TNReady Changes Address Needs of Students And Feedback From Teachers
The steps announced today to improve the 2018-19 administration of TNReady have rightly prioritized the needs of students and the feedback of teachers.
Governor Haslam, with the help of the Tennessee Department of Education, responded quickly and completely to the concerns raised by educators during the TNReady listening tour. The responses to improve student access to computers and to provide teachers more practice questions will do more than ease the administration of TNReady. These changes will give students and teachers tools that will help improve learning across the school year.
These approaches to address the TNReady challenges are pushing assessment forward in Tennessee, and that’s the right response to what educators said and students need. Assessment is an essential part of the learning cycle. During the listening tour, teachers were not in favor of starting over on statewide assessment because they know how disruptive that would be. With first-class test administration – and the verification done this week was an important step toward that goal – Tennessee’s assessment will provide annual results that will help keep more students on track to graduate ready for postsecondary opportunities in education and work.
We know TNReady content is good because this assessment, unlike the state’s previous statewide tests, is providing a measure of student achievement that is comparable to results of national assessments. The selection process for the next assessment vendor should both retain high-quality test items and remedy administration problems.
The actions taken this week to improve TNReady are welcome and needed but must be followed with continued attention on top-notch test administration this fall and in the spring.
David Mansouri is president of SCORE.
[Read more at SCORE] Read MoreTennessee education chief reports no issues after TNReady practice run
Almost 50,000 Tennessee students across 51 districts participated in a TNReady practice run Tuesday without any issues ahead of the fall testing window.
The students spent about 40 minutes on the platform to ensure it is running smoothly, according to Candice McQueen, Tennessee’s education commissioner, who emailed state directors Tuesday about the practice test.
The need for the practice run comes after several years during which the state has experienced TNReady issues testing students online. High school students on block schedules take the TNReady test in December.
“The success of today’s test — with students interacting with TNReady test questions at an even higher volume than we typically see in the fall — helps to affirm the steps that our testing vendor Questar (Assessment) has taken to improve ahead of the fall block testing window,” McQueen said. “We will conduct another verification test of the platform in the spring to ensure readiness again.”
The practice test was part of the state’s efforts to ensure the platform is working ahead of wide-scale testing.
Last year Questar made unauthorized changes to the TNReady platform, causing widespread issues. The problem was originally reported as a suspected “deliberate attack” on the company’s system.
Some districts opted to cancel testing altogether for multiple days.
It followed after the 2016-17 school year, when Questar incorrectly graded a small number of paper tests. And in the spring 2016 administration window, online testing was canceled altogether.
It led to the state firing Measurement Inc., its vendor at the time, and hiring Questar.
This fall about 30,000 students will be on the platform during any given day, said Sara Gast, Tennessee Education Department spokeswoman.
“For context, about 90 of our 147 school districts have some or all of their schools on a block schedule,” she said. “We will perform another large-scale verification test in the spring to ensure readiness for the April administration window.”
The test also served as a way to get students familiar with the online platform. Only high school students will be required to take the test online this school year.
“All students who participated in the exam will receive a standards-aligned score report within the next week,” McQueen said. “This feedback, which has never been available before, will help teachers further improve their instruction to meet their students’ needs.”
[Read more at The Tennessean] Read MoreMeet a new class of Tennesseans of color who are tackling issues of education equity
Fifteen people across Tennessee are being charged with spotlighting issues of equity and coming together to design solutions to better serve all students, but especially students of color.
The group was named as the second class of Mosaic Fellows by the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition in conjunction with Conexión Américas, a nonprofit Latino advocacy group.
“Leaders of color must play an integral role in the K-12 education ecosystem in Tennessee, both to better reflect the communities served by our public schools, but to also bring an essential mix of experience and insights that are required for long-term improvement in student achievement,” the two organizations wrote in the announcement of the fellows.
In recent years, the state has grappled with a shortage of teachers of color. About 14 percent of new teachers in Tennessee training programs identify as non-white, compared with 36 percent of the state’s student population. More than 100 school districts did not have a single Hispanic teacher and 27 did not have a single black teacher, according to state data from 2014.
Three of the fellows are from Shelby County Schools – the state’s largest school district – including Lin Johnson, who as chief financial officer has overseen a move to student-based budgeting, a key component of Shelby County Schools’ efforts to ensure state and local money is distributed based on student need.
The fellowship launched last year with a class of 16 and was designed as the state’s first fellowship aimed specifically at educators of color. This year’s class ranges from a Nashville teacher to charter organization leaders to higher education officials.
