The Status Quo is No Longer Welcome

Contributed by Memphian and former NBA player, Elliot Perry.

In some ways, we have allowed our education system to sink to a bottomless pit of status quo primarily at the expense of the underserved. As a result, too many children – most in fact, have not been able to inhale the fresh air of the best schools or allow their mental buckets to sink deep into the wells of knowledge.

Over the past 50 years (and maybe longer), we have allowed our education system to persist in mediocrity.

Why you ask? Because, we have been afraid to address the single most important asset to our students: teachers.

For years we have been in retreat, but I tell you it’s only through confrontation that we demand the best and most effective teachers in every classroom, and the best leaders in every school and not just a few. Then, and only then, will we be able to hold our students to those same standards of excellence. To convince them that education is not abstract, but indeed figurative; that it is not Intangible, but tangible; and that it is the vehicle that allows us all not just to create a better life for ourselves, but reinforce that such knowledge will be worth more than any other qualification they’ll ever earn.

Sure, we have some great teachers in our classrooms, but some is not enough because the viability of our nation’s student population is at stake. We have to be willing to discover new ground, even at the risk of some disappointment. Meaningful change never happened as a result of fear or complacency; it happened, because a new generation of leadership chose to create a new path and till through unfertile soil in an attempt to yield new crops.

MCS leadership has demonstrated tremendous fortitude to cover that new ground through its new Teacher Effectiveness Initiative ( TEI ). And it has made clear that this work cannot be done alone by embracing other reform-minded organizations such as Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools, Memphis Teacher Residency, and The New Teacher Project. Thanks to the Gates Foundation and numerous local foundations, the Teacher Effectiveness Initiative will allow Dr. Cash and his staff to not only look at but do something about evaluating teachers to ensure that every classroom is led by an effective teacher in order to graduate every student and send them to college and/or be workforce ready.

My hope is that this ground breaking initiative and national partnership leads to ground breaking participation and support from our community. This should sound the alarm that the time is now and we should rise up as the new Freedom Fighters to ensure this echoes across our community as affirmation that we cannot afford to sit back and wait on time to solve this problem.

Dr. King was right when he said, “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, too late. There is an invisible book that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.”

So with that let us embrace and celebrate the great strides MCS is making in this area and hope that the hard work of teachers yields enormous dividends for our students, that they see the Importance of their own education and sink their mental buckets deep into the wells of knowledge.

TN DOE approves MCS Teacher Effectiveness Measure

With the approval of their new teacher effectiveness measure (TEM), MCS will initiate for the 2011-2012 school year a new and more rigorous process to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. In prior years, teacher evaluations have been a formality with more than 99% of teachers receiving satisfactory teacher performance ratings. This evaluation status quo has effectively been killed with the passing of MCS' new TEM.

Evaluations will now be more professionally collected and analyzed. In addition, teacher evaluations will now be used to inform decisions regarding leadership, compensation, tenure and dismissal.

This is a very important and exciting step towards insuring the right people are teaching our city's children.

See the press release below:

MEMPHIS, Tenn., June 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In a move that solidifies Memphis City Schools' position as a leader in urban education reform, today the Tennessee State Board of Education unanimously approved the statewide use of the MCS Teacher Effectiveness Measure (TEM), a groundbreaking method of evaluating teachers. The Board's decision allows districts throughout Tennessee to use Memphis' system for assessing teachers and significantly advances the district's $110+ million reform agenda.

The TEM is a cornerstone of MCS' effort to radically transform the city's public schools, increasing student achievement by improving the effectiveness of its teachers. While many other models of effective teaching rely largely on test scores, the TEM takes a more holistic view of teacher performance. Created by Memphis educators in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the TEM considers teacher content knowledge and the perceptions of stakeholders like students, colleagues and parents, as well as the value add indicators of effectiveness.

