April 25, 2010 -

The Tennessean - By Sam Stockard -

Teachers were leery initially of changes in evaluations connected to the Tennessee's Race to the Top grant. But Keith Cornelius, president of the Rutherford Education Association, now believes the new program will benefit teachers and students if it is used correctly.

Cornelius recently sat down with The Daily News Journal to discuss the law's impact on teachers.

Q: Race to the Top was proposed at the federal level, and Gov. Bredesen was a big proponent of going for those funds and the Legislature passed the changes needed to get the grant. As part of that, teachers will be evaluated, at least in part, based on standardized tests. A lot of it's going to be done annually. Do you think that's fair?

Cornelius: The evaluation process or the tool that's going to be used is a work in progress right now. Race to the Top at its inception is probably the fastest piece of legislation that we've ever seen move through. Tennessee has had a TVOS system in place that looks at student test scores, student growth, AYP (average yearly progress) for 17 years, almost 18, since 1992. Therefore, Tennessee had a slight advantage on the program to begin with and that also gave Tennessee a competitive edge, so we pretty much knew, TEA also knew Tennessee had a much higher probability of landing this federal grant than most any other state in the union because no other state has this formula or uses this formula to monitor student achievement or student progress, period. ...

As far as annual evaluations being fair, we've never opposed a teacher being evaluated, period. ... Now, how they are, we feel teachers need input into that process. By the Rutherford Education Association signing onto this also back in December, we were required, along with Mr. (Harry) Gill and Mr. (Rick) Wise, the chairman of the school board, and part of the grant said your local teachers association must be in agreement with this memorandum of understanding and also sign. If all three parties don't agree, then it's null and void, you're not in the hunt for any of the money. So we all agreed, TEA advised us and said it would be to our advantage too, to sign on, and we did this so we can extend a partnership.

That's what I've been striving for my whole term of being president with REA, to show that we don't work in opposition with the school board, we don't work in opposition with the director of schools. We work in a symbiotic relationship; we work together because we want to achieve the common good, we want to achieve what's best for the students and for the teachers, the educators here in the county.

Q: The teachers statewide were really opposed at first, but then there was some compromise. What changed that allowed TEA and then REA to come on board?

Cornelius:... You've got to understand that now and in the past for students' test scores to be a part of teachers' evaluation was mandated as 0 percent. You didn't have to use that. Principals could. There was nothing in place that has ever prevented any principal or any administrator from using test scores to evaluate a teacher. It has never been prohibited by law in any statute whatsoever. ... Race to the Top, they wanted to go from 0 to 50 in no time. TEA and REA felt like there needed to be some compromise there, so it was worked out from 0 to 35 percent, so now 35 percent of teachers' evaluations will be student test scores. The other 15 percent will be a collaborative effort between the principal and the teacher, and the remaining 50 percent, that's what the work in progress is right now.

Cornelius:... You've got to understand that now and in the past for students' test scores to be a part of teachers' evaluation was mandated as 0 percent. You didn't have to use that. Principals could. There was nothing in place that has ever prevented any principal or any administrator from using test scores to evaluate a teacher. It has never been prohibited by law in any statute whatsoever. ... Race to the Top, they wanted to go from 0 to 50 in no time. TEA and REA felt like there needed to be some compromise there, so it was worked out from 0 to 35 percent, so now 35 percent of teachers' evaluations will be student test scores. The other 15 percent will be a collaborative effort between the principal and the teacher, and the remaining 50 percent, that's what the work in progress is right now.

Q: Explain what concerned teachers.

Cornelius: The part that teachers say is not fair on using TVOS, the test scores, there are factors that a classroom teacher cannot control. A classroom teacher can control what is taught, they can control the method of delivery, they can control by looking at where their students are and where they want to take them and the standards and requirements that the state has let out, they can control that. But what a classroom teacher cannot control is what happens to that student after that student leaves school and before that student comes to school the next day. ...

Q: How is morale among teachers after Race to the Top was passed by the Legislature and now the money's coming in?

