A Warning on Privatization – Tennessee Education Report

A Warning on Privatization – Tennessee Education Report

A WARNING ON PRIVATIZATION

This article originally appeared in The Progressive.

In 2012, Tennessee’s began a scheme known as the Achievement School District, or ASD. The goal was simple and bold: Take a handful of schools in the bottom 5 percent of student achievement, according to state test scores, and move those schools into the top 25 percent in student achievement in just five years.

This miraculous shift, officials claimed, would be accomplished by placing schools under a new state agency, which would then determine an intervention strategy that might include turning a standard public school over to a charter operator. Any school anywhere in the state would be eligible, so long as it was on the “priority schools” list. As a whole, the schools would be governed by their own “district,” complete with a superintendent who reported directly to the commissioner of education.

Tennessee’s commissioner of education at the time, Kevin Huffman, hired charter operator Chris Barbic to run the new district. Barbic’s arrival coincided with the takeover of a first cohort of schools by the ASD, along with the unveiling of his plan to generate the expected turnaround.

So what was that plan, exactly? 

Well, of course, it was to turn all the priority schools over to charter operators. After all, Barbic reasoned, other charter school leaders would know just what to do with entire schools from urban districts with high levels of entrenched poverty.

But the charter school plan had another, more sinister impact. Tennessee’s charter CONTINUE READING: A Warning on Privatization – Tennessee Education Report

ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END – Dad Gone Wild

ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END – Dad Gone Wild

ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

“One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”
― Oprah Winfrey

 

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

Unity Group in Chattanooga Opposes ASD 2.0 – Tennessee Education Report

Unity Group in Chattanooga Opposes ASD 2.0 – Tennessee Education Report

UNITY GROUP IN CHATTANOOGA OPPOSES ASD 2.0

Amid reports that Gov. Bill Lee is pushing legislation to extend the life of the failed Achievement School District, the Unity Group of Chattanooga has announced opposition to the move.

In an opinion piece, Sherman Matthews and Eric Atkins (Chair and Corresponding Secretary, respectively) expressed the group’s concerns.

A new proposal being pushed through the Tennessee House Education Committee is the latest saga in the long effort to takeover schools through privatization. In order to accomplish this, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the state would create the Achievement School District 2.0. The ASD has been the embattled mostly charter run district, which operates a majority of its schools in Memphis and Nashville; has been plagued by multiple executive directors; constant teacher turnover; funding irregularities; school closures; dwindling student enrollment numbers; and has failed to demonstrate substantial student academic progress as compared to their traditional counterparts. Despite a 2020 announcement that ASD schools could potentially return to their local districts, what has since developed is a replication of prior practices which are aimed at the ultimate takeover of public schools by the state.  

Unlike a phoenix, the Achievement School District 2.0 will not rise from the ashes but will be like embers charred by smoldering flames. If the legislature chooses to advance this and similar bills, they will be striking the albatross, and students and schools will be the worse for it. We are opposed to granting the commissioner of Education the CONTINUE READING: Unity Group in Chattanooga Opposes ASD 2.0 – Tennessee Education Report

ASD Light – Tennessee Education Report

ASD Light – Tennessee Education Report

ASD LIGHT

State Senator Ferrell Haile of Sumner County has filed SB 122, a bill creating a “School Turnaround Pilot Program.” Maybe Haile has never heard of the Achievement School District? It’s difficult to understand why someone who has served on the Senate Education Committee for some time now and should have at least a vague familiarity with education policy in our state would want to recreate one of the biggest public policy failures of the last decade.

Here’s a bit of text from his bill:

(a) The department shall create and develop a five-year school turnaround pilot program for district schools that are in need of intervention pursuant to § 49-6-3604.
(b) The department shall select twenty (20) schools in need of intervention that are diverse geographically, including rural and urban schools and schools in different regions of the state, and diverse in grade levels for the pilot program.
(c) From the twenty (20) schools in need of intervention selected for the pilot program, the department shall randomly select ten (10) schools to be a control group and ten (10) schools to participate in a school turnaround group.
(d) The department shall operate and administer the school turnaround pilot program for five (5) school years beginning with the 2021-2022 school year.

The basis for admission into this “turnaround group” is scores on Tennessee’s failed TNReady test.

Just in case Haile hasn’t been paying attention, here’s a bit of what’s been happening with the Achievement School District since its inception:

Gary Rubinstein refers to the ASD as the Edsel of school reform:

The Tennessee Achievement School District, or ASD, is the Edsel of school reform. Created with a Race To The Top Grant and developed by TFA alum Kevin Huffman, CONTINUE READING: ASD Light – Tennessee Education Report