JC Bowman Commentary: What I Didn’t Say About the Departure of TN Dept. of Education Commissioner Candice McQueen

Tupac Shakur said, “Behind every sweet smile, there is a bitter sadness that no one can ever see and feel.” I spent time with Commissioner McQueen as more than a casual observer. Her heart and passion were always for the children and teachers in Tennessee.  She fought battles which nobody knew about and which, despite the lofty title in front of her name, she had little control. 

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Education Commissioner McQueen Taking Job With National Teaching Institute

Tennessee Education Commissioner Dr. Candice McQueen will leave her post in January for the top position at a national nonprofit that addresses teaching, The Tennessean said. McQueen’s departure to become CEO of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, focused on aiding in training, attracting and supporting teachers, means she will not stay on with Gov.-elect Bill Lee. McQueen became Tennessee’s education commissioner in January 2015 after leading Lipscomb University’s College of Education. She replaced Kevin Huffman, who served for four years under Gov. Bill Haslam. In a Department of Education blog post, McQueen pointed to some of hers and the department’s accomplishments: This year, our students again set record highs: new high ACT score (20.2) coupled with a new high participation rate (97%); more students took AP exams and more students earned a 3 or higher – giving them credit for college; and high school graduates maintained our record graduation rate (89.1%). For the first time in years, we saw growth in students’ literacy skills in the early grades – pointing to some initial successes with our Read to be Ready work – and again students enrolled in our Read to be Ready summer camps showed statistically significant growth.” She also…

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Senator Lamar Alexander Commentary: Key Education Decisions Should Be Made in States, Schools and Homes – Not Washington

Lamar Alexander

by Senator Lamar Alexander   When I wrote the law fixing No Child Left Behind, I was thinking about Tennessee teachers like Candace Hines, who teaches kindergarten in Memphis. Earlier this year, Candace wrote that the new law “empowers Tennessee with the responsibility to decide how to close achievement gaps, improve schools and make sure that all our children succeed.” No Child Left Behind let Washington make decisions about Tennessee’s classrooms— and it created a national school board. My goal was to return decisions about how best to educate our children to the people closest to our students—to Tennessee teachers like Candace, our local school boards, and our state—and to end the national school board. When I was running for Senate in 2014, Tennesseans all across the state would tell me that Congress needed to end the Common Core mandate, and a year later I passed a law to do exactly that.  If you’re wondering why parents and teachers don’t worry about Washington meddling with state standards anymore, it’s because the new law explicitly prohibits Washington from mandating or even incentivizing Common Core or any other specific state standards. It is up to states to decide their academic standards. Another…

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Gov. Bill Haslam Says Don’t Throw in the Towel on TNReady

Bill Haslam

Before he packs up and vacates the Tennessee governor’s mansion early next year, Bill Haslam wants a dialogue with you about ways to improve TNReady. Haslam, at the state capitol Tuesday, announced what he described as a listening tour to do just that. The current governor and a team of handpicked educators will travel to six different cities as part of that tour, he said. The first scheduled stop is Friday, in Knoxville. TNReady, Haslam said, has had several hiccups. “Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of TNReady,” Haslam said. “Much of that criticism was earned. We experienced significant problems with the implantation and delivery, and these are problems that we know are unacceptable.” Haslam said he wants to fix the problems instead of “pointing fingers and casting blame.” “I am committed to doing what I can as governor before I leave to get this right,” Haslam said. “To throw in the towel on assessment is the wrong approach.” As he talked, Haslam was flanked by several people he described as “TNReady Ambassadors” — teachers, assessment coordinators, and other educators from around the state. Among them — Wayne Miller, a former executive director of the Tennessee Organization of…

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Tennessee Department of Education Under Fire For Administrative Incompetence

Steve Gill

Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill was flabbergasted on Monday’s edition of The Gill Report – broadcast on Knoxville’s 92.3 FM WETR – regarding the repeated incompetence displayed at the Tennessee Department of Education. Gill commented, “The Tennessee Department of Education has stepped in it again.” He continued: One of the things the Department of Education has had to set up under state law, it is a requirement of state law. Is a Pre-K and Kindergarten portfolio assessment program. Now apparently the Tennessee Department of Education failed to set up the program appropriately and now they’ve had some computer glitches that have caused them to not have the assessments of teachers done in an appropriate, timely or accurate way. And they’ve apparently randomly assigned one on a scale of five, to some teachers because they couldn’t figure out what to do so they just gave them one’s. Now this is supposedly not going to effect the teachers retention of their job, their pay raises, or anything else.  But a lot of teachers aren’t really believing that.  Professional Educators of Tennessee has some more details about this whole controversy, you can find out more there.  Meanwhile, the Tennessee Teachers Association, the…

