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The BCEA
Volume 8, Number 8
From the President
Advocate
April 2014
Legislative Session Ends on High
Note for Public Education and TEA
Thursday, April 17, marked the end of what turned
out to be a very successful session for public education,
students and teachers. Thanks to the many calls, emails
and visits by educators statewide and the tireless work of
TEA's government relations team, many important bills
were passed and several damaging bills were defeated.
Please take a minute to read through the list of legislative
victories Jim Wrye and Antoinette Lee, TEA's
powerhouse government relations team, won for you this
session.
Continued on page 3
Protect Your Membership
Convert to automatic dues for 2013-14 membership year
Legislators took away your right to bargain in 2011.
What will they try to take next? Retirement? You can
help stop these injustices by protecting your TEA
membership.
The Legislature is attempting to limit and control
Tennessee educators’ free speech rights if they use
payroll deductions for TEA dues. There is a way to
protect your rights and benefits through your
membership in TEA - sign up for TEA Automatic Dues
Pay.
Automatic Dues Pay will automatically deduct your
dues from your checking account two times per month
over the membership year. The conversion to Automatic
Dues Pay takes just minutes to complete and it is safe
and secure. This simple and easy process allows you to
be a continuing member of TEA without interference,
pressure or bullying from the Legislature, local school
board or the Tennessee School Boards Association
(TSBA).
After you complete the conversion process, please
contact your local education association and let them
know that you converted your dues to Automatic Dues
Pay.
If you have any questions about this conversion
process, please contact TEA Membership Coordinator
Shannon Bain or Assistant Executive Director Duran
Williams at (800) 342-8367, ext. 213 or ext. 328,
respectively.
Calendar of Events
April 2014
April 26
ESP Conference, TEA Building
May 2014
May 4-10
May 6
May 26
May 16
May 30-31
Teacher Appreciation Week
National Teacher Day
Memorial Day
Deadline for Local Association Newsletter Contest entries
TEA Representative Assembly, Nashville Convention Center
June 2014
June 1
June 18-21
Deadline for submitting nominations for
Don Sahli-Kathy Woodall Graduate Scholarship
TEA Summer Leadership Academy, Cool Springs Embassy Suites
THE ADVOCATE
is published monthly by the Bradley
County Education Association.
If you have questions or comments,
please contact:
Jane Doe, Editor
[email protected]
615.615.6156
Bradley County Education
Association
419 East Street
Anywhere, TN 12345
731.516.5165
BCEA is proud affiliate of the
Tennessee Education Association
and the National Education
Association
For additional assistance, contact
UniServ Coordinator Jane Doe,
423.324.2344
[Note to user: The information
above is a guide to the minimum
information that the masthead
should contain. You may choose
to also list officers, ARs, or other
local information.]
2014 TEA Legislative Victories
Legislation passed:
•
TVAAS barred from licensure - TEA's bill to prohibit the use of TVAAS in teacher
licensure decisions passed the General Assembly with overwhelming support. The bill now
awaits the governor's signature. TEA delivered a petition with 11,674 signatures to Gov. Haslam
this week asking him to sign the bill to treat educators as professionals.
•
PARCC delay - After TEA called for a moratorium on the use of the PARCC assessment
in February, the legislature voted to delay implementation of PARCC for the 2014-15 school
year. The state will instead issue a request for proposals to find a new test best suited to
Tennessee students.
•
Salary schedule reinstated - TEA's bill to reinstate the state minimum salary schedule
valuing years of experience and advanced degrees passed, but was amended. The amended
version states that an LEA may adopt a salary schedule that is identical in either structure or
designated salary levels or both to the salary schedule the LEA had in place during the 20122013 school year, with such schedule containing steps for each year of service up to and
including twenty (20) years and for the attainment of advanced degrees at the level of masters,
masters plus forty-five (45) hours of graduate credit, specialist in education and doctor of
education or doctor of philosophy.
•
Observation scores protected - The legislature passed TEA's bill to prohibit a forced
correlation between observation scores and TVAAS scores in teacher evaluation.
•
Limited tenured teacher suspension - The bill, written by TEA, prohibits a director of
schools from suspending a teacher who is under investigation for more than 90 days, except in
cases with criminal implications.
