This post is part of a series of blog posts authored by winners and finalists of the 2011 SCORE Prize. These posts highlight an aspect of their work that has dramatically improved student achievement. At Page High School, we believe that our relationships—among faculty, staff, and the administration—are crucial to our success in improving student…
Official Press Release Organization Will “Listen and Gather Feedback on Successes and Challenges” (Nashville) – The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) today announced details of a statewide feedback process on Tennessee’s new teacher evaluation system at a meeting of the State Board of Education. The process, which is designed to gather input from a wide…
There’s a saying that education is inherently local. Last week, I realized that instituting a culture change to improve education is inherently local as well. This past week, I attended a community partners meeting that Nashville Public Television was holding as part of a national initiative to improve high school graduation rates. We spent the…
It has been a year of great change in Tennessee schools. Revised tenure rules, collaborative conferencing, the beginnings of the transition to Common Core standards have all been new dynamics in public education in the Volunteer State. Obviously one of the biggest and most important changes has been the movement to the new teacher performance…
A major study by researchers from Harvard and Columbia universities on the long-term effects of teachers on the lives of their students has generated a great deal of interest recently, including a detailed article in the New York Times. The research team tracked 2.5 million students from grades 4-8 to age 28 to determine the…
This afternoon in Washington, DC, people who are instrumental to the conversations around education reform in this country—including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Tennessee’s own Governor Phil Bredesen, and neighboring Kentucky Education Commissioner, Terry Holliday—will gather to talk about the imperative of implementing and using data effectively to change student learning for…
Did you know that SCORE has a student representative on its Steering Committee to hear from the student perspective in the education reform discussion? Check out McGavock High School student Elliott Martin’s post on the Academies of Nashville blog where he reflects on his experience as a SCORE Steering Committee member. An excerpt: When I first…
This week the legislature will convene to start the second session of the 107th Tennessee General Assembly. Last year, we made great strides toward raising the standards in education and we need to continue looking forward. I applaud the Governor for listening to the feedback from teachers, superintendents, and other school officials by selecting SCORE…
Is the glass half-empty or half-full? My response to that simple question can be quite revealing. It’s a common question used to determine a person’s view or perspective about a particular circumstance. Am I a pessimist, realist, optimist, or opportunist? Regardless of my philosophical viewpoint, it is imperative to embrace two undeniable implications related to…
The holiday season is such a wonderful season – there are so many little things that come around this time of year that bring me joy. The anticipation is invigorating. As of this morning, I’m adding something new to my list of little joys: the sound of students talking about what’s needed to get into…
I was lucky to be talking with the fabulous Bob Swiggum, the Georgia Department of Education’s chief information officer, in our offices today, and he brought up a point that I have tried to express here before: Data systems are useless if they’re not useful. It seems like an over-simplification I know, but hearing a…
This post originally appeared on the Tennessee College Access and Success Network blog. I had two career choices when I was a teenager. I either wanted to be a ninja assassin spy of the James Bond type or play first base for the Chicago Cubs. Obviously, these were not very realistic and attainable goals for…
Not long ago I visited a prominent bakery in my home county. Like most people who do not work in that type of environment, I expected to find a workplace filled with manual labor, such as workers lifting bags of flour. Instead, I witnessed a highly automated system of making the foods, with workers programming…
December 2011 is my last month as a Director of Schools. I have been in this role for 5 years and have had some of the proudest moments of my life as leader for the Putnam County School System. I have watched our system be recognized for instituting an on-line school; a strategic pay plan…
When I was in first grade, I spent a lot of time waiting around. After completing addition and subtraction problems or reading passages to myself, I waited for the teacher to finish helping other students before she turned her attention back to me and the rest of the class. Eventually, I realized that if my…
The talk around Tennessee’s implementation of a new teacher evaluation system has been, well, a little dramatic. In both media reports and personal conversations I’ve had with educators, I’ve heard comments along the lines of “we ought to be supporting teachers, not evaluating them to death.” Interestingly, many view the new teacher evaluation system as…
This morning, the Tennessee Department of Education released its 2011 Report Card which includes district- and school-level data on indicators such as student achievement, growth on standardized tests, and others. Check it out to see how Tennessee schools are performing:
This post is part of a series of blog posts authored by winners and finalists of the 2011 SCORE Prize. These posts will highlight some of their work that has dramatically improved student achievement. When a person enters the doors of Fairview Elementary, they see the words, “Expect More…Achieve More.” This philosophy, which is concisely…
Today I am kicking off the inaugural Partnership for a Healthier America Summit bringing together 800 leaders from the private sector committed to improving our nation’s health. The ambitious goal of PHA is to end childhood obesity within a generation and our schools have a major role to play in this frightening epidemic. Our kids…
This Op-Ed appeared in Sunday’s Tennessean. Earlier this month, the Tennessee Department of Education released our state’s 2011 results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Tennessee students SCOREd about the same as two years ago. But by standing still, we dropped in the national rankings — from 45th to 46th in the nation in…