When Kevin Huffman was sworn in as state commissioner in Tennessee, he was offered a salary of $200,000 a year, 11% more than his predecessor.
Granted that he believes experience and degrees are worthless, wouldn’t an elemental sense of fairness compel him to cut his own salary, having cut salaries of teachers across the state? After all, a teacher with a masters and a doctorate and 20 years experience will make less than $60,000.
Who provides greater value?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
these idiots are legends in their own mind…
Cut his pay? Why not cut his position?
All TN needs to do is have it dialed in from Gates, Broad and Duncan….they all follow the same playbook anyway……substitue an edubot with a direct line to the Gates foundation to remotely send in the daily talking points.
Resign Kevin….your TFA “leadership” is no longer needed.
I can think of something else he should cut. . .
So Paula Deen will get her last paycheck from The Food Network by the end of the month. I guess The Food Network responds to employees questionable character traits faster than other industries
Excellent point, Zee! It seems that corruption and bad character are acceptable in education.
Huffman is a weasel. Egads…
For Huffman’s salary to go down to the previous commissioner’s salary he’d need to take a $20,000yr pay cut.
What’s an “else yak sense”? (in your message below)
That was supposed to be “someone else’s yak sense”, meaning that Huffman has even less sense than a yak. That’s one of those new internet phrases soon to be in the Devil’s Dictionary of Education: “YAK SENSE: Not to be confused with common sense. In Maslovian hierarchy of common sense it is the lowest level of sensibility to which edudeformers aspire or can achieve.”
Sorry, misspelled “Maslofian”
Fixed
Auto correct
Eliminate his pay and his position altogether.
I’m sure he thinks he’s worth his salary. I’ve heard it said by other wealthy folk, that the poor can take these cuts easier than the rich for after all they know how to live on less, and how to make the sacrifices necessary to make their daily living work.
Agreed, Elin, & a bit off-topic (but not by much) did you all see the segment about Goodwill Industries–their employees can legally make (and do) much less than the minimum wage (the workers–all disabled–are “timed” on their work, such as how long it takes them to hang so many items of clothing, etc. If they are slow, they make much less–I think the report indicated that some workers were making as little as .30/hour!) , but their CEO makes a quarter of a million dollars? Again, exploitation! We are truly submerged in the Dark Ages.
Sorry–the Goodwill segment–as reported by Harry K. Smith–ran on NBC’s “Rock Center” last night (Friday, 6/21/13).
It’s always interesting to me that the deformers don’t want teachers to be allowed to negotiate their contracts. Does anyone think Kevin Huffman went into his job without negotiating his wages & benefits? Hypocrite.
They would say that the problem isn’t with negotiated salaries, the problem is with collective bargaining. Exactly what they want is for every teacher to have to negotiate his or her own salary individually by “proving” what s/he’s “worth”.
Ironic in a sick way that the likes of Michelle Rhee disparage career teachers (nobody stays in the same career anymore) and that’s what she and ex-partner have been doing.
Maybe they can go find a job shoveling crap on Louisianna.
What dolts we all were! Why couldn’t we see what is so abundantly clear to Commissioner Huffman, to Bill Gates, to Arne Duncan, to the legislators of the state of Tennessee:
The Huffman Principle: What we need is educators who are less educated.
This profound insight into the business of cultural transmission from one generation to the next REVOLUTIONIZES the whole enterprise that we thought we were engaged in! It deserves to be enshrined in our hearts and minds beneath those other eternal verities:
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
And of course, the Huffman Principle is but an ineluctable deduction from those verities. How clearly one sees that now that the Huffman Principle has been articulated!!!
How blind we all were! Myopic underlings that we are, how would we be able to function, at all, going forward, without the vision of Kevin, Bill, and Arne to show us the way!
I guess we also need more sick doctors, lawyers in trouble with the law….
Dienne, what we need is LAWSUITS!! All over the country!!
Yet another has been filed in response to the CTU closings!
As per below, of course I meant the CPS (Chicago Public School) closings. My boiling blood is adversely affecting my typing fingers!
Lawsuits and mass protests. And, yes, your blood should be boiling.
Perhaps the biggest “weasel of the year” award goes to William Hite who while working for PG county in MD claimed to have made major gains but with lots more to go. Then without proper notice announced his departure. He was “sad” to leave PG so he claimed and since his notice was insufficient he “gladly” would forgo his severance. Well, we all saw through that as he was making boat-loads more money as the Superintendent of Schools in Philly! It was a windfall for him. And he accepts this high 6 figure salary WHILE CUTTING THE PHILLY EDUCATION BUDGET SO SUBSTANTIALLY. Ughh.. perhaps Huffman and Hite have shared the same playbook.