•
Planning time protected - TEA's bill to protect individual planning time for teachers
passed the General Assembly unanimously. The bill provides that duty-free teacher time for
instructional planning be allocated on an individual basis.
Legislation defeated:
•
Vouchers - The governor was forced to take his private school voucher bill off-notice
because of a lack of votes in the House Finance Committee, ending the bill's run for this session.
•
For-profit charters - A bill to allow for-profit companies to run public charter schools
failed in the House Calendar and Rules committee after Speaker Beth Harwell stepped in and
expressed her opposition to the bill.
•
Parent trigger law changes - A bill to change the state's parent trigger law by lowering the
percentage of parent votes required to take over a public school died in the House Budget subcommittee when bill sponsor Rep. John DeBerry was unable to get a motion from the committee
to even hear the bill.
•
Achievement School District enrollment- Rep. DeBerry's other bill, one to open
enrollment to the Achievement School District outside its zone, met the same fate. He was
unable to get a motion in the House Budget sub-committee to even discuss the bill.
TEA Slams Haslam’s Race to the Bottom in Education
Tennessee Education Association President Gera Summerford had harsh words for the
administration after Gov. Bill Haslam announced devastating cuts to public education in
Tennessee.
“Accountability – that is all we hear from the governor and other state officials when it
comes to public education. Where is their accountability?” said Gera Summerford, TEA
president and Sevier County math teacher. “State leaders need to be held accountable for the
abysmal job they are doing in taking care of our students and teachers.”
The governor’s cuts to teacher salaries and higher education continue the state’s race to the
bottom in education funding.”
“Educators are already performing miracles in the classroom every day with few resources.
Tennessee educators are deeply committed to providing a quality education for all students, but
at the end of the day they should also be able to provide for their own families. In order to attract
and retain the best teachers, it is critical that the state properly fund teacher salaries,”
Summerford said.
“Teachers and students work tirelessly to maintain a top 10 graduation rate, despite the fact
that Tennessee has now dropped below even Mississippi in per student investment. The state
tops only Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Utah. It seems the goal is to make sure
Tennessee is dead last in public education investment.”
“Nearly every neighboring state is doing a better job of providing for its students,” the TEA
president said. “Children cannot receive a proper education without a qualified teacher. It is time
state leaders put our children before corporate interests.”
Summerford continued, “The main cause of the budget deficit is a drop in the corporate
excise tax. The governor attributes this to businesses finding ‘loopholes they can exploit’ or a
change in business practices. TEA requested information in December on corporations in
Tennessee that pay little or no corporate excise tax, but we have yet to receive a response from
the state. There is no excuse for our students and teachers being the ones to suffer because the
state is not sufficiently taxing big corporations.”
“While parents and teachers want to see students succeed, a teacher’s dedication and hard
work can only go so far if she does not have the necessary resources to teach her students.
Teachers and school systems across the state are already functioning on minimal funding. Now
the governor is making it even more challenging to provide a quality education for all students,”
said Summerford.
Thief, Liar and Hypocrite Walk Into a Bar
By Carolyn Crowder
A thief, a liar and a hypocrite walk into a bar. They pull up to the counter and start swapping
stories on their favorite subject: how to destroy public education.
The thief says, “Public schools cannot operate if we take away their funding. I propose we
steal funding from public schools and give it to private schools. Eventually, there will be no
public schools and we won’t have to pay anything to educate other people’s children.”
The liar adds, “The best way to convince policymakers to take money from public schools is
to set the schools up to fail. Implement ‘reforms’ that focus everyone on test results that don’t
accurately portray what students are learning. Then make evaluation and licensure of teachers
depend on those results. Good teachers will be forced out of the profession because of an
inequitable accountability system or they will choose to leave because they get tired of teaching
the tests instead of the students. We also have to continue the rhetoric about failing schools and
failing teachers instead of poverty and home environments. Then we can act like humanitarians
as we say vouchers are for the poor kids in failing schools. We will have to ignore or discount
the fact that many private schools (90 percent in Florida) either don’t accept vouchers or have
tuition higher than vouchers are worth.”
The hypocrite says, “I am proud of you guys, but we have to do one more thing for this to
work. We have to make sure the reforms we push on public schools are not used in the schools
that receive vouchers. We can’t set those schools and teachers up to fail or our whole scheme
will be exposed.”