The year-long Mosaic Fellowship will include four three-day seminars that focus on current and historic issues in Tennessee education, leadership and diversity.
West Tennessee
- Lin Johnson, chief financial officer, Shelby County Schools
- Jacques Hamilton, program coordinator, Tennessee Charter School Center
- DeVonté Payton, advisor for school development, Shelby County Schools
- Joshua Perkins, advisor, Shelby County Schools Office of Charter Schools
Middle Tennessee
- Indira Dammu, education policy advisor, Office of Mayor David Briley
- Laura Delgado, program director, College of Education, Lipscomb University
- Chris Echegaray, community achieves site manager, Metro Nashville Public Schools
- Karla Coleman García, director for adult learner initiatives, Tennessee Higher Education Commission
- Keilani Goggins, director, Hope Street Group
- Joseph Gutierrez, program associate, Dan and Margaret Maddox Charitable Fund
- LaKishia Harris, director of equity and access, STEM Preparatory Academy
- Tomás Yan, STEAM teacher, Metro Nashville Public Schools
East Tennessee
- Janine Al-Aseer, New Hopewell, site coordinator, Great Schools Partnership
- Denise Dean, project director, East Knoxville Freedom School
- Brook Dennard Rosser, talent acquisition and retention liaison, Knox County Schools
More Maryland college students are crowdfunding their tuition with the help of GoFundMe
Between paying for college and helping to support his family, Towson University junior Saydu Paye is spread thin.
For most of the summer, he didn’t think he could afford to go back to school this fall.
The 20-year-old information technology major from Sparrows Point turned to a GoFundMe fundraiser for relief from skyrocketing tuition and a limited pool of financial aid dollars.
“Hello all,” he wrote in his online plea. “I am scared over the pending situation, as I am not near my financial goal for the summer.”
Thousands of students like Paye have increasingly taken advantage of crowdsourcing platforms to help them cope with steady increases in tuition and fees in Maryland and across the country. According to the College Board, public four-year university tuition for in-state students increased on average about 3 percent per year over the past decade.
The number of education-related campaigns has increased each year since GoFundMe launched in 2010, said spokeswoman Heidi Hagberg. She said that more than $70 million a year has been raised on the platform for educational initiatives, with more than 100,000 annual fundraisers for causes ranging from teachers’ back-to-school drives to students’ college tuition.
Crowdsourcing experts say members of the postmillennial generation have taken to fundraising on such sites in part to avoid the plight of their predecessors.
“Watching our generation deal with students loans … It’s daunting. It can stay with you for 30 years,” said Kamni Gupta, 31, a former executive for the DreamFund.com fundraising and savings platform. “The internet has really opened up the door for them so that they don’t necessarily have to live with student loans.”
GoFundMe hosted twice as many campaigns in 2017 as in the previous year related to college tuition in Maryland, Hagberg said in an email. And according to GoFundMe data from the 2016-2017 academic year, the most recent available, about $1.5 million was raised for Marylanders’ educational purposes in roughly 3,200 campaigns.
One such fundraiser was created by Melissa Terry of Silver Spring, a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, who raised over $1,400 starting in November 2017.
Like Paye, she pays for college on her own, at times balancing multiple jobs with classes and internships. Without a cosigner, she doesn’t qualify for many loans, and pays for school with her salary and financial aid.
She was hesitant about using GoFundMe for tuition at first because she thought of it as a place to raise money for emergencies. But, with some coaxing from her friends, she decided to give it a try.
Ultimately, her campaign brought more than financial rewards.
“You feel alone and that you’re the only person going through this situation,” Terry, 24, said. “But then you realize all these people want to help you, and you don’t feel as alone anymore.”
Ju Fang Tseng of Silver Spring donated to Terry after learning about her from a friend on Facebook who shared a link to Terry’s GoFundMe page. Even though Tseng doesn’t know Terry, she said she felt compelled to contribute.
“I thought, ‘If everyone just donated a little bit, we could help this girl,’ ” Tseng said. “I know college is really a lot, and someone who reaches the college level should finish it.”
Martaze Gaines, a Morehouse College graduate from Baltimore, said the decision to attend the private university in Atlanta initially daunted him and his mother. But four years later, with the help of his online campaign, he’s graduated and is pursuing a master’s degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He says his mother is thrilled.
“The extra money is definitely a big help,” Gaines said, adding that he’s keeping the fundraiser active. “Even if I don’t make my complete goal, at least it will be something.”
