Haslam’s Email to Teachers

UPDATE: Some teachers are reporting receiving this email on their SCHOOL email accounts…

ORIGINAL POST:

Seems like everyone is joining in on emailing teachers lately, but at least Haslam seems to be doing so legally.  He sent an email to <teacher.lists.k12tn.net> and teachers are reporting getting this email on their personal email accounts.  My first questions is how on earth did Haslam get personal email addresses of teachers?  That seems a little creepy to me.  My beef with this is that he is defending his administration’s tenure “reform,” which really is NOT reform but rather conservative hogwash that will further push Tennessee’s educational standards and abilities further backward.  So here is his email:

One of the areas where all of us want to aspire to be more is education. As we all know, there has been a lot of discussion about education, and particularly the role of teachers, already in this legislative session.

I want to be very clear: my goal is to treat teaching like the important and honorable position that it is. My goal is to make Tennessee a place where great educators want to teach and feel rewarded and appreciated for their efforts.

Because, at the end of the day, there is nothing that makes as much difference to a child’s educational experience as the teacher standing in front of the classroom. It is more important than background, zip code, race, gender or any other determinant. Every discussion we have about education should always begin and end with the thought of what is best for the child in the classroom.

In education, we are blessed with the tools to be game changers for all students.

Better teachers; improved school leadership with great principals; standards of academic excellence; parental involvement and students who are challenged to learn.

That can and will happen in Tennessee.

Our opportunity is to put the muscle behind education reform.

We are cheerleaders for great teachers.

There is one underlying principle – learning begins with great teachers who are encouraged to teach and to spend more time in the classroom instead of filling out reams of paperwork. I am calling on the Commissioner of Education, his staff and the state Board of Education to reduce teacher paperwork – let’s keep our teachers in the classroom with students and stop carving out instruction time with bureaucratic red tape.

Our legislative approach to education is to insure the best teachers are in the classroom. Tenure reform is not a punitive action. It is a recognition and reward of achievement by the best.

Our state led the way in using testing data to assess student learning. But as Bill Sanders, the originator of the value-added assessment system has said – you really do not have the snapshot on changes in student improvement until after three years. Our legislative approach asks for a five-year period before tenure is granted and periodic reviews to retain the best teachers in the classrooms.

In appreciation,
Bill Haslam

Haslam makes a great point, “learning begins with great teachers who are encouraged to teach and to spend more time in the classroom” but I just wish he and his own party would heed his own advice.  The tenure “reform” legislation being pushed by his administration has MANY holes and questions that remain unanswered.  Questions that members of his administration can’t even answer in committee (refer to last week’s house education subcommittee).  This legislation makes NO provisions for teachers who don’t teach subjects/courses that have a standardized test (i.e. French, music, CTE classes) but requires that these particular teachers are graded based on the entire school’s average performance on TVAS.  That is completely unfair and ineffective when it comes to weeding out great teachers who should be awarded tenure.

On the surface, this attempt at reform seems plausible and effective, but the devil is in the details… and the details left out of the bill.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in full support of tenure reform, but only when it is true reform.  The system we currently have has some small kinks, but is actually very effective.  What many don’t understand is that principals are the ones to shift some of the blame to rather than the teacher unions, as it’s the principals responsibility to observe and recommend teachers for tenure or not.

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