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Volume 7, Number 11 September 2013
From the President
Calendar of Events
September 2013
September 28 Tennessee Urban Education Association Conference, Nashville
September 27-28 Student TEA Leadership Conference, Nashville
October 2013
October 1 Deadline for sending UEP Membership Dues Payment Agreement
October 5 TEA Committee-Commission Weekend
October 18-19 TEA Board of Directors, TEA Building
November 2013
November 1-2 TEA Advocacy Conference
November 18-22 American Education Week
November 20 ESP Day
November 28 Thanksgiving
Tennessee’s Teachers, Business Leaders Team Up To Spread Good News About Our Public Schools
Start keeping an eye – and ear – out for TEA’s new TV, print and radio ads this month. Thanks to an NEA advertising grant, TEA launched a new statewide advertising campaign called “Pencils to Paychecks” featuring TEA members and small business owners who graduated from Tennessee public schools.
The goal of Pencils to Paychecks is to connect local public schools and educators with the communities they serve. As you know, a strong, successful community is built on a foundation of strong, successful public schools – making everyone, not just educators, accountable for the success of Tennessee’s children.
Receiving the grant money from NEA provided an opportunity for TEA to combat all of the negative rhetoric surrounding public schools and put out a positive message that Tennessee educators are doing great things every single day.
TEA knows our public schools are producing thousands of graduates each year who later become the lifeblood of our communities, and it is time for business leaders and community members to know it, too.
To get this message out statewide, TEA planned a comprehensive TV, print and radio advertising campaign that will run September through March. The TV commercials will air in Chattanooga (WRCB), Knoxville (WBIR), Memphis (WREG), Nashville (NewsChannel 5) and Tri-Cities (WJHL). Print ads will appear in business journals in the metro markets and in community newspapers in rural markets. Radio ads will air on public radio stations and on the Titans Radio Network which airs on 58 stations statewide.
The Titans Radio buy includes a special “TEA Scholar Athlete of the Week” feature during every Titans football game. A different high school senior will be honored each week for his or her outstanding academic and athletic achievements. Each student will receive a plaque signed by Titans’ Head Coach Mike Munchak and TEA President Gera Summerford.
Visit www.PencilsToPaychecks.org to see the ads and learn more about the campaign. The campaign’s print and television ads feature TEA members and small business owners who graduated from Tennessee public schools.
One of the ads features a father and daughter from Robertson County. Jerry Duncan is a graduate of Robertson County Public Schools and now owns his own business, Lee’s Building Center. His daughter, Katelyn Duncan, teaches math at East Robertson High School and was recently honored as her school’s New Teacher of the Year.
The second ad features Allan Benton, a former educator who now owns Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams in Monroe County. Best known for his bacon, Benton has become a household name not only in Tennessee, but nationwide. Prior to starting his own business, Benton was a school counselor in Monroe County and an active member of TEA.
Alongside Benton in the television commercials is Metro Nashville teacher Sheila Garcia. Sheila teaches at Isaac Litton Middle School – the location for the ad shoots – and also serves on the Metro Nashville Education Association executive board.
Get Involved in the Campaign!
Join TEA in spreading the word about the great things happening in Tennessee’s public schools. Share the link to the ‘Pencils to Paychecks’ website, www.PencilsToPaychecks.org, with your friends and family through social media.
TEA is also looking for more quotes to include on the website. Ask a local business owner who graduated from a public school to submit a quote to appear on www.PencilsToPaychecks.org. Quotes from educators and business owners may be submitted to Chris Watson at .
Eligible Teachers Urged to Renew Professional Licenses
By March 2014
The State Board of Education voted 6-3 in August to approve its controversial plan to tie licensure advancement and renewal to teacher evaluations and TVAAS data, but delayed its implementation by one year, until August 2015. The board acknowledged the many concerns about the proposal as it now stands and made a commitment to further study the plan and amend it as-needed over the coming year.
While TEA would have preferred the board had voted down the current proposal, this outcome is still a win for Tennessee teachers. The vote is evidence that the voices and concerns of educators were heard and considered.
While some Tennessee lawmakers are already talking about reversing the board’s decision legislatively, TEA encourages teachers whose 10-year professional licenses will be in the sixth year of validity by March 2014 to submit their licenses for renewal by spring of next year.
“According to our calculations, 40 percent of Tennessee’s teachers will be able to renew their license for an additional 10 years under the current rules,” said TEA President Gera Summerford. “This means the new measures coming into effect in 2015 won’t apply to them for 10 more years if they apply to renew their license in the early spring of 2014. We encourage TEA members to contact their UniServ coordinators with questions about license renewal.”
The current license renewal and advancement policy, which will remain in place until August 2015, states that “for all educators holding a Professional License based on a Master’s degree or higher with at least five years of acceptable experience during the 10-year validity period of the license (ex: 2003 to 2013), no renewal points are required – only verification of that experience is needed. If all experience has been in Tennessee public school systems, no verification by the applicant is required.”
Currently, if a teacher has five years left on his or her license, it’s eligible for renewal for another 10 years. But don’t be fooled by the Board of Education’s delay of the new rules until August 2015. Due to the intricacies of the state’s rulemaking process, the board gave life to a new rule that would exempt the majority of current licenses from renewal under the old rules. That rule is expected to go into effect next spring.