John Quelch, dean of the University of Miami business school and an expert in consumer behavior, said widespread acknowledgement of the onerous nature of paying for college motivates many students to feel comfortable publicizing their need.
“People donating and seeking funds understand that student loan money is limited and the interest burden can be high,” he said. “It’s more kosher to put out the hat for something like this.”
Despite surging costs, more U.S. students are attending college. Between 2000 and 2016, enrollment at four-year institutions increased by about 25 percent. Meanwhile, state funding has decreased overall, meaning universities depend more on tuition revenue than in the past.
In 2018, Maryland lawmakers sought to provide relief for students in the form of legislation that offers tuition-free community college to thousands of state residents. And starting this year, more than 500 Baltimore public school students will attend community college for free as part of Baltimore’s “last-dollar scholarship program,” which funds a portion of their tuition not already covered by federal Pell Grants.
Before the advent of the internet, Quelch said, communities would often help needy students close the gaps. He said that when that failed, many put college on hold and found work that did not require an advanced degree.
Today, with greater emphasis placed on college education, financially burdened students can find resources online.
“If you have a very compelling story that requires funding to close the access gap, there’s an audience for that message,” Quelch said. “Our lives have become more global and less local, and advent of the internet is allowing communities to be supportive of your efforts outside of your immediate circle.”
Paye sought to set himself apart with a photo of himself on campus, a catchy headline on his post (“Resident Assistant might lose job!”) and a description of what he does to help his extended family in Liberia.
Towson University alumni and fellow students, several of whom he hasn’t met, donated to Paye’s GoFundMe campaign. However, he has received less than $500 out of a $9,500 goal from his fundraiser.
Relatives and members of his church helped him close the gap and get back to school this fall, just in time. Though he’s not accustomed to asking for help, he considers himself lucky.
He writes to each online donor.
“I haven’t crossed paths with you often, but the fact that you want to see me prosper … was monumental to me,” he wrote in one thank-you note.
[Read more at the Baltimore Sun]Growing a Portfolio of EPSOs
Preparing students to earn a postsecondary credential and have a high-quality career requires a wide range of experiences, including providing students opportunities to earn college credit, an industry certification, or both while they are in high school. But how can we set students up to reach their goals? One clear way is by offering a portfolio of early postsecondary opportunities, or EPSOs. In Tennessee, schools have the opportunity to offer eight different EPSOs to students, and educators across the state are growing their portfolio of EPSOs to meet the needs of all students. Let’s take a look and see how it’s done from two rural Tennessee districts.
Greg Scott, principal at Milan High School, wants to make sure his students have a “leg up” on their peers when they graduate; that’s why he and the rest of his staff are committed to ensuring every student has access to EPSOs. He explains, “Our strategy at Milan High School is that every student leaves here with a diploma and a plan.” Part of that plan means making sure students have opportunities to earn and articulate credit at postsecondary institutions or earn an industry certification that will allow them to begin a career in an in-demand field. For instance, Milan High School has become a testing facility for the Certified Nursing Assistant certification to meet the needs of the growing healthcare industry in northwest Tennessee.
Increasing enrollment in EPSOs is not a job for one person, however. Greg credits the almost 20% jump in EPSO enrollment to teachers “being willing to provide opportunities,” and collaboration with industry leaders who are “thirsty” to promote industry certifications. But what was the biggest sell in creating community buy-in? Aligning EPSOs to the growing career fields in his community. Here’s one example: Recently, Tyson Foods announced it will build a new facility in a neighboring county, and the company needs more workers skilled in industrial maintenance. In collaboration with TCAT Jackson, Milan High School is now offering two industry certifications through a dual enrollment partnership. Greg challenges district’s to consider their student body. Use patterns in postsecondary enrollment and job placement to, “figure out what [students] need and…exhaust every resource to provide it.”
Meanwhile in southeast Tennessee, Clint Baker has made it his mission to offer a portfolio of early postsecondary opportunities to students in Meigs County. Although many in his community live in poverty, Baker has been able to increase EPSO enrollment by 18% through one key tactic: communication. He explains, “We try to get the word out early and often about the different opportunities we can offer students.” But that means more than explaining what EPSOs are and what classes Meigs County High School offers. Instead, it means linking EPSOs to tangible benefits: increasing ACT scores and reducing the cost of college.
