If you missed it last week, the Nashville Banner released its “Power Poll” on education in Nashville. “Wait...” you say, "I thought the Nashville Banner went out of business???"  You're right, it did.  But the URL remarkably lives on to capture the hearts of old 'Banner' readers. 

The website domain was cheaply snapped up by former Banner reporter and power suck-up, Bruce Dobie. He owns the website and the old newspaper logo. He is using those tools to convince the gullible public what he thinks Nashville needs. His latest pet project is convincing the Nashville public that they want an appointed school board so he can have more charter schools for himself and his friends to profit from.

It makes you wonder if those lucky duplicate people got to vote more than once in his "power poll?"  Who knows, but online polls are easy to manipulate and we've heard there are ways people can vote multiple times, so we wouldn't call his poll accurate at all.  Dobie also claims his list has 819 power poll members, but with the duplicate names, there certainly aren't 819 live humans in his friend club.  Here are some of Dobie's duplicate friends we noticed, and we may not have caught them all:

So, Bruce Dobie called on his education reformy friends to vote?  

The press knows they walk a line.  If they smear the public school system too much, it will drive growth to Williamson, Wilson, and Sumner Counties.  So, the press is sure to never have anything positive to say about MNPS unless it is a magnet or charter school.  We are also pointing out that the whisper campaign only goes on with Nashville insiders, political operatives, and the cocktail conversations that move the cogs of politics behind the scenes in Nashville. We guess these who's-who lists are fodder for influence.  Totally outside the mainstream press, void of the what parents and the community want.

Smart people will take their back-room conversations, opinions, and power polls with a grain of salt.  Smart people, and even poll members, will see past the Dobie smoke & mirrors.  Smart people will see how the elite are trying to convince the public we don't need to vote to elect our school board.  Smart people will see that the reformers desperately need an appointed school board (appointed by them and the politicians they fund) in order to get privatization and charter schools opened in Nashville.   Smart people will not fall for that, and won't give up their rights for elected representation.

Dang it, Nashville can’t seem to keep enough of the bottom 5% of schools in the state for the ASD to legally take-over public schools and give them away to charter entrepreneurs.  So they have to rely on MNPS board approval to expand the charter school business model.  And the MNPS board isn't being very nice to charters lately... wanting proof and accountability and all that, and then those pesky board members see firsthand how the charter schools are draining money from existing public schools.   Gosh, what a hassle to get tax-payer funds!  What was once an easy sale is becoming more difficult now that the public is educated, questioning motives, and following the money trail that leads back to the reformers' wallets.​

WARNING:  If public school parents don't vote in school board elections, Bruce Dobie really will shape public education in Nashville.

In the meantime, the search for a district director of schools that is "reformy-enough" for those trying to shift public education power will apply pressure on the MNPS board scrambling to keep governance and a reputation held together.  And what director candidate wants to step into that fire pit?  The press, chamber, and mayor’s office need to provide the financial resources (and demand them from the State), be supportive, back off, and let the MNPS board do the job it was elected to do which is to provide policy and governance that serves ALL MNPS students and helps teachers be the best they can be for our kids.

​We need leadership from all corners of Nashville to commit to making ALL public schools as great as the Nashville Symphony, Hall of Fame, and Convention Center.  Time is what is valued in education... time to teach, time to tutor, time to slow down and give kids the attention they need to learn.  There is not one answer.  

Maybe Momma Bears needs to assemble its own list of “powerful public school parents and teachers” and survey them?  Missing is the insider view of the inability to capitalize on changes that have actually been great for public ed mostly due to lack of funding, thin implementation, political arguing, grant money that dries up, unfunded mandates, teacher turnover, and a shell game to recruit the best students with school choice to mask the struggle to serve all kids at all levels of ability.  Economic class and ethnic-based education services are not the answer either.  We are slipping dangerously to 'haves' in magnets, charters, and private schools and the 'have-nots' in "government schools."  Some might say Nashville is there already.  Take a trip in the Momma Bear "way-back time machine" to 2012 and think about what has come to pass in Nashville.  This power struggle is not new or built on the shoulders of the current school board.  Also take note that Mr. Dobie is mentioned in our way-back linked "Nashville Scene" article, along with education name drops that match right up to education reform members of the power poll today.

So, at the risk of Momma Bears being targeted by these money-hungry reformers, we will keep on blogging and educating those who will read and share.  And because of that, we're sure none of us Momma Bears will ever make it on Dobie's Christmas card list or on his sloppy "power poll friend list."   Darn.  Join the club with us!
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MNPS Board Member, Will Pinkston says it best:  "Bruce Dobie is a known charter zealot with a history of ridiculing the Nashville School Board. It doesn’t surprise me that he would stoop to a push poll. Whatever the ‘results’ turn out to be, I’m focused on representing South Nashville — not Dobie's chattering class at Belle Meade Country Club. People who actually care about public education spend their time trying to support the board and our schools, not tearing them down."
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Urban Dictionary #pfffft

The anxiety in Tennessee is reaching a feverous pitch.  The undercurrents are sweltering at the dinner table as our children tell us about yet another day of standardized testing or practice testing at school.  When talking to other parents, we find out they are upset over all the excessive standardized testing, too.  When will this testing madness stop?

The fact is, everyone in TN knows at least one child, if not more, that has been negatively affected by the testing:
…a child who used to love school, but now dreads it because of testing,
…a child who complains of headaches and/or stomach aches because of testing,
…a child who vomited because of the standardized testing.
It is incredibly sad and totally unnecessary.