Dr Hite told parents that he was too busy to visit every school. Also, he was driven around in a Denali. I know a parent who tried to corner at the Safeway on Rt 450 one evening. She didn’t care for the poseur who wanted to grow gray in PGC.
Huffman taught school for how many years??? Oh yes 1!!! Whata bunch of bull. If you look a the age of his staff and years of experience teaching you will see that none if them are over age 26 and most came out if the Teach For America programs with less than two years of experience. Look it up folks! He is ripping off the state of Tennessee!
Tennessee’s Republican governor Bill Haslam said, in hiring Kevin Huffman, that “I put a special effort into finding the right fit for Education Commissioner.” Given what Haslam and the Republican-controlled legislature intend to do, Haslam made sure he got a flack that supports corporate-style “reform.” Indeed, Huffman’s support for charter schools, vouchers, longer school days and years, more testing, merit pay, and his penchant for twisting and distorting the truth, offer some clues as to why Haslam hired him.
Kevin Huffman’s “keys to a successful education system” are eerily similar to
those advocated by the editorial nimrods at The Washington Post: more charter schools, better standardized test scores, and performance pay for teachers. These kinds of reform are touted also by corporate groups like the Chamber of
Commerce and the Business Roundtable, who claim that American economic
competitiveness is inextricably tied to student achievement. But research shows that charter schools are no better – and often worse – than traditional public schools. Standardized test scores typically measure family income and too often assess low-level cognition. And performance pay has a long track record that is anything but enviable.
Despite what critics claim, American public education is pretty darned good. The Sandia report (Journal of Educational Research, May/June, 1993) showed that much of the hysteria spread by A Nation at Risk, the Reagan-era polemic that spawned decades of education “reform” by claiming a “rising tide of mediocrity”
threatened the country, was simply unfounded. However, Huffman believes the
hype (“our test scores trail those of other industrialized nations,” he
says) and relies almost exclusively on PISA (Programme for International
Student Assessment) test scores to make his case. So does Eric Hanushek – a conservative economist Huffman likes to cite – who calls PISA scores “early-warning signals for later economic welfare” (Education Week, Feb. 2005).
PISA tests 15-year-olds. There is argument about what PISA really
measures. There are criticisms of its methodology. Stefan Hopmann and
Gertrude Brinek of the University of Vienna observe that much of PISA’s
methodology remains secret and they “question if some basic elements of
PISA are done well enough to carry the weight of, e.g., comparative league
tables or of in-depth analyses of weaknesses of educational systems.”
What does seem clear is that PISA seems to assess poverty and other
socioeconomic factors that influence education. According to UNICEF, the
U.S. has a child poverty rate of more than 22 percent, much higher (in some cases more than double) than the rate in other developed nations.
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/
Public education critics whine about declining “economic competitiveness.” But the United States is consistently ranked as the most (or one of the
most) economically competitive nations in the world. In its latest
rankings, the World Economic Forum placed Switzerland first, and “the
United States falls one place to second position, with weakening in its
financial markets and macroeconomic stability.” No one can legitimately
lay the Great Recession on the schools and student test scores. Nor have
school leaders and teachers been responsible for the shipment of millions
of manufacturing jobs offshore. Nor did American 15-year-old students vote
for unfunded tax cuts –directed primarily at corporations and the
already-wealthy – that helped to cause massive federal deficits.
Huffman and his brethren argue for performance pay that is
tied to test scores. Huffman seems to think that a lack of such connection
will “inhibit innovation.” But that’s not true. A good place to start on
performance pay is Jeffrey Pfeffer’s March 8, 2007 testimony to Congress on
performance pay (in short: it doesn’t work). Does anyone following the
reports on the bonuses soon to be paid to bankers in the wake of the
financial meltdown really believe that they deserve them? That their
performance – tied to taxpayer bailouts and nearly-free money from the
Federal Reserve – warrants it? There are some who might claim that
derivatives and credit default swaps – complex instruments pioneered by
Wall Street were” innovative.” No doubt they were created by “smart,”
well-educated people. But the economic harm they inflicted has done more
to undermine American stability and competitiveness than anything the cooks
can be saddled with. Want innovation in schools? Perhaps a replication of
the Eight-Year Study, published in 1942, is in order. Breaking away from
the corporate, behavioral model can (and did in that study) lead to
improved results. The students in the thirty nontraditional schools the
Eight-Year Study followed performed, overall, better than those in
traditional college-prep schools and “proved that many different forms of
secondary curricular design can ensure college success and that the high
school need not be chained to a college preparatory curriculum.”
Most of the jobs in the near future (the next decade) are predicted to be
in the service sector. They do not require college educations. It’s clear
that our nation – and the nations of the world – face serious problems. We
need to educate for responsible democratic citizenship, for moral and
ethical development and growth, and we need to teach students to think
critically and reflectively. Test scores are diagnostic barometers, not
end results and certainly not measures of a nation’s economic future.
