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Mon, Nov 23 2009 

Published: October 29, 2009 01:34 pm    print this story  

DAN'S PLANS: Students will be walking without a net

By Dan Schlafer / Sun contributor

The Tennessee Diploma Project ensures that public education in our state will never be the same. Status quo has got to go. Old standards and benchmarks are a thing of the past.

We’ve finally come to grips with what most educators already knew. Across our state, the standards have been too low and our tests have been too easy. What we have termed “proficient” in Tennessee has been exposed as failing when compared with the rest of the country. Exhibit A is our Gateway Algebra test. Answer one third of those questions correctly and you got an “atta boy” and a pat on the back as you were sent on your merry way.

That atrocity constitutes a serious truth in advertising problem in my book. I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in a heart surgeon who does one of my three bypasses correctly!

Tougher standards will bring discomfort. With the benchmarks we’ve used across our state since1998 thrown out the window and a much tougher scale in place, there will be no net near the ground to break the fall. While expectations will be higher, scores will be lower. It’s a concept that’s long overdue.

Let me be quick to point out that our teachers have done what they have been asked to do. We’ve made steady and dramatic progress against the less than lofty goals set by those in charge at the state level. All of our schools are in “good standing” with the exception of one.

Knowing this challenge has been on the horizon, our teachers and administrators have prepared. They’ve attended training, aggregated and disaggregated student data and planned strategies to ramp up the teaching and learning process.

As we enter this new age of accountability in Cumberland County, our fund balance is presently below the three percent required by law. Teachers have not yet received their BEP allotment for classroom supplies. Buses and textbooks are waiting to be purchased as capital outlay projects lay in waiting. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our local option sales tax revenue is some $132,000 behind this time a year ago.

Sadly, we can’t operate like the folks in Washington. We can’t spend what we don’t have.

I have full faith and confidence that our administrators and teachers will rise to meet this challenge. It clearly cannot be accomplished over night, but the battle has been joined.

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