News

September 11, 2018 News

Summer camp lifts reading skills for third straight year in Tennessee

Tennessee’s campaign to help its children read better is seeing encouraging results from investments in school-based summer camps for youngsters at risk of regressing during school breaks.

First-, second-, and third-graders who participated in the state’s Read to be Ready summer program showed gains in reading comprehension and accuracy skills for a third straight year, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Education Department.

And the last two summers generated statistically significant improvements in those skills, based on assessments given in the early and last days of the camps.

This summer, more than 7,700 children took part in 250 reading camps across the state. The free programs provided four hours daily of literacy-based enrichment activities for four weeks and matched every five youngsters with one teacher. High-quality books, field trips, and teacher trainings were part of the mix.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen called the impact “powerful” in building basic learning skills, especially for children from low-income families who are most likely to experience summer slide and fall academically behind their more affluent peers.

But Tennessee has a long way to go to reach its goal of having at least 75 percent of third-graders reading on grade level by 2025. Despite an encouraging uptick on the most recent state tests, only 37 percent of third-graders scored proficient in reading. And on national test results released this spring, fourth-graders’ reading performance remained mostly flat compared to 2013, when scores spiked for both reading and math.

Tennessee declared war on its reading problem in 2016, as McQueen joined Gov. Bill Haslam and his literacy-minded first lady, Chrissy, to launch Read to be Ready. The initiative’s centerpiece is the development of a cadre of literacy coaches to improve educator expertise.

The campaign also piloted a dozen camps that first summer with a $1 million gift from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. The results were promising enough to expand the program last year with $30 million allotted over three years from the state Department of Human Services.

School districts host their own camps using state grants awarded based on their applications. This year, more than three-fourths of Tennessee’s 147 school systems took advantage of the funding.

Those districts sent teachers who staff their camps to state trainings on literacy instruction. While the first two summers focused on integrating authentic reading and texts into the camps, this year’s trainings prioritized writing skills and increasing student interest and stamina for the written word.

The grants also provided each student with an average of 25 books for their home library this summer — sending more than 193,000 books home in all.

You can read the state’s full report here.

[Read more at Chalkbeat]

September 10, 2018 News

Does Teacher Diversity Matter in Student Learning?

Research shows that students, especially boys, benefit when teachers share their race or gender. Yet most teachers are white women.

As students have returned to school, they have been greeted by teachers who, more likely than not, are white women. That means many students will be continuing to see teachers who are a different gender than they are, and a different skin color.

Does it matter? Yes, according to a significant body of research: Students tend to benefit from having teachers who look like them, especially nonwhite students.

The homogeneity of teachers is probably one of the contributors, the research suggests, to the stubborn gender and race gaps in student achievement: Over all, girls outperform boys, and white students outperform those who are black and Hispanic.

Yet the teacher work force is becoming more female: 77 percent of teachers in public and private elementary and high schools are women, up from 71 percent three decades ago. The teaching force has grown more racially diverse in that period, but it’s still 80 percent white, down from 87 percent.

There are many things that contribute to children’s academic achievement, including teachers’ experience and training; school funding and zoning; and families’ incomes and home environment. And teachers have long been predominantly white and female. But new educational opportunities for girls may mean that they can take more advantage of the benefits of female teachers. And studies show that teacher diversity can make a difference in students’ performance and their interest in school.

The effect is stronger on boys. Research has found that boys, and particularly black boys, are more affected than girls by disadvantages, like poverty and racism, and by positive influences, like high-quality schools and role models. Yet they are least likely to have had a teacher that looks like them.

“We find that the effect is really driven by boys,” said Seth Gershenson, an economist studying education policy at American University. “In the elementary school setting, for black children and especially disadvantaged black children, the effect of having even just one black teacher is fairly big and robust and a real thing.”

When black children had a black teacher between third and fifth grades, boys were significantly less likely to later drop out of high school, and both boys and girls were more likely to attend college, Mr. Gershenson and his colleagues found in a large study last year. The effect was strongest for children from low-income families. The study included 106,000 students who entered third grade in North Carolina from 2001 to 2005, and it followed them through high school. There was no effect on white children when they had a black teacher.

Teachers’ gender does not necessarily have a big effect during elementary school but seems to make more of a difference when children are older. Then, girls do better with a female teacher and boys with a male one, said Thomas Dee, a professor of education at Stanford.