Students at Meigs County High School do have challenges felt by many across the state. Almost 60% of students are economically disadvantaged; meaning many of them can’t afford expensive exam or enrollment costs. Baker notes his school board, community, and parents have been key in providing opportunities to connect students with grants to ensure they have access to EPSOs, and many students are eligible for fee waivers and support from EPSO vendors, as well. His results show this is working. The 123 graduates at Meigs County High School earned 625 credit hours last year.
As we continue to celebrate EPSO Week, take a few moments and consider how your district and school could implement practices like these to provide more EPSOs to your students. Setting students up for success requires the work of industry, community, and school leaders.
Former Nashville public schools administrator to lead city’s education foundation
A former Nashville public schools human resources administrator will soon lead the city’s public education foundation.
Katie Cour will head the Nashville Public Education Foundation as president and CEO on Nov. 12 after a nationwide search, according to a news release. She will replace outgoing NPEF President and CEO Shannon Hunt.
Board members called Cour’s appointment an opportunity to bring a fresh approach to continue to drive progress forward.
“With her deep background and expertise in education on both the local and national levels, we believe that Katie truly sees Nashville’s needs and potential and that her leadership will take the Foundation to new heights,” said Wanda Lyle, NPEF board chairwoman, in the news release.
Cour is the former Metro Nashville Public Schools executive director for talent strategy and was a key architect during her times that led to plans for teacher recruitment and retention.
After leaving the district in 2016, she ran her consulting company, Cour Consulting, through which she advised several state education departments, as well as the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga and the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., according to the news release.
[Read more at The Tennessean] Read MoreWe followed 15 of America’s teachers on a day of frustrations, pressures and hard-earned victories
It’s shortly after dawn when Edward Lawson, one of America’s 3.2 million public school teachers, pulls his car into the parking lot of Julian Thomas Elementary in Racine, Wisconsin. He cuts the engine, pulls out his cell phone and calls his principal. They begin to pray.
Lawson is a full-time substitute based at a school with full-time problems: only one in 10 students are proficient in reading and math.
That may be explained by the fact that 87 percent of the students are poor and one in five have a diagnosed disability. Blame for test scores, however, often settles on the people who are any school’s single-most-important influence on academic achievement – teachers.
Lawson says a prayer for the coming school day. He says a prayer for the district, the students, the upcoming state tests. He says a prayer for the second-grade teacher who had emergency back surgery and for the sub taking her class.
He says a prayer for all teachers – a fitting petition for a profession in crisis.
The crisis became manifest this spring when teachers in six states, sometimes even without the direction or encouragement of any union, walked off the job to protest their own compensation and school spending in general.
We think we know teachers; we’ve all had them. But the suddenness and vehemence of the Teacher Spring suggest we don’t understand their pressures and frustrations.
To try to understand, 15 teams of USA TODAY NETWORK journalists spent Monday, Sept. 17, with teachers around the nation.
We found that teachers are worried about more than money. They feel misunderstood, unheard and, above all, disrespected.
That disrespect comes from many sources: parents who are uninvolved or too involved; government mandates that dictate how, and to what measures, teachers must teach; state school budgets that have never recovered from Great Recession cuts, leading to inadequately prepared teachers and inadequately supplied classrooms.
It all may be exacting a toll. This year, for the first time since pollsters started asking a half-century ago, a majority of Americans said they would not want their child to become a teacher.
Yet teachers everywhere say that if only the American people – the parent, the voter, the politician, the philanthropist – really understood schools and teachers, they’d join their cause.
Some people mistakenly think teachers “sit around all summer, collecting a paycheck,’’ complains Lawson, the full-time substitute. Not him. In addition to working in both the before- and after-school programs, he teaches summer school and last summer took on extra hours at an Amazon warehouse.
Lawson is a jack of all trades. A walkie-talkie on his hip, he moves from room to room — teaching a class or organizing a lesson plan for a short-term sub or giving students special help with math. He visits homes with the school social worker. He directs traffic in the parking lot. He once used the washing machine in his office to clean the coats of an entire class so he wouldn’t embarrass the one kid whose coat was filthy.
Despite it all – or maybe because of it – he voices a claim made by virtually every teacher with whom a USA TODAY NETWORK team spent the day: He loves his job. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. When you help a kid that really wants to learn, when they say, ‘I got it,’ that’s something you take with you the rest of your life.”
A crisis in perspective
Public school teachers’ economic prospects have worsened dramatically since the beginning of the Great Recession, especially in poorer states.
The average national salary has decreased by more than 4 percent since 2009, adjusted for inflation. Yet nine in 10 teachers buy some of their own teaching supplies, spending an average of almost $500 a year.
