The Tennessean reports that after a recent internal study concluded that nearly 80% of all classes taught in the Metro Nashville schools weren’t keeping students engaged in their classwork, district officials are adopting a set of recommendations offered by a UK-based education consulting firm that will drastically change how the city schools operate.

According to the last batch of assessment data, only about a third of Nashville students are performing at grade level in mathematics and fewer than half are proficient in literacy and English language arts. At the same time, the district structure prevents teachers who could make a real difference to these numbers from either teaching effectively or sharing their skills with their colleagues.

Among the changes – which will begin rolling out next month – will be sharp staff reductions at the central office, and the creation of a mechanism that would allow the best educators from around the district to collaborate, learn from each other and transfer their skills to their peers.

The changes however, won’t be limited to just administrators and faculty. Roughly 27,000 students from around the district will receive personalized learning plans that will not only assess how well they are performing when measured against metrics set out by the state, but will also point them towards what they can do to catch up and get their skills up to grade level as quickly as possible.

Parents are cautiously optimistic but want to know details after facing waves of reform aimed at improving some Metro schools’ dismal performance. Susan Hyde, mother of an Antioch High sophomore, said her son’s school sees annual principal turnovers.

“I don’t know that moving people around just for the sake of moving people around is the smartest thing to do,” she said.

The man behind the sweeping changes is Director of Schools Jesse Register, who earlier this week announced the findings during a speech at the Martin Professional Development Center. Register said that he was confident that by following the recommendations laid out in the report, both the district and its students will eventually see improvement.

There are many reasons to trust Register’s words — since taking the reigns in Nashville four years ago, he has already presided over substantial academic gains, though he considers the rate of improvement to be too slow.

The improvement plan comes from Tribal Education, which is in the first year of a five-year, $6 million contract to improve Metro’s 34 schools with the lowest achievement or worst achievement gaps among groups of students. Many of the details on how to get them there are contained in a grant application to the U.S. Department of Education. The district is seeking $40 million for reforms, but Register said he’ll find a way to carry out reforms whether the application is successful or not.

The post Changes to Teaching, Learning Coming to Nashville Schools appeared first on Education News.

After repeatedly denying the charter application of Great Hearts Academies because it didn’t meet diversity goals, the Nashville Metro School Board is drafting its own diversity plan.

The board used the fact that the Great Hearts charter proposal wouldn’t ensure an ethnically mixed student body at a school in the city’s mostly white west side neighborhood to deny the application even after the State Board of Education ordered board members to approve it. However, education advocates who are familiar with Tennessee state law governing charter schools now say that the board has limited power in forcing a school to adopt its diversity plan, since, according to the legislation, charter school enrollment must be determined by lottery.

The Tennessean is reporting that any plan that depends on setting aside a specific number of slots to this or that minority group is bound to run afoul of the state’s charter law. Furthermore, these kinds of quotas could also violate the federal prohibition on discrimination based on race or national origin. Rich Haglund, the Tennessee Department of Education charter schools director, says that charter schools can’t follow admissions requirements that depend on the students’ race.

“It’s very difficult to create diversity,” Haglund said. “It’s very difficult for a district or operator to ensure.”

Metro’s own experiences illustrate that difficulty. In a district with no single majority race, nearly two-thirds of its schools last year had single-race majorities, and about 42 percent failed to meet a consultant’s suggested diversity standards.

In overruling the Nashville board’s decision to deny the Great Hearts charter application, the State Board of Education appeared to acknowledge the importance of a diversity program, saying that its approval should be contingent on the company developing a plan that was similar to the one used by Nashville Metro’s own schools. However, according to Gary Nixon, the state board executive director, the state board was actually mandating that Metro not set stricter standards on Great Hearts than it did on its own schools of choice. Since no formal diversity program exists that covers all of Metro schools, the board couldn’t require Great Hearts to adopt one.

Great Hearts was the first charter school to apply for a location in a predominantly white area under a revised state law that allows charters — public schools operated by nonprofit organizations — to serve all students and not just low-income children or those who come from a failing school.

Dannelle Walker, the attorney for the State Board of Education, said that the legislation is clear on what may and may not be considered when evaluating a charter school application. While local boards have the power to ensure that the academic program offered at a school is of good quality, the school’s ability to create a diverse environment isn’t on the table.

If Metro plans to enact a diversity plan, Haglund said, it is important that charter school applicants know about it before they apply.

The post After Great Hearts, Nashville Drafting Own Diversity Plan appeared first on Education News.

