Outcome-based evaluations for all!

MNPS Superintendent Jesse Register will be evaluated in a new way, per Joey Garrison at The Tennessean:

The Metro school board in the coming months is planning to overhaul the way it evaluates the director of schools’ performance annually to also include student outcomes — a move that is believed to be a first for the district. The change, to be a part of a larger still-undefined rubric, comes as the state is in the middle of its second year of teacher evaluations that factor in students’ test scores and growth.

This is an improvement. I don't wish to see Register lose his job or be humiliated by a poor review. A better evaluation process isn't about the person; it's about a position. This establishes a better practice of governance. As someone who thinks student outcomes matter most, it makes sense that part of an educator's evaluation should include how much their students grow. Though superintendents aren't in the classroom directly influencing students, they make decisions that profoundly influence how well students do over time. 

I'm also pleased to see who is chairing the relevant committee:

“There certainly is accountability at the teacher level and the principal level, and in many ways, this is no different,” said school board member Elissa Kim, who is heading the board’s director’s evaluation committee.

As I argued this summer, I can't think of a better person to chair a committee designing a fair and thorough evaluation. Having someone lead this who is familiar with best practices from districts and nonprofits across the country bodes well for good governance. Garrison describes the changes here:

Kim, who oversees evaluations routinely through her work as executive vice president of recruitment for Teach For America, said the existing criteria includes only “process steps” in which to hold the superintendent accountable: cost management, HR and people management and communications, among a list of several others. 

Register, whose contract with Metro runs through 2015, supports the change in scoring, calling it “appropriate” to take student outcomes into account.

“The old evaluation was heavily process-oriented, and the new approach will be more balanced,” he said. 

I have no idea if revamping the superintendent's review was in the works before the new board took office or if this is a new idea. I'm sure other members besides Kim have played a part in putting this together. For all involved, it's a step in the right direction. 

Ed Kindall & blaming low-income students

One more thing from that Tennessean article about the state's average ACT scores and the achievement gaps it revealed:

“The gap is there [between black and white students], and there’s never going to be improvement unless we look at the reasons,” said Ed Kindall, outgoing Metro Nashville Public Schools board member . 

Kindall thinks one issue could be motivation. “How do we motivate children to look at education as a way to get out of poverty?” he asked.

(The brackets are mine.)

I don't agree with Kindall on much, but I grant the following:

• He knows what life in segregated Nashville was like. I'm sure he has vivid memories of a time when black children were explicitly told what they could -- and more often, what they couldn't -- do.

• I'm sure he knows all too well what systemic racism has done to the education of generations of minority students.

• Kindall has a deep knowledge and experience of racism in a way that I will never know and cannot viscerally understand. That I am deeply empathetic and have dedicated my professional life to helping take down the barriers erected by decades of discrimination isn't enough; there's no substitute for experience.

So when he says things like this about the achievement gap shown on ACT average scores, I'm not so much angry as confused. Surely Kindall knows the students I teach. He visits their schools, talks to them at church, and sees them at the grocery store. Surely he knows that low-income students lack a lot of things, but a desire to get out of poverty isn't one of them. Surely he doesn't think the 2,880 students who graduated from MNPS in 2011 with ACT scores below 21 did so because of lack of motivation.

I've helped hundreds of low-income students in Nashville prepare to take the ACT. One thing I can say is that they don't lack the desire to do well. What most of the students lacked is the skill level -- not the raw intelligence or potential, mind you, but skill level -- necessary to get the score they wanted. This is the result of a public education system that has systemically failed to develop those skills.

 Contra Kindall, most students know exactly what their ticket out of poverty is. When I taught in an MNPS district high school, I remember counseling my 11th graders when their ACT scores came back. I watched more than few kids cry. Saying that our kids don't want to do well on the ACT is simply false.

And, for the moment, let's put aside the typical "blame the parents" riposte I see so often in these sorts of debates. If you'd like hold kids accountable for a choice they didn't make -- who their parents would be -- then you miss the entire point of public education. Also, you're reading the wrong blog.

Instead, let's focus the significant impact we can make. Namely, the quality of a school (and school district) matters. One proof point: a RAND study showed that Chicago's 5-12 charter schools (which are non-selective) "produce substantial positive effects on ACT scores."

If you're one of those people who reflexively dismiss data showing success in charter schools, here's a district-level example: the Broad Prize-winning Gwinnett County Schools in Georgia (which is very racially diverse, has a 50 percent free/reduced price lunch student population, and is almost twice the size of MNPS) was able to narrow achievement gaps and average a 22.3 on the ACT. The racial breakdowns, while still showing gaps, show much more progress than what we've seen in Nashville: black students - 19.2, Latino students - 20.7, white students - 24.0. While Georgia doesn't require all students to take the ACT, Gwinnett has high participation rates. Also, state-specific tests given to Gwinnett students have shown similar results in increasing achievement and closing gaps.

The point is that the quality of a school and school district can make a difference on college-readiness. What we control as voters, public servants, and educators can make a significant, positive impact on the prospects for low-income and minority students.

