A couple of weeks ago, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey met with a dozen pastors from Tennessee.  These pastors represented many different denominations and despite their theological differences, they all felt called to speak against Common Core.  They could not remain silent any longer when our children's futures are at stake.  They decided to do something about it.  

They met with Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey.  

These spiritual leaders read aloud to him some of the Common Core suggested exemplar text for high school students.  

(Legislators, remember when TN Parents tried to send you the some snippets from The Bluest Eyeby Toni Morrison, but the government email filters wouldn't even allow it to get to you because it was so profane?  We had to add all sorts of **** to get it through to your inboxes.   But it is a perfect example for high school juniors to read???  The same people that wrote the Common Core standards think so).

Anyway, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey turned red in embarrassment and finally said, "Stop! I don't want to hear that cr*p!"  

Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey then pledged his word, as a man of INTEGRITY, that he would not only get Common Core and PARCC out of our public schools in TN, but as "a man of INTEGRITY," he told those 12 Ordained Ministers that he would go even further than the House bill that had just overwhelmingly been amended to delay it 2 years.  He would do even better than that.  He said multiple times that "I am a man of my word.  I am a man of integrity."

Those men of God believed and trusted Ron Ramsey.  So did Rep. Womick who was told that the Conference Committee was including the delay of Common Core & PARCC and including strict wording to protect our children.

Integrity?

or a deliberate move by the Governor's puppets to force them to keep quiet?

until the last day of Legislative session.  Today.

TN Parents won't keep quiet.  We'll broadcast loud & clear which liars need to be voted out of office.  They have lost our trust.  We'll broadcast which politicians voted against our children.
 
Legislators: when you go home, exhausted after this Legislative session... will you be able to sleep at night knowing you have sold out our children to corporate interests?  
 

STOP bullying teachers!

and while we're at it, we demand that politicians:

STOP giving away our public schools!!!
 
We elected you to PROTECT and STRENGTHEN our communities, 
not weaken give them away to private interests to profit from.

Never before have parents become so politically involved.  We've been busy raising our families without any inclination to become involved in politics.  However, Common Core, excessive testing, school takeovers, the bullying of teachers, and greedy mismanagement by our elected officials has turned ordinary parents into political activists.  Don't be surprised by what happens during future elections when lifelong legislators find themselves out of jobs.  Parents know exactly which buttons to push in the ballot boxes: the names of servant leaders who will strengthen our world for future generations.

Something in me snapped today and I realized that I am finished using the phrase "education reform." 

That's how folks refer to the constellation of ideas firmly entrenched in the White House right now, upheld by almost every governor of every state, red and blue, and most mayors, notably our own. It includes the tenets that privatizing our schools will improve them, that the Common Core State Standards are the fix for all that ails our failing schools, and that testing our students more and more will raise test scores.  

But this, truly, is not "reform." Some of these are ideas that have been implemented for 25 years all over the country to little effect. 

This is the status quo. 

So I'm not going to call it reform anymore. 

I'm going to call it what it is. Corporate control of education. 

And here's why. In every instance, every plank in the platform, every element of this effort can be traced back to cash--flowing into the coffers of very rich corporate entities and individuals. 

Like Pearson, one of the testing companies that is creating the tests and the test prep materials, all new and improved and Common Core aligned, and who lobbies Congress to mandate more tests. 

Like Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, a huge proponent of charters and innovative uses of technology in schools. What kind of technology does he advocate as the best fix for students today? In Learning Lab modules at his Rocketship Charters kids sit at a computer monitor, streaming video content for 100 minutes per day.  

Or Rupert Murdoch. He is a cheerleader for what he calls a $500 billion industry of education technology including content and assessment.   

Or Bill Gates. His push for the Common Core, the inBloom initiative to harness students' big data, and his vision for the classrooms of the future, which will be heavily dependent on his own technologies. 

The proponents of this snake oil have managed to control the rhetoric for so long that we don't even blink when they say that their education plan is "the civil rights issue of our time." They say this a lot. 

So if we wish to stand up against the corporate control model we are not only anti-reform but anti-civil rights. 

They say they want "excellent teachers," and by this they mean they want to get rid of union teachers and replace them with uncertified, pensionless staff handling up to 50 kids at once who receive their education from handheld devices or monitors. 

