Voting has now ended. Thank you to everyone who submitted inspiring stories about rising to the challenge and improving student achievement in rural areas! The winning entry, Viking Advertising, received a $100 Donors Choose gift card. Finalist 1: The Trials of SpongeBob Square Pants By: Karen Terry Camden Junior High School, Benton County, TN As a…
Much of the education-reform community is buzzing about an opinion piece that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times. The piece, Is Algebra Necessary?, can be summed up in the first paragraph: A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school…
In the efforts to improve student achievement, there are moments to stop, reflect, and celebrate the good work that is happening across Tennessee. The district-specific student achievement data released today by the state Department of Education provide us one of those moments. In the majority of our state’s school districts, we are better preparing students…
A student’s address should not determine the quality of his or her education. But often it does. As an undergraduate at Rhodes College in Memphis, I have become acutely aware of the unfortunate relationship between the economic situation of a community and the academic achievement of its schools. Only 20 minutes of driving time separates…
Gov. Bill Haslam has started a great conversation about higher education in Tennessee. A central theme is already clear: higher education must do more to give students skills that employers need. During the past year, Roane State Community College has worked on an Oak Ridge business/education partnership called the Rural Communities STEM Initiative (RCSI) with…