Education 101 - An Overview of Recent Education Reforms in Tennessee | Page 4
Taking Note
Superintendent Selection in Tennessee: A Brief History
January 2011
these new standards. A key moment in the year will be September
2011, when the second year of test scores under the new standards
will be released publicly.
In September 2010, three different groups in Tennessee won a total
of $72 million in the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Incentive
Fund competition to develop new, comprehensive plans for rewarding
highly effective teachers and principals. Knox County Schools will use
its $26.5 million grant to expand the Teacher Advancement Program
to 13 new schools while Memphis City Schools will use its $9.5 million
grant to reward high-performing teachers and principals in the district’s
lowest-performing schools. In addition, the Tennessee Department
of Education will use its $36.0 million grant to help over 100 schools
across the state develop comprehensive teacher compensation plans.
Evaluating What Works
With Tennessee receiving over $710 million in new competitive federal
and philanthropic grants over the past two years, a litany of new
programs and initiatives have been launched. In 2011, many of these
initiatives will just be getting off the ground, but there will likely be
pressure to begin evaluating the effectiveness of these efforts. One of
the key signs of whether the state and districts are on the right track will
be whether they make mid-course corrections to programs based on
data they receive about student achievement and feedback about the
effectiveness of each program.
Reform in 2011
Although Tennessee has clearly made substantial reforms to its
education system over the past two years, in many ways the hard work
is just beginnin r