Dr. Penny Ferguson, an alumna of the 2017-18 cohort of Tennessee Educator Fellows, is a beloved educator in the Maryville community. Dr. Ferguson is enjoying her 50th year in the classroom—serving all but her first year as an English teacher at Maryville High School. Julie Pepperman reflects on Dr. Ferguson’s profound influence on her daughters.
Things are looking a bit different here at SCORE’s online home. We recently rebuilt our website to better tell the story of what SCORE cares about and works for every day. First and foremost, SCORE is focused on students and what is needed to help them achieve at their highest levels. So you will see many photos of Tennessee students and the educators who work with them featured on the site.
The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) recently convened the Future Ready Summit: Helping Students Discover Successful Routes To College, Career & Opportunity. Participants from across the state and country explored how Tennessee can adopt innovative practices and use policy levers to ensure that our students are prepared for success in the jobs of their choice. Dr. Tunisha Hobson, a Tennessee educator, shares her three key takeaways from her day at the summit.
The statewide average ACT composite score of 20.2 is the highest ever for Tennessee students, up from 20.1 in 2017. Here are other notable indicators from these ACT results.
Over the last several months, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has worked with K-12, industry, and higher education leaders to identify ways Tennessee can ensure that when students walk across the stage at high school graduation, they have a plan and can succeed in whatever route they choose in college and career.
The steps announced today to improve the 2018-19 administration of TNReady have rightly prioritized the needs of students and the feedback of teachers.
Leading Innovation for Tennessee Education (LIFT) is a group of Tennessee districts working together to explore innovative approaches and share best practices that benefit students. One of LIFT’s primary areas of focus has been improving literacy outcomes in the early grades. In spring 2018, Trousdale and Sullivan County Schools surveyed parents regarding their child’s early literacy…
Every student deserves to find in high school a route that will lead to success in the future. The Future Ready Summit on October 18 in Nashville will explore how Tennessee can adopt innovative practices and use policy levers to prepare every student to make the most of postsecondary opportunities that lead to a successful…
In SCORE’s report, Excellence For All: How Tennessee Can Lift Our Students To Best In The Nation, one of the five key priorities is supporting every student to become a strong reader and writer. Leading Innovation for Tennessee Education (LIFT), a group of dedicated district, school, and classroom leaders from across Tennessee, has been working to improve…
The ACT is one of the most important college-ready indicators that we use for our students in Lenoir City. In Tennessee, we have the tremendous opportunity to provide a free retake to all public high school seniors who took the ACT for the first time as a junior. In 2017, nearly 52,000 students took advantage…
If I had asked my second-grade class three years ago to write a paragraph about a text we were studying that included an introductory sentence, at least four details, irregular nouns and verbs, and vocabulary like “colossal” and “enchanted,” I would have seen a lot of blank stares—especially in September. But this year when I…
Education ranks among the most important issues for Tennesseans who are likely to vote in the November election for governor, according to a statewide poll. The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), a nonpartisan education policy and advocacy nonprofit that focuses on improving student achievement, today released the results of the survey of 600 likely…
The 21st century workforce is rapidly changing, and Tennessee students deserve a bright future with the opportunity to obtain a high-quality job that leads to economic prosperity. In the last decade, Tennessee K-12 education policy has been guided by one primary goal: Every student must graduate ready for postsecondary education, entry into the workforce, or…
August is my favorite time of the year because it means that across the state, Tennessee students are heading back to school. As a former teacher, the first few weeks were always exciting because it was a new opportunity to learn about students and their families as well as build strong classroom culture. Anyone who…
Over my first twelve years of schooling I managed to attend five separate schools in Raleigh, North Carolina. I had the unique opportunity to attend many different types of schools with many different educators, but one in particular made a significant impact on my life. Dr. Wesley Kirkpatrick (Dr. K)—the dean of studies, college-placement expert,…
Inspired by my students, I founded the Future Educator Leader Academy (FELA). FELA is a teacher-nominated leadership academy for students who are recognized as great potential educators. The goal is to expose a diverse group of students to the tremendous difference they can make with a career in education.
Dear Friends, Tennessee has long believed that an annual statewide assessment is central to student achievement growth. When Tennessee aligned annual assessment with our high academic standards, we saw unprecedented growth in student achievement. Recently, we have been discouraged by calls to pause or stop Tennessee’s annual assessment. Although there have been significant challenges, now…
The work of Tennessee’s educators is vital. Teachers are the single most important in-school factor for raising student achievement, and school leaders are the next. For this reason, Tennessee educator voices are valuable to state-level leaders and policymakers for greater understanding of what occurs daily in diverse schools and classrooms. For the last eight years,…
Throughout the summer, SCORE conducted focus groups with principals across the state to hear honest, on-the-ground perspectives of what school leaders are seeing and experiencing in their schools. Hearing from educators in schools is critical work for SCORE so that we can incorporate these voices into our annual report and ensure that the needs of…
Tennessee is home to 18 leader preparation programs and they collectively help prepare about 500 candidates each year. The work these programs do to ensure that our school leaders are ready for the complexity of being a principal is critical. Here, we profile two programs, Lipscomb University and University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and their leaders about…