With the approval of the TEM, MCS-and any other Tennessee district that chooses to adopt it-will be better able to evaluate teacher practices in the classroom and identify teachers who are most in need of increased support and assistance. Teachers will also be identified who are able to serve as mentors to their peers and contribute their sizeable talents to the district's neediest students and schools.

In response to the approval, Dr. Kriner Cash, superintendent of MCS, said:

"Memphis City Schools is in the vanguard of the national push to increase effective teaching. This endorsement of our work gives us the green light to implement the innovations we are developing to increase effective teaching in our school district. Our teachers and students will benefit immensely when teachers are given the essential tools to make the necessary changes to improve teaching and learning. Our work is focused on providing effective teachers in every classroom, every day. The approval of the TEM is a major endorsement of our efforts."

Dr. Irving Hamer, the district's deputy superintendent, added: "With innovations such as TEM, the basis for individualized professional development, reformed career and compensation paths, and teacher recognition and support is set. The opportunity for transformation in education is at hand."

While state guidelines were developed by education policymakers in Nashville, the TEM was spearheaded by Memphis public school teachers, working in tandem with community leaders and philanthropists. A group comprised of teachers, administrators and other education reformers created the system after extensive research and testing. Their philosophy: Just as teachers are in the best position to determine how well their students perform in the classroom, teachers' peers are best able to tell whether they are up to the task of properly educating students.

The MCS Board of Commissioners approved the TEM, and the district submitted it to the state for approval in May.

A Great "Word" from the New York Times

Op-Ed Columnist - NY Times

It’s Not About You

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: May 30, 2011

Over the past few weeks, America’s colleges have sent another class of graduates off into the world. These graduates possess something of inestimable value. Nearly every sensible middle-aged person would give away all their money to be able to go back to age 22 and begin adulthood anew.

The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.

But, especially this year, one is conscious of the many ways in which this year’s graduating class has been ill served by their elders. They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They inherit a ruinous federal debt.

More important, their lives have been perversely structured. This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.

Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured. Most of them will not quickly get married, buy a home and have kids, as previous generations did. Instead, they will confront amazingly diverse job markets, social landscapes and lifestyle niches. Most will spend a decade wandering from job to job and clique to clique, searching for a role.

No one would design a system of extreme supervision to prepare people for a decade of extreme openness. But this is exactly what has emerged in modern America. College students are raised in an environment that demands one set of navigational skills, and they are then cast out into a different environment requiring a different set of skills, which they have to figure out on their own.

Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and find yourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture.

But, of course, this mantra misleads on nearly every front.

College grads are often sent out into the world amid rapturous talk of limitless possibilities. But this talk is of no help to the central business of adulthood, finding serious things to tie yourself down to. The successful young adult is beginning to make sacred commitments — to a spouse, a community and calling — yet mostly hears about freedom and autonomy.

Today’s graduates are also told to find their passion and then pursue their dreams. The implication is that they should find themselves first and then go off and live their quest. But, of course, very few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey and come out having discovered a developed self.

Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn’t in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution.

Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most.

Finally, graduates are told to be independent-minded and to express their inner spirit. But, of course, doing your job well often means suppressing yourself. As Atul Gawande mentioned during his countercultural address last week at Harvard Medical School, being a good doctor often means being part of a team, following the rules of an institution, going down a regimented checklist.

Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.

TN Charter Law removes cap and enrollment restrictions

In a move that most certainly will transform the public education landscape in Tennessee, the TN State Legislature voted last week to:

1. Remove the cap on the amount of charter schools in TN. Currently the cap is 90 statewide.

2. Remove any restrictions on enrollment. Currently, restrictions on enrollment limit the pool of charter school-eligible students to failing students, students from failing schools and students from lower-income families.

The potential ramifications are enormous... not only for the unions and traditional district schools (MCS) but also for local private schools.

Unions-

Since charters are staffed with non-union teachers, the growth in charter schools and their staff (and their potential success) pose a challenge to the the existing norm in Tennessee education.

