We apologize if it is difficult to read the above letter from a TN school asking families to do a fundraiser to pay for Common Core instructional materials.  The parent was so disgusted that she crumpled the letter up and threw it in the trash.  Then she thought better, took it out of the trash, snapped a picture, put it on Facebook with an angry message, tore the letter into tiny pieces, and then threw it away.  

PTAs and PTOs used to do fundraisers to pay for special things for their schools like playgrounds, field trips, and outdoor classrooms.  Now, many school organizations are fundraising to purchase Common Core materials and computers for Common Core testing.  This is so sad for those children.

Conversations and Facebook posts from fed-up parents about fuzzy, frustrating common core math and Islam homework assignments are multiplying.  And the school year just started!  This Common Core commotion is not going away.  

Common Core is not rigorous, it is ridiculous... 
Meaning, it is making some people ridiculously rich. 

This week's Education Summit that Governor Haslam is hosting in Nashville is one of those exclusive events for ridiculously rich people to attend.  The people invited to Haslam's exclusive event are mostly all supporters of his reforms and of Common Core.  They are "invested" as "stakeholders" in public education, and many of them make six-figure salaries from these reforms.  In fact, some of these "stakeholders" (such as SCORE) would not have jobs without Common Core in Tennessee (thanks to money from Bill Gates).  According to SCORE's tax return, Jamie Woodson, CEO of SCORE and former TN Senator, made a sweet salary package of $328,361 (including a $25,000 bonus) and SCORE COO, Sharon Roberts, made over $160,000.  It is an obvious case of the Governor is stark naked, but nobody wants to say anything because they are all making big bucks from selling him the invisible clothes.

It is also very important to notice that there are no public school parents included at the table of the Governor's Summit.  The only parent representation is the TN Parent Teacher Association (PTA).  But, did you know that the TN PTA executive board members do not even have children currently in school? and that the National PTA has accepted millions of dollars from Bill Gates to support Common Core, some of  which was given to PTA before the Common Core standards were even finished?  

If you are lucky enough to be invited to Haslam's dog & pony show, be sure to stop and talk to the protesting parents and grandparents outside.  Ask them how Common Core is affecting their children.  Ask them why they are refusing to allow their children to take the tests.  If you're wondering where all the teachers are, they are at school teaching because notice that this summit was strategically scheduled on a school day at a time that teachers are unable to attend.  (Although, there may be some teachers there who take one of their precious personal days to bravely protest for their students).

Follow the money, and you'll find the motives.  That is what TN Parents does for free.

A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR CIVIL LAWSUIT HAS BEEN FILED AGAINST KEVIN HUFFMAN, CHRIS BARBIC, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, TENNESSEE ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHARTER SCHOOL AUTHORIZERS AND YES PREPARATORY ACADEMY

Rodney O. Ursery, J.D. and Clara D. West, Ph.D. are the Plaintiffs Who Filed the Lawsuit In Pro Se

Memphis, TN (September 8, 2014) – Rodney O. Ursery and Clara D. West, two former applicants for a charter operator’s authorization for the 2014/2015 school year, have filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Kevin Huffman, Commissioner of Tennessee Department of Education (“TDOE”); Chris Barbic, Superintendent of the Tennessee Achievement School District (“TASD”); as well as the TDOE and TASD; along with two other defendants: the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (“NACSA”) and YES Preparatory Academy (“YES Prep”).

Among the thirteen causes of action, the complaint alleges unfair business practices, violations of Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, civil conspiracy, and violations of constitutionally protected rights. The lawsuit seeks a court order prohibiting YES Prep, a charter school enterprise headquartered in Texas, from opening schools that it illegally obtained in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil action, which also requests a jury trial, was filed in the 30th Judicial District Chancery Court, Shelby County, Tennessee.