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Problems Reported on First Day of TNReady Testing

After months of preparing for the annual year-end assessments, many Tennessee students struggled to log on to the TNReady testing platform Monday morning. The Department of Education says the problem was quickly fixed by the vendor, and over 20,000 students took the test after the problems were resolved. “We share the frustration that some students had challenges logging into Nextera this morning. Questar has fixed this issue, and thousands of students are on the platform now. Over 25,000 students have successfully completed TNReady tests as of this point today,” the Department of Education tweeted. “No server has crashed, and the issue was not statewide. This issue was not related to volume. Testing has resumed.” Some districts saw the early errors as a warning of what was to come and chose to cancel testing for the day. “In Williamson, most of our 5-11 students could not log in,” said Jason Golden, Deputy Superintendent of Williamson County Schools. “Williamson County Schools early reports indicate that those who did get logged in apparently finished the test, but we can’t measure the distractions they were dealing with in each classroom as other students couldn’t get logged in. We shut it down for the day & are…

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Tennessee Education Commissioner to Reconvene Task Force on Student Testing

Tennessee education commissioner Candice McQueen has announced the reconvening of a special task force on student testing and assessment. The state for the past few years has struggled with problems with testing vendors and growing concern among parents and others that students are overtested. McQueen started the task force after taking office in 2015 to get feedback from educators, parents and stakeholders and has made it an annual practice. Past recommendations from the task force have included shortening some state tests and eliminating the SAT-10, Explore and Plan exams, among other suggestions. “This task force has been critical in our work to improve the testing experience for students while providing better information to teachers and parents,” McQueen said in a news release Monday. “As in the past, I am confident that this group will continue to provide meaningful, actionable recommendations for improving both district and state assessment programs.” Many new participants will join the third annual assessment task force. Here is a list of task force members, with an asterisk beside the names of new participants: Candice McQueen, Tennessee Commissioner of Education Sara Morrison, Executive Director, State Board of Education Dolores Gresham, Chairman, Senate Education Committee John Forgety, Chairman, House Education…

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State Sues Metro Nashville Public Schools Over Student Contact Info, District to Sue State Over Funding

The state of Tennessee is suing Metro Nashville Public Schools for declining to release student contact information to the state-run Achievement School District run mostly by charter school operators who want parents to be informed of school options. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Davidson County Chancery Court, claims that a state law that took effect earlier this year compels MNPS to turn over the information. The suit says the district is required to provide a “list of student names, ages, addresses, dates of attendance, and grade levels completed.” An MNPS spokeswoman told The Tennessee Star on Thursday that district officials are reviewing the lawsuit. School board chair Anna Shepherd wrote a letter to state education commissioner Candice McQueen in August saying the board’s attorney advised the board that it has discretion over releasing such information per the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Shepherd also said the new state law does not allow for the release of student contact information for marketing purposes. Shepherd said the Achievement School District’s “academic track record is concerning and there is waning demand for ASD schools in Nashville and Memphis, which presumably is why the ASD is seeking to market itself to…

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Beth Harwell Calls for State Legislative Hearings on TNReady Testing Problems

House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) is calling for state legislative hearings on problems with TNReady scoring. “We have made great strides over the last several years in education, and we must be diligent in ensuring we continue these gains,” Harwell said on Facebook Tuesday. “We know that accountability has been a large part of this improvement. However, the news that nearly 10,000 TNReady tests were scored incorrectly has resulted in educators, parents, and legislators seeking answers. In addition, the amount of testing has also raised questions.” Hawell, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has asked the House Government Operations Committee to hold the hearings. The scoring issue is the latest in a string of glitches over the past several years with standardized testing in Tennessee public schools. Testing has also come under scrutiny for the amount of time it takes away from instruction, the way student scores are linked to teacher evaluations and for what is viewed as acquiescence to a national large-scale testing apparatus involving for-profit companies selling testing products and services. At the end of this past school year, testing vendor Questar was slow in returning test scores for report cards. Problems with its scanning program are now…

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With Some Gains, Tennessee Schools Still Struggle To Meet Goals Of Tennessee Succeeds

