Tennessee State News ! Not Good !

Governor Haslam & Republican State Reps...Now Running Education !

1/31/12

Contact TN Gov. Haslam here > bill.haslam@tn.gov

Contact your TN. State Rep. here > http://www.capitol.tn.gov/house/members/

The Tennessee Republican`s are now running/operating our school system. I bet things get better now...Ya Think ? I think not ! Teachers no longer have input.

‘Republican’ jobs plan still M.I.A.: One Jobs Bill Out of 55 (and it isn’t even a new idea). Governor Haslam, who campaigned with the promise of “Jobs in Every County,” has introduced ONLY one bill with the explicit purpose of putting Tennesseans back to work, and it’s not even an original program. It’s another re-hash from Governor Bredesen’s administration—just like the rest of Governor Haslam’s jobs initiatives, and it’s only possible thanks to work done by Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen District#9 TN. [Commercial Appeal, 1/14/12]

Businesses Say “Lagging Demand” Accounts for Nearly Half of Mass Layoffs. Many Tennessee companies say lack of customer demand -- not government regulation -- remains their No. 1 obstacle to hiring. WBIR.com reports: “Lagging demand by consumers accounted for nearly half of mass layoffs in the third quarter of 2011, while government regulations accounted for less than 1 percent, according to the Labor Department's most recent figures.” [WBIR.com, 1/20/12]

Teachers and educators with classroom experience from all corners of the state have largely panned Governor Haslam’s destructive plan for public education. We should be focused on results—not driving away our best educators.
Teachers Are NOT the Problem—REPORT: Tennessee Teacher Quality Among Best in Nation. Memphis Business Journal reports that Tennessee teachers earned one of the highest overall grades in the nation on the National Council on Teacher Quality’s 2011 State Teacher Policy Yearbook. Tennessee earned a B- and was one of only four states to receive a B grade. [Memphis Business Journal, 1/27/12]

Crowded Classrooms Bill:

Haslam’s Education Reforms Are Wrong Focus. Michelle Greenfield teaches sixth-grade math at Jere Baxter in Nashville. Greenfield says she can handle a bigger classroom, but it will mean less time for each student, because, she says, teachers are only human. “I can only help so many people during the course of the day, and there’re going to be kids that fall through the cracks. Now can I do it? Sure. And if I had to do it I would. But I’m not going to say that it’ll be totally fine. That’s just not true.” Greenfield feels like it falls to teachers to deal with broad-scale problems that play out in classrooms. She points to the weak economy, saying it undercuts parental involvement. “A lot of them, I think their parents want to be involved, but they’re busy trying to pay the bills and keep their job and keep their house.” [WPLN.org, 1/30/12]

Superintendent on Haslam’s bill to crowd classrooms: “I think they are going backward on raising class sizes.” Dickson County schools superintendent and representative for the Mid-Cumberland region on the board of directors for the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents Johnny Chandler opposes Haslam's raising classroom sizes. Of the proposed legislation, Chandler says “I am not in favor of that--I think they are going backward raising class sizes.” [Dickson County Herald, 1/25/12]

Daily News Journal Editorial: Haslam’s School Bills Are Too Much Tinkering, Too Fast. On talks to change the pay system, "that discussion is simply not needed right now, not when educators and administrators statewide are already working feverishly to comply with the gauntlet of evaluations and classroom observations required under a new process that just began this year. Not when a thorough review of this new process has yet to be completed, with the consensus among educators and lawmakers that changes are definitely needed." [The Daily News Journal, 1/22/12] They call it tinkering, I call it dismantling.