Archives for category: Tennessee
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Gary Rubinstein: CONFIRMED! The Complete and Total Failure of the Tennessee Achievement School District at a Cost of $100 Million

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2018 //
21

Gary Rubinstein reports that the latest Tennessee school rankings were just released. Now we know. The Tennessee Achievement School District was a complete and total failure. $100 million down the drain, which came from Race to the Top funding. The same money might have been used to reduce class sizes in these schools. Instead, it was used to induce charter operators to come to Tennessee and work their magic. It failed.

Would someone tell Bill Gates, John Arnold, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and the other billionaires who are still spreading the phony claim of charter miracles?

Spread the word to states like Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina, which created their own “achievement school districts” based on the Tennessee model.

Seven years ago, as part of Tennessee’s Race To The Top plan, they launched The Achievement School District (ASD). With a price tag of over $100 million, their mission was to take schools that were in the bottom 5% of schools and, within five years, raise them into the top 25%.

They started with six schools and three years into the experiment, Chris Barbic, the superintendent of the ASD had a ‘mission accomplished’ moment where he declared in an interview that three of those six schools were on track to meet that goal.

But a year later, the gains that led to that prediction had disappeared and it wasn’t looking good for any of those six schools. By the time the five year mark had been reached, in the Fall of 2016, Chris Barbic had already resigned and taken a job with the John Arnold Foundation.

The thing about 2016, though, is that whether or not the ASD schools met the lofty goal could not be determined, officially. Tennessee releases their official ‘priority’ list of the bottom 5% schools every three years. And, conveniently enough, the last one was in 2015. So even though it was clear in 2016 that the original 6 ASD schools would not be in the top 25%, an even more important question — how many of those schools remained in the bottom 5%? — would not be known officially for two more years, in the Fall of 2018.

A few days ago, Tennessee finally released the long-awaited 2018 priority schools list, and for the ASD, the results were decisive and devastating.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Race to the Top, Tennessee

Memphis: Seven Charter Schools Closing Due to Low Academic Performance

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2018 //
13

Sad.

Seven charter schools are closing due to poor performance on tests.

These are schools that were supposed to “save” poor kids from their “failingpublic schools.”

Who will save the students from “failed charter schools?”

“Seven Shelby County charter schools are being forced to close at the end of this school year due to low performance.

The seven schools were listed as “Priority Schools,” meaning they were the most in need of support and improvement.

The State Department of Education designates schools Priority Schools for one of two reasons:

Being in the bottom 5 percent in 2015-16 and 2016-17 AND not meeting the TVAAS safe harbor, which allows schools to not be identified if they are showing high growth.

Having a graduation rate of less than 67 percent in 2017-18.

State law requires that a public charter school agreement shall be revoked or denied renewal if the school is identified as a Priority School for 2017 and beyond.

There were 27 schools placed on the Priority list, including 18 SCS-managed schools. Most will be given time to improve.

Unfortunately, the seven charter schools will have to close.

The seven charter schools that are set to close are as follows:

City University School Girls Preparatory

DuBois ES of Arts Technology

DuBois MS of Leadership and Public Policy

DuBois MS of Arts and Technology

Granville T. Woods Academy of Innovation

Memphis Delta Preparatory Charter

The Excel Center

The DuBois High School of Leadership and Public Policy and DuBois High Schools of Arts and Technology had already closed at the end of the last school year.

Its not “unfortunate” that they are closing. It’s unfortunate that the people of Shelby County were sold a bill of goods.

Will Bill Gates and his billionaire friends be accountable?

No.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Memphis, Privatization, Tennessee

City Fund: Another Billionaire-Funded Phony Scheme to Steal Public Schools from the Public

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2018 //
26

You first read about “City Fund” when Tom Ultican wrote about it on August 18. Then four days later, Chalkbeat got the “leaked memo” and told the story that Tom had already broken.

Two billionaires, unhappy with the slow and slowing pace of privatization, have created another organization to spread the gospel of school choice, following in the venerable tradition established by racist Southern governors and senators following the Brown Decision of 1954. In the late 1950s (as Mercedes Schneider wrote in detail in her fine book School Choice), white southerners were mad for choice. They saw choice as the best way to stop racial integration.

Now, under the unesteemed leadership of rightwing zealot Betsy DeVos, the mask of benevolence has been stripped away from the choice movement.

But that doesn’t stop billionaires Reed Hastings (Netflix) and John Arnold (Enron). Education is their game, their hobby, and they are not ready to abandon their dream of privatizing every school in America.

They have hired a “dream team” of failed Reformers, who bring together in one place a long history of stealing democracy and public schools from poor African Americans.

The Reformers tell us that up until now, nothing in reform has worked. But they seem convinced that charter schools work (think Detroit, think Milwaukee). If NOLA is the model, start by closing all the public schools, firing all the teachers, then replacing them with charters and TFA. Crucial to the plan is to add hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending (they forgot that part of the formula).

Peter Greene takes a crack at explaining the grand plan for transforming public schools into a business–and failing as Kevin Huffman and Chris Barbic did in Tennessee’s Achievement School District, where they blew $100 million trying to turn “failing schools” into high-performing schools by handing them over to private operators. Say this for Huffman and Barbic: It was failure on a grand scale!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Privatization, Tennessee

Tennessee: Knoxville School Board Votes “No Confidence” in State Education Department

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2018 //
20

Tennessee has one of the most intrusive, micromanaging, incompetent state education departments in the nation. So says the Knoxville school board, and so agrees the school boards of Memphis and Nashville.

The problem right now is the state’s failed teacher evaluation program, but there are many reasons to lose trust in the State Education Department.

Problems with pre-K and kindergarten teacher portfolio evaluations became the issue that pushed board Chairwoman Patti Bounds to say the department “still takes no ownership” of its mistakes. Portfolios are used to evaluate educators who teach pre-K, kindergarten, and subjects not included in TNReady standardized testing. Portfolios can include videos showing student progress during the year.

Earlier this week, the superintendents of the state’s two largest districts, Memphis and Nashville, wrote to Haslam and Education Commissioner Candice McQueen to pause state testing until after the election because “educator and public trust in TNReady has fallen to irretrievably low levels.”

Tennessee has taken pride in the progress of its students on national tests and has toughened up its requirements for student learning and evaluating teachers. But the foundation for its analysis, the state’s new online test, TNReady, has been fraught with technical setbacks since it was introduced in 2016.

State lawmakers were so concerned about the problems with TNReady that they passed legislation ensuring the scores would not be used to negatively impact teachers, students, or schools. School-level scores could be released as early as late next week.

Some Knoxville board members wanted to echo the sentiment of Memphis and Nashville superintendents about TNReady, but settled on highlighting the more timely portfolio issue, Bounds said.

“The portfolio system is a mess,” she told Chalkbeat. “The Department of Education has had multiple years of failure.”

The board will likely meet Tuesday in a special meeting to approve a letter, she said.

First-year problems for the teacher portfolios have resulted in error messages or questionable low scores for teachers. It is unclear how many teachers across the state are affected, but a spokeswoman for the department said about 7 percent got the lowest overall score. The state department attributed the problems to user error while one of the state’s teacher organizations blamed a system glitch.

“Every time something fails, the Department of Education blames it on the teachers. And some of their reasons are just not valid,” Bounds told Chalkbeat.

But wait. There is more.

Year after year, state testing has been a disaster. The state has changed vendors but nothing goes write.

Governor Haslam, who is on his way out, fortunately, has been a disaster for public education.

The State Education Department has been pushing charters, trying to to override the wishes of local school boards.

The Achievement School District was a total failure, wasting $100 million and destroying community schools by handing them off to charter operators, who were unable to help the kids.

Categories Memphis, Nashville, Tennessee

Tennessee: Achievement School District is a Colossal Failure

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2018 //
24

Arne Duncan was very proud of Tennessee, which was one of the first states to win Race to the Top funding. $100 million of its $500 million prize was devoted to creating an all-charter Achievement School District, made up of the state’s lowest scoring schools. The leader of ASD, Chris Barbic (ex-TFA) promised that these schools would be catapulted to the top 20% in the state within five years. Barbic bailed after four years. None of the ASD schools improved.

A series of leaders replaced Barbic.

Now we know: ASD made no progress.

Test scores in the ASD high school are a disaster.

“This year’s batch of scores, which were released early in July, revealed that test scores for state-run schools remain far below the statewide average and dropped in high school. School-level data is not yet available.

“Education Commissioner Candice McQueen called the new state test data for the turnaround district “sobering…”

“The Achievement School District — now made up of 30 schools, mostly in Memphis — was launched to transform the state’s bottom 5 percent of schools by converting them to charter schools.

“In English II, only 4 percent of high schoolers were on or exceeding grade-level, down from 9.8 percent last year. Three years ago, 10.2 percent of students were on grade level.

“In geometry, the drop was smaller, with 0.9 percent of high schoolers on or exceeding grade level, compared to 1.3 percent last year. The percentage of students on grade level has hovered around 1 percent in geometry for the last three years.”

Nevada and North Carolina rushed to create their own ASDs, modeled on Tennessee.

Way to go, Reformers!

I hope the new National Center on Research on School Choice at Tulane studies the ASD, which was modeled on New Orleans’ Recovery School District.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Privatization, Race to the Top, Tennessee

Tennessee Testing SNAFU: There Was No Cyberattack

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2018 //
25

An investigation of the meltdown in the Tennessee computerized testing this past spring determined that there was no cyberattack, as the state education department originally claimed. Instead, the vendor made errors.

Questar’s unauthorized change of an online testing tool — not a possible cyber attack, as earlier reported by the company — was responsible for shutting down Tennessee’s computerized exams on their second day this spring, the state’s chief investigator reported Wednesday.

An independent probe determined that “there was no cyber attack,” nor was any student data compromised, when thousands of students could not log onto the online exam known as TNReady on April 17.

Instead, investigators said, Questar was mostly responsible for this year’s testing miscues. The main culprit was a combination of “bugs in the software” and the slowness of a computerized tool designed to let students turn text into speech if they need audible instructions.

Comptroller Justin P. Wilson reviewed early findings of his office’s internal review and the external investigation by a company hired by the Education Department during a legislative hearing in Nashville.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen also told lawmakers that Tennessee is docking Questar about $2.5 million this year out of its $30 million contract because of the online problems that plagued many students and schools during the three-week testing window.

Payments being withheld are punitive, as well as to cover the state’s costs to address the problems, she said, adding that other discounts could follow.

Last week, McQueen announced that the state plans to launch a new search this fall for one or more testing companies to take over TNReady beginning in the 2019-20 school year. She said a track record of successful online testing is a must.

Will states ever figure out that online testing is less reliable than paper-and-pencil testing, and that teacher-made tests are more valuable than any standardized tests?

Categories Accountability, Technology, Computers, Tennessee, Testing

Tennessee: Here is News for Governor Haslam

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2018 //
15

Tennessee has had three straight years of computer breakdowns and other problems with its testing vendor, Questar. (Questar is also the test provider for New York State, perhaps others.)

The state is so disgusted by Questar’s performance that Governor Haslam said he might switch the contract from Questar to ETS.

That’s a good one! As testing guru Fred Smith informed me, ETS owns Questar.

ETS is not problem free, either. “The changes highlight a possible strategic shift for ETS whose reputation came under fire last year when the nonprofit had to pay $20.7 million dollars in damages and upgrades after multiple testing problems in Texas.”

Would someone in Tennessee please let Governor Haslam and Commissioner McQueen know?

Questar is the for-profit face of nonprofit ETS. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

A distinction without a difference.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Tennessee, Testing

Tennessee: Governor Says State May Drop Questar, Hire ETS for Annual Tests

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2018 //
21

[Testing expert Fred Smith points out that Questar is owned by ETS. Much ado about nothing.]

Tennessee Governor Haslam says the state may drop Questar, its exam vendor, because of three straight years of problems with the state tests.

The contract may go to ETS, he said.

One positive note in the testing failure is that data won’t be available to assign low-scoring schools to the failed and ineffectual “Achievement School District.”

Tennessee likes to boast about how it moved from the cellar on NAEP to the middle, but the article cited here was written before the release of NAEP 2017, where scores in the state mostly declined compared to 2015.

Categories NAEP, Tennessee, Testing

Tennessee: Legislators Say Online Tests Wont Count Against Students or Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2018 //
28

 

Legislators in Tennessee are rightfully upset by the failure of online testing and have said that the results of the tests won’t be used against any student, teacher, or school. Democrats, in the minority, called for the resignation of Candace McQueen, the state commissioner of education, who doggedly defends online testing.

“The Tennessee General Assembly struck a deal Thursday that will ensure this year’s TNReady test won’t be held against students, teachers and public school districts.

“The measure agreed upon by both chambers says test results this school year will count only if it benefits students, educators and districts. Districts can’t base employment or compensation decisions based on the data, the legislation says.

“It came about after an extraordinary 11th-hour deal by the House to address ongoing test issues that continued sporadically on Thursday across the state.

“All across the state we have heard from superintendents, testing coordinators about some issues logging in, recording the tests as the kids took them, sometimes not being able to log in,” said House Republican Caucus Chair Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville.

“I think what happened was the House felt like we needed to do something to protect teachers and our students and our institutions from further erosion of the trust as it relates to these tests. I think what you saw today is an effort to do that.”

”Trust” in online testing? That’s a reach.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Technology, Tennessee

Nashville: Rocketship Charter Closes a Few Months After Opening Due to Low Enrollment

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2018 //
10

 

A Rocketship Charter in Nashville was slated to be part of the state’s failed Achievement School District  but it closed a few months after opening.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2018/02/01/nashville-achievement-school-district-rocketship-nashville-partners-community-prep/1087161001/

The school expected  to enroll 190 students but only 50 signed up. Demand isn’t there for a school once hailed as a national model.

To add to the woes of Rocketship charters in Nashville, the IRS filed a lien against their property because of unpaid taxes of about $19,000.. Rocketship officials said it was a clerical error.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Nashville, Privatization, Tennessee
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