson video game - body blow, body blow.
My experience has been, that when engaging in a public fight, eventually the public gets tired of both of you.
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We'll have ample time to discuss vouchers this session, so I don't want to dwell on them too much today. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that Wednesday, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled a challenge to the state’s pilot Education Savings Account program in Davidson County can go forward.
This action only relates to the state's pilot program for students in Chattanooga, Memphis, and Nashville. A program that appears to be wrapping up soon, as the state threatens to launch a universal voucher program.
The court ruling noted that plaintiffs presented facts showing the General Assembly didn’t appropriate any funds for the voucher program in 2019 when it was enacted yet the Department of Education entered a $2.5 million contract in November 2019 with ClassWallet, a private Florida-based company that was to oversee online applications and payment systems. The state paid ClassWallet $1.2 million that first year.
Metro Nashville's argument has been that the program was unconstitutional because it applied only to Metro Nashville and Shelby County school districts, violating the state’s Home Rule Amendment, which prohibits laws from targeting specific counties without local approval. The trial court and Court of Appeals at first overturned the program, finding it unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court allowed it to move forward.
As I said, we will be talking plenty about vouchers, so I'll just leave this here for now.
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A lowlight of this week's legislative session was Tennessee's Commissioner of Education Lizzette Reynolds's appearance before the Senate Education Committee.
Before the meeting, The Tennessee Hollar caught the Commissioner in the hallway.
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Yeah, it wasn't pretty, but you can't say I didn't warn you.
Remember, Reynolds has never been a Commissioner of Education and has built her reputation as a bureaucrat for the Bushes.
The fun fact for me is that the gum-chewing minder, trying to run interference for the Commissioner is Victoria Robinson, Assistant Commissioner of Communication and Engagement. Doesn't appear she's very good at either. Seems that Robinson should have immediately recognized the Holler's Justin Kanew, a regular on Capital Hill, and prepped her boss accordingly.
Kanew, for his part, was kindler and gentler than usual. Those of you familiar with his work know that he can be a bit aggressive in filming his subjects. He was anything but with Reynolds, yet she folded like a house of cards.
But what about the main course? what about her presentation to the Senate Education Committee? Surely she redeemed herself.
In case, you thought Reynold's confusion was an isolated moment, rest assured, her appearance before the Senate Ed Committee lived up to the preview.
I was tempted to just share the highlights compiled by the Holler, but decided to include the whole performance. There is just too much to unpack.
I could write about this meeting for about a week, and still not hit everything. The Commissioner is ill-equipped to describe policy and convey accurate information. She's all over the map and often self-corrects after. frequent mistakes.
Some will defend her by saying, "She's not a public person. She prefers to give others the spotlight."
Whatever.
She doesn't get paid $255K a year to labor in the shadows.
She's paid to manage the Department of Education and be the public face of the state's education system. It's not unreasonable to expect her to appear polished and knowledgeable in public.
That said, we do need to take a closer look at a couple key moments.
The first is her description of fourth-grade retention.
Some of you know, but many of you don't, that Tennessee's third-grade retention plan is, in reality, a third-grade promotion plan with a fourth-grade retention plan.
For third graders who fail to meet expectations on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), legislators have provided a plethora of methods for promotion - tutoring, retakes, summer school, parent appeal, etc.
Despite all the hoopla this summer, only 898, or 1.2%, of third-grade students were retained.
However, for those students who participated in summer school or tutoring, there is a bonus plan.
They have to show adequate growth on the fourth grade TCAP to earn promotion to 5th grade - no ifs, ands, or buts.
So you are probably asking now, how does Tennessee define adequate growth?
This is the good part. We don't have an official definition yet.
In November, the TDOE presented to the State Board of Education a proposed rule. Admittedly it's a little more complex, but essentially the department is proposing that the number required for a student to achieve proficiency in 11th grade - the last tested grade - be divided by 8 - the number of remaining tested school years. That number is the amount of growth a student must make annually to be proficient before entering their senior year.
So a student who is 2.6 points below the fourth grade requirement would need to make less growth than the one that is 6 points behind. TNDOE assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability, David Laird, told committee members that the department likes the fact that it is unique to the individual child.
Essentially, we are talking about the implementation of an AMO here. Ironically, the department likes the use of AMOs in this case, but Reynolds is opposed to using them in the calculating of school letter grades. Go figure.
If you watch the video of the State Board of Education where the proposed definition is considered, you'll see that the board had concerns. Among them, was that the final reading of the rule wouldn't be heard until February, providing little for parents to be informed.
State Senator Dawn White(R-Murfreesboro) raised the same question at the Senate meeting, asking if parents were being informed of the fourth-grade promotion requirement. Like an extra from Electric Boogaloo 3, Reynolds danced all over that question until Sen Mark Pody(R-Lebanon) brought the full-tilt-boogie to a halt by pointing out that districts can't be communicating something that isn't codified yet.
