Tennessee Parents - Reclaiming Public Education for our children
  • HOME
  • OUR VOICES/BLOG
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • CONTACT US

Righting a wrong

1/11/2014

 
"A teacher's license is their most valuable possession, worth more than their house, land, or car combined. They spent years in college qualifying for it, spent a career improving it. But most importantly, a license allows a teacher to do what they love - and that is to teach.  You better have an ironclad reason to take that license away.  And there is nothing about a statistical estimate (TVAAS) of what students are supposed to do on tests that remotely sounds fair to killing a teaching career." - TN Rep. Matthew Hill

Tennessee parents applaud Representative Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough) for vowing to create a bill to reverse the state board’s decision and “put once and for all into code that we will not use a statistical estimate to determine whether or not a teacher gets to keep their license.” (Click HERE to read more) 

We also applaud Representative John Forgety (R-Athens) for sponsoring and filing HB1375 to prohibit the TN Department of Education from revoking or non-renewing an individual's license based solely on data from TVAAS, some other comparable measure of student growth, or any other single criterion.  (Click HERE to see the bill and HERE to track the bill)
 

THIS WAS ABSURDLY WRONG:

August 2013:
As if to demonstrate their utter contempt for teachers, the Tennessee State Board of Education changed the licensure rules on a telephone conference call that was open to the public.

The vote was 6-3. Some board members said the change should be delayed because the changes were not well understood by the board.

Not all the board members agreed with voting to adopt a plan that had elements that concerned them, even with the delayed implementation.

Dr. Jean Anne Rogers of Murfreesboro suggested voting the proposal down and studying the issues “piece by piece” rather than implementing something that board members did not fully understand.

“I just have such serious concerns with a couple of the issues,” she said.

A dog was heard barking in the background of the call, although maybe it was a teacher howling in despair about the board’s unending attacks on teachers.

As a result of the changes approved by telephone meeting, teachers’ licenses will be tied to student test scores.

This is a strategy that has not produced better education anywhere but is guaranteed to produce teaching to the test and a narrowing of the curriculum.

It is not clear what will happen to the licenses of teachers and other staff who do not teach tested subjects.

Perhaps Tennessee will invest tens of millions to test everything.

We know who benefits. Not teachers or students. Testing corporations do.

The change in licensing rules was warmly endorsed by the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ group Democrats for Education Reform. Their members take home millions of dollars in income every year, but they don’t see why teachers need to earn more than $40,000 a year unless they raise test scores. Teachers in Tennessee earn less than the secretaries of most board members of DFER.

The above comments were written by Diane Ravitch, whose book, Reign of Error, reached the New York Times Bestseller List in 2013.  Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education.  
 

Tennessee Parents do not like what the TN Board of Education has done and continues to do.  Though they use the buzz-word, "accountability," quite often in regards to our teachers, the appointed State Board of Education and the TN Commissioner of Education are not held accountable to the voters.

We wholeheartedly support legislators who support our children's teachers and, thereby, support our children.

Tennessee parents trust teachers.
We do not trust TVAAS.
We do not trust TCAP.
We do not trust the TNBOE.

Comments are closed.

    Authors:
    real parents & real teachers
    from TN

    They are afraid to speak up and risk their jobs... They want to protect their children... This blog is for them:  Their voices need to be heard.

    These blogs are emailed to these TN officials:  
    the TN Board of Education, 
    the TN Commissioner of Education,
    the 99 TN House Representatives,

    the 33 TN Senators,
    the Governor of TN,
    every Superintendent in TN,
    hundreds of locally elected school board members across TN,
    and parents... lots and lots of parents.

    Categories

    All
    ALEC
    Arne Duncan
    ASD
    Barbic
    Campaign Contributions
    Charter
    Common Core
    Consultants
    CRA
    Crisis
    EOCs
    ESL
    Evaluations
    Faux Parents
    Governor
    Haslam
    Huffman
    Kindergarten
    KIPP
    Laws
    Legislators
    Lobbyist
    Mcqueen
    NAEP
    Next Gen Science Standards
    Opt Out
    PARCC
    Parents
    Petition
    Plan
    Pre-K
    Protest
    Pta
    Ravitch
    Reform
    RELAY
    Resolution
    Rocketship
    RSD
    SAT10
    School Board
    School Board
    Score
    Sneaky Politician
    Student Data
    Student Privacy
    Students
    Studentsfirst
    Superintendent
    TCAP
    Teachers
    Tenure
    Testing
    Tfa
    TNDOE
    TNReady
    Tree
    Tripod
    TVAAS
    University Of Memphis
    US DOE
    Vouchers

    Archives

    March 2017
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.