Supporting Effective Teaching in Tennessee: Executive Summary | Page 46

Each day, data will be extracted from the district’s disparate
systems and copied to a central data store, where it will remain
unchanged and available for analysis. The central data store
will be accessible to authorized users—including teachers,
principals, administrators, and school board members—twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week over the internet. The goal
of the project is to enable all school system employees to quickly
obtain easy-to-understand information and then to work with
those employees to learn how to translate that information into
action that improves both student achievement and district and
school efficiency.

schools: students progress was constantly measured using
formative assessments; principals directly received updates on
student progress; teachers adjusted their practice when students
did not perform well on formative assessments; data was used
as a key metric of teacher performance; principals and highperforming teachers consistently worked with struggling
colleagues to improve their instruction; and schools regularly
informed parents about their children’s progress.

Using TVAAS Data to Improve Instruction
Education Consumers Foundation

Teacher Preparation Residency Models
Belmont University, ETSU, MTSU, and UT-Knoxville

Each year, the Education Consumers Foundation presents
awards to the six elementary and six middle schools in the
state that have the highest value-added scores as measured by
TVAAS. In 2007, a researcher supported by the Education
Consumers Foundation visited the six schools that had won the
award for two consecutive years to find out what the schools
were doing to be effective. The report found that at these six

Four traditional teacher preparation programs in Tennessee
include year-long residencies as part of their training. Both
Belmont University and the University of Tennessee Knoxville
use a 4 + 1 model, in which students complete their bachelor’s
degrees in four years and then spend a fifth year earning a
master’s degree while completing a year-long residency in a
school. As part of the residency, each teacher candidate works

Courtesy of Chris Walker

Teacher Recruitment, Preparation,
and Support

SCORE Chairman and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist discusses the
Teacher Advancement Program with educators at Holston Middle School.

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