Superintendent: State’s reform strategy is to throw darts and see what sticks:

Superintendent: State’s reform strategy is to throw darts and see what sticks

By Valerie Strauss, Published: September 20 at 9:41 amE-mail the writer

Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman (www.tn.gov)

On more than a few occasions, I have found myself trying to explain a policy change which in my view is not best for students, teachers, or the district I have been hired to serve. Worse, many of these changes were implemented with little or no input, independent of unique circumstances in which school districts operate, causing an erosion of local control of community schools.

That’s the way Mike Loomey, director of Williamson County Schools in Tennessee, described school reforms in the state. This description was in a letter he wrote it to explain why he signed on to an earlier letter sent to Gov. Bill Haslam (R) by about 40 percent of the state’s school chiefs protesting state education Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s reform strategy and his refusal to listen to them.

Huffman is a former Teach For America official (and the former husband of school reformer Michelle Rhee) who has instituted a number of controversial reforms since he became education commissioner of Tennessee in April 2011. Among them is the linkage of student standardized-test scores to teacher evaluations and to teachers’ licensing.

Here’s Loomey’s letter:

In recent days, I have received many calls and notes of gratitude regarding my