When eighth graders had a female teacher instead of a male one, boys fell behind girls by the equivalent of three and a half months of learning, according to a well-regarded study he wrote, which compared the effect of two teachers of different genders on the same students. When students and teachers were the same gender, teachers also had more positive impressions of students, and students looked forward more to the subject. The study used Department of Education data on 25,000 eighth graders from 1,000 schools.

In high school and college math and science courses, studies have shown that when women have a female instructor, they get higher grades, participate more in class and are more likely to continue to pursue the subject.

Researchers say it’s not entirely clear why teachers’ gender and race make a difference; it’s likely to be a combination of things. Students tend to be inspired by role models they can relate to. Same-race teachers might be able to present new material in a more culturally relevant way. Also, teachers sometimes treat students differentlybased on their own backgrounds and stereotypes. Social scientists call this implicit bias, when stereotypes influence people’s thinking, often unconsciously.

A variety of research, for instance, has shown that teachers tend to assess black students differently from white students. Preschool teachers judge black children more harshly for the same behavior. White teachers are less likely than black teachers to assign black students to gifted and talented programs even if their test scores match those of white students. When black students had both a white and black teacher, the black teachers consistently had higher expectations for the children’s potential.

Teachers’ biases can end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecy, Mr. Gershenson has found. “The high expectations actually motivate kids to do better,” he said. “Black students are hurt by that lack of optimism that white kids get, and black kids with black teachers rise to meet their expectations.”

Sometimes teachers underestimate students of their race or gender, suggesting that they have internalized stereotypes about their own group and that white and Asian-American students may not experience negative effects from having nonwhite teachers.

Girls perform about the same as boys in math on average through eighth grade. By age 17, there is a meaningful male advantage in that subject.

A new study, not yet published, found that math teachers favored boys over girls, and white students over black or Hispanic students — and that female teachers were biased in favor of boys and that nonwhite teachers were the most biased in favor of white students.

“These results indicate that enduring cultural biases may have long residual effects on stigmatized groups,” said Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, one of the authors and an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California.

Long term, the evidence suggests it would make a difference to train and hire more diverse teachers. But researchers say there’s also something that schools can do immediately, with the teachers they already have: teach them about their biases and stereotypes. It can lead to fairer treatment of students.

The research shows that no matter their demographics, teachers can overcome some of the effects of bias, Mr. Dee said. He summed up the interventions this way: “Signal to students your deep faith in their capacity to learn, coupled with your high expectations that they’ll do great things, full stop.”

It’s surprisingly effective and simple to do, social scientists have shown. One study found that merely informing teachers about their stereotypes closed gaps in grading. An hourlong online tutorial for teachers has halved suspension rates for black students, after training educators on how to value students’ perspectives and view misbehavior as a learning opportunity.

Another strategy is coaching teachers on how their language can unintentionally signal to students that they can’t excel. Teachers are taught to convey to students that intelligence is not fixed, but built through hard work, and to talk about each student’s value and belonging in the classroom.

Retaining current teachers is also important, researchers say. More qualified people would stay in the profession if the jobs had better pay, benefits and support. Nonwhite teachers in schools with poor resources are at particular risk of burning out.

“It also matters just to have a really good teacher,” Mr. Dee said. “We don’t want to lose sight of that as we support diversity.”

[Read more at The New York Times]

September 8, 2018 News

Esther Cepeda: More minorities, females are entering STEM-career pipeline

Finally, some good news for brown and black students: A record number of them took Advanced Placement computer-science exams and earned a high enough score to qualify for college credit.

The College Board, the nonprofit organization that owns the AP program, recently reported these three very bright spots:

African-American students saw the most growth in participation, with an increase of 44 percent in those taking an AP computer-science exam (from 5,057 in 2017 to 7,301 in 2018).
Hispanic students did nearly as well, with their participation increasing by 41 percent (from 14,860 in 2017 to 20,954 in 2018).
Female students who took an AP computer-science exam increased 39 percent (from 27,395 in 2017 to 38,195 in 2018).

This is a tremendous feat in the face of continuing roadblocks to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) courses for women and students of color in public schools.

September 7, 2018 News

Hearing Looks at On-the-Job Training to Bridge Skills Gap

More than 6 million jobs are going unfilled in the U.S. as employers struggle to find applicants who can do the work. Forty-six percent of U.S. employers say they can’t find workers with the skills they need, according to a recent Manpower survey.

A congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday examined how the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) supports work-based learning—including apprenticeships—to bridge what has been called the most acute talent shortage since 2006.

During the hearing, “On-the-Job: Rebuilding the Workforce Through Apprenticeships,”committee members quizzed workforce experts on their experiences with the WIOA, apprenticeships and other employer-based, on-the-job learning programs.

Wisconsin has a 2.9 percent unemployment rate. While that is great news for the state, it poses a challenge for companies trying to fill positions, said B.J. Dernbach, assistant deputy secretary at the state’s Department of Workforce Development. He was among experts appearing before the subcommittee.

“It is imperative we find enough qualified workers to meet the needs of our employers,” he said.

The state’s registered apprenticeship program, he said, is “one of the most effective tools in our toolbox to help get people into careers and get them a lifelong credential.” The program has nearly 11,000 registered apprentices with 2,500 employers such as Footlocker and the Frank Lloyd Wright organic farmstead.

Someone completing an apprenticeship program in Wisconsin earns an annual median salary of $71,624, according to Dernbach. Two years after completing training, 98 percent of workers who completed the program were still employed in the same occupation, and 94 percent remained in Wisconsin, he told committee members.

One strategy the state uses to entice employers to use apprentices is to offer a discount on worker’s compensation premiums if the employer hires through the state’s Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards, Dernbach noted in formal testimony. Wisconsin also targets other populations, such as veterans transitioning into the private sector, and partners with the Department of Corrections to offer inmates an opportunity to earn credentials for computer numerical control coursework.

A two-week, intensive boot camp through the Shenandoah Valley Workforce Development Board (SVWDB) in Virginia has been successful in getting recent high-school graduates into the pipeline for manufacturing production jobs, said Sharon Johnson, the board’s chief executive officer.

The aim of the preapprenticeship model is to increase the availability of production operators and improve the retention of those new employees, she said. Employers have hired eight participants from the pilot program who then registered for the industrial-manufacturing technician apprenticeship program.

The SVWDB also supports a preapprenticeship model in manufacturing for people with disabilities. The Hershey Co. has placed 53 of those apprentices in industrial-manufacturing technician jobs.

Employers looking to build a pipeline of potential employees with the skills they need must start early—reaching students before high school—in promoting on-the-job training opportunities, many of the experts told committee members. Wisconsin established a pilot program to expand youth apprenticeships for students in middle school through grade 10. Youth apprenticeships allow students to earn credits toward registered apprentice programs. Sometimes credits in those programs earned in high school also can be applied to a college degree.

But students have to be informed about opportunities for in-demand, good-paying jobs and how to prepare for them, Dernbach said.

One way to do that is by educating high-school guidance counselors and breaking down the perception that apprenticeships are for jobs that are “dumb, dirty and dangerous,” he said.

The Hartford, the Connecticut-based property and casualty insurance firm, for example, plans to bring 200 apprentices on board by 2020. And Dernbach pointed to the information technology help-desk apprenticeship program at Footlocker.com/Eastbay headquarters in Wausau, Wis., as an example of how apprenticeship programs have extended into other industries.

The Wisconsin workforce board gives labor market information to guidance counselors on the hot jobs in a given area, Dernbach said.

“We can pull up a heat map on Wisconsin’s economy” and show them “these are the wages, these are the jobs and here’s the pipeline on how [students can] get there,” he said.

However, the same solution for finding qualified job candidates does not fit every business or every job a business has, Johnson said. It’s important for employers to customize their approach.

Businesses can connect with potential trainees who are still in school by offering industry tours, mentoring and going into the classroom to talk about their industries, available occupations and how to train for those jobs.

Youth who are out of school and working—and others who are unemployed or underemployed—must be reached differently. A best practice, Johnson noted, is for employers to partner with organizations with a history of working with that population. She also advised employers to go out into their communities.

“If you meet [potential trainees] at the McDonald’s or at Walmart or the library or the church,” she said, “you have a better opportunity” to reach them.

[Read more at the Society for Human Resource Management]

September 5, 2018 News

Walsh: Teacher Residencies Are Fine. But Districts Already Have the Power to Fix the Student Teacher Pipeline — at Far Lower Cost

A growing number of school districts are embracing the teacher residency model as a solution to their shortage of educators. For those districts with the financial resources or access to stable philanthropic support necessary to offset the high cost of this model, the investment yields real benefits: Residents tend to be more diverse and more likely to persist in the profession than the teaching force as a whole.