They say they want "school choice," which usually means less choice: families can't choose their neighborhood schools that the city has underfunded to the point of death throes, pouring its available money instead into privately supported charters. 

They say they want all children to be "college and career ready," and to ensure this they prescribe as many as 25 standardized bubble tests every year starting in Kindergarten, using a standardized scripted curriculum. 

The testing piece is a critical component of corporate control of education. And it's very important to them that we don't question this. As we saw in Chicago, retribution for opting out of tests is real and administrators don't care if they have to isolate children to get them to rat on their teachers. Anything to stop parents, teachers, and principals from reconsidering what all these tests mean, how they contribute to children's education, and who they benefit. 

But the corporate education controllers will not accept that ordinary well-informed people are questioning their plan. They and the Department of Ed portray dissenters as Tea Party crazies or entitled white suburban moms who cannot face their disappointment that Boopsie is not actually a genius. 

Another grab for narrative control. The only possible opposition comes from insane people or delusional ones. 

But it's getting harder and harder to keep the little man hidden behind the curtain. It's getting harder and harder to uphold the illusion of the actually naked emperor's fancy new suit. 

Little bits of reality pop out now and again. 

Intertangled ugly trails of cash and power come to light--as in the (Chicago) Sun-Times' Dan Mihalopoulos' work on how many Illinois legislators are connected to Turkish power broker Fethullah Gulen and his charter schools. Just as a for instance. 

Or, perhaps, occasions of obvious cruelty to children becoming public. 

Like the CPS schools that have taken away play from 5 year olds by removing kitchens, blocks, paints, dolls, everything from Kindergarten. {TN Parent note: These were removed from TN kindergarten classes several years ago}  Because "Kindergarten is the new first grade" and we have to get these little dudes college and career ready. (I am assuming this also means that 5 is now the new 6.) 

Enough little bits of reality have popped out that folks are starting to notice. The stranglehold grip on the narrative held by the corporate education controllers is beginning to weaken. Because we can all see with our own eyes that it isn't actually civil rights for kids to have their school closed or subjected to a turnaround. It isn't actually higher order critical thinking to bubble in bubbles. And it isn't education and it isn't reform to work toward the dismantling of public schools in our city and our country. 

It's stale old rhetoric that is losing its power. And it can no longer conceal the naked emperor, nor the naked greed of the corporate power grabbers.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Julie Vassilatos blogs as South Side CPS Mom in Chicago. She provides a valuable and important perspective on education everywhere. She graciously gave us permission to share her article with our elected officials and on our TN Parents website

My 4th grade child is a typical 'A' student.  She's a confident writer and story teller. She's even won some poetry contests. Her teacher prepared her class for the PARCC test with assignments that mimicked the way the questions would be asked on PARCC. On the practice assignments using paper, my child felt she did very well comparing and contrasting two stories and writing about them. But when it came time to do the practice PARCC online, my child struggled.

The computer interface was a split screen and the editing tools were unfamiliar. My child came home crying. She was distraught that she only completed one paragraph because it took her too long to edit.

She was angry with the computer testing. "Why can't we just do this on paper so I can show them what I know?"

The anger and frustration at the tool is abusive.  Especially for little kids who are not prepared emotionally for the frustration.  What are we doing to our kids?

My kid is not your lab rat. 

- from a TN parent in Nashville, TN

A Mom in New York (who is actually PRO-Common Core) took a video of her child doing an easy PARCC math sample question on the PARCC website. The Mom wrote:

"The website has a link that allows you to, and I quote: “Try out sample test questions in their intended environment.”

So I did.

And I was frustrated.  Immensely frustrated.

But then I realized that no one is going to care about my descriptions of my frustration with “the sample test questions in their intended environment.”  But maybe someone will care about my daughter’s frustration.  After all, she’s 9.  She’s currently in third grade.  She will be taking these tests a year from now.  And she’s a good kid, she’s a strong student, and she is game to try new things.

So I asked her to try one of the sample questions.  A few minutes in, when I got a sense of how frustrating the process was for her, I asked her permission to video her attempts to get the interface to work.  

Click HERE to see the video of how it went for that Mom & child who had up-to-date technology and more patience than most.

This PARCC test is not rigorous, it is RIDICULOUS.
It is a ridiculous waste of our tax money.
It is a ridiculous waste of our children's time.