Can public education be improved? Certainly. But let us focus on programs and policies and practices are well-grounded in research, that promote personal, social, and moral growth and development, and that emphasize civic commitment and responsibility.
What follows is the e-mail Huffman sent to TN teachers:
“Teachers,
Congratulations on a strong finish to the school year. I appreciate the work you do every day to help Tennessee reach our goal of being the fastest growing state in the nation in education.
Over the past several months, we have been working at the state level to increase teacher salaries. We also have worked on a plan to ensure that our licensure process is less bureaucratic and more aligned with our shared state goals.
To that end, I would like to share some information about two items we presented to the State Board of Education on Friday:
1. Changes to the state’s minimum teacher salary schedule; and
2. Improvements to teacher licensure
The board approved the salary changes today and gave preliminary approval to the licensure changes.
Changes to Minimum Salary Requirements
Tennessee historically has paid teachers less than many neighboring states. The state board’s actions are a step in the right direction to make teacher wages competitive in the marketplace and to reflect our belief that teaching is one of the most important jobs in our state. There has been some confusion about the changes, so I want to make sure teachers know the facts.
First, no teacher can make less than he or she currently makes. State law forbids any district from paying a teacher less money than the previous year.
Second, the state has increased money for teacher compensation – both for the coming year and by over $130 million over the last three years. Districts have more state money that must be spent on compensation than ever before. Since districts have more state money, and they cannot cut any individual teacher’s pay under state law, teachers will on average make more money, not less.
Third, the state minimum salary schedule provides districts with more flexibility in structuring teachers’ raises. In addition to degrees and years of experience (which are a part of the minimum salary schedule), a district must create a salary plan that has some differentiation based on factors that local schools decide are most important (including but not limited to hard to staff subject areas, high need schools, teacher or school performance, and teacher responsibilities).
What does this mean for you? First, your pay cannot be cut. You can make the same or more money, and across the state, salaries will go up on average. Second, you will likely have more opportunities than before to increase your pay over time. Factors contributing to a raise could include degrees attained, years of experience, increased responsibilities, performance, or teaching in a high needs school or subject area. Your local school district will have more flexibility to structure future raises, and districts have more state funding that must be spent on compensation. We anticipate that districts will be eager to meet with teachers and discuss potential plans.
We have an email address specifically to address teacher questions or concerns about state policy decisions. Please reach out to Compensation.Questions@tn.gov with questions or comments.
Improvements to Licensure
At the state board meeting, we also presented a proposal that will have an impact on several key aspects of the licensure system. The proposal streamlines license types, introduces more rigorous entry requirements for new teachers, connects licensure advancement and renewal decisions to performance, and shortens the duration of licenses. The state board gave preliminary approval to this plan, and will vote again at its next meeting.
As many of you know, professional licenses are renewed for 10 years at a time based solely on years in the classroom and a complicated point system requiring teachers to track professional development course completion. Our current system creates unnecessary hurdles for effective educators and allows persistently low-performing teachers to remain in our classrooms.
We have proposed changes that would make renewal automatic for teachers who meet a minimum standard of performance. In our proposal we define this standard as earning a 2 or higher on both evaluation and (if applicable) the individual growth measure for at least two of the previous three years prior to renewal. Teachers who earn a 1 multiple times in the years prior to renewal will have an improvement plan and time to improve performance, but will not be renewed automatically. If a teacher continues to struggle even with an improvement plan, his or her license would not be renewed.
For well over 95 percent of our teachers, this change will completely eliminate paperwork and tracking and create an automated license process. If the state board votes to approve this plan, we believe it will help effective teachers by eliminating bureaucracy, and help struggling teachers by giving an improvement plan and time to get better.
Once the State Board posts a video of the meeting, you can watch it at the following link: http://imagine.pcsknox.com/tcs/#page:recordingList&pageNumber:1.
Prior to final reading on licensure, we welcome your feedback. If you have specific questions, please send them to Redesign.Questions@tn.gov. If you have comments you would like to share, please send them to Redesign.Comments@tn.gov.
While the implementation of both policy changes will require additional discussion and planning over the next year, I firmly believe today’s changes to salary and licensure are an important step forward in our collective effort to reward the hard work teachers put in each day to help our students succeed, and are a much needed improvement to our current systems.
Thank you for your continued work and commitment to Tennessee’s children. I hope you have a great summer.
Best,
Kevin Huffman”
What follows is the e-mail Huffman sent to TN teachers
“Teachers,
Congratulations on a strong finish to the school year. I appreciate the work you do every day to help Tennessee reach our goal of being the fastest growing state in the nation in education.