The appeal of the residency model and the broad support it enjoys are understandable. Placing a teacher candidate in a classroom for a full year under the tutelage of a top-notch mentor is a great way to train someone. Writing recently for The 74, Ashley LiBetti shared one in a long line of proposals to strengthen the supply of new teachers by expanding residency programs. While traditional teacher preparation programs fail to supply sufficient numbers of effective teachers in high-demand certification areas, she argued, the district-led nature of a residency program gives school leaders the power to decide whom to prepare and how to prepare them. If a district needs a physics teacher who is familiar with restorative justice practices, it can just make its own.

Unfortunately, this approach has something in common with buying a new coat instead of replacing a torn lining — and plays into our tendency to assume that higher prices equate to higher quality.

With an average sticker price of $65,000 per resident teacher, the residency model is an impractical solution to the many challenges of the labor market. Clearly, residency programs can help some districts avoid staffing shortfalls, but there are problems with casting them as the best opportunity districts have to shape and redirect the talent pipeline. This framing feeds into the pervasive mindset that districts lack the power to address the many issues with student teaching — which couldn’t be further from the truth. A more readily available, scalable, and affordable option is already available: fixing the pipeline of prospective teachers who enter through student teaching.

Indeed, while student teaching is fundamentally broken in most institutions, it is eminently fixable, and at a fraction of the cost of most residency programs.

Districts can exercise market power with traditional preparation programs, just as they do with residencies. The fact that they historically have not done so is the obstacle that must be overcome. There is nothing stopping a district from taking an active role in selecting the student teachers it hosts, just as it might do with a resident teacher. Districts should screen prospective student teachers for fit and commitment to pursuing a career in their schools (an essential step, as 50 percent of all candidates do not end up taking a teaching job upon graduation).

Instead of just asking for teachers to volunteer to mentor a student teacher, districts could ensure that every student teacher has a high-quality mentor by providing modest compensation to mentors and elevating their status. If districts want new teachers to be culturally competent, they need to commit to placing student teachers with mentors who will model such competence. Great teachers would be happy to accept student teachers if they had some assurance of the quality of the student teacher. Under the current system, who can blame a teacher for turning down the opportunity?

These changes in attitude and process have the power to almost immediately solve the chronic misalignment of teacher supply and demand. There would be no quicker way to persuade teacher prep programs to stop overproducing and underpreparing elementary educators than for districts to begin limiting the number of elementary student teachers they’re willing to accept.

Ultimately, a strong student teaching program can accomplish many of the same outcomes as a high-quality residency program — but on a much larger scale. Traditional teacher preparation programs graduate more than 150,000 teachers per year, while residencies produce a tiny fraction of this number. The National Center for Teacher Residencies, which represents a network of 28 of the largest teacher residency programs in operation, reports total annual enrollment only in the hundreds.

School districts rarely encounter a challenge for which the solution is so obstacle-free and low-cost. All that is required to build a better teacher pipeline is the will and resolve on the part of the district to assert its needs. By applying the lessons of residency programs to student teaching, districts can achieve change that is both broad and deep, not just tinkering around the edges.

Kate Walsh is president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.

[Read more at The 74]

September 5, 2018 News

One state, three lists of troubled schools – another consequence of Tennessee’s testing mess

After months of talks, federal and Tennessee education officials have come to terms on how to identify and address the state’s lowest-performing schools in light of last spring’s problem-plagued student assessment program.

Their agreement, which navigates conflicting state and federal lawsover the use of test results, means the state Education Department will release three lists of challenged schools in the coming weeks.

One list — Tennessee’s highly anticipated roster of “priority schools,” which perform in the bottom 5 percent — will exclude scores from last school year’s beleaguered TNReady assessment. Issued every three years, this roster will serve as the basis for determining state interventions and supports for at least the next year.

Two other lists — both of which are new — will include those results in deciding which schools will receive additional federal funding.

The revised framework, which is designed to hold schools and districts accountable on student achievement, is more complex than initially planned for meeting the standards of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Under the 2015 law, Tennessee is required to factor in its most recent standardized test results when it comes to school accountability. But technical problems that disrupted computerized exams last spring prompted the Legislature’s order to disregard 2017-18 TNReady scores when compiling Tennessee’s priority school list, the state’s highest-stakes vehicle for improving underperforming schools by making them eligible for interventions such as state takeover and charter conversion.