Sure they can communicate the intention, but districts would be foolish to share calculations before the proposal becomes a rule. This means parents won't have a clear idea of expectations until roughly a month before testing begins. Several lawmakers have expressed concerns over this, but so far, those concerns haven't resulted in actions.
The second most concerning moment in Reynolds's senate testimony was when she described the state's recently created school A-F grading system. Reynolds at times seemed unfamiliar with her own system.
Having been the main architect, it's fair to expect her to be able to clearly describe the process she created. She couldn't, and didn't.
At one point she described releasing the data used to calculate grades through the report card by assigning grades in a dashboard, well maybe it'll be levels, sometime soon. Wait too much longer and she'll share data on the anniversary of its creation.
Reynold chalked up the release of grades on December 23rd as being a by-product of a "rushed process. I'll leave you to figure that one out.
The highlight for me was when Commissioner Reynolds made the claim that before she arrived, despite the law being on the books since 2016, there was no formula for calculating grades, and all that existed was an accountability model for the FDOE. That's a bit...disingenuous.
When Tennessee developed its accountability plan in 2017, it opted for a single system to satisfy both the state law and federal accountability laws. As explained by Mike Winstead, the Maryville schools director who served on the state task force that developed the plan, that way, “we’re not sending different messages to parents and the general public.”
As shared by the Memphis Flyer:
During an Aug. 29 town hall in Chattanooga, Reynolds acknowledged that the education department, before scuttling plans to issue grades in the fall of 2022 under former Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, had run the numbers but didn’t like what it saw. For instance, she said, a school with 80 percent of its students reading on grade level might have received a B, but so might a school that had only 15 percent of students reading on grade level, while also demonstrating high growth.
“Is having a campus that has only 15 percent reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” Reynolds asked.
“We should celebrate growth,” she continued. “We should also celebrate achievement because at the end of the day, kids can grow. But if they never get on grade level, they don’t have much of a future, particularly when it comes to reading and math.”
So the reality is, that a formula existed, it just didn't suit the vision of Commissioner Reynolds. Not sure why she just didn't say that to the State Senate.
She did tell Tham that just because a school or district scored a "C", that didn't mean they were failing. In further breaking news...
There is an interesting narrative being spread these days about Commissioner Reynolds. One that says she only appears incompetent but that's because her predecessor was so incompetent. Something that went unrecognized right up to the point of her predecessor taking the $375K year job with the University of Florida.
Are we really going to wait three years to admit that this one might be as bad as the last?
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If you live in Nashville and have had the pleasure of recently attending a Metro Nashville Public Schools(MNPS) middle school or high school event, you've likely been subject to a weapons search. If so most of you were probably caught by surprise unless you were fortunate enough to get a communication from your local principal.
The district has deemed that this change is best communicated by the local school, instead of the well-funded district communications department.
I'm betting the reason for this is the lack of desire to open the discussion over why a weapons search at a sporting event at a local school is different from a universal search during the day at the same school.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'd be interested in hearing it.
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This week the MNPS school board got to hear from some MLK Magnet School teachers on why breaking up the highly successful school is a mistake.
Under its current setup, students can attend regular middle school for two years before applying to attend MLK from seventh grade onward. The new model would turn MLK into a traditional 9-12 high school with Head Magnet Middle School taking on grades 6-8 for middle school. Purportedly this will increase equity and diversity.
Me? I think it is always a mistake to tinker with success. If it works and by all accounts, it does, leave it alone.
The school's World Language Department chair Michael Bartus told board members that removing the middle school would negatively impact academic opportunities.
“The middle school is an integral part of our school and the language programs with students beginning their studies in seventh grade,” said Bartus. “Were the middle school to be dissolved, there is no question in my mind that this would negatively impact the language courses available to our students as there are currently no plans to expand language studies at Head Magnet.”
The fact that the school even has a World Language Department chair is reason enough for me.
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It appears that former board chair Christine Buggs has resigned her seat with the MNPS School Board, but you wouldn't know it unless you watched a meeting or read The Tennessean opinion page.
In a letter to the editor published by The Tennessean earlier in the week, Buggs wrote, "With eight years of service under my belt, I know it is time to make way for new leadership. I now offer this letter as my resignation from the Metro Nashville Public Schools board as the District 5 representative."
That comes at the end of a self-described letter to MNPS.
That is the extent of reporting conducted by the local paper. Nothing says irrelevant like the local media ignoring the departure of a board member of Buggs stature.
Like her not, and I often found myself in the latter category, Buggs was in force for public education. Often times she served as the face of a board that faced a bevy of challenges over the last 8 years.
So what's next? Who represents District 5 members until August's election? I'm assuming that the council will appoint an interim member, but I'm not sure.
The only candidate registered to run in the next election is Amazon business analyst TK Fayne. Fayne sits on MNPS partner Backfield in Motion, so the conflicts of interest practiced by Buggs would likely continue.
I don't know. This might be a good story for a true journalist.
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Time to rattle the cup a little bit before I head out the door.
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