About 18 percent have a second job, making teachers about five times more likely than the average full-time worker to have a part-time job.
No surprise, then, that 8 percent of teachers leave the profession each year, compared with 5 percent a few decades ago; that 20 to 30 percent of all beginning teachers leave within five years, the Learning Policy Institute says, and two-thirds of teachers quit before retirement; that enrollment in college teacher education programs dropped 35 percent between 2009 and 2014.
The result, in some areas and in some specialties, is a teacher shortage. Last year, according to a Learning Policy Institute study, more than 100,000 classrooms were staffed by instructors “not fully qualified to teach’’ because they lacked proper licenses or degrees. The percentage of teachers working without bachelor’s degrees, although small (2.4 percent in 2016), has more than doubled since 2004.
Those are the numbers, based on federal education data. Here are scenes from the lives of teachers, before, during and after school.
ARRIVALS: Hope and heartbreak
The sun is rising, and teachers are arriving. “Ordinary men and women,” as educational reformer John Dewey put it, of whom we expect the extraordinary.
In a remote valley in central Montana, on a cool, clear morning with the promise of autumn and a hint of the hard winter to come, there’s a scene from teaching’s past: A solitary woman approaches a gray clapboard, one-classroom schoolhouse and unlocks the door.
Instead of lighting the stove, like her 19th-century predecessors, Traci Manseau makes sure the internet is up.
The public school has 17 students from prekindergarten to eighth grade, up from a total of three when Manseau came here 19 years ago. Montana has less than 80 such schools; about 20 closed in the past decade. Most young teachers don’t want to live in such remote areas.
And it’s hard work, Manseau says, to wrap your brain around first- and eighth-grade math at the same time.
Each of her students comes from one of five families, all surnamed Stahl. They’re Hutterites, a religious sect that speaks a German dialect and shuns modern ways. The students wear a sort of 19th-century uniform: the girls in black headscarves with subtle polka dots and modest dresses, their hair parted in the middle and twisted behind their ears. The boys wear Western shirts, black pants and suspenders.
To work on the small Hutterite colony’s communal farm, students leave school when they turn 16.
Even in this idyllic setting, teaching comes with its own little heartbreak.
A half-continent away, another teacher approaches another school. This one is a vision of neoclassical elegance modeled on the University of Virginia’s Rotunda.
Walnut Hills High School, which sits on a 14-acre campus, is the top-rated public high school in Ohio. Its trademark subject is Latin, required in grades seven through nine. Its motto is “Sursum ad summum” – “Rise to the Highest.”
The classical college preparatory school is another American educational archetype. But here, time has not stood still. Just ask the teacher at the door.
Laura Wasem, 43, has taught Latin here for 17 years. She makes an annual salary of $77,000, a third more than the average American teacher. Yet she is as nostalgic for the past as any Hutterite.
Today, for example, she’s distressed that there will be no classes because of a daylong professional development program to improve standardized test scores.
“All these mandates from the administration and the state are just an extension of what’s going on nationally,” she says. She blames “people without a background in education … who have no idea what to expect walking into a class of eighth-graders. They are used to walking into business meetings … It’s completely different when you have to keep an eye out for kids using phones or redirecting a child with a special-education plan or registering if what you are saying is actually being understood.”
She’s just getting started: “I used to be able to teach Latin and not have to worry about all the testing and extra work centering around our evaluations.” That was long ago.
Felecia Branch, 51, arrives at Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School an hour before classes begin. She’s a product of Detroit city schools and has taught in them for 25 years.
Branch pops the trunk of her gray Jeep Compass and pulls out a big, gray-blue rolling crate with materials for the day’s classes.
Her self-sufficiency is a reminder of the district’s troubles, including the near-decade it was under state control. Teachers went for years without a raise; their base pay was cut, and many dipped into their own pockets for basic supplies.
Three years ago, Branch says, “I didn’t have any sixth-grade materials. None.” She says she bought them herself – and did a lot of photocopying.
A new superintendent is trying to reverse course. Last year, teachers finally got a raise: 7 percent over two years, plus bonuses for those near or at top scale. This year, for the first time in years, Branch has almost all the materials she needs.
After a two-minute drive from home, Christine McFarland pulls up at Sinton Elementary School, where today teachers are wearing the paraphernalia of their alma mater.
The 45-year-old English and social studies teacher sports a jacket from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, of which she’s a proud 2001 graduate.