The dueling laws have required thoughtful discussions and additional footwork, according to Sara Gast, spokeswoman for the state Education Department.

“The U.S. Department of Education was clear in our conversations that the last-minute legislation did not change the federal requirement for states to use 2017-18 data in accountability determinations,” Gast told Chalkbeat last week.

As a result, to comply with the emergency state laws, the upcoming priority list will be based mostly on test scores from 2015-16 and 2016-17 — not last school year — when charting the state’s school improvement strategies, interventions, and investments.

To satisfy federal law, a new CSI list, which stands for Comprehensive Support and Improvement, will identify the state’s bottom 5 percent of schools based on test results from all three years. This roster will determine opportunities for additional federal funding through several school improvement grants.

State officials emphasize that the CSI list, which will number about 85 schools, will have significant overlap with the state’s priority school list.

The other new accountability list, called ATSI for Additional Targeted Support and Improvement, will be based solely on last school year’s TNReady data. This list will identify schools with the lowest performance across student groups such as black, Hispanic, or Native Americans, or those who are economically disadvantaged, English learners, or have disabilities. ATSI replaces, for now, the state’s previously planned “focus school” list under its original ESSA plan.

“There is no adverse action that comes from being on the ATSI or CSI list,” Gast said. “The only changes for these schools is they will now be eligible for additional federal funding to support their students, and the department will be available to provide guidance to support improvement.”

“I think one of the frustrations for everyone is that the federal DOE is less flexible when adjustments need to be made based on real-world situations in each state.”Rep. Eddie Smith, R-Knoxville

The state began rolling out its new school accountability details a few weeks ago, catching some district leaders off guard with the news of additional lists to keep up with.

“This kind of came at us out of the blue,” said Paul Changas, who heads research and assessment for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. “Given the complexity of the new accountability system, the addition of new categories will likely make our training efforts even more challenging.”

Rep. Eddie Smith, who sponsored the emergency TNReady laws, acknowledged that multiple lists may cause some confusion. But the Knoxville Republican said it’s the best way to keep fallout from the state’s testing problems from disrupting the flow of federal resources to struggling schools.

“While we do not want schools punished, we do want to make sure that any support needed by these schools is received,” Smith said.

He added: “I think one of the frustrations for everyone is that the federal DOE is less flexible when adjustments need to be made based on real-world situations in each state.”

Tennessee’s amended ESSA accountability plan, which federal officials signed off on in mid-August, will be in effect for the next year and possibly for several years to come. Because state law now prevents 2017-18 TNReady results from being factored in to most state accountability work going forward, Tennessee will have to submit another ESSA amendment for 2018-19 and beyond.

Below, find details about the lists of schools being released this month by the state, including the reward list that recognizes schools achieving the highest performance or progress.

Tennessee School Accountability Designations

List	Purpose	Eligibility	What will happen
Priority Schools	Identify and improve schools struggling with overall student achievement, in compliance with state law	Ranked in state’s bottom 5 percent on student achievement based on 2015-16 and 2016-17 tests and did not earn overall TVAAS growth score of 4 or 5 in both 2015-16 and 2016-17 or 2016-17 and 2017-18; or has a graduation rate of less than 67 percent for the 2017-18 school year.	Schools previously on the 2015 priority list will remain on the intervention track assigned to them based on their 2016-17 performance, and no schools will be assigned to the Achievement School District based on 2017-18 data. All schools new to the 2018 list will be placed on the Delta track, which requires da local school improvement plan in collaboration with the state. Locally authorized charter schools on the list are subject to charter revocation and closure at the end of the 2018-19 school year. State-authorized charter schools making the 2018 and 2021 priority lists will close at the end of the 2021-22 school year.
CSI Schools (Comprehensive Support and Improvement)	Identify and improve schools struggling with overall student achievement, in compliance with federal law	Ranked in state’s bottom 5 percent on student achievement based on 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18 tests and earned a score of 3 or less in 2016-17 and/or 2017-18 under the state’s new school rating system; or had a graduation rate of less than 67 percent for the 2017-18 school year. (All schools in the Achievement School District are designated for CSI.)	Newly named CSI schools will work with the state’s Office of School Improvement and are eligible for additional funding through federal school improvement grants.
ATSI Schools (Additional Targeted Support and Improvement)	Identify and improve schools struggling with student achievement among one or more student groups, in compliance with federal law	An overall score of 1 or less under the state’s new school rating system and ranks in state’s bottom 5 percent for at least one student group (i.e., black, Hispanic, or Native American; economically disadvantaged; English learners; students with disabilities); or ranks in bottom 5 percent for two or more accountability subgroups or racial/ethnic groups.	Newly named ATSI schools will work with the state’s Office of School Improvement and its Centers for Regional Excellence and will be eligible for additional federal support. (Priority and/or CSI schools are not eligible for ATSI.)
Reward Schools	Identify and reward schools with the highest performance or extraordinary progress in student achievement	An overall score of 3 or higher on the state’s new school rating system. Schools are not eligible if any student group performs in the state’s bottom 5 percent for that group.	Special recognition

