Pushing Back

Rep. G. A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) makes this week's issue of Education Week. The article titled "Home-schoolers Pushing Back Against New State Scrutiny". The article highlights what a busy month it's been for homeschool advocates and how strong their opposition to interference has been. In Nebraska 1,000 of some 6,000 homeschoolers descended upon the state capitol when a legislator, who is married to the teacher's association lobbyist, btw, tried to require testing for them. In Mississippi the statehouse was 'flooded' with calls and the bill there died in committee. In Tennessee hundreds attended a public hearing. Just last week a juvenile case that was hidden from public view yielded a public opinion that a private school provision used by some 160,000 students' parents to school their children at home was illegal. That's going to redefine 'flood of calls to the statehouse' to be sure.

Here's the portion of the Ed Week article about Hardaway's wrong headed effort to require all students take the state tests.

In Tennessee, Rep. G.A. Hardaway has been pushing for a new law to require all school children to pass the same state exams as public school students to receive a high school diploma. In response, the home school community in Tennessee waged a telephone and e-mail campaign to lobby against the measure before its first public hearing on Feb. 27.

Mr. Hardaway, a Democrat from Memphis, said he didn't intend to target home school students, but wanted to draw the attention of state education officials to what he called "an uneven playing field" for public school students.

Under Tennessee's current graduation requirements, students must pass a series of three standardized exams, known as Gateway tests, to earn a diploma. Mr. Hardaway said that requirement is not fair when it's only applied to public school students, especially when graduates of nonpublic schools are eligible for state-lottery-funded college scholarships.

"In order for it to be a fair race, everyone needs to start from the same starting line," he said.

The state board of education, however, has already approved a new policy that will soon eliminate the Gateway tests in favor of a series of end-of-course exams, which will account for 25 percent of a student's overall course grade.

In the meantime, Mr. Hardaway, who is reworking his original legislation, said he would seek to require that Tennessee education officials more closely study the best practices used by home-schoolers and other nonpublic educators that may work to help raise student achievement in public schools.

"We all need to work together and learn from each other," Mr. Hardaway said.

Hardaway is unwilling to acknowledge that there is plenty of research out there about private and homeschoolers that he could glean from to rework the public education system. It's already available. It is not necessary to force families to submit to state scrutiny in order to obtain that information. It won't require legislation and it'll be a lot cheaper than $4 million a year just to test the students and then untold millions to examine, more to create new programs based on the suggested changes and even more to implement. Likely, the end will be what works in small intimate family settings just doesn't work as well in factory school setting.

Hardaway just needs to withdraw his bill, HB2795, and save taxpayers and legislators a lot of grief and dollars. We've got way more than 6,000 homeschoolers in this state. Add private schoolers and the legislative halls won't hold them all.

Testimony on YouTube

My apologies to those of you who wanted to see the testimony before the House Special Initiatives sub-committee and found it was unavailable due to heavy traffic. Over the weekend it was uploaded to YouTube. It's been broken down into seven segments of about five minutes each for ease in finding and digesting what's most interesting to the viewer. Comments in the right hand column let you know what's in each clip. That page is hosted at TnHomeEd.com.

Rep. G. A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) states in his introductory comments:

"What it does, Mr. Chairman, is to make use of best practices that the homeschoolers would be able to develop, proven out. We've got to have some general way of measurement and actually collecting that data and bringing it into the school system. But that's cheaper and makes a whole lot more sense than having to develop umpteen laboratory schools. We've already got it working..."

further in clip six he states:

"Let's work on things together. Let's talk about whether the assessment tests that the public schoolers are doing and the assessment tests that the private schools and the homeschoolers are doing need to be the same. "

Lest folks brush this off as a homeschool issue please see what is in bold above. His intention is to measure all students in every home and private school in an effort to find out what works. Sitting down over coffee or reviewing the information already out there won't work. He tells us we won't know what works unless the State of Tennessee actually collects data. Further he thinks testing students not in the public school system will be cheaper. The fiscal note for this bill quickly puts it at about $4 million a year and I believe they've highly underestimated the number of students not in the public school system. I don't call that cheap. I know some schools that could do a LOT with $4 million as public school parents are quick to point out.

And we haven't even gotten into the particulars of testing itself. As those who toil under the yoke of NCLB will tell you...the test doesn't always tell you the whole story. Criterion reference or normed reference have big problems--especially if the students aren't following the expected scope and sequence.

The calls to Hardaway and his partners in this effort Rep. Joe Towns (D-Memphis) and Rep. Tommie Brown's (D-Chattanooga) will continue until the bill is withdrawn.

Politics Memphis style

(Red Hat) Rob Shearer posts over at the Tennessee ConserVOLiance his take on this whole HB2795 testing for every student dust up. He starts with:

Background: The Memphis delegation has wielded disproportionate influence in the Tennessee Legislature for over a century. This was partly due to demographics (until quite recently, Memphis was the largest city in the state), partly due to party discipline (Memphis is overwhelmingly Democrat and the Democrats control the state legislature), and partly due to the legacy of Boss Crump. Don’t get me started on Boss Crump. But if you’re going to play politics in Tennessee, you’d be well served to do some research on him.

and then answers the question: So why is Representative Hardaway picking a fight with homeschoolers?

Give it a read.

