MSCS contracts with literacy, teaching consultant at $750,000
Memphis-shelby County Schools continues to set its sights on student literacy improvements through consultant Educational Epiphany, with board members Tuesday unanimously approving a $750,000 annual contract for professional development for employees for a second year.
Under the contract, the consulting company will train scores of district and school leaders across grade levels during 82 meetings next school year. The meetings, board documents show, will focus on teaching practices and how to help students improve their literacy skills.
Previous contracts with the company, led by consultant Donyall Dickey, have drawn criticism and dissenting votes in light of teacher and community pushback, which focused on the size of the investment and its effectiveness.
Most recently, a similar contract with the company passed in June by a 6-2 vote, unusual at this school board, where consensus is common.
Board member Joyce Dorce-coleman was one of the two who voted against the contract in June but voted Tuesday to approve it. “They made some strides. I did my homework, and we are getting better,” she said after the meeting.
With the vote, the district is poised to spend more than $2 million with the consultant since contracts came to the board in 2018. The MSCS budget is usually about $1 billion, not counting recent federal stimulus funds.
Last year, teachers spoke out against the contract when the board was asked to consider a contract with the company for $14 million over five years for professional development services and “literacy kits” for students. Teachers questioned whether some of the items were repetitive or could be done in-house.
The district pulled the contract from a vote, and months later brought back the pared-down contract for only professional development services.
Board policy dictates professional services contracts are not subject to the competitive bid process.
What is Educational Epiphany?
The program seeks to simplify what district leaders expect from teachers and help students break down written words and understand their meaning.
The teaching methods showed a positive initial impact on student test scores but lacked a long-term track record, a review by The Commercial Appeal and Chalkbeat Tennessee found last winter.
For some teachers, the training is a helpful way to cut through what they have described as a swarm of expectations on how to improve student reading. Others, though, said the program’s teaching guidance takes up more class time than it is worth.
While many have spoken out against the contract in the past, no public commenters spoke for or against it this time.
In a March committee meeting about the contract, Superintendent Joris Ray told the board the district was “beat up for trying to do something for children,” an apparent reference to last year’s responses.
“And they try to make it about the man, and it’s not about the man, which I think he’s a marvelous man, who’s if you look at the resume, the work he’s done is magnificent,” Ray said about Dickey. “But it’s about educating our children and giving them all the resources and tools that they need in order to succeed.”
MSCS students were lagging in reading achievement prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing gaps for children across the country.
Previous district goals hoped for 90% of third graders to be reading on grade level by 2025, and a recently revised set of goals aims for 74% of students reading on track before they go to middle school by 2030. Both are far from the district’s reality, where a quarter of third graders were on track prior to the pandemic, a statistic that dipped to 14% last year.
What does MSCS want Educational Epiphany to do?
In materials presented to the school board with last year’s contract, the district said the Educational Epiphany services could be measured by improvement in school leaders, and how effective they are at helping students learn. The district also expected to create a group of district-level administrators who could serve as “expert trainers” at schools.
The materials don’t specify particular student achievement gains.
Since the implementation of last June’s contract for this school year, MSCS staff have completed nearly 16,000 classroom walkthroughs, including 6,500 in reading lessons across grades, the district wrote in response to questions from The Commercial Appeal.
MSCS said 89.2% of those lessons had “objectives that were accessible to students, teachers and observers” and 77.7% of them “gave students curriculum-driven opportunities to engage in the academic language.”
When asked what has worked best from the contract, the district said Tuesday teacher observations with school leadership and the academics team have helped provide real-time feedback and support.
Board members did not discuss the contract Tuesday, but during the committee meeting, board member Kevin Woods said he would continue to support the contract and expertise of academic leaders on the ground.
Ray said the partnership with Educational Epiphany “gets better and better” and that the district would be “staying the course.”
Jaron Carson, the school district’s chief academic officer, is working closely with the consultant company, Ray said, and “the work is seamless now. It’s seamless. And our teachers and principals are really gravitating towards it, and it’s the best thing to do for our children.”
Laura Testino covers education and children’s issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @Ldtestino