EXPANDING ACCESS
TO EFFECTIVE TEACHING
IN TENNESSEE
OVERVIEW:
Teachers have a greater impact on student learning than
any other in-school factor.70 Research finds that high-quality
teaching can diminish the impact of a student’s low socioeconomic background.71 Additionally, consecutive years of
access to high-quality teaching can boost higher-performing
students to perform at even higher levels and accelerate lower-achieving students to catch up to their higher-performing
peers.72 For these reasons, shifts in policy and practice related
to teaching quality have the potential to yield large and sustainable improvements in student achievement levels and
reduce achievement gaps.
UPDATE ON THE WORK:
Since 2010, several policy and legislative changes were made
in an effort to expand student access to effective teaching.
Some examples of these changes include the implementation of a teacher evaluation system that provides all teachers
with improved feedback on an annual basis, the offering of
professional learning opportunities for teachers on Tennessee’s State Standards, and the development of innovative
teacher leader models in districts around the state. Policies
and programs implemented in the 2013-14 school year are
highlighted and described below. While these policy changes have laid the foundation for improved teaching across the
state, gaps remain in teacher support practices, access to
teacher leadership opportunities, and the quality of teacher
preparation programs.
Teacher Preparation: The first step in expanding student access to effective teaching is improving the selectivity and
quality of teacher preparation programs. Over the past several years, Tennessee has worked to systemically improve
educator preparation programs through the development of
new standards and program approval processes. Program ap-
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proval processes are the legal process by which the state of
Tennessee authorizes preparation programs to grant teachers a license. Similar to academic standards for students,
standards in preparation programs establish a common set
of expectations for educator preparation programs. These
standards aim to ensure that programs provide teacher candidates with the knowledge and skillsets they need to succeed once they enter the classroom.
In 2013, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the accrediting body for educator preparation programs in Tennessee, convened a board of experts in teacher
preparation to create a new set of standards for preparation
programs. When compared to previous standards for educator preparation programs, these standar