Tennessee Has Added A New Member To The Department Of Education, Whose Career Is Predicated On DEI

Image Credit: tn.gov

The Tennessee Conservative [By Kelly M. Jackson] –

This month the state of Tennessee acquired a new employee to work in a role that is titled “The Superintendent of Turnaround”. 

But what exactly does a Superintendent of Turnaround do?

In this case, they oversee operating the Achievement School District in Tennessee.

The Achievement School District is essentially a statewide district, with a conglomeration of elementary, middle and high schools that perform in the lowest tier academically in the state. According to Great Schools website, 100% of the 32 member schools perform well below the overall state average in both Math and English. 

In such a circumstance it would seem like common sense to bring in someone who has a proven track record of improving academic achievement in failing schools which many would agree host mostly children from some of the poorer areas of the state. And as the graphic demonstrates, most of those students happen to be black students. 

Due to this, Bren Elliott was brought in by the new State Ed Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds. 

The Tennessee conservative previously reported on the appointment by Governor Bill Lee of the new State Education Commissioner who based on a simple resume comparison is arguably a near identical replacement of the former State Education Commissioner, Penny Schwinn.  Lizzette Reynolds has started her new tenure with the inclusion of Dr. Bren Elliott.

Dr.  Elliott worked early in her career here in Nashville, as a principal in two MNPS schools, before moving on to an Area Director’s position then Director of High Priority Schools Advocacy after just 6 years in the district.

It was here in MNPS schools, back in the 2008-2009 school year, the phrase “turnaround” appears in Bren Elliott’s resume of achievements for the first time. Much of the summary includes “Supporting” “facilitating” “coaching” and “monitoring” the implementation of what are referred to as “improvement plans” that helped the schools she oversaw move into “improving” status. Another of the noteworthy accomplishments included in this portion of her bio is how she “authored plans” for use of more than $7 million dollars to support this turnaround of these 24 schools. 

There was no hard information attached to Elliott’s bio that would give a fuller explanation of how all of this was accomplished, but the positions she would take and the activity that she would engage in following her time in Nashville give some good indicators of the strategies that were employed and the ideological foundations she bases those strategies on. 

It is in North Carolina in the Wake County Public School System where Elliott was brought in, some in the area said, due to a lawsuit filed in 2010 that lasted beyond her tenure there, filed by the area chapter of the NAACP that leveled charges at the district on behalf of eight students that the district’s disciplinary policies unfairly targeted black and disabled students. And that an SRO in the school exacerbates this problem.  A claim heard here in the MNPS school district from its current superintendent Dr. Adrienne Battle. 

Dr. Elliott helped to develop and implement, what her bio calls, “The Comprehensive Plan for Equitable Discipline Practices.”

Critics, at the time, characterized the plan as a manipulation of the data relating to infractions, who was committing them. The outcomes tended to be based on a scale that measured race as a the main or key indicator rather than the behavior itself, and whether or not the event warranted the consequences that were doled out to those students who violated the district discipline policies. 

The result was a what one critic at the time, equated to changes in due process policies that “have the potential to ultimately reduce, not the actual number of students being suspended, but instead more narrowly the district’s responsibility to publicly report those students as being long-term suspended.”

In other words, the same number of students will likely be suspended, it just won’t look that way on paper because they will redesignate the variables and manipulate the data outcomes, so the appearance of progress is made.

It was these changes that ultimately, over a period of years, being implemented allowed for the school district to broker a deal with the NAACP and end the long-term lawsuit, which ended in 2018. In the end, the court found no evidence that the policies that were in use at in Wake County Public Schools violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or any of the other federal laws that the suit was predicated on. 

After the conclusion of Elliot’s tenure in North Carolina, and having done an adequate job of proving that she can “turn around” failing schools, Elliott moved on to the Chief of Equity, then Chief of School Improvement in DC Public schools.

This is explained in this video by Executive Director of grassroots group Tennessee Stands.

The title of the position tells you much of what you would need to know, but from Elliott’s bio on Linked, she says of her role:  “Oversaw several key levers for equity including leader development, professional development and strategy alignment, the school-based leader and staff evaluation system (IMPACT) and student supports. Implemented a district-wide equity plan, which includes defining equity in DCPS, developing an equity framework.” 

Elliott says about her work in that role, that it was really “focused on becoming a whole child centered, anti–racist school district” comprehensive school planning and redesigning high schools to “strategically and assertively accelerate achievement for those who are furthest from opportunity”.   

Along with a career full of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy creation and implementation, Elliott is also a Fellow at The Equity Lab, where the landing page states that the organization’s primary purpose is to “take on the nation’s biggest challenges of individual, institutional, and systemic inequity”. 

Dr. Elliott started her new position just this month.

The Tennessee Conservative will continue to cover and report any and all of the plans she has intended for the students of Tennessee. 

About the Author: Kelly Jackson is a recent escapee from corporate America, and a California refugee to Tennessee. Christ follower, Wife and Mom of three amazing teenagers. She has a BA in Comm from Point Loma Nazarene University, and has a background in law enforcement and human resources. Since the summer of 2020, she has spent any and all free time in the trenches with local grassroots orgs, including Mom’s for Liberty Williamson County and Tennessee Stands as a core member.  Outspoken advocate for parents rights, medical freedom, and individual liberty. Kelly can be reached at kelly@tennesseeconservativenews.com.