It didn’t take long for the other shoe to drop in the case of Nashville Metro School District’s defiance of a Tennessee Board of Education directive resulting in the denial of a charter school application for Great Hearts Academies. The Tennessee Board of Education announced that because of what took place at the Metro’s School Board meetings of August 14th and September 11th, the district will lose out on $3.4 million in funding due to its “refusal to follow state law.”

Great Hearts Academies applied to open five charter schools in the Nashville area to begin operating this fall. The Metro board put all the applications submitted in front of the assembled a charter school committee. Although the committee recommended approving Great Hearts, Metro district leaders expressed concern with some aspects of the application, in particular the number of schools and the lack of a comprehensive diversity plan, and denied the application.

Great Hearts appealed the denial to the State Board of Education, which recommended that the application be approved, assuming the company made some changes including opening only one school instead of the initially proposed five, and strengthening the diversity plan that was such an issue with Metro board members. The State Board’s intervention was for naught. After delaying the final vote for a month in August, in September the Metro Board members in a 5-4 vote once again denied Great Hearts’ application.

Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said they had hoped to avoid withholding funds, but Metro School’s decision forced them to act.

“It is our job to enforce state law, and we have no choice but to take this action,” said Huffman.
Officials said the funding would be reallocated to other school districts in the state.
Metro Schools issues a statement saying they were disappointed with the cut in funding.

“We do not yet have a plan on how we will respond to this disruptive mid-year cut. Our priority will always be to give the best education to our students with the resources we have,” the statement said.

Both Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey and Speaker of the House Beth Harwell have come out in support of the decision to withhold the funding. Harwell said that the penalty was entirely justified by the fact that the Metro School Board willfully defied the state law on at least two occasions. Such brazen disregard for the will of the legislature should not be allowed to go without consequences, she added.

The punishment, however, comes too late for Great Hearts. After the September 11th vote, the company made the decision to pull out of Tennessee entirely until such time as “Tennessee’s laws and charter approval process more effectively provide for open enrollment, broad service to the community and impartial authorizers.”

The post Nashville School District to Lose $3.4 Mil on Charter Flub appeared first on Education News.

Those who were hoping that something good could come out of the torpedoing of the Great Hearts Academies charter school proposal by the Nashville Metro School Board can take some comfort from the latest news being reported by the Tennessean. This Friday, the Nashville Metro school board decided to create an official diversity plan for their school district which will take into account more than just race and ethnicity.

The plan will focus on other diversity markers such as children speaking English as a second language, special needs students, the disabled, those at varying achievement levels and family income levels. Those were only some of the criteria outlined by the board-hired consultant Leonard Stevens as being necessary for a diversity policy to be considered comprehensive when he made his presentation to the board members late last week.

“You have left the era of integration and entered the era of diversity management,” Stevens said. “Recognize it and put your arms around it.”

Stevens, who met Metro officials when he was called to be an expert witness in a desegregation lawsuit ultimately won by the school system, said the system is “a true melting pot.”

Stevens was called in to talk to the board thanks to the efforts of the Director of Schools Jesse Register, who said that the district should use the conflict over Great Hearts as an opportunity to evaluate its limitations and figure out a way to move forward. On September 25th, Stevens and Register will jointly present a full proposal for the new diversity policy to the board. According to the Metro spokeswoman Meredith Libbey, the fee to Stevens for his part in drafting the proposal will amount to $20,000 or less.

The sticking point between the board and Great Hearts was the operator’s unwillingness to use busing to diversify the student body at the charter school that it planned to open in one of the least racially-diverse and most affluent parts of Nashville.

The Metro board was not convinced the school’s transportation and marketing plans were enough to create a diverse student body. After the board twice refused to approve the charter school, Great Hearts won an appeal in front of the state Board of Education, which ordered Metro to approve the school. After one vote to defer a decision and then a third denial,Great Hearts pulled out of Tennessee and state officials have refused to comment about possible sanctions against Metro for its defiance.

According to Stevens, the board’s insistence on busing is outdated, as a robust transportation policy was not longer a pre-requisite for making sure that a school’s student body is sufficiently diverse.

The post After Charter Decision, Nashville Board Considers Diversity appeared first on Education News.

In defiance of a state order and against the advice of its own legal counsel, the Metro school board in Nashville, Tennessee has once more rejected a charter application from Great Hearts Academies — and now Great Hearts has decided to give up the fight.