Ursery states, “For far too long, it has been recognized and stated in the court of public opinion that Huffman and Barbic have utterly abused the power of their positions when it comes to regulating the Tennessee's school system. Now, I’m confident that their reign of terror, which has been plagued with conspiracies among crooks and cronies, will finally be revealed in a court of law, that is, if justice prevails.” West added, “It's as if we have to fight Brown v. Topeka Board of Education again. Our proposal offered equity in education through student-centered learning using individualized learning plans and iPads, just like the countries that consistently outrank the U.S. in education. We were unfairly denied the opportunity to help educate the lowest-performing students, who the system has already left behind and identified as the future prison population. It's all about leveling the playing field.”

According to the complaint, the defendants deliberately designed and implemented discriminatory selection and approval practices, customs and procedures to deny Plaintiffs’ application. The lawsuit further alleges that during the time when TASD solicited Requests for Qualification to apply for a charter operator’s authorization for the 2014/2015 school year, Barbic, TASD and NACSA conspired to approve charter operator’s authorization(s) for the 2015/2016 school year, an opportunity, which was made available only to YES Prep. It is alleged that Barbic, founder and former Chief Executive Officer of YES Prep, illegally authorized YES Prep to seize nearly 6,000 elementary school students in Memphis, TN.

Moreover, the lawsuit alleges that NACSA, who “partnered with” TASD to provide support and management services for the application process, is not a “professional” organization. NACSA does not have any government-approved, professional standards of operations; nor state licensing or certification; and it is not subject to any government agency, review board or code of ethics to govern its acts. Finally, the lawsuit states that Huffman and TDOE enacted a regulation which granted Barbic and TASD carte blanche to deny due process to applicants who are denied charter operator’s authorizations as there is absolutely no redress, grievance or appeal process to review any of the defendants’ actions.

For more information, contact the plaintiffs at: ru4justice@facebook.com or 901.300.0162.

This lawsuit is brought by two individuals claiming $10 million in damages because they were denied charter operator authorization by the ASD. $10 million dollars!!!  Those damages are a clear-cut case for how profitable a charter operator authorization can be.

Interesting how a potential charter school is suing some big guns in TN over unfair business practices, isn't it?

We've heard for years how there is a severe case of the good ol' boys club, "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine," nepotism within the TN DOE between other self-serving high-dollar organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and SCORE.  

It is hard to ignore the evidence of that nepotism when you read how:

• TN pays more than any other state for Teach for America temporary teachers through a $6+million NO-BID contract signed by Kevin Huffman, who formerly had a cushy job at Teach For America.  
• Our public schools are strangled, teachers and administrators are cut, and then the students, buildings, and tax dollars are handed over on silver platters along with generous grant dollars and tax incentives to their buddies' charter chains (like YES Prep, where ASD Superintendent Chris Barbic has very close ties and has richly profited from).
• The ASD schools have worse results than the public schools they killed ever did, but the ASD schools aren't feeling the wrath of the TNDOE's micromanaging and bullying like the public schools.
• Charter schools are making some people very, very rich. 
• Charter schools get preferential treatment within districts and the state:
• charters are exempt and/or given waivers from TCAP score accountability (especially if they are friends and/or donors to politicians)
• charters are exempt from giving the expensive and time-consuming benchmark RTI2 assessment tests that public schools are now being forced to do by the TNDOE.

When we allow corporate greed to infect public education, it is to be expected that profiteers will attack each other over business practices. We hope that this lawsuit will shine a light on these shady practices.

Perhaps this isn't "dog eat dog" but more like a pack of dogs attacking public schools.  If the plaintiffs win, where will that $10 million come from?  Public school funding???

A parent in Nashville recently sent us this post. And now we know why some very wealthy people, who have never sent their own children to public schools, are so supportive of Common Core:

Why have some extremely wealthy Tennesseans who have never attended, nor sent their children to, public schools been so involved with pushing education "reform" and Common Core? The following are facts of how some of these very wealthy individuals are making money big bucks:
 
Orrin Ingram of Ingram Industries is a Tennessee State Collaboration on Reforming Education (SCORE) Board Member. SCORE is nonprofit group established by former senator Bill Frist and it strongly supports the new Common Core standards. In an effort to promote the standards, SCORE established the "Expect More, Achieve More" campaign that includes a snazzy website, glossy brochures, and fliers that are sent home from school with students. And, not surprisingly, Ingram Industries signed on as a "coalition member" for the Expect More, Achieve More campaign. (Side note: Just a few months ago, SCORE received a $250,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help promote the CC standards. Hmm.....)