Cornelius:There was a lot of apprehension at first. To be honest, a lot of teachers felt like we'd been sold out. Some of the things we fought long and hard for seem to all of a sudden have disappeared. But the more that comes out about this, the more that proves to be wrong, because a teacher who's going to use this to their advantage is a teacher who's going to see and look at a dashboard the state is creating as part of this. It's going to allow a teacher to know this is something that has happened to a student. This student may be homeless and we don't know that. ...

Q: It sounds like teachers might not be as worried about losing their jobs as they were initially.

Cornelius: No. Race to the Top is not punitive. The central office, human resources, the director of schools, there's nowhere in the county, and principals here in the county, there's no punitive measures in place. There's growth, if an administrator sees a teacher, especially a non-tenured teacher, because you need to identify them in the first three years, that's critical. But if they see these are opportunities for improvement, "This is where I think you need to improve," then that person needs to listen. That would be the same on any job in any field. ... Nowhere in this county do they tell any non-tenured teacher, especially, or even a tenured teacher, we see this as a weakness and leave you out floundering like a fish to see what you can do. They have professional development opportunities, they have extra resources at their building, they have extra resources at the central office, so there's plenty of support people around to help any teacher that's struggling with a particular area.

Cornelius: No. Race to the Top is not punitive. The central office, human resources, the director of schools, there's nowhere in the county, and principals here in the county, there's no punitive measures in place. There's growth, if an administrator sees a teacher, especially a non-tenured teacher, because you need to identify them in the first three years, that's critical. But if they see these are opportunities for improvement, "This is where I think you need to improve," then that person needs to listen. That would be the same on any job in any field. ... Nowhere in this county do they tell any non-tenured teacher, especially, or even a tenured teacher, we see this as a weakness and leave you out floundering like a fish to see what you can do. They have professional development opportunities, they have extra resources at their building, they have extra resources at the central office, so there's plenty of support people around to help any teacher that's struggling with a particular area.

Q: How are non-tenured teachers reacting as far as you've seen?

Now, tenured teachers, when this first came out, (they thought), "Oh no, I'm going to be fired because of poor test scores." Nowhere in Race to the Top, nowhere in any of the legislation has any of the tenure law been rewritten. The only thing that's different is, and TEA was very instrumental in this, the only thing that was written was that when a tenured teacher has dismissal charges brought against him or her, then instead of the school board hearing that there will be an impartial hearing officer, totally not related to the school system that will hear the case and then decide whether this tenured teacher will be dismissed. Tennessee still has in place, and this did not change, any tenured teacher can still be dismissed for incompetence, negligence and insubordination. ... Rutherford County has about 2,800 teachers and there's only been one out of those 2,800 this year that has been a tenured teacher to have dismissal charges brought against them. I think that's an outstanding record.

Q: Do you think Race to the Top will push Tennessee out of the lower 40 rankings in education?

Cornelius: Let's hope so. We've got to improve. There's always room for improvement and Tennessee took major steps this year by rewriting all of its curriculum standards and making them even more rigorous. ...

If the general public actually looked at these standards and tried to soak them in as to what they're saying, you would be surprised. You would say, "You're going to try to teach my child every bit of that in an algebra I course? Good luck." In the United States, one reason we don't do well internationally compared to other countries is this. ... Our curriculum is a mile long and an inch deep. Whereas if you use Japan, for example, theirs is about an inch long and a mile deep. There's your difference. We're trying to cram so much into such a short amount of time that that's where the disservice goes. And our curriculum does not lend itself, even with the changes, to the kind of critical thinking we need to be doing as a country. ...

Q: What impact do you think the American Diploma Project will have on students and their test score results?

Cornelius: This year, with the new rigorous standards, and then your instructors trying to learn more about it, this year we may see a slight drop. I think the central office, the leaders here in the county, they expect that. ...

But give it a couple of years, and it'll be right back up and then surpassing because the educators will be better at what we do. We'll know more about it, we'll be better prepared and we'll make those changes.

Q: Oakland's coming off the High Priority list for graduation rates. What impact will this have on Oakland?

Cornelius: Oakland, I think, will still prevail. I don't think there's going to be any problem because the administration here at Oakland is very committed to seeing that the standards are still met. The administration values the teachers it has, especially for the math department.