Yule Time Education Policy News from the Volunteer State
“education at all levels, from small children through to young adults, is of such fundamental importance to the flourishing of the community under any form of constitution that it must be publicly determined and can’t possibly be left to be decided ad hoc by each parent.”
― Edith Hall, Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life
I must admit, even though I remain committed to the concept of an elected school board, these days, I don't pay much attention to the Metro Nashville Public School's board. It seems like an utter waste of time, because seldom is the conversation thought provoking, inclusive, or illuminating.
About a decade ago the idea was but forth, and embraced, that questioning equals undermining. Furthermore, while board members at times seem cabable of asking the first question, they rarely seem to be informed enough to ask a relevant follow up question.
So a board member might ask District Superintendent Dr. Adrienne Battle, "What is the distict doing to raise teacher retention rates?"
"Well the moon rises in the west when the cows head to the pasture". She'll reply, "We are studying best practices of surrounding counties and talking with those that have higher success. The data shows that happy teachers are good teachers. The district is blessed to have many educators that have spent their entire career with us."
A follow up question might be, "So can you give an example of some strategies other district's use and how they are impacting their districts"
Instead the board member typically responds, "Dang, Dr. Battle I knew you were on top of it. You are always two steps ahead of us. We are so lucky to have you and ever since you took over the sun seems to shine a little brighter, the birds sing a little stronger, and I'll be darned if the grass isn't a little greener. Thank you Dr. Battle for cashing our exhorbant checks and leasding us to the promised land like Moses across the Red Sea."
Constituents are left scratching their and wondering what just happened. Little time is devoted to true transparency.
Don't believe me?
Watch the last Board meeting. just be sure tio floss afterwards unless you are looking to get some cavities.
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As you can see, this board loves them some Dr. Battle. They don't push at all.
The thing is, all this support is not helping her, nor serving students of Nashville. If you want the best, you have to continually challenge yourself. If you are not pushing ahead, you are falling back.
It's like in sports. If you surround yourself with people that are happy just to show up, do a little work, and spend the rest of time telling each other how good they are, you shouldn't be shocked when you show up for the big game against a fomible opponent, and get your ass kicked.
If you score a bunch of wins against inferior opponents, you are never as good as your record shows. To be a champion, you have to beat champions, and that's means rountinely putting yourself in a place of discomfort. Something neither Dr. Battle, her staff, nor this school board ever does.
Truth is, by not demanding more, were complicit in this cultivation of mediocrity. Culture trickles from the top down.
You don't have to watch more then 3 minutes of the above video for an example of what I'm talking about.
In the opening segment Board Vice-Chair Dr. Berthena Nabaa-Mckinney is scanning the room before Dr. Batlle suggest asking "new Chief Robert Wallace" to lead the Pledge of Alliegence.
Huh wuh what? We got a new Chief? Chief of what?
Turns out Wallace is the new Chief of Staff, replacing Hank Clay.
When did that happen? Apparently 3 weeks ago.
Why does Hank Clay still have a district email then? Because Clay is still going to be working for the district but as a consultant. But what his parameters are still to be determined.
Dr Battle has promised that she'll be in schools walking the hallways accompnied by both Wallace and Clay. Huh?
I like Clay a great deal, and am foreever grateful for for all he has done for the district. It's be hard to find a more dedicated public servant, but the idea that his successor is going to be cool with walking the halls with him and Dr. Battle is ludicrous. Imagine if you got a new leadership position and the job came with the stipulation that your predeccessor would be accompnying you as you performed your new duties.
How did Wallace secure the position? Was it posted? Do we still do that? I don't remember, and I thought we did.
All of this, and more, was left unexplained, because after he delivered the pledge, Wallace sat down and was never metioned again.
Clay has served as Battle's Chief of Staff for over 5 years, arguably having the greatest access to her of anybody in the district. He, along with the other nine chiefs, earn an annual salary of $200K. Doesn't a transition of this magnitude deserve some kind public explanation? Yet not a single press release exists.
The board didn't seem surprised by the title Wallace now carries. Why not share the information with the public?
At the least, a board member could have said, "Some of our audience might not be familiar with Mr. Wallace. Dr. Battle could you introduce him, and tell us a little about his background and how he'll be serving the district in the future."
How hard is that?
I do find it interesting that MNPS regularly denies new charter schools, yet is willing to continually hire and elevate charter school executives.
Wallace is another one of them teach for America folks. he spent a year with STEM Prep, and then 4 years with KIPP. In the imortal words of Alanis Morissette, "isn't it ironic"?
We'll build a narrative that charter schools aren't good enough to edeucate our children, while indicating their executives are the best candidates to run our public schools.
But, there was a consent agenda to get to, so it was time to move along.
That consent agenda passed in seconds with no explanation of why the district was utilizing, to the tune of over 3/4 of a million dollars, a company called Amergis Healthcare Staffing, Inc. to staff Exceptional Ed teachers. Nor why we were paying another company, The Stepping Stones Group, LLC, to perform the same task. Do we have that large of a need for exceptional education teachers?
Maybe we do, but a brief explanation would have been helpful.
The next hour was spent holding what the kids today call a glaze fest. It was praise after praise, for Dr. Battle and her team.
The takeaway being, that the district is making continued growth and everybody in the state is envious of Metro Nashville Public Schools progress.
But here is the unspoken caveat, it is all based on growth.
I'm not downplaying the role of growth, it's big because you can't have achievement without growth, and our principals and teachers should be celebrated for that growth. Still at the end of the day, it's achievement that matters.
Some would offer that achievement is measured by tests that are designed to fail low income minority children. I'll buy that, more then I'll accept the argument that tests are true measurements of learning. My only caveat here is that right or wrong, they serve as the basis for reality in today's American society and equally important, job market.