This does not show how much a child has learned, it shows how computer literate the child is to figure out this confusing, frustrating format.  Affluent children with a computers in their homes will have a clear advantage over children who do not.  This will widen the achievement gap even more than it already is.
 

Legislators:  If you vote against HB1129/SB1266 and its amendments to allow the TNDOE to give our children this expensive, ridiculous PARCC test, there will be a boatload of frustrated parents and teachers contacting you next year about getting rid of Common Core.  And even though you will try to tell them that Common Core "is just standards," they know better.  They won't believe you.  They will remember you allowed it to happen and they will campaign against you in your next election.  Education is a key issue to parents because our children mean more to us than anything else in this world.   
 

Tennessee Momma Bears uncovered a dirty little secret about a corporately-funded out-of-state organization in TN that claims to advocate for students.  All politicians should be aware of this, especially since many Senators, Representatives, and School Board members have accepted significant campaign contributions from this organization believing that it represented real people.  Read what the Momma Bears found:

Momma Bears has often wondered about the gullible people who fall for the StudentsFirst sales pitch.  StudentsFirst is an underhanded, astroturf organization funded by corporate billionaires (HERE and HERE).  This is Michelle Rhee's group.  Yes, the same Michelle Rhee that legislators don't want to be associated with because she has such a bad reputation. How on earth do they have over 75,000 "likes" on Facebook?  
The people commenting on their posts obviously don't agree with them (read them when you need a laugh, it is pretty funny).  They rarely get any "likes" at all on their posts despite having 75,000 "members" on their facebook page.

Well, we found the answer...  those gullible people were really not people at all!!!   

StudentsFirst's Facebook "likes" were bought from Bangladesh!!!   

We aren't kidding!  Look: 

See that their most popular city is Istanbul, Turkey?
See that their most popular age group is 18-24 year olds?
See how the graph lines were pretty low until it spiked the week of March 9?

Yep, apparently, someone bought themselves some cheap, overseas popularity... because informed parents sure don't "like" what StudentsFirst is pushing on our kids and schools in America!  

  No, we don't "like" their corporate donors profiting from our kids and our public schools.  
  No, we don't "like" their stinking vouchers or manipulative parent trigger law. 
  No, we don't "like" our kids doing common core.
  No, we don't "like" our public schools converted to charter schools for their profit at the expense of our children. 

Smart parents want strong neighborhood public schools in their communities,which is the total opposite of what StudentsFirst spends its millions of dollars on in our state to lobby our elected officials and fund campaigns to sway our politicians.  

StudentsFirst is, literally, buying votes in TN.  Unfortunately, their money in TN makes them very popular.  The TN legislators who received the most money from StudentsFirst (Senator Delores Gresham, Rep. John DeBerry, and the members of the Education committees) vote lock-step with what StudentsFirst wants. Every. Single. Time.  (That's a big reason that the TN House just circumvented those bought & paid-for committee members by hijacking a bill and adding amendments on it to delay PARCC & common core.)

FAUX Parents
This is what we Momma Bears now like to affectionately call, "Faux Parents."  See, when Commissioner Kevin Huffman told a group of rich Chamber of Commerce people that he couldn't possibly listen to parents because there are many "Faux Parent" groups in TN with ulterior motives, we thought he was talking about Momma Bears and groups like ours.  Obviously, we were wrong.  He was talking about his ex-wife's organization, StudentsFirst!  (Okay, he really was probably talking about us and trying to discredit our voices, but still, you gotta note the irony of his claim and the truth of StudentsFirst's purchased popularity!)   Check out the Twitter storm (#fauxparent) to see pictures of real parents holding signs about being a "faux parent."  Parents, sure do have great senses of humor!

The sad part of this can be stated by a mom who said this:

"StudentsFirst has lobbyists galore up on the hill telling our legislators that they are speaking on behalf of parents. They are just neglecting to mention that the parents are living in Bangladesh not the US and certainly not Tennessee."  

With tongue-in-cheek, she also says:

"Clearly Rhee (Michelle Rhee, CEO of StudentsFirst) is not on her "A" game because her home state of California only has 241 likes on it. Seems like someone needs to put a call in to the folks in Bangladesh and get that fixed."


Considering Michelle Rhee's cheating scandal and how her organization has paid big campaign bucks to gullible politicians, this Facebook debacle doesn't surprise Momma Bears one bit.