[Read more at Chalkbeat]

September 3, 2018 News

Could schools get a slice of funds going to Nashville developers? Three bills coming before Metro Council

An influential Nashville councilman has proposed a series of bills that could reshape how the city government awards developers lucrative subsidies.

In one proposal, at-large Councilman Bob Mendes wants to set aside a large portion of redevelopment tax dollars to be used exclusively by Metro Nashville Public Schools.

That bill and two others would bring more scrutiny to the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency, a powerful agency that gives multi-million dollar incentives to developers with little oversight.

Mendes, a long-time skeptic of incentives, is focusing on tax-increment financing, which since 1978 has resulted in $355.8 million of subsidies to projects in Nashville.

The legislation is on Tuesday’s council meeting agenda; some of the votes will be just procedural.

“In communities all over the city, when MDHA comes up in conversation, people say that all it does is give corporate giveaways to developers,” Mendes said. “I think there is definitely a place for [tax-increment financing] in how we develop the city, but most people think there’s something shadowy and secretive about it, and we have to address that.”

His legislation would set up a committee to study tax-increment financing, or TIF, a tool that has been credited with spurring redevelopment of The Gulch and other downtown areas. The committee would recommend how the deals could be conducted in a “more transparent, equitable, effective and understandable manner.” It would consist of seven people, appointed by MDHA, the mayor and the council.

MDHA officials pointed to the benefits of redevelopment funding and say they look forward to the broader discussion.

“TIF investments in downtown have enabled multiple historic buildings to be salvaged and put to adaptive residential reuse,” spokeswoman Jamie Berry said in a statement. “Metro Government now has substantial tax income growth from the numerous businesses which developed in these areas.”

Here’s how TIF works today: The Metro Council first designates an area for redevelopment. Then MDHA awards funds to a developer to help with land acquisition, parking, infrastructure or some other limited uses. Future property tax revenue generated at that site is then diverted to pay down the balance of the loan.

Since Nashville schools are funded with property taxes, some of their potential revenue is instead given to developers. If Mendes’ bill passes, projects in all future redevelopment districts would have to pay their portion of school taxes. That’s about 40 cents of every Metro property tax dollar, Mendes said.

In fiscal 2018, which ended June 30, MDHA diverted $9.8 million of property taxes that would have otherwise gone to the school district.

“We’re talking about the equivalent of an almost 2% pay raise for every schools employee that is today going to MDHA and these developers,” said MNPS Director of Government Relations Mark North.

Critics of TIF say the city no longer needs to stimulate development in some of the districts that are already thriving, like The Gulch. But proponents say MDHA only awards TIF to worthy projects that absolutely need the money to succeed.

“This perception that anybody can wander into MDHA and come out with a wheelbarrow full of money is ludicrous,” said James Weaver, a lobbyist who represents developers. “None of these projects would occur, in theory, without the incentive.

“Bob’s proposal dramatically reduces the amount of money available for this city to incentiize projects,” Weaver continued. “It deserves a whole lot more debate than it’s going to get over the next month.”

While the broader school tax proposal would apply to future redevelopment districts, Mendes has proposed using it for a current area as well — the Rutledge Hill district, which is under development just south of downtown. Any individual projects already approved by MDHA would not be subject to the new bill.

In 2016, Mendes successfully introduced another proposal that forced MDHA to create an annual report of its TIF projects. It also carved out a portion of redevelopment tax revenue for the city’s debt payments, and required that a project’s extra TIF dollars — beyond what’s needed to pay off its loan — stay in the Metro general fund.

