Roy Exum: Prove No Improvement

  • Saturday, May 27, 2017
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

The startling news that this year’s standardized testing was wasted on graduating seniors across Tennessee is most unsettling. This week it was learned the test results, which were to represent 10 percent of our seniors’ final grades, was a total bust. Coupled with last year’s gargantuan testing failure – the whole effort had to be scrapped -- it is now becoming realized that for the past three years the state’s Department of Education is our biggest public embarrassment.

In late April state Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen appeared before the Hamilton County Board of Education to announce “state intervention” for five Hamilton County inner-city schools. While almost all parties in Chattanooga believe this is insane, now comes this question:

How does the woman know there has been no improvement? The stark truth is there is not a shred of proof.

The last TCAP scores were revealed in July of 2015. Since then state testing has been a train wreck and the earliest the commissioner can get elementary results is “sometime this fall,” according to the state Department of Education. That is noticeably vague but let’s pick – say – Sept. 30. That would mean for the first time in 27 months McQueen and her decision makers have had any data whatsoever to show there has been little if any improvement at the schools she intends to hijack -- Brainerd High, Dalewood Middle, Woodmore Elementary, Orchard Knob Middle and Orchard Knob Elementary.

That’s well over two years and that is rampantly unfair. She has no basis of fact. That is why on Monday night there will be a meeting at Dalewood Jr. High for an angry citizenry to voice displeasure over McQueen's heist “where ‘no’ is not an option.”

In the past 15 months I have become one of Hamilton County’s biggest critics in our obvious slide in public education. I am convinced for 10 years the School Board was not providing the diligence nor the oversight for our dysfunctional Department of Education. I have attended every board meeting, bemoaned a “broken system,” and paid rapt attention to any and everything that wrongs a child’s right to a good education.

There is not a doubt in my mind that the school year just ended was the best in Hamilton County in the last 20. When Kirk Kelly became the Interim Superintendent the process stunk to high heavens. I was totally against it and I was wrong. Kirk immediately made Jill Levine his Chief Academic Officer and the two picked three lieutenants – Justin Robertson, Zac Brown and Lee McDade.

Kelly is one of five final-finalists for the permanent superintendent’s post that will be named after the 15 months the still ineffectual School Board has wandered in the wilderness but what he and his four top staffers have done in the past school year should earn each a medal. They have accomplished incredible improvement systemwide. For McQueen not to notice is precisely why no one in Nashville will ever know what is best for Chattanooga – in anything, much less education.

So let’s look at some facts and I contend these improvements are far more telling than any standardized test that children from Memphis to Johnson City are judged.  Standardized tests are ridiculous. Who among us wants to be judged for an entire year on a two-day test? Hello!

So what are the accomplishments our “broken system” just yielded with long nights, constant interruption, outside influences and a busing catastrophe?

* -- Over 700 literacy labs for teacher professional development in one year.

* -- Development of a new reading intervention model

* -- Purchase of leveled books to support guided reading instruction for all K-8 schools

* -- Purchase and support for new literacy curriculum for Brainerd High

* -- Pilot of Singapore Math program in 5 elementary schools

* -- Over 1,180 students benefitted from “Cue the Artists” pilot

* -- Over 1,800 students benefitted from “Science Sparks” pilot

* -- More pilots are being developed – hundreds of students are affected by new innovations. 

* -- Expansion of Project Inspire teacher residency program with new partnership with Lee University

* -- New partnership with UTC to launch a new year-long teacher residency program

* -- New teacher recruiting efforts

* -- Creation of new summer school/teacher induction academy

* -- Awarded $1 million from VW to launch eLabs – this will enable HCDE to have more design-thinking studios next year than any other district in the state.

* -- Awarded grants of $181,000 for summer-reading programs in the five high-poverty schools

* -- New system for hiring principals – more transparent, more detailed, more accountable.

* -- Monthly support sessions for first year principals

What you don’t see are far more achievements school-by-school. My warmest moment since I nosed my way into the educational plight of our young – our future – is the day I spent at Orchard Knob Elementary. School principal LaFrederick Thirkill dared me to come and I absolutely swooned over the kids, the teachers, and the smiles I saw in literally every single room. Don’t try to tell me we are not making progress.

That visit and the heroic Thirkill convinced me state intervention is the worst thing that can happen to our children. I believe we need to embrace ‘the total child.’ We have to teach reading and math, but we also must confront hunger, poverty, lack-of-oversight when school is out … each is a hurdle in learning. Any fool can see this. I’m talking 12-month school years, putting the Cub Scouts, the Girl Scouts inside the schools. We need Merit Badges in scholarship, first aid, citizenship, electronics and so much more. Let’s plant the seeds early.

You want an expert. State Rep. JoAnne Favors was a single working mother with four children. She’s got a far better grasp on what is “real” than most of us could possibly know. She cares more about the 2,600 children that will be caught in a state takeover than anybody. Go to Dalewood Monday night and listen to her wisdom. She has been there and can tell you precisely what children in poverty need the most.

For anyone to say we haven’t made improvement in our iZone schools is a lie they can’t prove. Candice McQueen has had no data in over two years but I fear her personal agenda supersedes common sense. For her to demand Hamilton County enter a contractual agreement for five years when she has one year left on Governor Haslam’s cabinet is every bit as ‘stoopid’ as the fact the state Department of Education will now go for over two years before any measurable data – no matter how flawed – can be presented.

This is inexcusable and common reason dictates that, yes, while ‘no’ may not be an option to McQueen, it is the only one permissible option for 2,600 children who live in poverty in our city. As human beings with a passion for children, there is no other acceptable choice.

royexum@aol.com

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