Andy Spears recently shared a memo from the TN Department of Education denying denying parents the right to opt out of annual state testing. Even though the invalid, unreliable, and racist tests have never been morally defensible, they are particularly indefensible during the present pandemic.
Tennessee's corrupt Education Commissioner and former charter school CEO, Penny Schwinn, continues to circulate a one-page lie that tells parents that opting out of state testing is prohibited by state and federal laws. Any parent receiving this ridiculous memo should ignore it and keep their children safe from these irrelevant, racist, and mideducative tests that only companies that use public education as another vast revenue stream.
Speaking of revenue streams, Broad Center alum Penny Schwinn has an established reputation for using her office to arrange lucrative no-bid contracts for her cronies in the ed industry. Before coming to Tennessee, she was caught up in a Texas-sized scandal based on playing favorites and passing out no-bid contracts.
Since coming to Tennessee, Schwinn has continued her corrupt practices in awarding a no-bid management contract for a school voucher program and, more recently, another multimillion dollar no-bid contract for a company to screen results on third grade reading tests.
As Bill Lee's mentor always said, only the best people.