Let's go to the replay

Here's the video of the Special Initiatives sub-committee yesterday. I want to remind folks that as HB2795 stands now it includes ALL non-public students. This is not just a homeschool fight. It's my sincere hope that Rep. G. A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) actually creates a bill that has a clearly defined goal and plan to accomplish that specific goal. While we may not agree it's necessary, at least we'll know what the debate should be about. But if he thinks we're going to work with him in an effort to require non-public students to submit to any kind of state testing, which will drive the scope and sequence of our children's education, it's not going to happen.

Hardaway punts

Yesterday's House Education Committee's Special Initiatives sub-committee was very well attended by parents, children and others interested in stopping HB2795 mandating state tests for all students sponsored by freshman legislator Rep. G. A. Hardaway (D-Memphis). I'd estimate at least 100 people were crowded into the room with many waiting in the cloakroom and hall. They came, despite the snow, from across the state, literally from Sevierville to Memphis, such was their concern about unnecessary interference in the education of children. People in suits and blue collars some with children in tow. They were determined to make their voices heard. It was very clear from statements made by legislators in the hearing that they had each received thousands and thousands and thousands of calls and emails about the issue--and they didn't want a repeat of that.

Not surprising to those of us familiar with the legislature the Education Committee meeting went very long. Then it was decided that Rep. Tommie Brown's (D-Chattanooga) Higher Ed committee would be slipped in before the Special Initiatives Committee. Despite that the crowd remained fairly quiet and patient until the meeting started and hour after the advertised time.

The bill was introduced and there was a moment or two while we waited for a motion in order to even hear discussion on the bill. Unfortunately, Rep. Tommie Brown (D-Chattanooga) provided it and later when he finally arrived Rep. Joe Towns (D-Memphis) provided the necessary second.

Amazingly, Hardaway spoke at great length about his bill but people were still unclear as to why non-public schoolers were involved. Hardaway seemed to be saying that he was concerned about the unfairness in public school testing and was using this as a tool to highlight that and push improvements. He acknowledged that the State Board of Education was reworking testing and that while Gateway's had been very high stakes they now accounted for only 25% of the graduation requirement. Observers wondered: If this is a public school problem, why are all these non-public schoolers being impacted? Interesting comments considering Hardway's relationship with a Memphis Charter school, Memphis Academy for Health Sciences.

Brown asserted that she was a supporter of homeschooling and the legislature granting us the right to do so. She also stated that she was working toward making the public schools so good that we wouldn't want to homeschool anymore. These comments only pointed out how differently many of us view our 'right to homeschool' and our reasons for doing so. We appreciate the support, but this isn't the way to show it.

Committee Chair Rep. John Mark Windle (D-Livingston) was very helpful to attendees making sure they knew how much longer they'd have to wait, assuring them HB2795 would be heard today and allowing several to speak to the committee. But, frankly, since the intent of the legislation was so fuzzy, it was very hard to rebutt. A homeschooling dad who testified came closest to expressing our collective point of view when he essentially said: We're not broke. We don't need fixing.

Rep. Les Winningham (D-Huntsville) was obviously displeased with the way this bill had been handled and confessed he wasn't sure what Hardaway's intent was. Winningham wasn't alone. Winningham, who is not just another committee member but a long time chair of the House Education Committee strongly suggested, several times, that Hardaway put the bill 'off notice' (off the calendar entirely), figure out what he wanted to do, consult with his fellow sub-committee members and homeschoolers and give everyone a week's heads up before putting it on the calendar.

But Towns, who was late to the discussion, spoke up and suggested that Hardaway just roll (postpone) the bill three weeks instead and so he did. In the meantime, after Winningham's comments, it's expected that Hardaway will come back with something much more concrete, that can actually be discussed. 45 minutes of talk, hundreds of man hours, travel time and untold other resources expended for this. It was very frustrating.

The fiscal note for this legislation says HB2795 it will cost $2 million plus to test non-public students next year and some $4 million and up in succeeding years. The assumption is there will be 20,000 non-public students taking these tests. I know no one did much research on that 20K number. As if thousands of outraged parents, frustrated legislators and staff who were unnecessarily inconvenienced, the lack of a clear goal and proof that pulling in non-public schoolers into public school testing was necessary 'for the public good' it'll be tough to sell expending $4 million that could be much better used elsewhere.

Tennessean coverage, such as it is.

Testing for all: public, private, home schooled

Rep. G. A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) has introduced HB2795 which will require all students whether public, private or home schooled to submit to state testing. The old saying is "He who creates the test creates the curriculum". One of the very reasons parents choose to leave the public schools is the curriculum. I expect he'll be hearing from them until he decides to pull the bill.

District Address

1243 Worthington Street
Memphis, TN 38114

Nashville Address

109 War Memorial Bldg.

Nashville, TN 37243-0192

Phone: (615) 741-5625

Fax: (615) 741-1005

Staff Contact: Tina Hunt

Internet E-Mail Address

Rep. G. A. Hardaway

Rep. Mike Turner (D-Nashville) tried something similar back in 2004 without success. I trust Rep. Hardaway will also realize that this isn't a better path, especially since the State BOE has just recommended dumping Gateway exams altogether and creating more end of course tests. Testing for the professionals is a moving target. Mandating them for all students is a huge infringement on their freedoms. Further, once having passed these tests, I don't see the state offering to provide a diploma for those students in return. This is just a bad idea all around and this bill needs to be pulled before its hearing in the House Education Special Initiatives Committee next Wednesday, February 27, 11:45 a.m., Room 16 of Legislative Plaza.

You can read details for this legislation at http://tnhomeed.com/HB2795-SB3412.html