Tennessee Comptroller’s Office Releases Updated Data on K-12 Education

The Tennessee Comptrollers Office released last week updated interactive online maps and dashboards related to the state and K-12 education. The dashboards and maps allow citizens to access information on both private and public schools for the 2021-2022 school year.

Included are data on teacher salaries, student enrollment, educational attainment, school building quality, and state and local funding available for Tennessee’s public schools and school districts.

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Tennessee State Board of Education Defines Summer School Requirements for Third-Graders Facing Retention

As Tennessee school districts wait to receive scores from spring’s Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), the State Board of Education (SBE) passed rules guiding the implications of those results.

The rules, crafted by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), and passed by the SBE on Friday, will determine how many Tennessee’s third-graders will spend their summer months.

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Nebraska Names TDOE Chief Academic Officer as Finalist for State’s Top Education Position

The architect behind Tennessee’s revision of English Language Arts (ELA) instruction, Tennessee Department of Education(TDOE) Chief Academic Officer Dr. Lisa Coons, has been named a finalist for the top education job in Nebraska. The search for a new superintendent was prompted by Matt Blomstedt stepping down as commissioner in January, after 9 years of service, to join a Washington D.C. Education Advocacy Group. 

An ad hoc search committee of the Nebraska State Board of Education (NDE) named four finalists for Nebraska’s next Commissioner of Education, and Coons’s name is among them.

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Tennessee Lawmaker Concerned New School Funding Formula Could Lead to ‘Administrative Bloat’

As Tennessee officials get closer to presenting a new state funding proposal for K-12 public education, at least one state senator is concerned about the costs of record-keeping in the new plan.

“The way the bill is going to read, the state is going to give a capitated rate per student to the district and then, for rural schools or economically disadvantaged schools or schools with high amounts of English as a second language, they give bonuses basically,” said Sen. John Stevens, R-Huntingdon, a member of the Rural and Small District Subcommittee – one of 18 subcommittees under a steering committee involved in reviewing the state’s school funding formula. “Extra money for these extra things that you do.

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Tennessee Education Commissioner $8 Million Contract with Company Where Husband Works Has CEO That Supports Critical Race Theory, ‘Anti-Racist’ Teaching

DAN WEISBERG

Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn awarded an $8.06 million contract to a company whose CEO supports Critical Race Theory and anti-racism in classrooms. As The Tennessee Star reported previously, Schwinn’s husband works at The New Teacher Project (TNTP) as well.

TNTP CEO Dan Weisberg has posted frequently about his support for critical race theory and anti-racist teaching. Weisberg tweeted articles showing his support for the two ideologies five times in the last month, as of this publication.

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Tennessee Legislators Pass Special Session Education Reforms

The Tennessee General Assembly passed a series of legislation to reopen schools and improve learning losses and literacy. The measures passed will establish phonics as the primary method for reading instruction, mandate third-grade students read on grade level before graduating to fourth grade, establish tutors and summer learning camps for students who fell behind in certain subjects, and remove accountability for standardized testing results. An additional bill concerning the state budget will fund 4 percent teacher raises.

As reported previously by The Tennessee Star, the General Assembly convened the special session to prioritize the state’s flagging education system due to pandemic-related closures. The session was called per the request of Governor Bill Lee last month.

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