Over the past several months, we have been working at the state level to increase teacher salaries. We also have worked on a plan to ensure that our licensure process is less bureaucratic and more aligned with our shared state goals.
To that end, I would like to share some information about two items we presented to the State Board of Education on Friday:
1. Changes to the state’s minimum teacher salary schedule; and
2. Improvements to teacher licensure
The board approved the salary changes today and gave preliminary approval to the licensure changes.
Changes to Minimum Salary Requirements
Tennessee historically has paid teachers less than many neighboring states. The state board’s actions are a step in the right direction to make teacher wages competitive in the marketplace and to reflect our belief that teaching is one of the most important jobs in our state. There has been some confusion about the changes, so I want to make sure teachers know the facts.
First, no teacher can make less than he or she currently makes. State law forbids any district from paying a teacher less money than the previous year.
Second, the state has increased money for teacher compensation – both for the coming year and by over $130 million over the last three years. Districts have more state money that must be spent on compensation than ever before. Since districts have more state money, and they cannot cut any individual teacher’s pay under state law, teachers will on average make more money, not less.
Third, the state minimum salary schedule provides districts with more flexibility in structuring teachers’ raises. In addition to degrees and years of experience (which are a part of the minimum salary schedule), a district must create a salary plan that has some differentiation based on factors that local schools decide are most important (including but not limited to hard to staff subject areas, high need schools, teacher or school performance, and teacher responsibilities).
What does this mean for you? First, your pay cannot be cut. You can make the same or more money, and across the state, salaries will go up on average. Second, you will likely have more opportunities than before to increase your pay over time. Factors contributing to a raise could include degrees attained, years of experience, increased responsibilities, performance, or teaching in a high needs school or subject area. Your local school district will have more flexibility to structure future raises, and districts have more state funding that must be spent on compensation. We anticipate that districts will be eager to meet with teachers and discuss potential plans.
We have an email address specifically to address teacher questions or concerns about state policy decisions. Please reach out to Compensation.Questions@tn.gov with questions or comments.
Improvements to Licensure
At the state board meeting, we also presented a proposal that will have an impact on several key aspects of the licensure system. The proposal streamlines license types, introduces more rigorous entry requirements for new teachers, connects licensure advancement and renewal decisions to performance, and shortens the duration of licenses. The state board gave preliminary approval to this plan, and will vote again at its next meeting.
As many of you know, professional licenses are renewed for 10 years at a time based solely on years in the classroom and a complicated point system requiring teachers to track professional development course completion. Our current system creates unnecessary hurdles for effective educators and allows persistently low-performing teachers to remain in our classrooms.
We have proposed changes that would make renewal automatic for teachers who meet a minimum standard of performance. In our proposal we define this standard as earning a 2 or higher on both evaluation and (if applicable) the individual growth measure for at least two of the previous three years prior to renewal. Teachers who earn a 1 multiple times in the years prior to renewal will have an improvement plan and time to improve performance, but will not be renewed automatically. If a teacher continues to struggle even with an improvement plan, his or her license would not be renewed.
For well over 95 percent of our teachers, this change will completely eliminate paperwork and tracking and create an automated license process. If the state board votes to approve this plan, we believe it will help effective teachers by eliminating bureaucracy, and help struggling teachers by giving an improvement plan and time to get better.
Once the State Board posts a video of the meeting, you can watch it at the following link: http://imagine.pcsknox.com/tcs/#page:recordingList&pageNumber:1.
Prior to final reading on licensure, we welcome your feedback. If you have specific questions, please send them to Redesign.Questions@tn.gov. If you have comments you would like to share, please send them to Redesign.Comments@tn.gov.
While the implementation of both policy changes will require additional discussion and planning over the next year, I firmly believe today’s changes to salary and licensure are an important step forward in our collective effort to reward the hard work teachers put in each day to help our students succeed, and are a much needed improvement to our current systems.
Thank you for your continued work and commitment to Tennessee’s children. I hope you have a great summer.
Best,
Kevin Huffman”
I’m a Momma Bear in TN and we’re fed up with Kevin Huffman. I created a petition to Governor Haslam to have Kevin Huffman removed. Please sign and share, share, share. Thank you!!!
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-hurting-our-schools-remove-kevin-huffman-as-the-appointed-tn-commissioner-of-education
It started with the governor (Haslam) who selected him in the first place. Huffman has no education credentials (minus his scandalous yrs w/TFA – See http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-4254956.html) and was once married to Michelle Rhee.
TN teachers can lose from 150K to 300K throughout their career!
I know one school system where they needed to cut the budget and they DID cut teacher pay. So Huffman is off mark. He needs a reality check and Haslam needs to remember that people who live in glass houses…..clean up your own business first before trying to run the state and ESPECIALLY education into the ground.