Shelby County Schools Community,
Last week, I joined Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools Superintendent Shawn Joseph asking Governor Bill Haslam and Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen to press pause on TNReady testing to address the widespread problems with the assessment.
I write to all of you today with one goal in mind. I want to reaffirm my commitment because I strongly believe in accountability and the need to raise the bar so all of our students can receive a high quality education regardless of the school or district they attend. I also believe that our students and families deserve to have an honest assessment of their child’s performance.
We must have an objective way to measure the progress our students are making, determine which instructional practices are working and see if our improvement efforts are helping students and teachers succeed. My concerns stem from the repeated implementation challenges in each of the last three years, which have caused considerable frustration for our students, educators, families and community. We have invested millions of dollars in academic strategies and operational systems to successfully support the assessment, and the consistent failures have damaged confidence in our schools and District. There are other platforms, like the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) or Smarter Balanced, that measure student achievement and growth and align to the standards. Many states across our nation are using these platforms successfully.
Please do not misconstrue my comments as a demand to halt assessments or lower academic standards in Tennessee, but rather to take every step necessary to ensure we have an effective and reliable testing platform in place. Based on our experiences the last three years, we do not have evidence that the current platform is reliable. Therefore, I challenge our state leaders, community members and advocacy partners to collaborate and find a reliable testing solution that not only aligns to college and career standards, but also provides the assurance our stakeholders need to believe students and teachers are getting a fair chance to succeed.
Thank you for your participation, partnership and ongoing support. The future of our children depends on it!
-DH