Teachers currently holding an apprentice license with three years of experience are encouraged to ask their principal to recommend them for a professional license. For example, if a teacher holding an apprentice license reaches three years of teaching experience in March 2014, they should ask their principal to recommend them for a professional license under the old rules.
“Generally, the State Board of Education votes on rules and policy at the same time and they are the same,” said Jim Wrye, TEA head of government relations. “When the board voted to tie professional licenses to student test scores, they delayed implementation of the policy, but they also voted on an obscure rule that makes teacher licenses which don’t expire by August 2015 ineligible for renewal under the old rules. That wasn’t brought up in the conference-call meeting and it’s certainly not the way public business should be done.”
Still, Wrye said the rule won’t go into effect until spring 2015, which leaves teachers with eligible licenses a relatively short window to apply for renewal.
It takes about a month to renew a professional license.
Until the new changes are implemented, the board stated publicly that it will work with all stakeholders and amend the current plan to come up with a more appropriate method for issuing and renewing teacher licenses. Teachers can be confident that TEA will be there every step of the way in the coming year to make sure the interests of educators continue to be represented.
TEA’s biggest concerns with the new licensure policy remain the use of TVAAS estimates for license advancement and renewal, the dual standards for tested and non-tested teachers, and the complete removal of continuing education requirements.
Advocacy Conference to Lift Up Teachers’ Spirits
The Tennessee Education Association’s 2013 Fall Advocacy Conference will connect the urgent battles in the state legislature with the concerns of school districts and will equip teachers with the tools to fight for public education jobs going forward.
Dubbed “Statehouse, Courthouse, Schoolhouse and You!” the conference will be held on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 1-2, 2013, at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Expected to draw hundreds of teachers from Memphis to Mountain City, the conference will open with the TEA Pink-Out, a breast cancer awareness event. A government relations and legislative town hall meeting will conclude the evening on Friday.
“With the implementation and pending enactment of various “education reforms,” this is a critical and challenging time for our profession,” said TEA President Gera Summerford. “The TEA Advocacy Conference will focus on skill development and strategies needed to promote the collective voice of Tennessee’s teachers as advocates for our profession and for our students.”
Conference sessions will tackle childhood poverty and student achievement, professional rights and responsibilities within the advocacy framework, ways to use collaborative conferencing to advance the Association’s agenda, instructional issues and social networking, not to mention an informative new look at the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System. A Chattanooga Times-Free Press writer will deliver the keynote address on Saturday.
On-site conference registration will begin at 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1, and will continue on Saturday morning. Hotel check-in will be available after 4 p.m. on Friday. The conference will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday evening with the Early Bird session, and will end at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013.
Please contact your local president if you wish to attend the conference and check back for conference details and registration at www.teateachers.org.
Licensure + Test Scores = Misguided Reform
By Mitchell Johnson
The current administration takes pride in saying that Tennessee is a leader in education reform. Let’s consider what kind of reform is being pursued. This State Department of Education is quick to pull the trigger on imposing punitive measures on everyone from classroom teachers to local school boards. The swift action to enact measures that strip a teaching license and, thus, the ability to pursue a teaching career is far from the kind of education reform Tennessee needs.
One bad idea after another is being promoted by the Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman and passed by Tennessee’s State Board of Education. At the most recent conference-call meeting of the board, the Commissioner recommended tying teaching licenses to student test scores. Never before has a single proposal placed the careers of thousands of teachers at such risk. This proposal is particularly troublesome because: 1) student test scores are expected to initially drop in the very near future as Tennessee implements changes in state and national testing due to Common Core; and 2) the student test scores reflected in TVAAS are “estimates” (not hard data) and can fluctuate dramatically over a five-year period of time.
TEA took the lead in calling these factors to the attention of members of the State Board of Education before their August vote. In addition to a news conference, President Summerford made individual contacts with board members to explain how the proposal represented a misuse of TVAAS data which could end a teaching career based on a volatile system not designed for this purpose and providing only an estimate—or range—of a teacher’s “effectiveness.”
Members of TEA’s State Board Contact Team also contacted board members and pointed out that the proposal did not require a teacher at risk of losing her license to be provided with professional development on “best practices.” TEA and the state Advisory Council on Teacher Education and Certification emphasized that the Commissioner’s proposal did not contain an appeals process allowing a teacher an opportunity to address anomalies and inconsistencies in her TVAAS data. These concepts are what real education reform should include. Professional development providing exposure to “best practices,” followed by an opportunity to show improvement has occurred, is the kind of positive reform that could address teacher performance issues and improve student achievement.
Due to TEA’s involvement, implementation of the commissioner’s licensure changes were delayed by a year, providing more time for further input from education stakeholders and additional study. The final proposal was also amended to include an appeals process which delays the stripping of a license by one year, during which a teacher may demonstrate improved student achievement results.
TEA will remain steadfast in working toward practical, common sense education reform in Tennessee. A growing body of research reveals the inappropriateness of using value-added data like TVAAS as a basis for high-stakes employment decisions. Since the teaching and learning process is complex and influenced by many factors, the effectiveness of teachers should be measured in multiple ways. More time and study is required to determine the most effective means—beyond student test scores—to decide if a teacher is having a positive impact on students.