Although this time the vote was closer, with 5 board members voting to reject and 4 voting to approve, the result was the same. This is the fourth time in three months that the application from the Phoenix, Arizona-based company has been rejected by the school board, leading many to assume that a lawsuit might be required to get Metro to relent.

The sticking point for the board continues to be Great Hearts’ diversity plan for their new charter school in West Nashville. This point was strongly reiterated earlier this week, with board members saying that they will not vote to approve the application until the company draws up clear plans on how it intends to maintain diversity in its school. After the vote, the attorney representing the company, Ross Booher, said that he would need to consult with the client about how to proceed but didn’t rule out litigation as the next step.

“Great Hearts is obviously disappointed that the school board chose to again break state law but remains hopeful for the future,” he said.

State Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman did not immediately return a phone message.

It was hoped that the addition of four new board members prior to this meeting would make the vote break Great Hearts’ way, and three of the four new appointees did vote to approve the charter. However, that wasn’t enough. With Amy Frogge of District 9 voting to deny the application, and newly appointed board chair Cheryl Mayes breaking the tie with a no vote, Great Hearts is left to consider whether a courtroom will provide a friendlier environment for their decision.

Frogge, who defeated a well-financed, pro-charter candidate in August’s election, said the new board “inherited this problem,” adding that there’s been talk about the board being sued “collectively and possibly individually” over the Great Hearts matter.

“I don’t want all of this talk over litigation and potential personal liability to cloud our collective decision–making,” Frogge said before outlining her case.

In July, Great Hearts appealed the board’s denial to the state board of education which sent the decision back to Metro, saying that it should grant the school its approval assuming it meets the three conditions specified by the state board. The company has already committed to meet two of the conditions by hiring licensed teachers and limiting themselves to just one school rather than the originally planned five charter schools. The wrangling over the diversity plan continued, however, with the company balking at adopting the plan that is preferred by the district for its charters.

Lisa Fingeroot, writing in the Tennessean, reports that in the wake of the school board’s decision, Great Hearts has decided to pull out of the state entirely until such time as “Tennessee’s laws and charter approval process more effectively provide for open enrollment, broad service to the community and impartial authorizers.”  They also said that the overtly hostile nature of the board would, in any event, make opening a successful charter school impossible at this point.

Fingeroot anticipates that this will reopen the debate on whether to create a state agency to handle the granting of charter approvals.  Matt Throckmorton, executive director of the Tennessee Charter School Association, said that the current system was harming the children of Nashville because every application renewed the political discussion.  He added that the association was examining the ways in which other states have sought to take politics out of the charter school approval process.

The post Nashville Metro Board Denies Charter App, School Gives Up appeared first on Education News.

The Tennessean reports that Nashville school officials are set to reconsider a controversial charter school application from Great Hearts Academies in September when a new group of board members is set to take office.

The application has been added to the September Agenda by outgoing Chairwoman Gracie Porter, whose tenure in the role terminates at the end of August, and system Director Jesse Register. Both were unavailable for comment, but Register’s assistant commented that she didn’t know the motivation for the inclusion.

“They (new members) need to be a part of this,” said board member Anna Shepherd, whose term does not end until 2014. “They have to live with the decision.”

Shepherd was one of seven board members who voted earlier this week to indefinitely defer a decision on Great Hearts. The decision caused an avalanche of opposition from other government officials, culminating in a state threat to withhold funding from Metro schools.

The original decision to defer brought immediate condemnation from Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman, who accused the board of acting illegally and threatened sanctions such as withholding of funds until the school district complied.

The threat of financial sanctions being used was downplayed by Governor Bill Haslam, who commented that despite the board going against a state directive by refusing to approve a charter school, they also had to consider the impact that a withholding of funds would have on the children already within the system.

“I think with education, the discussion should always be what’s best for the students,” Haslam said Thursday. “We’ll have to think about what we do if the Metro school board doesn’t go along with what the law is. That being said, threatening to withhold money — that’s not the business we’re in. We’re in the business of educating children.”

The State Board of Education directed the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education to approve the application following a successful appeal by Great Hearts after the Metro Board had already denied their application twice.

The Metro Board claims that its actions are within the law because it took action and is waiting for Great Hearts to comply with a number of requests related to ensuring diversity and dealing with teacher certification. The main point of contention holding up approval appears to be the diversity plan; Metro Board members are concerned that the charter will become a publicly funded private school for affluent students from the west side if there isn’t a concrete plan in place to draw minority and disadvantaged students from other parts of the city.

Great Hearts spokesman Ross Booher, a Nashville attorney, said “it is encouraging that MNPS appears to be taking steps to approve Great Heart’s charter application as was unanimously recommended by MNPS’ own charter review committee.”