Kindall wants to look at the reasons for why there's an achievement gap and why low-income and minority students aren't scoring well on the ACT. But if most of our students do, in fact, have the motivation to do well and other schools and districts have shown success in getting poor and minority students to increase achievement and close gaps, then we must look at other reasons. Of course, all of those other reasons put the responsibility squarely on the adults who set up and run the public education system we have.

Ed Kindall knows exactly how a system can, for decades, deny poor and minority students the opportunities to achieve their potential. He also served on the Nashville school board for more than 20 years. Few people have had more influence on how the modern MNPS educates poor and minority students.

And at the end of his time on the board, he's blaming the kids for not being college-ready?

The school board elections in review

Sorry for the hiatus. This was my first week back with students. It's nice to get the kiddos back. It's also a bit of a gut punch. I feel like I did after I would run the first 1,000 meters of a cross country race -- all adrenaline, no rhythm. Then there's a reckoning as I realize that the adrenaline is running out and my body isn't happy about it. Hence, blogging went on the back burner. Along with sleep.

It's fitting that school board elections and the start of the school year fell on the same week. At Elissa Kim's election day party, I kept thinking of the students I'd met on Monday. In particular, I thought about how education, more than any other issue, has a disconnect between those who are directly affected by it and those who are able to influence its direction. Education is supposed to be about the students. However, they have no real voice in politics. They have to depend on people acting on their behalf.

The results of our school system show that we adults have failed to be great advocates for our community's kids.

Look at what education is supposed to produce: graduates ready to succeed at the next level. Currently, the typical graduates of our system are likely to flunk out of the next step of education, if they make it at all. Only graduates of our selective-admissions schools are shown to be college-ready on a consistent basis.

Ask yourself how often you heard about that during the past few months.

So if we weren't talking about our system's failure to graduate college-ready students, what were we discussing?

Issue #1: Margaret Dolan, Elissa Kim, and Will Pinkston raised record-breaking amounts of money for a school district race. Much (metaphorical) ink was spilled debating the proper amount of money to spend in a school district race and who should donate the money. How much of the money came from outside the district? How much of it is from outside Nashville?

This sucked up a lot of oxygen that could've been dedicated to finding out what these candidates would do to increase student achievement. Instead, we got conspiracy theories about whose puppet they'll be.

Issue #2: Great Hearts Academies was denied a charter by MNPS, citing teacher-licensing problems and perceived future economic and racial disparities. Our debate became: If Great Hearts admits too many low-income children, how will they be successful?

Precious few people acknowledged what I've spent years experiencing firsthand: low-income children can learn just as well as any child when they've got great teachers who work together to create a safe, supportive environment focused on academics.

Issue #3: MNPS' Great Hearts decision was overturned by the state board of education. We then argue about whether the state should have the power to overturn local decisions. This, of course, has nothing to do with providing more and better schools for our kids.

Issue #4: Great Public Schools PAC, funded by supporters of charter schools, donated to Dolan, Kim, Sharon Gentry, and Jarod DeLozier. The debate turns to which candidates are thought to be "charter-friendly" and which are assumed to be enemies of charter schools. A few salient facts are ignored:

- The current board approved most of this year's approved charter applications unanimously. One application, KIPP's expansion into Whites Creek, was at first rejected, then approved by a 8-1 vote. (The lone "no" vote, Mark North, had already announced his intention to not run for re-election.)  

 - More than 3,000 kids here already attend charter schools, including conversion schools that take all kids in a zoned area. Most of the charter schools regularly post higher growth scores than the relevant neighborhood schools. (The few who don't are going to be a great test of the new board's willingness to shut down failing charters.)

- Anyone who actually asked any of the candidates about charters got pretty much the same answer: We want operators who will run great charter schools. This doesn't mean we shouldn't focus on improving district schools. 

While we fight the tired ideological battle (and false choice!) of charter versus district we overlook the most important fact:

Many schools, both charter and district, have shown huge gains in student growth, placing the among the very best in the state. What are they doing that's working? What are the differences between those school and ones that show negative growth?


I've taught in both district and charter schools in Nashville. On practical level, there's nothing that's happening in one that couldn't happen in the other.

Charters and district schools aren't the zero-sum choice; it's high-performing versus low-performing classrooms.

Issue #5: Here in District 5, we heard a lot about Kim's employment with Teach for America. (The East Nashvillian article was so biased, it even got called out by the Nashville Scene.) Never mind that TFA has been part of the education landscape for years and its contract has been approved unanimously and without controversy each time it was up for renewal. Never mind what Kim's job actually entails: recruiting great teachers into the toughest-to-teach classrooms in the country.

The district annually churns 500 teachers. I, for one, am glad we now have a national expert in teacher recruitment in a position where she can do something about bringing more top teachers into Nashville's classrooms.

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I keep repeating this: We are wasting time and effort on the wrong debates. I'm not naive and realize this isn't new or unique to politics. Indeed, our national political dialogue is beyond parody. (Eating at a fast-food restaurant is now a political statement? Seriously?)

But I can almost understand it at the national level. It's so big and one election covers so many issues. That's overwhelming to most voters. Even the state level covers a lot.

