This morning, I took the opportunity (as I often do when the Legislature is in session) to review a list of education-related bills under consideration by our General Assembly.  One in particular jumped out at me in a bad way, even though I know the sponsor to be a thoughtful and intelligent person.

SB3896/HB3826 (Burchett, McCord) would dictate that "For each five (5) times a student is tardy to school in a school year, the student shall be counted as having been absent one (1) day from school."  The implications of absences can be quite serious — affecting school funding, as well as consequences up to and including families’ referral to juvenile court.

I’ve discussed my concerns about the attendance policy (here, here and here, to start) at length, but this bill would intensify the problem.  Consider for a moment the following situation, which occurred just this week:  the mother of an 11-year old receives a referral to "campus court," administered by the juvenile court in Anderson County.

The crime?  Little Johnny was tardy 10 times over the last six months.  "Tardy," in this child’s classroom and many others, is defined as "not being in one’s seat when the bell rings."  He was delivered to school in plenty of time, ate breakfast, stopped by the library and his locker… but managed to get distracted along the way and wasn’t in his seat when the bell rang.

On those ten days over a six-month period, he missed — at most — ten minutes of homeroom.  No instructional time at all.  However, if this bill should pass, that would equate to two full days (roughly 14 hours’ worth) of absences for the purpose of school funding as well as little Johnny’s attendance record. 

Remember to e-mail your state senators and representatives about things that are important to you; it does make a difference.  I already have.

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And don’t worry about Little Johnny.  The safeguards we put into place last January (to ensure that families are not frivolously referred to court for attendance matters) worked, and the court referral was cancelled.  The letter never should have gone out to begin with, but with a little oversight, the problem was fixed in time.

Tennessee standards in K-12 education are on the rise, with new curriculum standards and new (harder) TCAP tests likely to be phasing in next year. The lower grades are driven in part by the significant gap between proficiency on our state tests, and the state’s proficiency on the NAEP.

Concurrent with those changes, we’re very likely to see higher standards for high school graduation as well, as a result of the Tennessee Diploma Project (view the whole report). In the near term, that will mean requiring four years of high school math (instead of the current three), requiring a half-year of "personal finance," and replacing the Gateway exams (passage of which is required for graduation) with more rigorous end-of-course exams (which will count for a higher percentage of the final grade than the Gateway’s 15%).

Current research shows that college-readiness and workforce-readiness are pretty much the same thing, so the old two-tiered system (college prep vs. vocational) is going away. That doesn’t mean that we’ll do away with courses like welding, manufacturing, networking, etc. — but it means that students in vocational courses will be expected to meet the same level of academic rigor as those headed for college.

Without question, higher standards will benefit our students and our state in the long run. Also without question, they will cause some pain. Some students may not graduate on time, bringing the risk of still more dings to the graduation rate (the calculation of which is, in my opinion, flawed), and unless we lengthen the school day, the additional course requirements will further squeeze an already limited schedule so that students have fewer options than before.

For example, a high school student may not be able to take three or four years of foreign language (two are required) AND four years of marching band (one year of fine arts credit is required). One way around that could be zero-hour courses — optional class offerings at 7 a.m. or 3 p.m., for example; another would be to allow additional high school course credits to be earned in middle school. Already, many students take Algebra I in middle school; if we could expand that to allow foreign language credits to be earned in middle school as well, that would ease the schedule somewhat.

New, higher standards are on the way. And, it’s a good thing — but there’s going to be some discomfort in the process. Schedule-wise, something will have to give.

The State has ruled that public schools "must waive fees for low-income students to participate in school-day fundraising celebrations." That means that the school has to pay any cost associated, which would sort of defeat the purpose of having a fundraiser at all if any significant portion of the student population falls in that category.

My first question is, why is any school having a fundraiser during the school day anyway (except for the traditional book fair, which is education-related)?

My next question is, just how far does this rule extend? Does it cover the book fair too, if students are allowed to purchase books during the school day?

The concept of buying a $25 ticket for a day of fun instead of a day of school beckons a recollection of the old practice of the catholic church selling indulgences, which led to Luther’s 95 Theses and the Protestant Reformation.

Yes, schools need more than the available funding will provide. But there has to be a better answer.