The $400 million question

[tonysam]

Tennessee is about to fall in line in order to get Arne's blackmail money. From further down in the article:

Bredesen’s high-pressure gambit — giving lawmakers one week to act, with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line — puts the statewide teachers’ union, the Tennessee Education Association, in a nearly impossible position. Either the TEA caves and accepts legislation that’s anathema to much of its membership, or the union could look like the villain in the loss of federal aid.

Teachers are complaining about strong-arm tactics from the White House all the way down to the governor’s office. On its Web site, the TEA is asking its members to complain to their state legislators. Lawmakers are themselves grousing over the speed of the special session.

The crux of the controversy is how much weight should be given to student test scores in evaluating the performance of teachers.

Bredesen touts the state’s 17 years of student testing as the richest data in the country on whether teachers are doing their jobs well. He says the so-called value-added tests, intended to measure the gain in knowledge over a year, show that a “startling” two-thirds of the difference in student performance is explained by teacher quality.

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