Chalkbeat Tennessee
Marta W. Aldrich is the senior statehouse correspondent at Chalkbeat Tennessee. A newswoman for The Associated Press for most of her career, Marta has covered state government, politics, business, education and other Tennessee news. She has served as news editor of United Methodist News Service and features editor of American Profile magazine. Marta is a graduate of Memphis City Schools and the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
There are 115 articles by Marta W. Aldrich :
In one of the legislature’s most high-profile races, Jerri Green is considered a serious challenger to Republican Rep. Mark White, chairman of the House Education Committee. They are polar opposites on the issue of vouchers.
The state is expected to get 133,000 of the new COVID tests — which deliver results in minutes, not days — in early October, and 2 million by the end of the year.
Recent back-to-school test results from Tennessee students were not the basis for state projections that proficiency rates will drop by 50% or more for third-grade reading and math due to schooling disruptions during the pandemic.
Data released this week by the state education department showed about 89.6% of public high school seniors earned their diplomas within four years, down by just one-tenth of a percentage point. Still many observers were surprised by any decline.
The information will be published and updated weekly by the state education department — not the health department — and will rely on reports from the state’s 147 school districts.
Shelby County Schools, for instance, is budgeted this academic year to receive $308 million in federal funds, more than a fifth of the district’s revenues.
Gov. Bill Lee expects the voucher rollout, which was halted when a Nashville judge overturned the 2019 law in May, will be resurrected in 2021. The Tennessee Court of Appeals is expected to rule this fall on the state’s appeal.
Starting with small clusters of students, a Tennessee school became one of the nation’s first to reopen its campus to students during the pandemic. Within two days, a teacher with the sniffles tested positive for COVID-19.
The state Board of Education will consider the first round of requests Friday. That vote will offer an early glimpse of how far Tennessee will go to help schools navigate COVID-19 at the expense of statewide policies aimed at improving the quality of public education.
Teachers in Tennessee and across the nation face hard choices. Should I return to my school building? Should I pursue a remote teaching option if my district offers one? Should I leave the profession altogether?
The case pits school districts in Memphis and Nashville against the state over whether Tennessee allocates enough money for K-12 education, especially for its urban students.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency last week began delivering 298,000 masks to school districts for the state’s 66,000 public school teachers and other school staff.
Tennessee’s charter schools sector has grown to 118 since a 2002 state law opened the door to the publicly funded, independently operated schools. Most are in Memphis. And its new overseeing body, the Tennessee Public Charter Schools Commission, is extending its search for an executive director.
Groups began lining up both for and against testing after Superintendent Joris Ray, who leads the state’s largest district in Memphis, said he would petition the education commissioner to drop the annual assessment known as TNReady in 2020-21.
The State Board of Education approved an emergency rule on Monday requiring districts and charter leaders to submit plans for how their school communities will teach students in 2020-21 while navigating the pandemic.
Dozens of colleges and universities joined together last week to announce a monthlong social media campaign called #ItsGoTimeTN.
For educators, the retreat marked a disappointing end to a budget process that was so promising in February when Gov. Bill Lee asked the legislature for nearly $650 million in new dollars for K-12 education.
Tennessee Department of Education has also warned districts to plan for driver shortages. On social media, some drivers have suggested that returning to their bus jobs may not be worth the hassle.
It will be up to the state Legislature to set priorities on new education spending, such as a teacher pay hike, a scaled-down literacy initiative, and the state’s embattled education savings account program, the governor said.
The nine-member commission would report its findings to the Legislature by Jan. 1, in the face of learning setbacks for school children, disruptions to university life and the likelihood of more school closures next year.
As lawmakers begin returning to the Capitol, they’ll face cratering revenues and the need to make deep cuts to Tennessee’s spending plan.
“My sense was that the money should have been distributed in the same way we distributed Title I money. I think that’s what most of Congress was expecting,” the Tennessee Republican said, referring to the federal program that supports students from low-income families.
Decisions about payment and future tests are among scores of questions and adjustments that all states are dealing with after the pandemic shuttered schools nationwide before testing season got underway.
At a price tag of about $1 million, the program marks the first major statewide investment in addressing learning loss due to the public health emergency.