The jacket is also a reminder that, despite her $50,000 annual teacher’s salary and a second job as a supermarket cashier, she long has been delinquent on the $300-a-month payments on her 30-year student loan, leaving a debt in the high five digits.
“We’re not making a living wage. Teachers, especially single teachers trying to live off our salary, are going paycheck to paycheck,” she says. “I make enough for basics – bills, groceries – and that’s it. No extra money for anything else, like getting my nails done or buying new clothes.”
She’s a single mother. Three years ago, one of her two kids qualified for reduced-price school lunches. “I’m a teacher. And I qualified for reduced lunch. What does that say?”
It says she’s thinking about leaving her calling.
As Rebecca Garelli drives up to Sevilla Elementary School-West, her Nissan sedan’s stickers make the car look like a political billboard: “#StillInvested … #RedForEd …. #EdWave2018 … #RememberInNovember”
In March, this 37-year-old middle school science teacher started a Facebook page that helped spark the teachers’ uprising in the state. Today, her tank top is bright red – the movement’s signature color. At home she has a drawer of red shirts, a couple of red blouses and a red dress.
She’s driven an hour from her home at the other corner of the metropolitan area. Her long commute helps explain her activism.
Her family moved here from Chicago two years ago for the Southwestern lifestyle. When she interviewed for teaching jobs, she was startled: “On average, I was going to take a $35,000 pay cut.”
So she took a relatively well-paying job a relatively long way from home in a school with relatively large class sizes.
And it’s exhausting her.
ABSENT: Teachers who aren’t teaching
Some teachers are not teaching on this day, for reasons that underlie the profession’s crisis.
Halston Drennan, 32, is in class at the University of Wyoming, where he’s pursuing a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He resigned at the end of the past school year as a high school math teacher in Fort Collins, Colorado, where after three years, he was making $39,000. He loved teaching but realized he’d never be able to afford to buy a home. Unless, his mother told him, “you marry up.”
Amber Ball, 26, is driving back to Columbia, a tiny town (pop. 390) in northeast Louisiana where she teaches junior high language arts. No school today – her financially strapped district is on a four-day week to save money. That’s good, because she gets a three-day weekend. And it’s bad, because she takes home just $2,300 a month, even though she has a master’s degree.
Luis Martinez, 35, is not teaching his two Spanish classes today at West Shores High in Salton City, California. He arrived at the remote desert school to find that a security officer was out and that he had to take his place. He’s frustrated. In such cases, “We’re supposed to have a plan.” Now he has to arrange a sub for his own classes.
[Story continues on USA Today]TDOE Announces Nine Educators Named to the Inaugural Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network
Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced today that nine educators have been selected to participate in the inaugural Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network (TTAN) during the 2018-19 school year. The TTAN is a unique opportunity for teachers to advise and be embedded in the work of the Department of Education without asking them to leave the classroom.
As part of the TTAN, each teacher ambassador will be partnered with specific division leaders within the department based on interest and expertise so that they can learn deeply about key state-level work, share their experiences with these leaders to inform policy and practice, and be equipped to share state level communications with their peers. The goal is that this network will improve educational outcomes by ensuring the department continues to improve in leading teacher-informed work while providing more opportunities for educators to grow as teacher leaders.
“This new opportunity for our educators benefits both the leaders at the state and the teachers themselves,” McQueen said. “Unlike other fellowships, this experience ensures teachers are completely embedded in critical areas of our work so we can improve to better serve our students.”
All educators participating in the TTAN came highly recommended and were selected to be ambassadors through a competitive application process. In addition to the requirement of being current educators in Tennessee public schools with at least three years of experience, applicants were selected based on their individual impact on student outcomes and school success, leadership, insight based on school experience, communication skills, and capacity for the work of the network, including project management. Applications were rated based on their responses to questions addressing these areas; finalists participated in an additional interview component.