I had a kindergarten student who made it to school on average twice a week. We had a meeting with the parent and she explained that she was too close to the school for bus transportation and that she shared a car with her boyfriend and didn't always have access to it. She also worked nights and sometimes didn't get home in time to walk her four children to school. She was not comfortable allowing them to cross a busy four lane road without a crossing guard. Before I could think, I offered to pick the children up for school and bring them home each day. My principal commended my offer, but also warned this was a personal liability and that I was risking being late to work. She also explained she would not be able to excuse any late arrivals I may have. I told her I had faith in my decision and that I didn't forsee any issues. I explained we could cross that bridge if we even arrived at it. I was never late and thoroughly enjoyed my time with a most gracious family.
- A teacher in Shelby County, TN

This past fall a former student called me and told me that her grandmother had died. She wanted my help because her mother wanted to read a poem at her grandmother's service. At the end of the day I met with her and gave her a poem for her mother to read. I got a hug in exchange.  
- A teacher in Norris, TN

My strength as a teacher has always been developing relationships with my students. The most important thing I think I have ever done in my teaching career happened when a female student confided in me with a dark secret that she had been enduring for years. Her mom and stepdad had been molesting her for a number of years. She had never told anyone. I was shocked. I immediately talked to the right people to get her help. The parents went to prison. She went through many tough years due to all she had been through. She ran away several times. Whatever happened, we remained in touch. The bond we developed never ended. She is now in her early twenties in a serious relationship with soon to be stepchildren. She will be starting college soon. She still calls me and send me pictures of her and her family. She means so much to me. What we experienced together changed so much about me and how I view the world. I now am always looking for these kids and sadly, have found quite a few more in similar situations.
- A teacher in Tipton County, TN

A few years ago two former students invited me to go to the midnight showing of the opening of a Harry Potter movie. I taught them in 5th grade and they were college sophomores. Their invitation said, "Reading is the reason that we're still such good friends, and you reading Harry Potter to us is the reason that we both still love to read." 
- A teacher in Knox County

My Principal received an email from a parent saying how much they appreciated me for teaching their daughter the "love" of reading
- A TN teacher, district unknown

My daughter's teacher called my husband to let him know that our daughter broke down crying after not being able to answer questions on the constructed response assessment (a Common Core test). She, along with other teachers & guidance counselors, loved on our daughter and let her know her value isn't measured by ridiculous tests.
- A parent in Franklin County, TN

I have a group of 6-10 boys who don't like to eat in the cafeteria. They come to my room. No duty-free lunch for me, but I like these kids and appreciate that they don't like the crowd-scene in the cafeteria. I provide low-key counseling.
- A Norris, TN teacher
 
I teach all seniors- this student graduated last year- I mentored her the entire Spring semester when she was was cutting herself to deal with stress, anger, and emotional pain. She was also considering suicide. I was on call 24 hr for her to text me if she was in danger of cutting or going over the edge. We are still very close--I took her to get her first tattoo after graduation before she went to college in the fall. She also brought her boyfriend by my house- for me to meet- and approve of- this year. -she recently sent me this message. "S" is her boyfriend. "I'm really glad we're friends. S*** told me to thank you. He's 100% sure you saved my life." 
- A selfless TN teacher in Winchester, TN

I have a girl in one class whose mother died a couple of years' ago. She has never been clear about how her mother died. She says that she doesn't know. This girl is always at my side. Always wants to sit at the front of the class. Always wants lots of attention from me. I found her to be exhausting at first, but now I know why she is so needy. I give her lots of attention.  
- a teacher from Metro Nashville, TN
 
The best compliment I ever got......a parent told me that her daughter had said to her, "Mom, if I ever needed anything, I know I could go to Mrs. Hopson and she would help me out." 
- Teacher of the Year for 2013-14 in Knox County, TN
 
I read Darren Shan's series of Cirque du Freak books to my students. They liked them so much the librarian had to order more of them, and they asked for the books for presents. We even met one Saturday to watch the movie together
-teacher from Knoxville, TN

