Tough crowd questions at RCF meeting for TN education leader
Tennessee State Board of Education vice chair Bob Eby met a “tough crowd” when he gave an overview of the state’s education issues during The Rotary Club of Farragut’s regular meeting in Fox Den Country Club Wednesday, Feb. 9.
After Eby’s presentation, RCF member Bill Nichols asked, “When are you going to let the teachers teach?”
“Right now, they’ve got to be responsible for testing the kids and teaching kids how to take the test for the state,” Nichols added.
“I think we’re going to do everything we can to equip (teachers) with the capabilities, and hopefully we can work (on) the things keeping them from teaching, and maybe through this new funding formula – BEP last year did add counselors, which allowed them to spend more time teaching,” Eby said. “I think the testing is important … if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going.”
Fellow RCF member Alex Barnwell, an agency owner of Horace Mann, which provides financial planning for kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers, said teachers are concerned about “‘when can I start teaching and do what I see those individual children and group of children need?’”
He suggested individual programs for students.
“I think that has been the purpose for the last standards we just put together, beginning at sixth grade,” Eby said. “We probably should have something earlier … to have individualized student programs for what they need to succeed.”