The educators chosen to be a part of the TTAN teach in a variety of subjects and grade levels, while also representing all three grand divisions of the state and eight school districts. The nine members of the TTAN are:
- Misty Ayres-Miranda, Metro Nashville Public Schools
- Diane Barber Miller, Franklin Special School District
- Rachel Bearden, Gibson County Special School District
- Michelle Biggs, Shelby County Schools
- Candace Hines, Achievement School District
- Jessica Hubbuch, Hamilton County Department of Education
- Haley Ottinger, Jefferson County Schools
- Deanna Pickel, Oak Ridge Schools
- Mark Wittman, Shelby County Schools
While experiences will be differentiated according to division needs, all Teacher Ambassadors will spend time in-person at the department to learn from and advise division leaders, engage in communication activities for key Tennessee education priorities, and work with teachers and schools in the field to share relevant, factual information about state practices. Divisions that will be partnering with Teacher Ambassadors for the 2018-19 school year include:
- College, Career, and Technical Education (which includes early postsecondary opportunities like AP and dual enrollment)
- Data and Research
- School Improvement
- Teachers and Leaders (which includes student growth portfolios and TEAM evaluation)
- Special Populations (special education)
- Teaching and Learning (early literacy, early learning, and RTI2)
Governor Bill Haslam and Commissioner McQueen have prioritized and invested in teacher voice and engagement over the past several years by initiating opportunities such as the Governor’s Teachers Cabinet, the Hope Street Group Fellows, and the expanded Teacher Advisory Council in addition to supporting teacher leader networks in districts across the state and 31 new TNReady Ambassadors. The Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network is another example of the state’s investment in teacher leadership to drive high-quality practice and implementation.
[Read more at TN Department of Education] Read MoreIt’s not just the governor’s race. Here’s what Tennessee’s big legislative turnover could mean for education
The battle to replace term-limited Gov. Bill Haslam has consumed the spotlight for Tennessee’s education-minded voters, but more than a hundred legislative races will decide who the new governor will work with on school policy for the next few years.
In addition to either Democrat Karl Dean or Republican Bill Lee as the state’s new chief executive, at least a fourth of the General Assembly’s members will be new to Capitol Hill in January. That’s because of an unusually high number of legislative departures, due mostly to retirements or the pursuit of other government jobs.
Incumbents aren’t running to fill 25 out of 99 seats in the House of Representatives and six out of 33 seats in the Senate — setting the stage for the biggest turnover since at least 1995, according to legislative librarian Eddie Weeks.
Among those opting against re-election bids are the leaders of three of four House education panels — Harry Brooks, John Forgety, and Roger Kane — all East Tennessee Republicans who have wielded considerable power in controlling the flow of bills in their committees or subcommittee. The fourth chairman, Rep. Mark White of Memphis, has been in office since 2010 and faces Democrat Danielle Schonbaum on Election Day on Nov. 6.
“It’s like getting Jupiter, Mars, the Earth, and the sun all lined up at the same time. It’s a ton of change,” said Kane of getting a new governor, a new education commissioner, and a critical mass of freshman legislators, in addition to administrative staff turnover.
At stake is whether Tennessee will stay the course on a massive school improvement plan launched in 2010 under former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and continued since 2011 by the current Republican governor. The overhaul, spurred by Tennessee’s $500 million federal Race to the Top award, is grounded in higher academic standards; a new test to measure student growth and proficiency based on those new standards; and policies that hold students, teachers, and schools accountable for results.
The years since the overhaul have coincided with student gains on national tests, but also major headaches in administering the state test known as TNReady, now entering its fourth year. Technical glitches disrupted two years of giving the new computerized assessment, while scoring and score delivery problems marred another year.
“I hope we don’t try to reinvent the wheel,” said Rep. John DeBerry, a Democrat and education committee member who is running unopposed in his Memphis district. “We’ve laid a very good foundation that’s been proven by a lot of measurable factors.”
Kane, who serves on the other side of the aisle, agrees.
“I worry that you could see a total change in philosophy and literally everything we have done the last 10 years could become unwound,” he said. “When you have people coming in who are totally against any kind of testing but the ACT, as well as people who want to test everything, that’s a wide disparity.”
Both gubernatorial candidates want to take a closer look at testing, but the next General Assembly will have a lot to say about steps moving forward.
“We’re the ones who pass the laws,” said DeBerry. “The governor has tremendous influence, but he doesn’t cast votes either in committee or on the floor.”
Still, uncertainty about legislative turnover, especially in the House, was on the minds of members of the State Board of Education on Thursday as they discussed how to make TNReady work better this school year, as opposed to just gutting the test and starting over.
“That’s the big unknown at this point that quite honestly nobody has control over,” said Wayne Miller, the former state superintendents chief whom Haslam recruited to facilitate his recent statewide listening tour on testing.
“If we start to slide off track, it will be important for this group and others to speak loudly that this is not where we want to go,” Miller told the board.
A lot will depend on new legislative leadership, especially in the House which, like the Senate, has a lopsided majority of Republicans that likely won’t change significantly.