[Read more at The Tennessean]

August 27, 2018 News

Teachers learn about mental health to help their students

Deedra Finch watched several years ago as a close family friend battled mental health issues — depression, bipolar disorder and addiction.

“That’s when I started to think about what mental health looked like among my students,” said Finch, a Metro Nashville Public Schools educator with 19 years of experience.

School districts and educators are on the front line of meeting most youths’ needs, but like many teachers, Finch had only a basic knowledge of how to handle student mental health. It wasn’t until she sought opportunities to learn in Nashville public schools that she saw how much she didn’t know.

Her eyes were opened, she said. “When it comes to mental health, it is evident at all socio-economic statuses, it is evident in all neighborhoods, not just in Nashville, but all over the world,” Finch said. “It doesn’t always look a certain way, and mental health issues are not always in your face.”

Tennessee requires educators to attend suicide prevention training and a mental health first aid class, which provides an overview of student mental health, according to Tennessee Department of Education spokeswoman Sara Gast.

Teachers and a school’s athletic coaches — many who are also educators — are in an ideal position to identify when their students and athletes are having difficulty because they spend so much quality time with them. They often can notice social withdrawal, a decrease in academic or social performance, mood swings or lack of motivation before others do. They also have considerable influence on a student’s life, which can increase the likelihood students will receive timely and effective treatment. But not all teachers and coaches faced with teenagers who have eating disorders or anxiety know how to act.

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, which is the governing body for high school athletics in Tennessee, recognizes the growing need for training coaches on understanding and supporting athletes’ mental health issues. But the TSSAA currently does not offer any mental health education to its statewide membership of more than 6,000 coaches at 426 schools.

To get further skills, many teachers have to seek out other opportunities. Some districts in recent years, such as Metro Nashville Public Schools, are doing more.

Metro Schools provides opportunities to learn about how childhood experiences affect student learning, and it has focused heavily on what is known as social-emotional learning. “We are having more open dialogues in schools about where our students are and where adults are with mental health,” said Kyla Krengel, social-emotional learning director.

Some Nashville schools specialize in addressing student mental health. Fall Hamilton Elementary, for example, is a pilot in trauma-informed student services. In those schools, special attention is paid to students who are subject to traumatic experiences.

Principal Mathew Portell said research proves that mental health affects academics. Because of the research, he said, the opportunities for educators to address mental health in students are growing. The work is difficult, he said, but rewarding. “It’s about meeting the kids where they are and it depends on their circumstances,” Portell said. “One size does not fit all depending on the student’s individualized needs.”

For Finch this year, she said she is finally in a position to be on the forefront of taking her skills to a new height, addressing student mental health and teaching. She was hired this school year as a special education teacher at Fall Hamilton.

“Everyone here at Fall Hamilton is teaching me to do better,” Finch said. “Everyone in this building is a firm supporter.”

And although some schools aren’t quite to the level of Fall Hamilton in its mental health services, Finch said teachers are ready and willing.

[Read more at The Tennessean]

August 27, 2018 News

Extra duties limited school counselors’ face time with students. A new rule is changing that.

Middle school counselor Denise Owens previously closed her door to students during one of the most stressful periods of the academic year — exam days — when anxious students often need to talk to a trusted adult.

Counselors across Tennessee, including Owens, are tapped to help coordinate statewide testing at schools and are unavailable to meet with children for weeks at a time.

It is one of many extra duties — cafeteria monitoring, clerical work and classroom substitute teaching — that school counselors have to do at the state’s chronically understaffed public schools.

“We’ve been thought of as just an extra body, but our training is in mental health counseling, group counseling, helping students,” said Owens, one of two counselors who serve nearly 800 children at E.A. Cox Middle School in Columbia, Tennessee. Extra duties “take us out of our realm. We just can’t do the kind of counseling we needed to do,” she said.

Starting this school year, however, a new Tennessee rule requires all public school counselors to do what they were trained to do: spend most of their time meeting with students experiencing academic, social or emotional problems and getting the kids the help they need.

The new rules require counselors — who by law must possess a master’s degree in school counseling — to spend at least 80 percent of their time working directly with kids. School counselors like Owens often are the first responders to children experiencing a mental health crisis.