The post Metro Nashville to Revisit Rejected Charter Application appeared first on Education News.

Last week the Metro Nashville Board of Education chose to defy Tennessee over an order to authorize the Great Hearts Academies to operate a charter school in the district. By voting against the application, the school board has opened itself up to a legal challenge if the Phoenix-based charter operator chooses to pursue one.

Tuesday marked the last meeting of the school board’s nine members, and they voted 7-2 to deny approval to Great Hearts’ plans for a charter to operate in West Nashville. The board members who voted with the majority said that the proposal, as submitted, still failed to answer several questions raised by the board dealing with how the school will operate.

Four members of the board are scheduled to leave after this meeting, and at least one seemed regretful over saddling those who are remaining with a possible legal mess.

“I don’t want to saddle the board with any ill-feelings from the state, and so I’m cautious to just make the state board and state department of education angry,” outgoing board member Mark North told his colleagues.

“On the other hand, my conscience says I need to take a stand,” he added.

In the end, the board chose to defer the final decision on the Great Heart’s application until the company submits a plan on how it will maintain racial and ethnic diversity in their school to appease board members’ concerns. Ed Kindall, a 27-year veteran of the school board who was scheduled to step down after the meeting, said that without a concrete diversity plan, the board risks approving a chain of racially segregated schools located in the heart of one of the most integrated cities in Tennessee.

North suggested that in order to thwart Great Hearts, seven of the board’s members could walk out and prevent the quorum required to vote on the board business. In the end, the members simply decided to cast their vote in what could be considered a pointless gesture of local autonomy in the face of the state’s charter law.

The Tennessee Board of Education directed the Metro Nashville school board on July 27th to approve Great Hearts’ application at its next meeting, contingent on it adopting a diversity plan in line with the one used by other schools in the district, and to allow it to open one of five originally planned schools.

“The decision of the state board shall be final and not subject to appeal,” state law says regarding charter appeals.

Great Hearts still has state law on its side, but after Tuesday’s meeting, it’s unclear whether final charter authorization would come willingly from Metro. State law stipulates the local board must be the final authorizers during an appeals process.

The post Nashville Board Defies Tenn. Board, Rejects Charter App appeared first on Education News.

The Metro Nashville Public School board has approved only two out of ten submitted charter school proposals for next year, News Channel 5 reports. One of the schools that gained the coveted approval, to begin operating next year, is the Intrepid Prep Academy which was praised by members for its strong business plan and comprehensive curriculum that aligned well with the state academic standards. The other approval, Nashville Classical, will begin operating as an elementary school at the charter school incubator located in East Nashville before moving to its permanent headquarters in North Nashville the following year.

Among the rejected proposals, the one that drew the biggest surprise was the Knowledge Is Power Program’s plan to expand its Nashville network and open another school in the area. According to the MNPS director Dr. Jesse Register, the board was presented with a recommendation to approve KIPP’s plans but chose to ignore them. The board members based their votes on the 2010-11 test scores from the currently operating Nashville-area KIPP school, which failed to meet the minimum standards set by the school district.

The KIPP’s Executive Director Randy Dowell has vowed that his company would not accept the board’s decision quietly, and has already made plans to file an appeal in light of the fact that the district’s own charter review committee recommended approval of KIPP’s application.

School board member Mark North was critical of KIPP’s test results, pointing to the charter school’s regressed scores in science and social studies.

“They were hurt by their own performance at their existing school,” North said, pointing out that KIPP’s value-added scores for science and social studies were the worst in the entire school district.

KIPP Academy’s overall academic achievement received poor marks on the most recent state evaluation for the 2010-11 school year. KIPP, which educates students in grades 5-8, received a D grade in math, reading and social studies, and an F in science.

Last week, Karl Dean, the city’s mayor and one of the strongest supporters of the charter school movement in the state, voiced his support for KIPP’s appeal and said that he found the board’s rejection of the company’s application “disappointing.” Although he said that the board should have followed the recommendations issued by the charter review committee when it came to KIPP, his remarks regarding the board’s rejection of Great Hearts Academies’ proposal to open five schools in the city, were much more measured.

“The school board raised legitimate issues of diversity and transportation as it relates to the application Great Hearts Academies submitted. Diversity is an important value when it comes to educating our students, and charters need to be positioned in a way that serves the entire community. … I encourage Great Hearts and Metro Schools to work together to find a solution.”