Memphis City Schools-

MCS will certainly be impacted as more charter schools are created and are eligible to enroll a larger pool of city students. Since public funding follows the students, declining enrollment in traditional MCS schools reduces the funding to MCS. Free and open enrollment very much makes the business of public education a competitive "open" market for students and the corresponding funding implications.

Local Private Schools-

The opportunity for charter schools to recruit and enroll all students (including wealthy and/ or academically high achieving students) will put a tremendous pressure on private schools. For example, a charter school could open in an affluent neighborhood, adopt a rigorous college preparatory curriculum and actively recruit students from the surrounding area. A private school environment could be recreated and offered at no cost to all families.

Children-

While unions and schools (traditional and private) should be concerned with how to navigate this new landscape, it appears the big winners will be the children in Tennessee.

See below for the press release from the Nashville Tennessean:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A proposal by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam to remove the cap on charter schools is headed to his desk.

The measure by Republican Sen. Jamie Woodson of Knoxville passed the Senate 22-9 Friday night after the House version was approved 72-18.

Charter schools are funded with state and local tax dollars but don't have to meet some of the state regulations that traditional public schools do as they try to find different ways to improve student learning.

Under current law, the number of charter schools is capped at 90 statewide. There are currently 40 in all: 25 in Memphis, 10 in Nashville, three in Hamilton County and one each in Knoxville and Shelby County.

Besides removing the cap, the legislation also allows any student in the charter school's jurisdiction to attend.

President Obama and Memphis

President Obama was in Memphis Monday, May 16th to give the graduation commencement address and hand out diplomas to Booker T. Washington High School's 155 graduates.

I was particularly interested in this quote: "So that’s why I came here today. Because if success can happen here at Booker T. Washington, it can happen anywhere in Memphis. And if it can happen in Memphis, it can happen anywhere in Tennessee. And it can happen anywhere in Tennessee, it can happen all across America."

Just a reminder... Everyone really is watching Memphis. The President is watching. Bill and Melinda Gates are watching. The whole nation is watching.

I believe the MTR has this once in a lifetime opportunity to transform education one school and one feeder pattern at a time. And in doing so, we have the opportunity and potential to transform and redeem public education in Memphis for God's glory. We have the opportunity to do the impossible... and by doing so, prove that God is real and powerful and faithful to His promises to those in need.

And the whole world will know of it...

For the text of the entire speech, see: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/may/16/president-barack-obamas-commencement-speech/

For pictures, see: http://www.commercialappeal.com/photos/galleries/obama-memphis/

Tennessee Hires Chris Barbic as ASD Superintendent

Tennessee is proposing to turn around the lowest achieving schools in the state through the Achievement School District (ASD). This is a groundbreaking approach that will capitalize on the newly created authority of the Commissioner of the Education through the Tennessee First to the Top Act, best practices research on successful school turnaround, and unprecedented partnerships with nonprofit organizations.

Yesterday, Tennessee announced the hiring of the Superintendent of this newly formed district, Mr. Chris Barbic. He is currently the President of YES Prep in Houston, TX.

This hiring is gaining national attention and is another step in Tennessee leading the nation in urban education reform. I thought you would like to see the commentary below from Whitney Tilson, a leading national education reformer from New York City.

1) HUGE news from Tennessee

Chris Barbic has been tapped by the new Tennessee Education Commissioner (TFA’s Huffman) to be the founding Superintendent of the Achievement School District for the state.

I think this is STOP THE PRESSES news! As you doubtless know, YES Prep is among the very top CMO’s in the country. We hope the Achievement School District will become for Tennessee what the Recovery School District is to Louisiana, and more.

As you know, Kevin Huffman is Tennessee’s new Commissioner of Education. Huffman and Chris Barbic were both in the 1992 Teach for America Corps in Houston (along with Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg). Now Huffman and Barbic will be together again, ready to make Tennessee one of the very top destinations for dynamic education reformers. Congrats to Governor Haslam and Commissioner Huffman for this recruiting coup.

