Joint Statement Issued By:

• Jeff Mayo, ACS Superintendent
• Scott Benjamin, ACS Board of Edu. Chairman & Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA) Delta Region Director
• Dr. Dale Viox, ACS Board of Edu. Vice Chairman & Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA) President
• Jonathan Dunn, ACS Board of Education Legislative Liaison
• Lyle Conley, ACS Board of Education Member
• Kay Williams, ACS Board of Education Member

The Tennessee Department of Education will soon release its long-awaited A-F letter grade system. In doing so, the state will begin labeling schools with an A, B, C, D or F. In the opinion of TDOE Commissioner Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds, this will give parents across the state a more accurate representation of how their children’s schools are performing. Don’t be fooled. This letter grade system is a sham, and it only serves to further denigrate and attack the public school system in our state.

The TDOE is scheduled to give districts a preview of their schools’ A-F letter grades on December 14th, with it being released publicly on December 21st, just days before a major holiday break. In public relations, that’s called a news dump – a trickery way to limit the public’s reaction and mask the fact you’re announcing something the public wouldn’t like or fully comprehend. It’s also not a coincidence that this program is being rolled out just before the upcoming legislative session that is expected to center on Governor Bill Lee’s proposed voucher expansion.

Take note: this is all an attempt to paint Tennessee public schools as failing, thus ushering in a new era of vouchers for all. The proposed voucher expansion, if passed, will continue to siphon money from public schools to private schools who are beholden to no one. Private schools don’t face the testing standards or accountability mandates as public schools do, they don’t answer to a state education department who is constantly moving the goal posts (re: the 3rd grade ELA retention law), and they’re not even held to the same license requirements forced upon public school teachers. Vouchers will lead to publicly funded private schools with no oversight.

Vouchers are the state’s way of slowly defunding public schools while using your tax dollars to prop up private businesses who are held to zero accountability. As lawmakers begin to push this idea that vouchers will lead to “Education Freedom,” as Governor Lee has been spinning in his current media blitz, they’re manipulating the environment where the public-school system doesn’t stand a chance.

Enter the A-F letter grade sham.

Tennessee’s current accountability model for public schools is broken, and it has been for years. School districts are often unable to decipher the state’s convoluted methodology that determines achievement and, particularly, growth, and the TDOE’s work-from-home business model often makes it difficult for district administrators to find answers. A glaring inadequacy is the fact school districts have yet to receive this year’s finalized formula for accountability, stifling our administrators and teachers from setting worthwhile goals.

Let us repeat. We’re halfway through the school year, and we still don’t know how the state’s 2023-2024 accountability formula will work because they keep changing the rules. The A-F letter grade system will be built on this data. How is it acceptable to punish or reward schools based on withheld, incomplete or non-existent measurements? The letter grade system is based on a formula that, frankly, lawmakers and TDOE representatives can’t adequately explain or defend, yet parents should rely on the results to make informed decisions? Sham.

Since the days of No Child Left Behind, it’s been an almost universally accepted thought that “one test, one day” isn’t an accurate reflection of a student’s learning or the effectiveness of a school. But here in Tennessee, our lawmakers are doubling down on that broken notion. Instead of tweaking the current accountability model to be more representative of a child’s year-long learning, they are using an A-F grading system that will only lead to the demoralization of communities. Very high-performing schools who have built strong cultures of supporting the whole child could suddenly find themselves labeled as a D or F. Imagine for a second the trickle-down effect that will have on teachers, students and parents, not to mention the impact it will have on the greater community: real estate, town governments, the local economy. Meanwhile, private schools are poised to receive millions of taxpayer dollars next school year if the voucher system is expanded without having to actually prove their effectiveness.

Now, this isn’t to say that superintendents and boards of education are against accountability in general. We welcome the opportunity to see how our students and teachers are performing when compared against each other and peers across the state. But to label schools an A-F primarily based on one testing cycle is outrageous. The quality of a school is far more than a school letter grade. Yes, achievement, growth, subgroup data and career readiness are all good measures of success, but we are so much more than that. In Arlington Community Schools, not only are our students high performing academically, but they have access to the highest quality fine arts programs and sports facilities around the region and shine daily. We give students extracurricular choice to grow as individuals and citizens, with nearly 100 clubs and organizations across our district. We have state-of-the-art career and technical programs, more AP and dual-enrollment courses than one could possibly take throughout their high school career, unique learning spaces like outdoor classrooms and gardens, and that’s just the start. The state’s A-F letter grade system will never capture who we are.

By now, you know our opinion. It’s all a sham. But for the sake of the future of public education in Tennessee, we need all parents, educators, concerned community members, local government officials, students even, to call their state representatives to let their voice be known. For far too long, public school communities have allowed their collective voices to be muted. No more. We need your help to Stop the Sham.

Contact your Arlington state representatives to help Stop the Sham:

Rep. Tom Leatherwood - rep.tom.leatherwood@capitol.tn.gov | (615) 741-7084

Senator Brent Taylor - sen.brent.taylor@capitol.tn.gov | (615) 741-3036

Senator Paul Rose - sen.paul.rose@capitol.tn.gov | (615) 741-1967