The post KIPP Vows to Appeal Rejection of Nashville Charter Proposal appeared first on Education News.

Kamrani moved to Nashville with her husband, Chris Barbic, superintendent of the Achievement School District for the state of Tennessee. They have two children, both of whom are Metropolitan Nashville Public School students.

Margaret Dolan, chairwoman of the Foundation, explained the appointment:

“When we began the search for the leader of the Foundation, we had no idea that someone of Natasha’s ability would be available, much less have recently moved to Nashville.

“She knows the work of education at the classroom level, at the school board level and at the national foundation level. And she’s been a leader at each of those levels. We are extremely fortunate to have her join the Foundation as president.”

Kamrani is an alumnus of Miami University, having collected a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a minor in political science in 1990. She then went one to work for Teach For America (TFA), teaching English as a second language to recent immigrants in Houston’s public school system. After this she then went on to become the executive director of Teach For America’s Houston office. In 2000, she received a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Houston Law Center and was later elected to the Houston Independent School District Board of Education.

During her time at the District board she helped enact several important policies concerning teacher effectiveness. Later, she served as the executive director of the Arnold Family Foundation, based in Houston, with a national focus on reform of the public school system.

Metro Schools Director Dr. Jesse Register said:

“Natasha Kamrani has a great combination of skills and experience in both education and philanthropy.

“We are working to make Metro Schools the first choice for Nashville’s families and we look forward to working with her as we accelerate student achievement.”

Kamrani spoke about her appointment:

“I could not possibly be more excited to be in Nashville at a time when there is such an incredible amount of energy, enthusiasm and commitment from the community focused on positive change in our city’s public education system. Nashville already feels like home, and I am very much looking forward to tackling the challenges and embracing the opportunities ahead as I work with my community to ensure a quality education for all Nashville’s children.”

In an interview with Heidi Hall at the Tennessean, Kamrani discussed what she believes is the most important need in Metro schools.

“You have energy and commitment, new organizations — you have the setting now to bring those together and create a plan for how to go forward and where we want to be five years down the road. We will tackle various pieces of that puzzle. But the biggest need is a question I’m going to be answering in the first few months. There are a million needs, and I have to find out the priorities.”

Kamrani’s husband, Chris Barbic, heads the state’s Achievement School District.

 “My husband and I are incredibly fortunate people to have found our passion early and dedicated our lives to pursuing it. We would not be here if we didn’t feel that Tennessee was the place to be. If Tennessee can’t be successful at education reform, I don’t know who can, and Nashville is a great size to create sustainable change.”

This comes after the Metro Nashville school board granted Gaylord Entertainment Co. exclusive naming rights to McGavock High School’s hospitality academy for $100,000 the first year and $50,000 thereafter in in-kind services, writes Nancy DeVille at the Tennessean.

These ‘in-kind’ services are thought to include speakers, professional development for teachers and equipment.

There are currently four similar deals in the Metro Nashville district. And this is a national trend too. School districts across the country are turning to donors and corporations to finance building projects in exchange for naming rights.

Metro officials are keen to see more partnerships between academies and schools to keep students interested.

Lisa Bonelli, principal of the academies at McGavock High, said:

“The students are learning the importance of networking and social skills for the business world.

“It’s really giving them a real experience that, without the partners, our students wouldn’t be able to experience.”

The post Kamrani Named President of Nashville Public Ed Foundation appeared first on Education News.

In the report, business leaders outlined how they want more of a focus on how many students score a 21 on the ACT, which is the threshold to qualify for a state-funded HOPE scholarship.

“We had a lot of kids who didn’t move up the ramp as quickly as they need to,” said committee Co-Chairman Ron Corbin.

“What gets measured gets done, and the ACT is one of the most comprehensive measures you can have relative to college preparedness and job readiness.”

The chamber wants to see the state Department of Education to use the scores from the test that every high school student must take, and use them to evaluate whether the schools are making adequate process.

Tennessee has applied to the federal government to opt out of No Child Left Behind and set its own measuring system for schools.

The chamber report also recommended that schools use more data from new software that tracks individual student attendance, discipline, benchmark testing results and other trends.

“We didn’t sort through what that should look like, but it was inspired by a teacher talking to our committee who said if you want to communicate to parents effectively, you have to do it on intervals and methods intuitive to them,” said Marc Hill, chief policy officer for the chamber.

The report contains pages of polling and performance data, highlighting aspects such as the fact that public perception of schools’ performance has been almost flat for four years.

A district spokeswoman said leaders are already working on some of the suggestions.

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