Here are various versions of the announcement:

http://blog.chron.com/schoolzone/2011/05/yes-charter-school-founder-headed-to-tennessee/

http://www.tn.gov/firsttothetop/TNASDSuperintendentjobdescription.pdf

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/may/09/texas-education-reformer-named-head-low-performing/

When you send out this news, you might consider sending along this video of the YES Prep college signing ceremony, which I find very, very inspiring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yp3DMAHh9s

Mutual Consent

A key piece of education reform is reviewing and restructuring the commonly accepted practice of "last in, first out" as it pertains to teacher surplussing and teacher lay-offs. This practice endorses staffing based on seniority, not necessarily based on effectiveness.

The reform language is for staffing to be determined based upon "mutual consent"... the idea that students benefit most when teachers and principals are working in buildings by choice and not bound by contractual constraints.

See below an editorial on this issue written in the Nashville Tennessean by Michelle Rhee and former U.S. Senator Dr. Bill Frist:

Tennessean, April 16, 2011

Tennessee must keep up vital education reform

By Bill Frist, M.D. and Michelle Rhee

In the past few years, Tennessee has transformed into a national leader in K-12 education reform. Last year, the Volunteer State demonstrated its commitment to improving outcomes for students and won the inaugural Race to the Top competition, resulting in $501 million in funding for innovative education efforts. The state legislature passed the First to the Top Act, the largest piece of education reform legislation in Tennessee since 1992. This year, the important work of reform has continued, and recently passed legislation will help ensure that Tennessee is able to identify and reward effective teachers and replace ineffective ones by changing the way tenure is granted. We applaud Tennessee for these important achievements. Though these accomplishments are significant, there is more to be done. Research has consistently shown that teachers are the most important school-based factor in determining how much a student learns. An important way to ensure that there is an effective teacher at the front of every classroom is to tie teacher evaluations to important school personnel decisions. Current teacher contracts feature “last in, first out” (LIFO) requirements mandating that if teacher layoffs are necessary, they be done by seniority instead of effectiveness. These requirements could do damage to children, teachers and schools. A recent national poll shows that 74 percent of Americans support dismantling LIFO, and with looming budget cuts, we have a critical responsibility to save our best teachers. Indeed, Tennessee faces a $1 billion budget gap, and recent news reports have suggested that some school districts across the state may unfortunately lay off teachers to balance their local budgets. If cuts and layoffs are inevitable, we must ensure that they have minimal impact on children. Unless LIFO is eliminated, not only will more teachers need to be let go to close the budget gap, but also our children risk losing some of their most highly effective teachers; this is unacceptable. Any change to Tennessee’s collective bargaining laws for teachers must include explicit language removing seniority as the basis for making personnel decisions. Legislation currently moving through the General Assembly and endorsed by Gov. Bill Haslam (HB 130, Amendment 1) contains this important language. Tennessee must also work to create an optimal environment for students by allowing principals and teachers to decide teacher placements based on mutual agreement or consent. Students benefit when both principals and teachers are working in an environment of their choice rather than one in which arcane personal rules dictate who goes where. When instituted in other states, the mutual consent system has resulted in benefits for teachers and schools by offering better choices, increased flexibility and greater transparency throughout the staffing process. To be clear, there is much work to be done. In Tennessee, only half of students score proficient or advanced in reading, and only a third score proficient or advanced in math. Recent economic investment in Tennessee has proven the vital connection between education and jobs, and Tennessee students will not be prepared to compete in the global economy without significant improvement. Thankfully, Tennessee stands ready to take on these critical issues. Support exists across multiple sectors for making further improvements to our educational system. We are excited to build on the tremendous progress made to date, and to continue enacting reforms that put the students of Tennessee first. Dr. Bill Frist is a former U.S. Senate majority leader and is currently chairman of the nonprofit State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE). Michelle Rhee is the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., Public Schools and founder and CEO of StudentsFirst. http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110416/OPINION/304160015/TN-must-keep-up-vital-education-reform?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Opinion|p