“One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”
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The 2021 version of the Tennessee General Assembly is slowly coming to a close. But whether it will close with a whimper or a bang is yet to be determined. Two bills slated for discussion this week could send it either way.
First up, is a bill that would lay out a pathway for those schools currently in the state’s Achievement School District to exit. Per Chalkbeat TN,
One pathway would allow higher-performing charter schools to transfer out of the Achievement School District and — instead of returning to their local school systems as originally planned — seek a home with Tennessee’s new charter school commission.
We should employ a little clarity here, “high-performing” is a bit of a misnomer. There are no “high-performing” schools in the ASD. There are schools that have made some small gains, but as educator Gary Rubenstein points out, “Of the 30 schools they nearly all stayed in the bottom 5% except a few that catapulted into the bottom 10%.” Maybe you have a different definition of “high-performing” but that doesn’t fit mine.
To be fair, and I always hate these conversations because they cast students, families, and teachers in an unfair light, there has been a great deal of effort invested by stakeholders in trying to make this poorly conceived idea work. Unfortunately, they were unable to overcome the policy’s inherent shortcomings. Taking glee from its failure is just as bad as sitting in your mansion in CONTINUE READING: ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END – Dad Gone Wild