Tennessee is the next target for voucher advocates.
The far-right American Federation For Children has poured $800,000 into an ad campaign for vouchers. This is the same organization that honored Governor Scott Walker and Michelle Rhee in 2011, the year that Walker went after the teacher unions in Wisconsin.
The voucher campaign has the support of the governor and the state commissioner of education, Kevin Huffman, who is one of the “leaders” produced by Teach for America. And also Rhee’s ex-husband.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wendy’s pride and joy…Kevin, Michelle and John White. Privatize for America.
I know from personal experience that Tennessee needs a lot of help with education, but vouchers are not the answer. At-risk students will continue to be at-risk students regardless of which school the students attend. Having worked in both a failing urban district and top suburban district, I can see that the teachers are not the problem. The teachers in the urban districts work ten times as hard and are just as capable, but they are labeled failing teachers erroneously.
Shades of 2007 in Utah when people like Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com and All Children Matter poured money in. Thankfully, we had the NEA to help.
Also Democrats for Education Reform.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130227/OPINION03/302270099/Democrats-push-improve-education
That article mentions charter school authorization specifically, not the more general vouchers like AL recently got.
As a Tennesseean with a child in the public schools, I’m definitely looking around for other options. There is total lack of support for teachers and major curriculum reforms have made teachers a little crazy with discipline and the expected workload. A Republican super-majority in the state legislature ensures that there will be no positive changes in the foreseeable future. I’m all for a strong public education system, but there’s just no hope for it here at the moment.
Dubya, I don’t know what article you read but the one that is linked to in the Tennessee voucher article is not about charters, it is about vouchers. The title of the article in the Tennessee newspaper is “$800 Thousand Buy for Vouchers.” Most of that buy was paid for by the American Federation for Children, which supports VOUCHERS, although they sometimes use the euphemism “opportunity scholarships” to try to fool the public.
Why would you not want to allow a free-market concept to work with education. Imagine if you could only go to one restaurant or shop at one store, based solely on where you lived? http://www.facebook.com/voxlogicaepage
Imagine if every beach and park were privately owned. Imagine if everyone hired their own security guard because there was no police. Imagine if everyone had their own fire protection, because there was no public fire department that worked for everyone.
Dianerav, I think you may be equating vouchers with privatization of schools. A voucher system does not necessarily privatize the schools, it gives people choices. The other flaw in your argument is the assumption that making things collective makes them more efficient. In the case of fire fighting and police forces it is probably true that pooling those resources and having them run by the government has made them more efficient. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of many school systems.
To counter your argument, what if the fire department or police department in your town was failing? What if they did not respond to fires and let your house burn down? What if when you tried to call a fire department from a different town or form your own department you were told you can not do that and you must use the failed fire department closest to you.
http://www.facebook.com/voxlogicaepage
There is no “choice” when a dictator runs your school. Your picture is an eagle. It’s as if you believe your idea is somehow patriotic. It isn’t. You are promoting a concept where taxpayer dollars are funneled into corporatized schools where CEOs have autocratic power. The concept is anti-American. How could you support such a rip-off? The “failing school” thing is bs. All that means is a bunch of poor children with low-income parents attend the school. I think it is terrible that children are labeled as “failures”.
DeeDee, I can appreciate that you probably have some emotional stake in this topic, but let’s look at the comments you made from a logical standpoint. Without a voucher system in place, someone who pays taxes in a community is forced to put those education dollars toward the public school system in that area. With a voucher system, some or all of that money is given as a voucher to the parent who can then decide whether to put that voucher toward public, private, or charter schools or whatever combination is allowed under the particular voucher laws put in place.
Now, if I understand your point, when the parent has no choice but to send those dollars to one school system, whether those schools are excellent or failing, that is a good thing. But, when parents can choose where to put their money, that creates
‘dictators’ running corporate school systems. Even though no one would be forced to attend these corporate dictatorships? The irony is that the current system, where parents have little or no choice in where they send their children, actually hurts the lower income parents you mentioned the most because they are the most likely to attend lower performing schools and the least likely to be able to send their kids to a private school.
Why is it that we spend so much money on our elementary and secondary schools in this country, yet don’t have the greatest education system? Is it possible because there is no competition and no incentive to perform well?
The latest from TN. Received this e-mail from TEA today.
Latest info about budgeted teacher raise and salary schedules from TEA’s “Today on the Hill.”
House Finance and Budget Hearing
In a budget hearing today regarding the 1.5 percent raise for teachers that Gov. Haslam included in his budget, Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman was quoted as saying, “Our intent is that the 1.5 percent raise will not go to all teachers.” Instead, Huffman plans to have local districts develop their own pay-for-performance plans for distributing the funds. He also indicated he expects locals to base their plans on the evaluation system.
In addition to the distribution of the 1.5 percent raise, Huffman also discussed plans to recommend major changes to the minimum salary schedule, which is maintained by the State Board of Education. TEA was able to stop Gov. Haslam’s attempt last year to pass legislation that would blow up the teacher salary schedule. This year, it appears Commissioner Huffman believes he can do administratively what Haslam was unable to do legislatively.
“Commissioner Huffman recognizes the evaluation system has fundamental flaws, yet he wants to move forward with tying teachers’ financial stability to this unfair system,” said Gera Summerford, TEA president and Sevier County math teacher. “We already have more questions than answers about the fairness of the evaluation system, and to tie teachers’ salaries to it would be reckless and irresponsible.”
TEA is working every day in the General Assembly to prevent these things from happening. We want to ensure teachers maintain a fair and objective salary schedule.
During the hearing, Huffman was also asked about the statewide charter authorizer and vouchers. He admitted a lack of knowledge about vouchers’ constitutionality after a legislator, Gary Odom of Nashville, read him a passage from the state constitution requiring the General Assembly to “provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools.”
When you say “TEA is working every day in the General Assembly to prevent these things from happening. We want to ensure teachers maintain a fair and objective salary schedule.” what it appears to mean is that you want teachers’ pay linked only to seniority, thereby serving as a disincentive to actually perform better or work harder.
I always find it odd that most of the free world has a system where hard work and outstanding performance is rewarded with either better pay or increased benefits, etc. However, for those who prefer the staus quo in our school system, pay can only be linked to seniority or tenure.
http://voxlogicaepage.blogspot.com/
If merit pay meant that hard work and outstanding performance were rewarded, it would be a great system. Unlike with other professions, there is no objective measurement of success. Even value-added scoring is a significantly flawed, norm-referenced system. We are talking about measuring teachers over something they have only partial control over: student success. Teachers should not be penalized for being unable to show improvements with students who refuse to do work.
The people who are making the decisions for teachers have no idea what teachers are actually going through or how they bend over backwards to try to help students who have nothing better to do than spit in their teachers’ faces. But these teachers persevere day after day with no hope of reward–and the possibility of a reward is still no hope of a reward for these teachers.
I think there are a couple of logic flaws in your argument. One, there are actually very few professions that have true objective measurements of success. That is why managers and leaders are paid to make personnel decisions. If everyone has an objective and even quantifiable measure of success than a compute could determine people’s wages.
Two, you say that the people that would potentially make decisions have no idea what teachers do. I would think that principals in the school, most former teachers themselves and many from the same school system, as leaders and managers should be making those decisions. Isn’t that what managers in just about any other business do? They make personnel and wage decisions for the people they manage.
I am not trying to say that teachers do not do a good job and put up with some tough situations. I am saying I don’t understand why we can’t reward those who do a better job.
Issue Brief on Charter Authorizers: background and state policies surrounding accountability.
http://bit.ly/XwAvCC