(I'm not excusing our inability to have a straightforward conversation, mind you; I'm just saying I understand the factors at play.)

Our school board election, though, is decided among neighbors. It deals with one issue: education. There's even an easily measurable outcome: how many of the system's graduates are ready to succeed at the next level?

Yet we've barely mentioned that for the past few months.

We talked about political donations and assumed the worst intentions in both donors and candidates. We figured that people couldn't possibly be running for school board because they wanted to serve the community -- it must be some nefarious hidden agenda instead!

We used proxies like Great Hearts instead of directly addressing racial and economic divisions among ourselves. We ignored the one cure for these disparities: educating our children. Indeed, nearly every critique of Great Hearts simply assumed that they didn't care about educating all children and, even if they did, they weren't capable of it.

Our debate about charter schools was predicated on the notion that there must be a limited number of decent schools, and those that are succeeding are doing so because of some reason other than simply doing a better job of teaching kids. We pretend that there are no lessons to be learned from successful schools. We assume that there are certain kids who just can't learn.

We spent this election talking about everything but how to better educate all of our children.

This is why we've failed our kids for so long.

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As I said, I was glad to start teaching again this week. One night, I found myself talking to a parent. Some of her children are at charter schools, but others aren't the right age and, as a result, attend a district school. This parent wasn't concerned about charter versus district schools or if the Great Hearts approval process was properly decided. She doesn't know if the teachers of her children were certified through Teach for America, the Nashville Teaching Fellows, or a college program.

She was focused on her children being prepared to go to college. Even though her kids go to different schools, she expects all of them to be successful. Moreover, she expects all of her children's schools to offer a quality education.

She wanted to know what her child was doing for homework in English and what day is the first quiz on. She asked me about what her child would learn in class tomorrow.

When we have the right sorts of conversations, it's easy to keep our focus.

What are our children going to learn in class tomorrow?

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Update 8/5/12: Will Pinkston didn't receive a donation from Great Public Schools PAC. I've made the appropriate correction above. Apologies for the error.

Nonpartisan candidate seeks nonpartisan post

Our community's conversation about how to best educate our children has become more and more opaque and derivative. On Tuesday, I read a Tennessean article about how the Democratic Party will soon deny Elissa Kim access to its voter database. The article focused on the nuts-and-bolts of campaigning and how to infer a partisan label in a nonpartisan election.

No part of the article had anything to do with the shared value of educating our children.

This isn't the fault of the reporter; I learned in my brief stint as journalist that the media, for the most part, reflect the conversation of the larger community. 

This is our fault for trying to have a conversation that keeps getting off-topic.

What does it say about us that we seem to think affixing a partisan label to a candidate will help us in deciding which candidate will best govern our schools?

William Raspberry and fake competitions

It is one of life's coincidences that the man who inspired me to first to be a journalist, and then later a teacher, grew up in the same hill country of Northeast Mississippi as I. That said, the differences between his childhood growing up in 1940s segregated Okolona and my upbringing in Tupelo are stark. I can't claim any special insight into what made William Raspberry; I'm just grateful that he broke through barriers of race and class to become a prominent journalist whose writing was published by his hometown paper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

William Raspberry's columns were the part of the newspaper I read immediately following my favorite section--the comics*.  After my parents, he was the most influential person in shaping my nascent worldview. I remain attracted to the values he espoused:

• Balancing self-reliance with the needs of a diverse society
• Attempting to see the world as it is, so we can work to make it the world we want it to be
• Learning the lessons of history, while avoiding being handcuffed by the mistakes of previous    generations
• Respecting the humanity of all, but with no patience for the arrogance of power or privilege

In addition, I appreciated Raspberry's tone, which the New York Times imprecisely called "moderate." A better word, suggested by a commenter at the Washington Post obituary, is "reasoned." Raspberry argued for all sorts of things that had nothing to do with being in the center in a left/right political spectrum. This was because Raspberry understood the difference between a value and an opinion -- the latter being subject to change based on the facts he reported. More often than not, his columns focused on finding shared values in a world of conflicting evidence and countervailing opinions.

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"In virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful people secretly believe both sides."

--William Raspberry, 1935-2012

Raspberry was, and still is, right. We have so many decisions to make about how best to educate our children. And you know what? We secretly believe the answer to most policy questions is both. The problem is that our instincts put policies in competition with each other. Instead, they should be in cooperation. We are confusing the values (which we mostly agree on) with opinion (where there's legitimate difference).

I've written before that pitting charter schools against district schools is a silly and a false choice. What we need to focus on are finding high-performing pockets of excellence and learning from them.

One of the best things about working in education is that it can be a win/win. If I do well, a student does well. If another teacher at my school builds a fantastic culture, I benefit. If another teacher in another school does a great job, that's also a win for me as a fellow citizen. Our community can never have enough well-educated citizens.


It's also frustrating to see a false dichotomy made between traditionally-trained teachers and Teach for America. The right frame is how can we get more high-performing teachers in our classrooms?