Here is where it gets very interesting: Ingram Industries is making money off of developing and distributing Common Core products. For example, a press release from Ingram Content Group stated that, "the New York State Education Department has selected Vital Source Technologies, Inc., in collaboration with SchoolWorks® LLC., to develop a comprehensive library of professional development videos to support the implementation of Common Core Learning Standards throughout New York State." According to the press release, "Ingram Content Group Inc. is a subsidiary of Nashville-based Ingram Industries Inc. The company provides books, music and media content to over 39,000 retailers, libraries, schools and distribution partners in 195 countries." (Vital Source Technologies, which was awarded this contract, is one of "Ingram's operating units".) This video project, interestingly, is being funded by a $3.7 million dollar Race to the Top (RTTT) Grant. (Click here to see the press release.)
 
But that's not all! Apparently Tennessee is also using VitalSource Technologies (i.e., Ingram Industries) videos for teacher training on Common Core: The Ayers Institute at Lipscomb University received a grant from the state of TN (i.e., the Tennessee Higher Education Commission) "to create resources for university faculty to use when preparing new teachers to employ the national and state-adopted Common Core Standards." At a subsequent Common Core training seminar at the Ayers Institute, it was noted that, "VitalSource Technologies, a division of Ingram Content,
produced the video series” they will be using to train new teachers (pg.10). (Click here to see a link to the presentation.) And, just as in NY, the Common Core training project being developed at Lipscomb and, subsequently, the videos produced for the project by Vital Source Technologies are funded by Race to the Top monies (pg. 8).
 
FYI: The Ayers Institute was founded in 2012 "as a partnership between the Ayers Foundation and Lipscomb University’s College of Education." (As you can guess, Jim Ayers was the founder of Ayers Foundation.) Jim Ayers and his wife, Janet, donated an initial contribution of 1 million dollars to the Ayers Institute at Lipscomb. Mr. Ayers is a former board member of SCORE and Mrs. Ayers is a current board member of SCORE and a member of the TN State Board of Education. [Please note that Rep. Harry Brooks (Chair of the House Education Committee), Rep. John DeBerry (Member of the House Education Committee), Sen. Delores Gresham (Chair of the Senate Education Committee), and Rep. Beth Harwell (Speaker of the House) are all on the SCORE steering committee.]
 
Now how did the Ayers Institute receive the grant to develop the Common Core training program for new teachers in TN? We do not know. But we do know that Ayers Asset Management, which is owned by Jim Ayers, donated the maximum allowed amount to Haslam's inauguration fund. According to a Chattanooga Times-Free Press article on the donations, "Corporations are banned from making direct contributions to candidates in elections, but are allowed to give up to $7,500 to inaugurations." Janet and Jim Ayers also personally donated $53,000 and $19,500 to Haslam in 2010 and 2012, respectively.
 
Now back to Ingram Industries: Ingram Industries also donated the maximum amount to Haslam’s inauguration fund. In addition to this business contribution, Orrin Ingram--CEO of Ingram Industries--donated $7000 to Haslam for his 2010 Gubernatorial campaign. (He also donated $5000 to Haslam in 2012.)

A short list of Ingram Industries executives and subsidiaries who also recently contributed to Haslam: 

• Martha Ingram (Chairperson of Ingram Industries) = $10,303 (2010) 
• John R Ingram (Chairman of Ingram Industries Board of Directors & Chairman/CEO of Ingram Content Group)= $7500 (2010)/$2800 (2012)
• David Ingram (Chairman and President of Ingram Entertainment)= $17,000 (2010)/$4000 (2012)\
• Ingram Barge Co. = $3500 (2010)

A further review of Haslam's contributions lists from 2010 & 2012 also reveals a variety of high dollar donations from Ingram Industries executives’ family members. (Click here and here for documentation of donations to Haslam from the Ingram family.)
 
We want to know how the state chose Ayers Institute and VitalSource Technologies to receive these RTT grants/contracts. Given Haslam’s past history with approving no-bid contracts, we would not be surprised if the RTTT money was divvied out with little regard for a fair bidding process. We also strongly suspect some members of SCORE—such as the Ingrams and Ayers—may not be part of the push for education reform for purely philanthropic reasons.
 

Ask yourself: Why do the Ingrams and the Ayers support Common Core and SCORE? Is it because they truly believe they are helping our students? Or is it because they see Common Core and other SCORE-endorsed reforms as new money making or "prestige-earning" opportunities? What better way to position yourself to make taxpayer money and/or accolades from these reforms by imbedding yourself into the middle of the push for these new nationalized standards--and by donating 100s of thousands of dollars to the governor who arguably controls the RTTT purse strings?
 
We, as taxpayers and consumers of public education, deserve to know. 
 

In a meeting room at Legislative Plaza on January 27th, the first TREE event bloomed.  TREE is short for “Tennesseans Reclaiming Excellence in Education” and is made up of volunteer parents.  This event was publicized frugally through social media and email to anyone who was interested in attending.  These volunteers took off from their jobs to be downtown at the Capitol for this very special event.  Parents donated from their own pockets to TREE to cover the travel expenses of an expert speaker whom they begged to be there, Elaine Weiss, who gave some staggering facts about education in TN:

• TN pays more to Teach for America than any other state (which is probably because our appointed Commissioner of Education, Kevin Huffman, used to work for TFA before it was revealed on national news that federal funds were mismanaged under his leadership.  That’s another story for another day.  If you want the details, click HERE)
• Since winning Race to the Top, TN has not increased its pre-K programs by even one seat.
• During the first 3 years of Race to the Top in TN, money spent with Pearson tripled.
• No real change in terms of impact of poverty on test scores since 1966 in TN.
• Charter schools haven’t helped, they only take focus away from the issue of poverty.
• TN is not using RTTT money to develop a strong teacher corps.

Weiss suggested a “Bolder, Broader” approach to education in TN spreading learning to PreK and summer learning opportunities for impoverished children.  (Click HERE to watch Weiss' excellent presentation)
 
Next, certain invited legislators and the press went a block away, (or it could have been to the moon - the settings were so starkly different) to the Hermitage Hotel to a fancy invitation-only event hosted by SCORE, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education.  In an elegant ballroom that costs a small fortune to rent, the invited guests were dazzled by a guest panel of speakers including Dr. Bill Frist himself.  Frist started the SCORE club, so it was only fitting that he be in attendance to discuss public education even though Frist’s own children never attended public schools.  Most of the invited guests’ children also attend private schools.  The handful of their children who attend public schools actually attend magnet schools, which are public schools that get extra resources and support to make them more special than ordinary public schools.
 
Anyway, the invited guests were each given thick SCORE Card books full of glossy photos of smiling children and cherry-picked test data.  They listened to the speakers brag about their achievements in raising the test scores, as if they were the very ones to bubble in those correct answers themselves.  Former Senator Jamie Woodson (who makes over $300,000 now as the CEO of SCORE) presided over the event like royalty.
 
The SCORE event not only included the speakers and expensive booklets, it also included a fancy lunch at the hotel.  Yummy.  Cha-ching.
 
And we noticed that SCORE recently got a brand new professional website.  The old one was fine, but the new one smells richer.  We wonder how much that cost?  And who paid for it?  And where their children attend school?  And if their children are forced to take standardized tests and do common core?
 

Tennessee parents realize the stark difference between the down-to-earth TREE and the head-in-the-clouds SCORE.  We sure hope our elected Representatives and Senators do, too.  Our children are depending on legislators who have their feet firmly planted on the ground representing their interests, not corporate profits.