Their role has grown even more crucial as some Tennessee school districts have cut the number of in-school psychologists. Unlike psychologists who typically spend most of their time evaluating and monitoring special education students, school counselors deal with the entire school population. At the same time, schools are seeing an increasing number of children experiencing mental health problems.

Mental health disorders now affect more than 265,500 kids ages 2 to 17 in Tennessee. “Right now more children are coming to us than ever before with mental health problems,” Owens said. “We’re dealing with bipolar, ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), kids already on medication. And sometimes this starts in middle school.”

Tennessee is now one of only two states — North Carolina is the other — that have such a requirement for counselors, according to the American School Counselor Association, which recommended the guidelines.

E.A. Cox Middle School got ahead of the new state rules, freeing up school counselors last year to spend more time with students. Despite the change, the school’s two counselors still face steep challenges in providing support to the fifth- through eighth-graders.

Counselors can provide one-on-one support but often have to find mental health professionals to intervene. There aren’t enough, said Kim Johnson, the school’s other counselor. “I don’t think mental health resources have kept up with the need,” Owens said.

Outside therapists have long waiting lists. Students on TennCare are often the easiest to find services for, she said. Students whose parents have private insurance or are uninsured have far fewer options. Mental health counselors with Centerstone, a mental health treatment agency, come to the school to meet with students who are enrolled in TennCare but cannot serve those who are not, Johnson said. And in an immediate crisis, counselors often have to wait hours for a mobile crisis team to arrive to assess the student for hospitalization.

About a year and a half ago, Johnson was meeting with a female student who said she had thoughts of suicide. A mobile crisis unit would not be able to reach the school for five hours, unless the school had a webcam to do an assessment remotely.

Robb Killen, supervisor of counseling and mental health for Maury County Public Schools, happened to be at the school with his laptop, which had webcam capabilities. The girl was able to speak with a crisis counselor immediately. Killen has since installed webcams at each of the county’s 20 public schools.

School counselors vs. school psychologists

School psychologists typically spend the majority of their time evaluating students who have been identified as potentially qualifying for special services and monitoring their progress.

School counselors serve the entire student population to help students overcome emotional and academic challenges and offer academic and college counseling.

Both are required to possess a special license in Tennessee. There is some overlap in duties. Professionals with either license may spend some time counseling students one on one, and both have some role in preventing and responding to mental health crises.

[Read more at The Tennessean]

August 23, 2018 News

Metro Schools Lays Blueprint for Driving Literacy Achievement

National literacy data indicates that 37 percent of fourth-grade students and 36 percent of eighth-grade students are not scoring at- or above-proficiency (source: 2017 NAEP). In Nashville, two out of three third graders aren’t reading on grade level by 3rd grade – an indicator which can pre-determine a student’s future successes many years into the future. These sobering statistics are the reasons literacy instruction is a priority in Metro Schools.

Enter Metro Nashville Public Schools’ Comprehensive Literacy Plan – the district’s blueprint to improving student achievement, specifically literacy. This plan was developed with input from multiple groups and is now being rolled-out district-wide. Review the entire plan from cover-to-cover here.

“This is an open invitation to our entire community to learn more about what literacy is, what it can and should look like within classrooms and how each of us can help develop our students,” said Chief Academic Officer Dr. Monique Felder, chair of the literacy advisory council. “We believe with a shared vision and equal dedication, our laser-focused literacy efforts will shift student achievement.”

The literacy plan is built on the foundation of advanced literacy, which emphasizes critical thinking, knowledge building and communication to provide students with skills that increase their access to opportunities and foster a lifelong interest in reading and writing. Through a collection of seven hallmarks, educators, families and community members alike are encouraged to help students build the skills they need to tap into academic opportunities.

Literacy goes beyond reading and writing. A strategic, interdisciplinary approach to advanced literacy works to encourage knowledge building across all content instruction, a sentiment that Dr. Paula Pendergrass, an advanced academics resource teacher, echoed.

“Literacy is the foundation that connects all disciplines of study,” said Pendergrass. “It connects reading to mathematics, mathematics to science, science to the arts, etc. Most importantly, it has the power to open doors of opportunities for all of our students.”

Over the next year, we’ll continue to unpack the district’s literacy efforts as we march towards the same goal: all students reading on grade level by 3rd grade by the year 2025.

[Read More at Children First]

Tennessee School Accountability Designations

School counselors vs. school psychologists

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