The three men then ask the bartender what she thinks of their ideas. (They don’t know she is
a public school teacher working her second job.)
She replies, “You haven’t come up with anything new. Vouchers have been proven not to
work. They don’t work for the kids you say they are for. (Two-thirds of all Cleveland vouchers
went to families already sending children to private schools.) They don’t work to improve
student achievement. (The most comprehensive study of the D.C. voucher program found ‘no
conclusive evidence’ of improved math and reading scores for students who used a voucher to
leave a public school for a private school.) So – who in the world do you think you can get to
buy into this old, failed idea?”
The three men respond in unison, “The Tennessee General Assembly.”
Carolyn Crowder is TEA executive director.
Civication Draws Hundreds to State Capitol
More than 700 educators visited Legislative Plaza in Nashville to advocate for students and
public schools during TEA Rally Days this spring.
Also dubbed Civication because they coincide with Tennessee teachers’ spring breaks, the
rallies allow TEA members to get a first-hand experience with their elected officials and to show
them how their laws affect local schools and communities.
Dawn Jones, president of Sequatchie Co. EA, took a Civication to visit with Rep. Ron Travis,
Sen. Janice Bowling and Rep. Craig Fitzhugh.
“It makes a big difference for us as teachers to make a personal contact with our legislators,
let them see what’s going on in our classroom and what we have to go through every day just to
survive,” Jones said. “Pay and evaluation are just one part of it. They need to know what we see
students going through with testing, not wanting to come to school. We’re here not just for
ourselves, but for the kids.”
Sequatchie Co. career and technical education director Melissa Tibbs came with her fifth-grade
daughter, Anna Kate, “to show her that our voices can be heard.”
Marsha Talley, director of special education in Sequatchie County and former association
president, said her mother used to bring her to the legislature and now she’s here to support
public schools.
“We’re in a fight for our public education system in the state of Tennessee,” Talley said. “I
feel like all the distractions we face — all the things that are thrown at us under the guise of
reforms — are meant to distract us from what’s important as private and charter schools take
money from public education.”
More Hypocrisy from Privateer Apologists
By Rick Colbert
As the legislative session winds down with consideration of new laws related to charter
schools, TVAAS in licensure and the new standardized PARCC testing that will accompany
Common Core, a notable proponent of school choice has raised a point worthy of closer
examination. Jay P. Greene is the department head and 21st century chair in education reform at
the University of Arkansas. Among his published works is a 2011 book called “Why America
Needs School Choice.” In his spare time, Greene also publishes a blog.
On January 20, 2014, Greene wrote a column in his blog called “Testing Requirements Hurt
Choice.” Yes, that’s right. This well-read proponent of school choice believes that imposing
standardized testing on students at choice schools would be unwise. His reasoning:
• Testing requirements hurt choice “because test results fail to capture most of the benefits
produced by choice schools.”
• Students at charter and private choice schools graduate and go to college at higher rates, go to
more competitive universities at higher rates, and enjoy high salaries; and “if you only looked at
short-term test results for these students you would not have expected the magnitude of these
benefits.”
• Imposing testing requirements “highlights a measure of performance that grossly understates
the benefits of choice.”
•State testing “makes choice schools look worse than they really are.”
Greene concludes: “If state testing requirements don’t necessarily make schools better and
fail to capture the bulk of the benefits choice schools are producing, then imposing state testing
requirements on choice schools just to do something is a really bad idea.”
Greene is on to something. As Harvard’s Strategic Data Project has noted, standardized tests do
not nearly measure all that we value in education.
But Greene’s analysis also begs an obvious question – if the elements that produce good
educational outcomes cannot be measured by standardized tests in choice schools, why are our
state’s education leaders so adamant about using such measures in our public schools? Instead of
spending millions on developing new tests that don’t measure what matters in good education
and on producing new TVAAS results with those flawed measures, wouldn’t our public schools
be much better if we devoted those resources to improving the components that actually produce
better outcomes? In a state that ranks near the very bottom nationally in what we invest per pupil
on education, why would we commit so much of our limited resources to a testing regime that
doesn’t measure what matters?
As Greene says, “doing something that is ineffective or counter-productive may be worse
than doing nothing.”
Rick Colbert is TEA general counsel.
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