The fact is, everyone in TN knows at least one teacher, if not more:
…a teacher who quit due to the toxic testing, common core, and not being able to do what she knows is best for students,
...a teacher who is evaluated on Math and English test scores even though they teach subjects like Music, Art, PE, Library, Sports, Science, Social Studies, Mechanics, etc.,
...a teacher who has taught gifted students at the top of the spectrum, but there is little or no room to show growth from last year's perfect or very high scores, so their teacher's evaluation score is low,
...a teacher who teaches SPED students who are meeting milestones and learning life skills, but will likely never reach the impossible proficient benchmarks, so the teacher receives a low evaluation score,
...a teacher of ESL students that don't yet understand our language but are forced to take the same tests as everyone else,
… a teacher whose evaluation score plummeted from 5 to 1, even though she hasn't changed the way she's devotedly taught her students between the years
...every teacher who is forbidden from ever seeing the test questions or answers, 
…for the teachers who couldn't help but peek at some of the standardized test questions and had serious doubts about the appropriateness and the correct answers but couldn’t say anything without losing their jobs.

The fact is, everyone knows of at least one family, if not more, in Tennessee:
… who is now homeschooling due to testing and common core,
… who is sacrificing to pay for private school to escape the testing and common core,
… who is seriously considering the above 2 options.

This madness is absurd, and it must stop.  

Bless the ones who will step up and say, "No more!!!"  

Bless the Knoxville school board members who adopted a Resolution against using TNReady data on teacher evaluations and are asking the state to remove TNReady data from teacher evaluations.  They know it is wrong.  Bless the other districts who are also adopting the Resolution, too.  (Click HERE to see the original Resolution and share it with your school board members).

Bless the teachers who are speaking to parents and elected officials (while praying they aren’t committing career suicide by speaking up) about the harmful policies, excessive tests, and common core.  Speaking up is certainly not how one advances on the career ladder or gains job security.  So, bless them for risking their careers.

Bless the parents who are saying "not with my children" and refusing to allow their child to take the tests.  They do it to protect their children, but also in quiet defiance of a testing system they know is toxic for every child.

Something must be done.

We Momma Bears really don’t want to be the ringleaders.  We don’t.  We’re not in this for fame or glory, we’re in it for our kids.  We’re anonymous for a reason to protect our kids and our sources.  Maybe someday you’ll know who we are.  Maybe you have already met us and didn’t know it.  Maybe you’ll never know who we are.  Honestly, if you ever met one of us, we are some of the meekest, mildest, helpful, servant-hearted people who volunteer in our schools and communities.  You’d probably never guess that we are rabble rousers.  We don’t want to be famous, and we aren’t making a penny at this advocacy, but something is compelling us to keep fighting these injustices.  So we research, we blog, we share information.  Because something must be done.  So, we’re doing it. 

As Dr. Seuss so eloquently wrote, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, its not.”


Which brings us to this...  Because we are being bombarded, literally, with messages from parents and teachers like this one from a parent:

"So how do we opt out? I'm certain that I want my children to NOT take this test. Now I need to know how I can do it."

and this one from a school board member in TN:

"Good morning momma bears! I am so HAPPY that I found your blog. I am a mother of three daughters that attend a wonderful public elementary school in XXXXXX, TN. I taught for five years before starting my family. Then I decided two years ago to use my classroom experience as a guiding voice on my local school board.
I have become enraged with TNReady! The developmentally inappropriate standards and the resulting high stakes testing that is purposefully setting my daughter up for failure is abusive. I couldn't agree with your most recent post more!
I have asked my superintendent to procure a meeting with Commissioner McQueen. Crickets. No contact from her office. I have made passionate pleas to the other members of my school board to consider further action. My superintendent is appealing to elected officials to have teacher tenure returned to the local decision process (for the teachers in my district this would eliminate the pressure of the test scores impacting their tenure-we could honestly tell them to not worry about test scores).
While I knew this was an important step, I am actually more focused on putting a stop to the TNReady test. The MIST practice test was awful enough for my daughter, and I do not want the (public school) students of Tennessee to suffer anymore!
My superintendent is a fighter and luckily is remarkable supportive in these efforts. Our school system would like to ask the state to grant us a waiver to take another test (preferably the Aspire tests which are aligned with the ACT, because we view the ACT as a fixed test that actually provides real results for our students).
If Comissioner McQueen's own children are not subjected to TNReady, how dare she push this on my child! I could rant for days. I want to simply say that your post made my day. I have been asked to attend a meeting for our district where state education officials are soliciting feedback and I plan on letting it rip. I just wrote a teacher in our system last week, and described my passion in terms of a "momma grizzly bear". I had no idea that you other momma bears had formed a league. I truly see this as one of the most important issues I have ever battled, but I am willingly ready to fight!"


and this alarming message from a Mom who knows this test is set up to fail students, and her child isn't dumb:

"My child is in honors algebra. They took they practice TNReady.  They said there were perhaps 4-5 questions out of 30 on TNReady that they felt okay about. The highest scorer in their honors class got less than 1/2 the test items correct."

and quite a few messages from SPED teachers concerned about the TNReady and the new SPED testing mandates.  {NOTE: We’re working on a blog about that, too.  Just hold your horses, though.  That stuff is confusing, and every district is handling it differently, so we’re trying our best to get accurate info so we can publish it for our eager readers.}

Everyone wants to know:  

           “WHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP THIS???”

We have the answer, but it isn’t easy.

You’ll have to visit our brand new website pages to find out. 

We put it all there for you, in black and white with neat graphics.  If you’re a list-lover, you’ll like the step-by-step bulleted lists.  If you have a student who wants to be a leader, there’s a page for them.  We know you have questions, and we've tried to provide answers.  

Go to our website and learn. Take action.  

You have more power than you realize, parents and teachers.  Be a Momma Bear.  Ready, Set, GO!!!  Get TN out of TNReady already!!!!!!