7 years ago the house of a student of mine burnt to the ground. She and her mother were both very large plus-sizes, so I guessed that most clothing donated to the family by the general public would not fit them. I am a plus size, so I immediately went home and cleaned out my closets and drawers and filled three extra large plastic bags with clothes and shoes and accessories. When the girl returned to school in a couple of days, I told her discretely during class that I had some donated clothes for to take home. Her mom met me in the pick up line after school to load the three sacks of clothes into her car, and she and her daughter were so appreciative of the bright, colorful and stylish plus-size clothes. For the rest of the semester, it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside to see the girl wearing some of my donations. She told me that her mother had chosen more of the clothes because the style was more for women than for teens, but she was thankful for all that i had given them since they had lost everything.
- A teacher in Murfreesboro, TN

I worked w/3 other amazing 6th grade teachers. We had a handful of kids we knew were pretty much on their own once they went home. Weekends were a terribly long time to these kids. We made sure that each one of them went home each Friday w/enough food to last them (and their siblings) the weekend. When winter came- they had coats, hats, gloves and anything else they needed. 
- A Teacher in Washington County, TN

I have volunteered my time to tutor my low kids in reading and math for the past 2 years... with NO PAY involved
- A selfless TN teacher
 
It is impossible to put a numerical rating on the value of teachers. 

Have you ever met a rich teacher???  We haven't.  They aren't in the teaching profession to get rich, they are in it to make a difference in children's lives.  Teachers are down-to-earth, hard-working, servant-leaders.  They deserve respect and admiration.

***Legislators: please vote YES for the Teacher Respect Act (HB 2263 / SB 2047) which prohibits the use of test scores for teacher license decisions.  Don't let the State bully teachers any more.

Some brave teachers, who are also Moms & Dads, have made the difficult choice to defy their district administration and the TN Department of Education.  These teachers have REFUSED testing for their OWN children.  Teachers are required by the state and district to administer the tests to students in their classes.  However, the state and district cannot trump their parental rights to do what is best for their own children.


Why did they do it?  One teacher tells why...
As a teacher, I made a decision for my own children, as their parent. I am most fortunate to be very involved in my children's education. I'm sure most parents feel the exact same way. Unless you are a teacher, you really aren't as involved as you think you are. I teach for the same system my children are educated in. I know things that I'm grateful to know, but at the same time the wind is often knocked clean out of me because of what I know. Because of what I know, I chose to opt my children out of unnecessary testing.

• I chose to opt my children out of computerized testing as a means of determining intervention needs.
• I opted my children out of tests that contain material they haven't been taught yet according to the curriculum maps teachers follow.
• I opted my children out of tests written for the sole purpose of assisting the developers of PARCC test which will replace TCAP next school year.
• I opted my children out of feelings of failure when material is placed in front of them that they haven't been exposed to yet, in the form of a test. I opted their teachers out of feelings of betrayal because that's how we feel when we do this to the children we teach.
• I opted my children out of the DEA, given three times per year as a predictive measure to determine how they might perform on TCAP. The DEA is also full of skills not introduced according to the curriculum maps. Test A - 18 of 32 skills not introduced yet. Test B - 19 of 32 skills not introduced yet.  
• I opted my children out of the CRA which is an assessment used for the sole purpose of assisting the developers of PARCC, and is written in a form that children are not capable of being successful on.
• I opted my children out the practice writing assessment for the practice writing assessment which I opted them out of too. Really? Practice for practice? Not to mention, it is computerized and children as young as 8 are expected to sit at a computer for two hours to analyze informational texts and write an essay through typing their responses. Our children do not know how to type.
• I opted my children out of IStation computerized testing to determine if they have a need for intervention.
• I opted my children out of all computerized programs designed to determine their needs. I chose to leave that up to their highly qualified teachers. 

As a teacher, I must endure the guilt and shame I feel each time I test my students on material they haven't been yet exposed. As a parent, I will not tolerate such with my children.
- A teacher and mother in Shelby County
 

How did they do it?
It is simple.  These brave parents simply sent letters and emails of refusal  to their sons' and daughters' teachers and principals stating that they will not allow their child to take the tests. (Note the wording says "refusal" and not "opt-out" since TN does not have an "opt-out" law, yet, and the attorney general seems to be forcing parents into testing their children against their wishes by saying it is not "legal" to "opt-out")

Some states have laws and policies that allow parents to opt their children out.  Tennessee does not.  Yet...  
There is currently a Bill in the Legislature that, if it passes, would allow parents to legally Opt-Out of testing for their children without penalties (HB 1841 / SB 2221) .  The Bill's sponsor, Rep. Gloria Johnson, is also a teacher.  (Unfortunately, a half a BILLION dollar fiscal note has been attached to the bill, and the bill has been rolled to the final calendar to prevent it from passing.  Contact Governor Haslam if you're not happy about that.  His phone # is 615-741-2001 and his email is: bill.haslam@tn.gov). 