Try getting into a college or securing employment with low grades, and a defense of, "the test wasn't fair and look at my growth."
Nobody is hiring based on a students growth rate. Achievement matters, and to not acknowledge it, is disingenuous harmful to stdents who will compete against higher achieving students for job opportunities.
This week's Tennessean includes an opinion piece written by columnist Andrea Williams, who tries to shed light on the overrelience on growth rates.
Williams reveals that a look at the Tennessee's Department of Education's recently released list of 'reward" schols show only four MNPS public high schools on the list: Hume-Fogg, Martin Luther King, Jr., Early College High School, and Nashville School of the Arts. All of have admission requirements.
Of the rest of the cities high schools, all but two received either a D or F rating on last year's report cards. New grades are expected to be released at the end of this month. The exceptions were James Lawson High School, for which no data was available, and Whites Creek, which earned a C.
Williams goes on to explain:
"That “average” grade sounds promising for the District 1 high school with a student body that is 90% non-white and more than 60% economically disadvantaged. But a deeper dive reveals that this outlier does, in fact, follow the Ida B. Wells model. Students are not doing well, necessarily. They're just doing better.
Per additional data from that school year, only 14% of Whites Creek students met grade-level metrics in English/language arts. In math, the percentage drops to an even more abysmal 5%.
Again, improvement is important – necessary, certainly. But, as I’ve written before, Level 5 growth is a deceiving metric, and one that MNPS has consistently leveraged for positive PR."
Here's a math problem for you. The school has a 14% success rate, percentage of students who met or exceeded grade-level expectations on state TCAP Math and English tests.
That same school shows an annual growth of 5%, how many years will it take to have a success rate of 35%? 40%.
That calculation needs to be part of the conversation, but it's not. Once again, adult needs take precedence over student needs.
So yes, celebrate the growth, but don't lose sight of the real goal.
It's like in a football game, yardage gained is important. Can't win games with out gaining yardage, but gaining a lot of yardage and not scoring points won't lead to a lot of wins. Got to score points. The MNPS school board failed to supply the score of the game during their public conversation with Dr. Battle.
After an hour of unabated glaze, the board moved to public commentary. Fortunately for the board, nobody had signed up to speak, but why would they?
They would have had to sat through an hour of the board's business and then abide by recent rule changes limiting them to two minutes. What's the risk reward in that?
In wouldn't hurt for the MNPS School Board to hang a plaque in the board room with the words of Maya Angelou, "“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Last thoughts, so much energy is exerted in assuring that Dr. Battle feels comfortable, appreciated, and valued. How about if we took a fraction of that energy and shifted to teachers, students, and families?
Just a third of it.
Just imagine.
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State Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) has introduced a bill, HB0025, that would allow high school students a free one-time transfer without restriction.
“(Other) courts have already ruled, with the transfer portal in college, that prohibiting an athlete from moving school to school is against the law,” Cepicky said. “I think what we're doing is trying to preempt the Wild West (of unlimited transfer legislation) by saying we acknowledge one time is fair. Hopefully, that will be enough that it will stand up in court.”
Cepicky is not in favor of unlimited transfers but thinks allowing a one-time transfer would limit coaches from recruiting other schools’ players. A practice that already takes place.
“There would be no reason (for schools to recruit),” Cepicky said, “because it would encourage the athletes to reach out to those coaches. Instead of doing it in the shadows right now, the athlete would pick up the phone and say ‘Hey, I’m thinking about transferring to you, what do you think?’”
TSSAA has yet to respond, and is waiting to see what State Legislators do next February. They could preempt the legislation by modifying their current rule and permitting a one time transfer.
Cepicky says he’ll take his legislation off the table if the TSSAA Legislative Council were to pass its own one-time transfer rule, as long as it parallels his bill.
Personally I'm all for this bill, as it would even the playing field between atheletes and coaches. Too often student-atheletes find themselves in an untenable through no fault of their own, nor the coaches.
We'll be watching.
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This month marks the deaadline for Charter School operators to file a letter of intent to start a new school with the State Charter School Board Commission. This year 17 potential charter operators have sent letters of intent five schools districts. Slightly down from last years 21 letters of intent.
Of the 21 who submitted only 9 actually submitted applications. So the process has a way of weeding folks out.
Per the Tennessee Firefly:
The letters of intent filed this year also include the first proposals to create “Opportunity Public Charter Schools” under legislation approved earlier this year. These schools are designed to serve students in grades 6-12 who are at-risk because they’ve either dropped out, faced criminal chargers, have been retained at least twice, or are more than a year behind academically.
Former Smithson Craighead Academy Principal Dr. Ahmed White is leading the effort to establish the Rock Academy as Nashville’s first Opportunity Public Charter School. Memphis-Shelby County Schools received an letters of intent from Legacy Day Academy to establish the first Opportunity Public Charter School in that district.
Existing charter operators KIPP Memphis and Rocketship also submitted letters of intent to apply for new charters.
The full list of proposed schools that have submitted letters of intent includes:
Hamilton County Schools
Little Kings & Queens Charter Academy
Tennessee Wildflower Public Charter School
Jackson-Madison County School System
Jackson Museum School
Memphis-Shelby County Schools
The Scholar Institute
Memphis Elites STEAM Academy
Blueprint College and Career Prep
Dream Catchers Charter School
Still I Rise Academy
Memphis at Work Charter School
Stellar University Charter School
KIPP Memphis Creative and Performing Arts Elementary School
Legacy Day Academy
Metro Nashville Public Schools
The Rock Academy
Rocketship TN 5
The Forge School
Rutherford County Schools
Novus SMART Academy (K-8)
Rocketship Rutherford Elementary (TN 4)
Charter operators that submitted letters of intent have until February 1, 2025 to submit their official charter applications.
We shall see.
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