With the surprising, yet long-awaited, announcement of Kevin Huffman'sdeparture, conversation now turns to who will be his successor. Social media and bloggers are abuzz with speculation. We are hearing some possibilities include:
- Jamie Woodson: CEO of SCORE who was elected to be a TN Senator representing the Knoxville area, but resigned during her term to work for a nonprofit organization (SCORE). Even though SCORE is a "nonprofit", it pays her a whopping $325,000 a year to push mostly Common Core, but also standardized tests, harmful teacher evaluations, and charter schools. She has no educational experience whatsoever other than her brief stint on the Senate Education Committee. In all honesty, a kindergarten room mom has spent more time in the classroom than she has. We think she is too smart to take a whopping $150,000 paycut to be the Governor's whipping post to push reforms that profit rich people. She knows where her bread is buttered, and that is with SCORE, which gets the bulk of its funding from out-of-state corporate interests.
- Jim McIntyre: Knoxville's current Superintendent, but not for long. He went through an unaccredited program called the Broad Academy which is basically a training program created by a billionaire, Eli Broad, whereby Superintendents are trained to create churn in public schools, close them, and hand them to charter school investors to get rich from. Even the million dollar PR department devoted to polishing McIntyre's image can't hide the fact that Knox County has worst teacher morale in history of that district, the recent news of Knox School District's unpaid bills, and questionable, if not illegal, practices under his watch.
- Lyle Ailshie: Superintendent of Kingsport City Schools. His district recently won the SCORE prize (see above info about SCORE) which makes a big deal out of people and districts who march in-step with SCORE's agenda to privatize and profiteer from public schools. He is a huge Common Core cheerleader.
- Possibly one of these brown-nosing Superintendents: who formed a small club and a website (that hasn't been updated since March) to support Haslam, Huffman, and their reforms:
- Jerry Boyd (Putnam Co.)
- Neel Durbin (Dyersburg)
- Dorsey Hopson (Shelby County)
- Vicki Kirk (Greene Co.)
- Clint Satterfield (Trousdale Co.)
- Jubal Yennie (Sullivan Co.)
NOTE: If any of the above Superintendents get the position, we will know that Governor Haslam is all about trying to push the same exact things that Huffman did.
"Tennessee will never see real, lasting change until we stop blaming teachers and start addressing root problems. Our schools are underfunded, our teachers are underpaid and we aren't talking about poverty and parental involvement--two key factors in student improvement. Our hope is that Governor Haslam's new Commissioner of Education understands these issues and shares our commitment to addressing them going forward."
- Rep. Fitzhugh
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