Once we've acknowledged that the only competition in teacher training is attracting the best people into the profession rather than pursuing a different career, then there's a bunch of great policy issues in which to delve: How do we best train these teachers so that they become great teachers as quickly as possible? How do we make teaching a sustainable and financially rewarding profession? How do we offer educators many career paths?

We have scarce resources, but they're almost never distributed in an all-or-nothing fashion. However, we argue about these choices as if they were. We set up false competitions when we actually want to make investments so that all kids win. 

This doesn't mean we won't, or shouldn't, have debates about policies on how best to educate our kids. We should. This is important stuff. But when we do, we should acknowledge that, more often than not, both sides have shared values as to the importance of education, teachers, and great public schools. Otherwise, we're going to spend a whole lot of time and effort in a fake competition. 

We're all rooting for the same team: our kids. 

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* Calvin and Hobbes has been equally influential in my life, but that's a topic for another day.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are solely my own and don't represent any organization with which I'm associated.

Why I support Elissa Kim

One afternoon a few months ago, I found myself thinking of reasons not to support Elissa Kim for school board.

My wife and I were about to meet Elissa for coffee and have our first real conversation with her. Before the meeting, I secretly hoped that Elissa would, in some way, demonstrate that she wouldn't be a great school board member. Then I would have an excuse to not get involved in her campaign. After all, John Haubenreich is a friend and I deeply respect Gracie Porter's experience. I don't know Erica Lanier, but she seems like a model for how we want parents to be involved in our schools.

However, Elissa made her case and I knew that not only did I need to vote for her, but I should also tell others why. What follows is my explanation, but if you want the upshot, here it is:

Elissa is one of the finest people I know in education, period.

The Case for Elissa

Elissa would a be thoughtful and relentless advocate for our public schools, our tax dollars, and our kids' right to a great education. Her leadership style is understated. She listens more than she talks, asks questions more than she makes declarations, and seeks pragmatic solutions rather than engage in ideological quests.

Elissa's calculus is quite simple: Is (fill the blank) going to be best for kids, especially those who haven't been served well by our system? If yes, then she will support it and fight for it.

Elissa more than meets the qualifications I have for school board members. She is relentlessly dedicated to student achievement and she has the ability to work within a group to get things done. She is fluent in data-driven decision-making, is both realistic and optimistic about how to improve our schools, and has a fine-tuned bullshit detector. Finally, while I haven't personally seen her stare down a grizzly bear or disarm a bomb, I believe she has the courage to make the tough decisions required of a board member.

Her professional life bears this out. She started out teaching in New Orleans public schools and stayed past than her two-year commitment because she was that dedicated to her students. Keep in mind that this was pre-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, and it's public schools were routinely ranked among the worst in the country. Though I don't think teaching alone is a qualification for school board, it's telling that early in her career, she did something hard without expecting any recognition beyond the feeling one gets when you do right by kids.

Her next role, though it took her out of the classroom, has positively impacted thousands of children across the country.

She has become the most successful recruiter of teachers in the country and is a national expert in what makes teachers successful. (She's not quoted in the linked article, but has been a driver for implementing the research discussed therein.) She also has served on the senior leadership team for Teach for America for a dozen years. Having met a few people on this team, I can testify that it isn't for the faint of heart. You won't last unless you're smart, capable, and produce results. There's no better preparation for serving on the school board.

She also has an eye for talent, which will be critical when choosing a new superintendent (assuming Dr. Register retires at the end of his contract in 2015). She built a 200-person team at TFA. Separately, she's familiar with dozens of school districts across the country and has a clear picture of the best practices in governing a district. Moreover, she's played a role in how TFA has learned to better support teachers, keeping them in the classroom and growing their skill set. (A personal example: My wife joined TFA four years after me. The strides the organization made in supporting teachers in just that time were phenomenal.)

In sum, having Elissa serve on our school board is like getting LeBron James to play on your basketball team. When you can get the best, get the best.

Addressing Criticisms

The critiques I've heard from some -- zealously pro-charter, irreconcilable conflict of interest, tool of special interests, anti-teacher -- are so off-base as to be comical.

First, Elissa does not favor charter schools as a solution for everything. She has said we absolutely have to increase the quality of all our district schools. Charters are a piece of the puzzle. Magnets, enhanced option, Big Picture, and Middle College are, too. Nashville parents deserve more and better choices. This means that all schools should offer an opportunity for an excellent education.

The ironic thing is that I think Elissa will be harder on charter schools than the average board member. As noted, she's spent the past dozen years traveling around to schools across the country. No one who is a candidate or currently on the board can match her experience as far as knowing what a successful school looks like. I almost pity the poor charter school operator who tries to give her excuses as to why his or her school isn't getting the job done. Given her years as a senior executive in a high-pressure, rapidly growing organization, she is tough enough to vote to close failing charter schools, no matter the political consequences.

Second, the Teach for America contract with the district is not an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Each year the district hires more than 500 new teachers. About 100 or so come from Teach for America. No teacher has ever been fired from the district to make way for a TFA corps member. (See response to @AlexLittleTN) The district's contract with TFA has been renewed several times unanimously, without controversy. As far as I know, every single person running for school board supports continuing the contract with Teach for America. Furthermore, Elissa's job deals solely with recruitment and admissions. She has nothing to do with the Nashville contract. (FYI, TFA's senior leadership team is spread out across the country*.) Finally, she has stated she will recuse herself from votes dealing with TFA's contract. This would be essentially one vote every year, so the contract renewal would be 8-0, rather than 9-0.

As a point of comparison, Vanderbilt has a contract with MNPS to staff its employee health clinics which results in millions of dollars of payment to Vanderbilt. Would we prohibit one of the  21,500 Vandy (14,000 at VUMC) employees (or an employee of one of its rivals for the contract) from running for school board because Vanderbilt is an MNPS contractor? No -- this is why all sorts of part-time politicians recuse themselves from the occasional vote. It's hard to find large organizations in Nashville that don't have some sort of contract or partnership with MNPS.

I understand raising the question and voters should know Elissa's answer, but let's keep an eye on the big picture: This is a $700 million district. Teach for America's contract deals with maybe 20 percent of new teachers. It's been in effect for years and is uncontroversial. Principals around the district seem to like the TFA corps members and alumni in their schools, as they keep hiring them. The school board has bigger issues to deal with.

Third, Elissa isn't a puppet of "special interests." This, frankly, is offensive to even have to address. Talk to her for about 5 minutes and you'll realize that she's her own person with well thought-out policy positions driven by her 15 years in education. Most of her campaign's donations are local, garnering more support from East Nashville than any other candidate. As I've argued before, the money in this race reflects its seriousness and the fact that Elissa's candidacy has inspired people. She's also had tons of volunteers and convinced a whole bunch of people in District 5 to display signs in their yards. Campaign volunteers have knocked on thousands of doors. Special interests don't do that -- that's grassroots support.

This election cycle has seen big sums by previous school board election standards, but wouldn't be considered unusual even in a state representative race (and an MNPS school board member wields more influence in some ways, given the size of its budget and the fact that the board is nonpartisan).

This isn't some Citizens United or Koch brothers conspiracy. The financial disclosures are public. If something concerns you, go meet or e-mail Elissa and ask her about it.

Finally, Elissa supports teachers. I've observed Elissa in a couple of different settings during this campaign and there's one thing that consistently makes her face light up: talking about teaching. She's positively nerdy on the subject of educating kids. Elissa would welcome conversations with teachers about what is and isn't working in a school. She has said over and over again that teachers will the be catalyst in making MNPS the model urban school system. The district employs about 6,500 teachers, most of whom are doing great work.  Elissa has said that a huge part of being on the board is figuring out effective ways to share best practices and give our educators the autonomy needed to have great schools.

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I've been involved with politics long enough to know that you vote for a person, not a set of issues. The things that will truly matter during the next four years are hard to predict. What I look for above all is a certain level of judgment and values centered around what is best for kids.

I'm not against any candidate. I'm for Elissa Kim because she's demonstrated through word and deed over 15 years that she has the judgment and values that will allow her to best represent District 5 as we accomplish our community's most important task: educating our children.

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* I hear this makes for some truly epic conference calls.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are solely my own and don't represent any organization with which I'm associated.

Paranoid inferences aren't an argument

Jamie Hollin wrote a piece that has several factual inaccuracies, a lot of unsupported assertions, and quite a few paranoid inferences. Below are selected responses. Another post deals specifically with rural charter schools.

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First, on the big fundraising totals in the school board races...

So Margaret Dolan smashed fundraising records in a school board race. I noted in a previous post that Dolan was a talented businesswoman with deep connections in the community. Is anyone surprised that she's good at her job? Isn't her prowess at attracting support evidence that she possesses the leadership traits necessary to be an effective board member?

Likewise, the fact that Elissa Kim, Will Pinkston, and Jared DeLozier raised a bunch of money by school board standards is more of a testament to the seriousness of their respective campaigns. One hundred and sixteen people donated to Kim, for instance. That's not dominance by a single PAC -- that's widespread support (and, I also note, from a whole bunch of people in Nashville -- including my wife and me, who live in District 5).

Modern politics involves a bunch of money. Don't hate the player; hate the game.

Hollin feels differently:

Our public school system in Nashville is for sale—and the price being offered is pretty high. Great amounts of money—heretofore never contemplated in MNPS school board races—is coming from far and wide to enable their like-minded followers to take over public schools in Nashville.

Upset about rich people being influential in politics? In related news, the sky is blue and the Cubs won't win the World Series. Rich people have been politically active since time immemorial. People with money have disproportionate influence in politics. It is what it is.

What interests me more is what said rich people are doing with their money. I get concerned when they're spending millions to build Ensworth High School or starting yet another K-12 private school in Donelson or Madison. Those are massive educational investments that most of Nashville's children will not be able to take advantage. Feel how you like about Great Hearts (my thoughts are complicated and off-topic), but it does represent a desire for affluent and middle-class parents to keep their kids in public schools*. And it will have to follow the same lottery admission procedures that all other charter schools do -- that's a major step for keeping kids out because their parents can't afford a $10k or $20k tuition.

The investments by hundreds of people in the campaigns of Dolan, Kim, DeLozier and Pinkston show that there's political will to keep families in Nashville by increasing the quality of all schools and offering real choices instead of the "one size fits all" model that has been failing most of students for decades.

I, for one, support electing "like-minded followers" of people who want to increase student achievement and offer families more and better options.

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Second, on belittling education reform and school choice....

Hollin again:

Let there be no doubt: the buzz words “reform” and “choice” have been kid tested and mother approved. It’s time for profiteers to strike while the iron is hot. There’s too much taxpayer subsidy for private gain with socialized losses to avoid. They can’t help themselves. I am not even mad at them. Many of them are great people, I am sure.

Charter schools in Tennessee are nonprofit. It's the law. If you want to know who is profiting off public schools, look at the budget and see the massive investments in remedial computer programs and reading intervention curriculum because 58.8 percent of our K-8 students score basic or below basic in reading. Those computer programs and reading intervention curriculum are made by for-profit companies.

An alternate conclusion is that about 70 percent of our schools' graduates don't have the skills to make it at the next level. Hence the need to "reform" our district schools and offer public school parents "choice" as to the school that best suits the needs of their children.

If Hollin is tired of hearing these "buzz words" then let's do the hard work necessary to radically increase student achievement and then he won't have to hear people saying them.

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Third, on inferring that people who work to change our schools for the better are actually controlled by nefarious privatizers who wish to cannibalize public education....

Hollin: 

No matter how nice candidates are, how long or how little they’ve lived in the community, whether their kids go to public school or not, whether they work for a company already receiving public tax dollars through contracts, how brilliant they may be, who they’ve worked for or with in the past, or who endorsed their candidacy, the ultimate goal of the monied-interests behind them is privatization. And, there’s lots of money to be made in privatization.

I like the "no matter how nice..." beginning. So those of us who've dedicated our professional lives to improving educational opportunities for low-income kids have actually been tools of the Koch brothers. No matter what we do, it's all for naught because it violates Hollin's idea of how public education should work. And, apparently, public education has been working so well in this country that any attempt to make significant change is a stalking horse for "monied interests." Good to know...

Seriously, stuff like this just irks me. This year is my seventh in reforming public education the hard way -- by working with kids who've been screwed by the system Hollin doesn't think needs radical change. Mr. Hollin, you're more than welcome to join me. One small warning: you won't make much money in this business. (My salary is public record, so check it out if you'd like.) Then again, you'll be working so hard that you won't have time to spend much money, so it balances out.

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Fourth, on teachers who commit two years to working in a low-income school....

Hollin: 

We are only one family. A family convinced there are local solutions to local problems. We are a team in our house and the decision has been made, for us at least, to send the boys to public schools. The teachers, principal, and school will become components in our kids’ educational attainment. Among other things, we want a teacher who has been in the classroom before, not one serving a two-year stint while building their résumé for another career. Do I believe there are great charter operators? Yes. Do I believe there are bad charter operators? Yes. Similarly, there are good and bad public schools. Yet, I am not willing to completely dismantle the public school system in Nashville like the individuals and groups supporting these candidates are so hell-bent to achieve. 

I'm glad Hollin is committed to our public schools. So am I. I'm glad he's going to be an involved parent. We need more of them. I'm glad he recognizes the success of schools like KIPP, LEAD, STEM, Nashville Prep, and Liberty Collegiate.

I find it ironic that an attorney is criticizing people choosing to leave the classroom after two years to do things like...becoming an attorney.

That aside, let's deal with some facts:

Those TFA corps members Hollin is disparaging are higher performing than any other group of new teachers in Tennessee.

The sad thing is studies show most teachers leave the profession in five years. New teachers who struggle in a difficult school last less than two years. TFA corps members actually lengthen the average stay of all new teachers in low-income settings.

Many more TFA teachers -- myself, my wife, Elissa Kim, to name a few -- stay in the classroom longer than two years. Sixty percent of all corp members remain in education and TFA is aggressively promoting staying longer than two years. Practicing what he preaches, the former executive director of TFA NYC is actually headed back to the classroom this year.

Finally, a bit of opinion: one can build up a resumé in many ways. Teaching any amount of time in a classroom serving low-income students is incredibly hard way. Those who choose to follow that path shouldn't be condescended to by those who haven't walked in their shoes.

****

There's a reasoned discussion to have about the direction of our public schools. We have hard choices to make about accountability, how much to invest in new schools, and how to attract great teachers to our classrooms and support them with the best principals and professional development.

Those choices shouldn't be confused with paranoid inferences about the "liquidation" of our public schools.

Take a deep breath. It's a school board election.


* Charter schools are public schools, charter teachers get a public pension, we use a lottery system open to all to determine admittance, and it would be illegal for us to discriminate against students who have special needs.

** 8:36 a.m. update: Fixed a small grammatical error and also recognized my friends at STEM Prep, who also kicked butt this year. 

School board elections: Traits that matter

Who sits on the MNPS school board is incredibly important. (You may have noticed that this is a theme in my posts.) Not only are they spending a huge chunk of your tax dollars (about $670 million this past year), but they are the government body that most directly affects the quality of life in your neighborhood and the price of real estate.

Oh, and also they play a big role in how our children are educated.

So how should you evaluate this year's crop of candidates? Sure, you can go to their websites, but much of it is meaningless babble. The best way is to meet and talk to a candidate. If you don't have time, ask around. These people really aren't hard to learn about.

I said in a previous post that leadership traits matter more than specific stances on issues. What we're hiring in a school board member is, above all, someone who has good judgment and can work with others. What does that mean? Here's a breakdown:

Traits that are incredibly useful

Good judge of talent
A board member needs to have the scouting abilities of an NFL GM (one for the Packers or Steelers; not, say, the Jaguars). He or she will influence the hiring of people who control hundreds if not thousands of employees, millions of dollars, and, ultimately 85,000 students. At this level, most resumés look the same and people know what to say in an interview. A great board member should be able to see through all of that,  find how committed a person is to student achievement, and be able to recognize a concrete plan to improve it in Nashville.

Ability to use data 
This an industry that is increasingly dependent on numbers. Some numbers merely represent how many millions of dollars are being spent. The really important numbers give the most dispassionate picture how children are actually being educated. Numbers aren't all-in-all, but given that even the worst school cleans up a bunch when the brass comes visiting, hard data will be a board member's most trusted advisor when make tough decisions. Avoid candidates who are number-phobic.

A mix of skepticism and optimism

A board member needs to be enough of a skeptic to research why a policy was put in place and find out if a solution wouldn't make things worse. Policies, after all, have intended and unintended consequences. The board member needs to be enough of an optimist to believe, nay know, that a better solution is possible. 

Ability to work within a group structure
One person is an outlier. Five people are district policy. 

Bullshit detector
Everybody is going to say they're doing it for the kids. Look for the people whose actions actually show this. Many people, sadly, say the right thing, but put other priorities before student achievement. That's bullshit.


And speaking of that...many people will will say we can't expect a big change in student achievement. I remember a previous school board telling KIPP in its first rejection letter that it's unrealistic to expect children in East Nashville to go to college. Again, bullshit. 

Courage
Remember when I argued that everybody in a community is affected by its public schools? A school board member will soon realize the extent of this. Real change is going to make opponents one never would've imagined. 

Patient relentlessness
This is going to take time and effort. Problems grow like kudzu and solutions are like finding orchids. But they exist! 

Traits you might think would be useful but aren't really

Teaching experience
Teaching experience means...a person knows ways to teach a student. It shouldn't be confused with what board members do. Namely, they'll be asked to govern a $700 million enterprise* with several thousand employees. Teaching grammar or directing a high school play is not analogous (and I've done both). Don't get me wrong -- experience on the front lines of education is useful; it's just not a requirement or even a qualification for setting district policy.

Being a parent
As I've explained, we all have skin in the game. The public school system is funded by taxpayers and, on some level, touches everyone. Being a parent is an important role, but it doesn't necessarily correlate with the traits described above. A board member should care about student achievement more than anything else. People who don't have children themselves are capable of that. Go talk to a Dominican nun if you need proof. 

Degrees
Finding people in education with lots of degrees is like finding guitarists in east Nashville. I've got an Ivy League master's degree in education. It looks nice on my wall and resumé, but it doesn't mean I possess the any of traits listed above. We're looking for leadership ability and that usually doesn't come from a C.V.


* Next year's budget is considerably higher. Remember that tax increase Metro Council just passed? A lot of it is for MNPS.

School board elections: Ask candidates about these two issues

Early voting starts July 13, so let's get down to it. Out of all the areas in which the school board exercises governance, these are the two you should ask candidates about:

• The next superintendent
Jesse Register's contract will be up during the next school board term. He'll be 70 at that time, so it's reasonable to wonder if he'll retire. Whoever occupies the big office on Bransford Avenue is important for high-profile endeavors like the Academies of Nashville.

What really matters, though, is the tremendous discretion a superintendent exercises in staffing. This person will decide who leads schools and who governs central office departments. He or she will be the gatekeeper of the gatekeepers.

Find out about the candidate's ideal superintendent (or if he or she would want to extend Register's contract). Ask yourself if a candidate would be good at recognizing a talented district leader. Finally, do you think this candidate would be able to convince other board members that a particular candidate is best?

• Charter school approval and accountability
The board gets to approve or deny new charter schools. It would be nice to see board member basing their decisions on data rather than a personal vendetta or just lack of knowledge. (For the uninitiated: I'm referring to the board rejecting KIPP's expansion the first time.)

As a practical mater, when they deny a school, it'll have to be done in a thorough fashion, because it looks like the state board is going to be a viable appeal option for charter applicants. The state board previously approved Drexel Prep over MNPS' rejection and soon will rule as to whether Great Hearts can open in 2014. (Give credit where it's due: it looks like the MNPS board initially had it right on saying no to Drexel.)

MNPS already has a number of charters in operation, so perhaps even more important is the board's willingness to shut down operators that are breaking the law or just doing a poor job of educating kids. Remember, the board's standard should be about funding high-performing classrooms versus low-performing ones.

Shutting down charter schools will be politically difficult. I was at the meeting when the board was deciding whether to shut down Drexel for not following federal law governing special education services and not having certified special ed teachers. Drexel had been caught red-handed, yet managed to put bring out several elected officials and enough parents to fill up the board room and then some. The board relented and gave Drexel another six months to get their act together.

It doesn't matter how poorly performing the school, a bunch of angry parents and community members will show up and apply pressure. A board member should be willing to take a hard vote in order to put student achievement first. 

****

A few more notes...

Having reviewed many candidates' websites and watched the forums, I've seen candidates spend a lot of time talking about stuff that the board exercises little, if any, control. For example, the board doesn't have anything to do with setting academic standards, nor deciding which standardized tests to give. That's state policy. If you want to influence that stuff, talk to your state legislators or state board of education members.

I've also seen candidates reach far into the weeds to push for highly specific curriculum. As a classroom teacher (and one who taught in district schools), I can't say I would want a school board member deciding a particular writing or reading program for me to use. We have in-house committees for that sort of thing (and for very good reason).

In addition, a number of candidates have yet to describe on their respective websites their stance on any issues. (Is the idea that if they don't put anything up, it won't count as b.s.?)

Obviously, the board will make many more important decisions than the ones listed above. I merely mean this as a place to start when trying to find meaningful information from amongst the pablum.

In the end, your vote should be less about a candidate's specific policy proposals and more on the leadership traits a person will bring to the board. I'll discuss those in a future post.

Try to contain your excitement in the meantime.

Metro schools matter to all of us

When Gaylord Opryland flooded in 2010, then shuttered for several months, I'll bet you felt it. Perhaps you know someone who works there. Maybe you or someone you know has a business that is at least partially dependent on Opryland. If you worked in state or city government, perhaps you saw a hole in tax revenues. Nearly losing one of Nashville's most significant institutions hit all of us in some way. 


For a major American city, I've found Nashville to be surprisingly tight-knit. So if you think Gaylord matters, then let's compare Gaylord to Metro schools:


According to Gaylord's 2011 Annual Report, Opryland had $292 million in revenue and employed somewhere around 2,000 people*. 


For 2011, MNPS employed about 8,240 people and had a budget of $662 million to educate about 73,000 students. 


In Anchorman terms, MNPS is Ron Burgundy:

Metro schools are the largest single entity within local government. As I've canvassed for Elissa Kim, I've yet to meet the citizen who didn't have some connection to our public schools.


That's because every single citizen is affected by Metro schools and has a stake in our success. 


And that is why I find accusations like the one below to be so frustrating. From today's Tennessean on the District 9 race:

While candidates have tried to introduce themselves to voters and distinguish themselves from their opponents, the common issue of where they sent their own children to school has come to the forefront. Two of the favorites in the race — (Margaret) Dolan and (Eric) Crafton — chose not to enroll their children in Nashville’s public school system.

Isn't the fact that these parents felt that Metro didn't offer good options for their children a reason for these candidates to run? 


Look, I can think of plenty of reasons to not vote for Eric Crafton. For one, his signature "English only" ballot initiative was a slap in the face to the 13,000 Latino students in Metro and an embarrassment to a diverse city on the rise. Crafton also believes we can magnet our way to success for (a few) children. But the fact that he plans to enroll his daughter at Christ Presbyterian is a sign that Metro has a problem, not Crafton. He said in a City Paper article that his daughter lost in the lottery to get in Meigs Academic Magnet. If a former councilman looks at the options for his child and decides that he can't risk putting his child a zoned school in Metro, then how in the world is MNPS following through on its vision to be "the first choice for families?"


As for Margaret Dolan, she's done nothing but served on seemingly every significant board or task force in Nashville in addition to being an accomplished businesswoman. Are we actually going to have an argument about whether she has a stake in Nashville's success or cares about children? Does anyone believe she is insufficiently dedicated to this community? Seriously?


The idea that only people who enroll their children in MNPS should have a voice in running the system is ludicrous. 


Imagine what would happen to the already hot Nashville real estate market if families knew that their child could get a great education in any public school.


Imagine what would happen to our economy if employers looking to move to this area knew the typical MNPS graduate has a college-ready skill level.


Imagine what would happen to our crime rate if our graduation rate were more than 76 percent and those graduates were ready for the next level of education.


The quality of our public schools affect all of us who own a home in Davidson County, want to raise a family here, employ or work with its graduates, or just want to live in a community with a high quality of life. 


Think of our school board elections as deciding who gets to govern this town's largest and most important corporation. We need bright, savvy board members who are completely dedicated to increasing the achievement of our students. As the quality of MNPS' graduates goes, so goes the success of Nashville.


Everything else is a just a political sideshow.


* I'm not as sure about that number, but when they rehired after the flood, 1,700 positions were filled. That, plus the people who weren't laid off, gives me around 2,000.