Anxiety about new state testing standards looms

The $501 million Race to the Top boon that so far only Tennessee and Delaware have successfully applied for is practically within knuckle-rapping distance. This week, the secretary of education — who oversees administration of the $4.3 billion in federal grants for education innovation-minded states — should approve a state budget detailing how the money will be spent, district by district.

And on July 30, the committee tasked with reconfiguring the way we grade teachers will deliver its preliminary report to the state Board of Education. Rethinking teacher evaluations is one of the cornerstones of reform envisioned in the state’s application for the grant, which will be split down the middle between state-level initiatives and school districts. Along with professional development and technological upgrades, school districts will be able to hire temporary coaches to train teachers on the use of the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System, a way to measure the gains each student makes, comparing normative improvements with their actual improvements, year by year.

It’s also one of the primary methodologies on which the teacher evaluation advisory committee will evaluate educator performance in the future.

With Democrat Phil Bredesen’s governorship in its waning days and a slate of red and blue candidates sounding off with big-government bombast, it would seem a delicate time for regime change during a period of ambitious reform — especially one that draws so heavily on federal funding.

But aside from the dangers posed by Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey’s boot, director of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research Justin Owen said he doesn’t see new leadership having a significant effect.

“It will be an ongoing process that’s already being shaped, and I don’t think the next governor will have that much control over it,” he said.

It doesn’t hurt that each primary candidate has already signed a letter promising to support the reforms and maintain the continuity of the process through the shakeup that inevitably follows a new face in the house on Curtiswood Lane.

“I think we’ll continue to have conversations with the candidates in the coming months to ensure that the integrity of the plan is continued into the next administration,” state Department of Education spokeswoman Amanda Anderson said.

Spend wisely

One potential pitfall the Board of Education is advising school districts to sidestep is using the money for recurring expenses like, say, the salary for a new teacher. The money will be distributed over four years, and beyond that it comes out of the state, school district or county budget.

“Will they keep that long-term focus?” Owen said. “That’s something politicians rarely do once they get into working out the details of things.”

At the school-district level, Anderson said each has submitted a “scope of work,” outlining how it will use the money. She added that they are “discouraged” from spending Race to the Top money outside of that.

Of course, at a time when districts everywhere are cash-strapped, Owens said, the temptation to “plug holes” with the thousands or, in Metro Nashville and Memphis, millions of dollars they may soon receive is great.

A large portion of the $30.3 million that Metro Nashville schools stand to receive will go to professional development training for teachers as they prepare to transition their students into new academic assessment tests. The district will also hire 12 data coaches to train teachers on the use of TVAAS data. A development institute will target promising new teachers and train those teaching at struggling schools.

There is also a looming change in state testing standards, one that may give the impression of a sudden failure among vast swaths of students. It also may plunge more schools into the already-small pool designed to catch — and rehabilitate — those that are failing.

During a recent press conference warning of the effect higher proficiency standards that will be voted on July 30 may have on how schools are rated, Bredesen seemed eager to soften the blow. One component of Tennessee’s Race to the Top proposal is the takeover of failing schools by nonprofits. If more schools are categorized as low-performing under the new standards, there may be a danger that truly faltering schools will slip through the cracks, Owens said.

“Once you expand the definition of a failing school or a high-priority school, you make it less likely that those really, really bad schools get the relief they need,” he said.

Anderson said the state education department anticipates a “dip,” but it remains to be seen just how high the bar is set and how many schools enter the pipeline for failing programs as a result.

“We are at risk of more schools going into that accountability pipeline,” she said.