What are the repercussions of REFUSING tests?
In TN, refusing or opting a child out of the TCAP test counts as a zero on the child's final report card (state mandated 15%-25%).  In some districts, this means that 10% of a child's final English grade will be a zero, and 10% of a child's final Math grade will be a zero.  (Check with your local school district to find out).  Despite the lower report card grades, having to keep their children at home on testing days, and having unexcused absences on their child's records, parents feel strongly enough that the tests are inappropriate for their children to REFUSE the tests for their children.  
(This could work: Parents in other states have gotten around the testing by un-enrolling their children from school to "homeschool" before the mandated test and then re-enrolling them after the testing window is completed.  This method works to avoid hurting the child's report card grade and attendance, but, gosh, it sure is a hassle!)
 

Links to Opt-Out testing websites & groups:
United Opt-Out website
United Opt-Out in Tennessee website
Stop TN Testing website
Stop TN Testing Madness facebook group
Stop TN Testing facebook page
Knox County Parents Against Testing facebook page
Williamson County Parents Concerned about Common Core & Testing facebook group

 
These brave teachers and parents are sending a clear message that they do not agree with the tests and that their child is more than a test score.

 

1) This bill, as written, does not apply to charter schools; therefore, county commissions will not have the authority to control lobbying expenditures by charter schools. This seems extremely unfair because charter schools use public money just like zoned schools. This is just another example of how charter schools are treated differently than traditional, zoned schools in our state. 

2) There are actually 59 registered lobbyists (not 31 as we originally reported) that are pushing privatization and/or testing agendas that, in our opinion, are undermining public schools in Tennessee.  

Here is an UPDATED list of all of these groups and the number of lobbyists they employ:
1. Tennessee Federation of Children (charters, vouchers): 5 lobbyists
2. Tennessee Charter Center: 8 lobbyists
3. Stand for Children (charters, vouchers): 2 lobbyists
4. Beacon Center of TN (vouchers): 2 lobbyists
5. Pearson, Inc. (high-stakes testing): 1 lobbyist
6. K-12, Inc. (for-profit virtual charter schools): 5 lobbyists
7. Aspire Charter Schools: 1 lobbyist (They've had as many as 3.) 
8. National Heritage Academies (for-profit charter company): 3 lobbyists
9. Charter Schools USA (for-profit charter company): 3 lobbyists
10. Education 2020 (K-12, Inc. competitor): 2 lobbyists
11. Connections Education (for-profit virtual charter school): 1 lobbyist
12. SCORE (charters): 2 lobbyists 
13. Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce (They support this bill and lobby for charters.): 5 lobbyists
14. Rennaissance Learning (testing): 4 lobbyists
15. Parent Power Fund (parent-trigger bill): 1 lobbyists 
16. Public Consulting Group: 1 lobbyist 
17. Americans for Prosperity (They support vouchers, charters, and HB 2293): 2 lobbyists
18. Catholic Public Policy Commission of TN (vouchers): 3 lobbyists 

     And last, but definitely not least, 

19. StudentsFirst (charters, vouchers, and Michelle Rhee!): 8 lobbyists

Final Score:
PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION = 6 lobbyists
PRIVATIZATION/TESTING = 59 lobbyists

3) We have heard from some Tennesseans in a particular county that they asked the current sponsor, Rep. Jeremy Durham, to introduce the bill because they are upset with a particular lobbyist their school district is using to lobby for them. We agree on many issues with them, so we hope to not offend them, but we also hope that they understand that this bill, which is a reaction to something that is happening at a local level has serious repercussions for the rest of our state. And the fact that a group such as StudentsFirst supports this bill should set off alarm bells because this organization has made no effort to hide their belief that elected school boards should be bypassed and handed over to other elected officials, including mayors and governors. 

How this bill could be devastating for other districts across Tennessee:

This bill could really hurt the newly formed municipal public school districts in Shelby County and Memphis.  Over the past 2 years, the Shelby County Commission sued the municipal districts.  There is no doubt that the animosity that the Commission has towards these districts will result in them cutting lobbying out of their budgets. (Please note that the bill is not clear in how it relates to municipal districts and commissions, but based on the overriding theme of the bill, it appears that the Shelby County Commission would likely have the authority to veto municipal-district lobbying monies.) 