Tennessee Star

  NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Education commissioner Candice McQueen on Thursday outlined progress K-12 public schools have made toward meeting the goals of Tennessee Succeeds. McQueen spoke at the annual joint meeting of the State Board of Education and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission held in downtown Nashville. The Tennessee Succeeds plan was released by the Tennessee Department of Education in 2015 and includes goals, priorities and strategies on improving student performance. While the state has made some progress in reaching its four main goals, Tennessee still lags behind in critical areas, especially in literacy. Only 43 percent of Tennessee third graders are proficient in reading. Here is a summary of the goals and current status: Goal 1 – Tennessee will rank in the top half of all states on NAEP by 2019. Tennessee currently ranks in the top half of states for only three of six NAEP tests. NAEP stands for National Assessment of Educational Progress and is known as the Nation’s Report Card. It measures what students know and can do in various subject areas, including math, reading and science, among other subjects. Begun in 1969, NAEP assessments are given periodically. Tennessee has participated since 1992. Tennessee has been the fastest-improving…

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Tennessee Department of Education Runs Into Another Glitch In Delivering Standardized Test Results

  The Tennessee Department of Education has hit yet another snag in getting spring standardized test results to school districts. Questar, the vendor for TNReady tests, is having problems with its scanning software used to grade paper exams. The state was already having problems with delivering raw scores, partly because some districts missed the deadline to turn in completed tests. As a result, some districts are not using test scores to calculate final grades for report cards. This is the fourth year that the state has had some type of issue with standardized testing. Last year, there were so many problems with the testing itself that the state terminated its contract with Measurement, Inc. and signed a contract with Questar. “We understand the importance of having the raw scores to communicate information to educators, students, and families, and we apologize for the inconvenience our delays have caused TDOE and our district partners in getting this information on the timeline we committed to months ago,” Brad Baumgartner, chief partner officer for Questar, said in a statement. Education commissioner Candice McQueen said in an email to school superintendents on Thursday that nearly all scores for high school EOC exams were available, but that…

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School Districts Across State Experiencing Delays In Getting Student Test Results

Tennessee Star

  A delay in getting standardized test results is frustrating school officials across Tennessee as they get ready to send out report cards and wrap up the year. As a result, many districts are opting not to factor in TNReady test scores for final grades. The problems come a year after a much larger debacle prompted the state Department of Education to find a new testing vendor, and is the fourth year in a row in which there has been some type of issue. Complications this year stem in part from some districts not meeting the state deadline to turn in completed tests for grading, forcing state officials to scramble to send back results. But the state could perhaps manage things better by enforcing fixed, staggered testing windows, said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee (ProEd). The state typically sets one testing window for the entire state, which risks having numerous districts simultaneously waiting to the last minute, or past the last minute, to package up the paper tests and send them off for grading. “Calendar flexibility allowed for smoother administration of the test, but hampered the return of results,” Bowman told The Tennessee Star. In an email…

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Memphis Charter School Knew Of Interim Principal’s Felony Conviction When Hiring Him

  A charter school in Memphis hired an interim principal knowing he had a felony conviction, reports WMC Action News 5 in Memphis. Koai Matthews of Lester Prep was convicted and sentenced to probation for conspiracy and counterfeiting in 2006, according to court documents from Missouri obtained by WMC. The school knew of the conviction, but didn’t report it to Tennessee’s Achievement School District, which they are not obligated to do under state law, according to WMC. The ASD, which learned of the felony conviction through an anonymous tip, is now reviewing its hiring policies for charter school operators. “We’re not disagreeing with the hiring of certain individuals, we just want to be informed on who those individuals are,” said Robert “Bobby” White, chief of external affairs for the ASD. Matthews is keeping his job and told WMC that he uses his past to teach students to make better choices than he did. The ASD was created by the state legislature in 2010 to turn around struggling schools as part of former President Obama’s Race to the Top program. After news broke of the interim principal with a felony conviction, state Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, wrote to state education commissioner Candice McQueen…

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Teacher Shortage Worries Tennessee Department of Education

Tennessee is scrambling to come up with ways to find and keep quality teachers in the classroom. The state Department of Education released a report last week that details the problem and outlines proposed solutions that focus especially on strengthening ties with teacher education programs in the state’s postsecondary schools. “More than 65,000 teachers show up each day to work in Tennessee’s public schools. At the current rate, half of these teachers will leave or retire in the next decade,” the report says. Bethany Bowman, director of professional learning for Professional Educators of Tennessee (ProEd), calls the situation “a complete mess.” “The Department of Education is too optimistic,” she told The Tennessee Star. “They’re always talking about highly effective teachers and I’m thinking, you’re lucky to get teachers period.” Bowman noted that just days before the start of the new school year last summer, Metro Nashville Public Schools was still short 400 teachers. The district employs around 6,000 teachers. As if simply finding good teachers weren’t enough, the state also wants to focus on making teaching staffs more diverse. The report said that only 14 percent of new teacher candidates graduating from Tennessee’s teacher education programs self-identified as not white in…

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