NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — For years, education advocates have said that teachers need to be paid more and students need to be tested less.
There are two pieces of legislation that hope to do just that. But not everyone is on board.
Less testing
For decades, lawmakers and educators have struggled over how to measure student success without over-testing.
State Rep. Mark Cochran, R-Englewood, has a proposed solution. Instead of students taking multiple high school end-of-course exams. students would take either the ACT or SAT instead.
"Colleges are typically looking at ACT or SAT scores, they aren’t looking at Tennessee EOC," said Cochran.
"A focus, I believe, on a test that directly connects our students to post-secondary opportunities and scholarships is the best approach," said State Rep. Kirk Haston, R-Lobelville.
State Rep. Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, asked what about testing students who don't plan to go to college.
"My concern is, some of these end of course evaluations may be testing their preparedness for a skill," McKenzie said.
"With SAT and ACT, they also have [Career and Technical Education] based testing," replied Rep. Cochran.
There may be another motivation for this bill. Tennessee's average ACT score has actually gone down. According to Rep. Haston, in 2018, the average Tennessee ACT score was 20.2. Last year, the average score was 18.8.
"I think it’s time to reduce testing. We give too many tests," said J.C. Bowman, Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.
The Tennessee Education Association also praised the legislation:
“House Bill 675 aims to substantially reduce student testing in Tennessee, adding more time for teachers to focus on instruction rather than test preparation.
Freedom to teach is critical to student success and educator morale. For too long our public education system has been over-reliant on high-stakes standardized testing, and this legislation takes an important step toward letting teachers teach students, not the tests.”
Merit pay for teachers
State Rep. Pat Marsh, R-Shelbyville, has a bill that opens up merit pay structures, if school districts opt in.
"This bill allows any future state funding to be used in a merit pay structure at the discretion of a local school board," Rep. Marsh said.
"The merit pay has never really worked anywhere it’s gone," critiqued Bowman.
Bowman worries, giving certain teachers raises or bonuses may stifle teachers sharing good ideas with each other. Even still, he's not directly fighting against the bill.
"The good news on this is that it is permissive, so that’s why we haven’t raised a lot of objections to it," said Bowman.
But the bill doesn't provide extra funding to give teachers raises, which means districts will either have to reallocate some of their state funding or turn to their local governments for extra funding.
"I don’t think you’ll see a lot of districts jump on this," said Bowman.
TEA took a much stronger stance against the bill, saying a merit-based system will give an unfair advantage to the wealthier school districts.
“Tennessee educators appreciate efforts to improve teacher compensation, but a merit-based pay schedule isn’t the way to go. Every student in a Tennessee public school deserves high quality educators in their classrooms, and House Bill 759 would result in greater disparities between wealthier school districts and those without the means to implement an incentive program that is largely based on the outcome of student test scores.
If the General Assembly is serious about recognizing and rewarding Tennessee’s public-school educators for the incredible work they do in their community schools, they should continue to increase the state minimum salary schedule so that every student, regardless of their zip code, has access to quality educators who can afford to live and work in their communities.”
Tennessee lawmakers are also looking at ways to adjust the teacher evaluation model in Tennessee.
Previously, Rep. Cochran's bill on end of course testing also included a provision on teacher evaluations. He took that part out of his bill after State Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, introduced similar legislation that proposes to study the matter further.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at Chris.Davis@NewsChannel5.com.
Fundraising efforts are underway in Brownsville and Nutbush, TN to build a statue for a major superstar who was raised there, Anna Mae Bullock. You probably know her by her stage name, Tina Turner. I was a huge fan of Tina and glad to see efforts are underway to showcase more of her ties to West Tennessee.
-Lelan Statom