In Metro Nashville the Mayor is very much in favor of charters and vouchers and there is little doubt that he will attempt to pressure the City Council to cut lobbying out of the school board budget as well. (It should be noted that the lobbyists that represent Metro Nashville Public Schools lobby against vouchers, for-profit charters, and the state charter authorizer.) 

Some claim that, in the state of Tennessee, county commissions currently have line item veto power over every other county department except for school districts and this would just allow commissions to exercise that same authority over them. But, and this is a very big BUT, the departments over which they exert this authority are appointed by the commissions--they are not elected by voters. School boards, which oversee the development of budgets, are elected by their constituents for the sole purpose of overseeing the function of their schools. County commissions were not elected for this purpose and, thereby, should not have the authority to override the will of the voters who selected, by virtue of their votes, the members of  a  school board.

Some Knox County residents and teachers have been very unhappy with the actions of their school board and school superintendent. But instead of pushing for legislation that could override the will of every elected school board in the state, they are clearly expressing their disapproval for the school board's actions and will this year elect school board candidates who will support their agenda. It seems that this approach would be effective for the county in question because it will help resolve their concerns and it will continue to give elected school boards the right to determine if they need to pay for lobbyists. And it will protect the county if, in the future, a pro-privatization commission is elected and denies money for lobbying, which will leave the county district with little defense against a variety of destructive bills such as for-profit charters, a state-level charter authorizer, and vouchers that will interject Common Core into private schools. And, believe us, the costs of these lobbyists is far cheaper than the costs taxpayers will incur if the lobbyists for "privatizers" have free reign at Legislative Plaza! 

With all due respect for some of the supporters of this bill, this seems to be the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to kill a fly when a simple fly swatter would do. We respectfully urge you to attempt to work out your concerns with your locally elected school board rather than pushing this bill onto the entire state. This will have very serious repercussions for many counties and, ironically, could very well end up backfiring and creating problems for those in the very county who support it. 

We urge those of you reading this to contact Rep. Jeremy Durham and ask him to pull HB 2293. If you are in Williamson County and/or are one of his constituents, it is vitally important that you contact him and let him know that you feel it is a very dangerous bill that sets a terrible precedent. His phone number is 615-741-1864 and his email is rep.jeremy.durham@capitol.tn.gov. You can also contact the members of the Local Government Committee that is meeting on Tuesday and ask them to vote against the bill:

Good grief... with all those lobbyists, legislators must be worn out!  As one parent said, "it must be like a swarm of mosquitoes at the Capitol, all hungry for our children's education dollars." 

It is no wonder our legislators think our public schools are failing and that the only way to fix it is with the magic charter school or voucher recipes they've been sold by well-paid, professional lobbyists with PR staff who are masters at manipulating data and creating glossy pamphlets.

Legislators, our schools are NOT what you've been told.  Believe US, the parents.  We're in these public schools daily.  We talk to teachers.  Trust us, we know.  We are public school parents from across the Tennessee.  (note from this TNParent author: My kids proudly attend Title 1 schools)

• Yes, our children are bombarded with too many tests.
• Yes, our children's hard-working teachers are beaten down from the testing mandates and unfair evaluation systems.
• Yes, Common Core is making it all much, much worse.
• Yes, our schools need more funding because they've been doing miracles with the meager dollars they've had to work with.

But, NO... we do not need charter schools, not vouchers, not Common Core, not more standardized tests or testing products, and certainly not more oversight or micromanaging by the TN DOE.  Let teachers teach.  

Please, listen to parents.  We are telling the truth.  We are not paid one penny for writing these emails.  Honestly, we have no clue what we are doing, no lobbying experience among any of us, but it seems that our voices ARE being heard by some of you.  We greatly appreciate your responses and questions.  We will continue to share our voices because our children are worth it.
   

The Rutherford County Board of Education is not dumb.  They know that the Governor and his appointed leaders are stealing control from local school districts and giving them to entrepreneurs to profit from.  They also know that lobbyists funded by out-of-state interests are hounding legislators to pass laws to dismantle our public schools and benefit their wallets.   

Tennessee Parents give a standing ovation to Rutherford County Board of Education for this excellent Resolution: