2016: A Year in Review

2016 has been an amazing year, and it has served as another reminder to take the bad with the good. I would like to reflect on the top five educational stories, both personally and as a public school teacher in Tennessee.

At the top of my list is having the privilege of attending the national teacher of the year ceremony at The White House. I traveled to The White House because I was recognized as one of America’s most distinguished educators, and I participated in honoring Ms. Jahana Hayes as the national teacher of the year. The ceremony itself only lasted 30 minutes, beginning with a short speech from Ms. Hayes, who is a history teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her passion-filled opening remarks set a powerful tone and her enthusiasm for the teaching profession was palpable.

On the way back to Nashville, I had time to reflect on attending this absolutely sublime White House event. Continuing the spirit of this ceremony the best way I know how, I am committed to help my fellow educators elevate and express their voices and tell their stories. Teachers matter. No one knows how to improve the educational landscape better than us. We are the experts, and when we speak in unison, educators have a remarkably strong voice. It begins with educators telling their own stories and having honest conversations with stakeholders about what’s working in our profession and what’s not.

Next on my list is the complete meltdown of TNReady. Though not completely their fault, the Tennessee Department of Education took a black eye on this one. The failure of TNReady sent shock waves throughout the state’s public education system. Elementary and middle school students didn’t even get to take the exam, while high school students across the state went through the motions of taking the test and didn’t take it seriously. A state law was passed holding teachers harmless on their evaluations from these test scores, but this law doesn’t apply to schools and school districts. Meanwhile, TDOE changed testing vendors from Measurement Inc. to Questar and has some significant rebuilding to do in terms of its efficacy.

Number three on my list is something that happened within the last few days, when TDOE released its plan for public review of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In case you haven’t been following, ESSA is the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind, and it requires each state to develop its own plan on how it will meet the needs of its own students. Along with three other teachers from the high school, I recently attended a town hall meeting in Nashville where Commissioner McQueen and some of her TDOE cohorts explained the overview of their plan. I believe that TDOE’s ESSA plan needs some revision, but, overall, it sends a clear message that “all means all”--that TDOE is committed to educating all of Tennessee’s students, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, receiving special education services, or English Language Learners who just moved here from another country.

Number four on my list is the revelation from TDOE that the state’s science scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are “above the national average for the first time ever, doubled the national average for student growth, eliminated the performance gap between male and female students, narrowed the performance gap between white and black students in both grades, and narrowed the performance gap between white and Latino students in fourth grade.” Tennessee had previously scored above the national average in English Language Arts and math. This announcement is further proof that the public education system in Tennessee is on the right track. Historically, Tennessee has ranked at or near the bottom in public education.

Rounding out my top five education stories of 2016 is Mr. Trump’s appointment of Betsy DeVos as the future U.S. Secretary of Education. Putting a pro-charter and pro-voucher champion at the head of the nation’s public schools will certainly have “yuge” ramifications. One only needs to look at the education systems in Michigan and Louisiana (both are below the national average and dropping) to understand the devastating effects of diverting money from public schools in the name of school choice.

Fool's Gold

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) received some excellent news last week. Tennessee’s students are continuing to improve on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which releases the nation’s report card that compares the respective education systems of every state in the country. Previously, Tennessee was hailed as the fastest improving state in the country for our gains in math and English/Language Arts. This time, Tennessee is being called “the star of the states” for our improvement in 4th and 8th grade science scores.

On the NAEP science test, Tennessee scored “above the national average for the first time ever, doubled the national average for student growth, eliminated the performance gap between male and female students, narrowed the performance gap between white and black students in both grades, and narrowed the performance gap between white and Latino students in fourth grade.”

As a public school teacher, I am proud of my colleagues’ achievement--one that is all the more remarkable when you consider that Tennessee is 41st in the country in per-pupil spending and 39th in the country in average teacher salary. (Both of these figures are as of 2014.) It’s quite ironic that Tennessee’s students are making groundbreaking gains in math, English/Language Arts, and science, but remains near the bottom in education spending. Taxpayers across the state are certainly getting a huge bang for their buck.

TDOE cites two reasons for these huge student gains: higher standards and incredibly dedicated teachers. I would argue that Tennessee’s public schools are doing more with less than any other state in the country. Teachers and schools have learned to become incredibly resourceful. Not to rain on TDOE’s parade, but I can’t help but wonder if student growth on NAEP on the backs of underpaid teachers in under-resourced schools at the beginning of a teacher shortage crisis is a sustainable model.

Governor Haslam has mentioned many times that he wants Tennessee to become the fastest-improving state in teacher pay in the country, and he has recently approved the largest teacher pay increase without raising taxes in the state’s history. This is great for headlines and equally poor in practice. While not the case in my district, many Tennessee districts have withheld money that is owed to teachers from the state and will only give it to them in the form of performance bonuses. While legal, this practice is definitely unethical.

If TDOE and Governor Haslam are truly serious about continuing this momentum of NAEP gains, a few things need to happen, and quickly. First, the state needs to update and fully fund its BEP formula while ensuring that future raises go directly to teachers with no strings attached. Second, the option for performance-based pay needs to be taken away from school districts. Paying teachers for good test scores is a horrendously ignorant practice. Not only does it fail to work as intended, but it also encourages teachers to treat students as a means to get those bonuses by focusing too much on the state test. That, in turn, contributes to the teacher shortage crisis by giving students one more reason why they don’t want to become teachers themselves. Third, use some of the state’s nearly $1 billion surplus and give teachers another raise. The state has a large amount of ground to make up if we want to keep pace with other states in attracting the best and brightest teachers in the country.

I would love for Tennessee to be recognized among the best states in the country in public education. Just think what that would mean to the higher education community and to attracting more companies to set up shop here. As Tennesseans, we inherently have an independent spirit that uniquely enables us to be trend setters. The recent NAEP scores indicate that we are on the right track. I just hope that this train of public education improvement can avoid be derailed.

TNReady, Reimagined

Most people are probably familiar with the TNReady debacles of last school year (or seven months ago this calendar year), the reverberations of which are still being felt in school buildings across the state. In response to this situation, the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) has hired a new testing company, Questar, to administer TNReady, and they have decided to phase-in online testing over a period of several years. In response to parents’ and educators’ concerns about the length of the tests, they have reduced testing times as well. From a teacher’s perspective, I would argue that all of these changes are positive, and a step in the right direction; but we can’t, and shouldn’t, be satisfied.

On the surface, it seems wonderful that elementary students will spend almost two hours and high school students approximately three hours less time testing than last year. The other side of that same coin, however, is that, starting in third grade, Tennessee students will still spend nearly eight hours of testing time in English/Language Arts, math, science, and social studies. To be fair, it will be spread out over the course of several days and among ten subtests in the four subject areas. Wait! Did I just say TEN subtests for a total of almost EIGHT hours? Is that really necessary?

Middle school students will take the same number of subtests, but the times are a tad longer, and by the time a student enters high school--especially junior year--it becomes especially ridiculous. Most high school juniors are enrolled in English 3, Algebra II, Chemistry, and U.S. History. All of these courses have a TNReady or End-of-Course exam. As such, a high school junior will spend nearly TEN hours testing in these four subjects, across a combined ELEVEN subtests!

The new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which goes into effect next school year, does actually lessen the testing requirements from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Under ESSA, students in grades 3-8 must still be tested every year in English/Language Arts and math, and in science, once in grades 3-5 and one more time in grades 6-9. High school students are required to take one English, one math, and one science test. Tests in other subjects and additional tests in these three subjects can be given at the state’s discretion.  

While I sadly recognize that standardized testing will never completely go away, I have a solution to students being over-tested: Shorten the tests students are required to take and give them as few as possible. What would this look like, exactly?

In elementary and middle school, I propose keeping the social studies tests and eliminating: (a) two English/Language Arts subtests (keeping the writing test); (b) one math subtest; (c) and one science subtest. Student progress can still be monitored with shorter, more efficiently created tests. This would reduce the testing time from 8 hours to approximately 5.5 hours in grades 3-8. All of these tests should be aligned with the ACT so students will be prepared for the next level. Currently, there’s no alignment between ACT and TNReady.

For high school, I would recommend keeping the U.S. History test, but shortening it to two subtests totaling 90 minutes for the writing and objective components combined. As for the other subjects, school districts should have the option to use the ACT, which is already a requirement for 11th graders. This one exam would satisfy the federal testing requirement, it only takes about 3.5 hours, and students are now allowed one free retake. Otherwise, give the TNReady English III test (keeping the writing test but eliminating two of the subtests), give a 90 minute math test at the end of the junior year that combines Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry, and give a 90 minute science test that combines elements of biology and chemistry. There is no need for each of these subjects to have its own test because, again, student progress can be monitored with shorter, more efficiently created tests. The ACT and SAT have been doing it for decades.

Reimagining TNReady in this manner also makes it impossible to count it as part of a student’s report card grade; so, to ensure that they take the tests seriously, I recommend that a basic proficiency level be set on each test for students to receive their high school diplomas, with a requirement that students be proficient in at least three out of the four core subjects. After all, shouldn’t students have at least basic reading comprehension, writing, mathematics, science, and U.S. history knowledge when they graduate from high school?

What We Learned – and Where We Can Improve – on Testing in Tennessee

The following blog was written by Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education, Dr. Candice McQueen on June 7th and has been edited for length. I appreciate her candor and her effort to communicate with interested stakeholders. If you would like to read the full version, you can find it on Classroom Chronicles at http://tnclassroomchronicles.org/learned-can-improve-testing-tennessee/ Below is a selfie that I took with Dr. McQueen at a recent Hope Street Group convening.

Today’s blog kicks off a summer series through which I want to share some of my thoughts on assessment. In my conversations with more than 10,000 teachers and parents over the past year and a half, and through the various letters and emails I’ve received, testing has been the issue about which I’ve received the most feedback – and understandably so.

There are very few people who would argue that no statewide check on student knowledge, skills, and standards attainment is the best direction for Tennessee. On the other hand, there are few people who believe the current assessment program in Tennessee is exactly right. Most of us are somewhere in the middle and are looking to continuously improve our testing program while not “throwing out the baby with the bath water.”

I am one of these individuals. I pledge to both create better tests aligned to Tennessee’s rigorous standards while also looking for opportunities to improve test structure, time, delivery, logistics, and scheduling. I ask that you engage with me in this conversation knowing that we are partners in this work.

As I’ve considered where we are and what we can do to move forward productively, I asked three questions. First, what is the goal of a new and improved test? It is meant to better show students’ ability and progress on both the breadth and depth of the content. This year’s test included questions that pointed to students’ ability to problem solve, think critically, write, and read more deeply.

Second, what did we accomplish this year in the midst of delivery challenges? This year, we were unable to fully provide TNReady in the way we expected: online for all third through 11th graders.  But we accomplished a great deal...new and better test questions, navigating challenges related to online testing, learning how to better structure the testing experience, and re-discovering that our best way to continually improve is to listen – to our students, our educators, our parents, and our administrators.

Finally, how will we recover and what will next year look like? Our goals remain the same: ensure we have an assessment that better tests the reality of students’ content knowledge and skills, maximize instructional time, and deliver the tests as thoughtfully as possible as we move more online.

To this end, the department has already announced some changes – including reducing overall testing time. Furthermore, we are committed to phasing in online testing in a smart and reliable fashion that puts students first. Students deserve to be able to show what they know in a way that is as seamless and non-stressful as possible, and then to know how they are doing in their big-picture progress toward college and workforce readiness. Students also deserve the best instruction and rich learning experiences, rather than learning how to game questions on a test. This is what TNReady was always about and this is what we commit to achieving.

Measuring the Unmeasurable

Last week, I attended a convening of Hope Street Group teacher fellows from across the state. There are 30 of us who are all dedicated to elevating teachers’ voices in this state. On the first day of the convening, I was blessed to participate in a listening session over state testing with Dr. Candice McQueen, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE). She will travel around the state and conduct more of these listening sessions so that teachers can tell her directly how the state can improve its system of evaluating students.

Many great ideas were expressed in this listening session, the details of which I don’t want to publicize at this time because education policy is a tricky thing. Nothing is ever changed solely in isolation without affecting something else. I don’t know how many of the good ideas that we expressed are actionable, but I left that session feeling confident that Commissioner McQueen listened to them intently.

Lunch quickly followed this listening session, and at my lunch table we continued to discuss the weighty topic of evaluation, which veered into a discussion on how teachers and schools are evaluated.

Most teachers across the state are evaluated using the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model, or TEAM. In a nutshell, this model that is used for classroom observations uses a rubric that lists characteristics in several different domains on a 1, 3, or 5 level, with 5 being the highest. After the teacher’s lesson is evaluated, there is a post-conference where the teacher meets with the evaluator (usually a principal) and the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson are discussed. Classroom observation(s) comprise 50% of a teacher’s overall evaluation score for that year, which is also on a scale of 1-5. According to TDOE, the TEAM evaluation model improves the quality of education and teachers feel more positive about it than ever. Anecdotally, no one at my table--nor any other teacher that I have ever talked to about the TEAM model--could support that notion. The way teachers are evaluated in this state is ridiculously flawed.

Schools have been graded using a school report card for a number of years now. New to this report card (thanks to the state legislature) will be grades that range from A to F for every school. These grades will be based primarily off of how well students perform on state tests as well as national tests like the ACT. This raised a series of questions during our lunch discussion. What performance levels signify an “A” versus a “B” or “C”? Are schools who obtain an “A” on the school report card actually graduating students who are well-prepared for college and the “real world,” or are they better at preparing their students to test well?

The larger issue here is that in education, we constantly strive to measure the unmeasurable. For example, on a student’s report card, a grade of 75 is a “D” and a grade of 85 is a “B.” As a teacher, how on earth can I honestly say that the “B” student has mastered 10% more of the knowledge than the “D” student? I can’t, because it’s it’s not quantifiable. Likewise, is a teacher who is considered to be a level 5 significantly better than a level 3 teacher on the TEAM rubric? On the school report card, will an “A” school be significantly better than a “B” or “C” school?

I greatly appreciate Dr. McQueen taking the time to listen to a group of teacher leaders from around the state. Without question, there are areas of improvement for TNReady. Because the law requires state testing, our students deserve to have the best evaluation system that we can provide. Hopefully, the state’s ensuing discussion over how to improve TNReady will boil over into other areas of evaluation that correspondingly have glaring areas of improvement. There are more organic methods of evaluating teachers and schools than subjectively grading them. When we figure this out, Tennessee educationally will be a model for the nation and the positive change will be precipitous.