The speaker of the House decides committee appointments, both for membership and leadership, but that job is up for grabs too due to the exit of Nashville Republican Beth Harwell after her unsuccessful bid for governor. The Republican caucus is scheduled to elect a new speaker on Nov. 20, and candidates thus far are Reps. Glen Casada of Franklin, David Hawk of Greeneville, and Curtis Johnson of Clarksville.
The next speaker is expected to maintain Harwell’s two-committee system for education legislation because of the large number of bills on K-12 and higher education. Kane said the system has worked well.
“Last year there were 400 education bills alone,” Kane said. “That number would be grueling for one committee in the House. We have more members than the Senate committee and therefore more discussion.”
The Senate is less likely to see any kind of fruit basket turnover, and Dolores Gresham is expected to continue chairing her chamber’s education committee. The Somerville Republican has served in the legislature since 2002 and is not up for reelection this year.
But the huge turnover in the House will mean a significant loss of institutional knowledge on education policy. At the same time, the handoff presents an opportunity to gain fresh and innovative ideas, according to Brooks, the powerful committee chairman who is retiring after 16 years in office.
“I’m not worried,” Brooks said. “This legislature has been around for over a hundred years, and it’s managed to pick up and go after huge shifts in the past. There’s a lot of quality people returning, and there will be a lot of good folks who are going to be elected.”
[Read more at Chalkbeat] Read MoreTDOE Announces Nine Educators Named to the Inaugural Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network
Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced today that nine educators have been selected to participate in the inaugural Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network (TTAN) during the 2018-19 school year. The TTAN is a unique opportunity for teachers to advise and be embedded in the work of the Department of Education without asking them to leave the classroom.
As part of the TTAN, each teacher ambassador will be partnered with specific division leaders within the department based on interest and expertise so that they can learn deeply about key state-level work, share their experiences with these leaders to inform policy and practice, and be equipped to share state level communications with their peers. The goal is that this network will improve educational outcomes by ensuring the department continues to improve in leading teacher-informed work while providing more opportunities for educators to grow as teacher leaders.
“This new opportunity for our educators benefits both the leaders at the state and the teachers themselves,” McQueen said. “Unlike other fellowships, this experience ensures teachers are completely embedded in critical areas of our work so we can improve to better serve our students.”
All educators participating in the TTAN came highly recommended and were selected to be ambassadors through a competitive application process. In addition to the requirement of being current educators in Tennessee public schools with at least three years of experience, applicants were selected based on their individual impact on student outcomes and school success, leadership, insight based on school experience, communication skills, and capacity for the work of the network, including project management. Applications were rated based on their responses to questions addressing these areas; finalists participated in an additional interview component.
The educators chosen to be a part of the TTAN teach in a variety of subjects and grade levels, while also representing all three grand divisions of the state and eight school districts. The nine members of the TTAN are:
- Misty Ayres-Miranda, Metro Nashville Public Schools
- Diane Barber Miller, Franklin Special School District
- Rachel Bearden, Gibson County Special School District
- Michelle Biggs, Shelby County Schools
- Candace Hines, Achievement School District
- Jessica Hubbuch, Hamilton County Department of Education
- Haley Ottinger, Jefferson County Schools
- Deanna Pickel, Oak Ridge Schools
- Mark Wittman, Shelby County Schools
While experiences will be differentiated according to division needs, all Teacher Ambassadors will spend time in-person at the department to learn from and advise division leaders, engage in communication activities for key Tennessee education priorities, and work with teachers and schools in the field to share relevant, factual information about state practices. Divisions that will be partnering with Teacher Ambassadors for the 2018-19 school year include:
- College, Career, and Technical Education (which includes early postsecondary opportunities like AP and dual enrollment)
- Data and Research
- School Improvement
- Teachers and Leaders (which includes student growth portfolios and TEAM evaluation)
- Special Populations (special education)
- Teaching and Learning (early literacy, early learning, and RTI2)
Governor Bill Haslam and Commissioner McQueen have prioritized and invested in teacher voice and engagement over the past several years by initiating opportunities such as the Governor’s Teachers Cabinet, the Hope Street Group Fellows, and the expanded Teacher Advisory Council in addition to supporting teacher leader networks in districts across the state and 31 new TNReady Ambassadors. The Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network is another example of the state’s investment in teacher leadership to drive high-quality practice and implementation.
For more information about the Tennessee Teacher Ambassador Network, contact Cathy Pressnell, director of educator engagement, at Cathy.Pressnell@tn.gov. For media inquiries, contact Sara Gast at (615) 532-6260 or Sara.Gast@tn.gov.
[Read more at Tennessee Department of Education] Read More