A Message from Jamie Woodson Friends, In the past month we have seen evidence of the tremendous progress that Tennessee is making in improving student achievement, as well as data that shows just how much work we have left to do to ensure every child graduates high school prepared for college and the workforce. The…
Great news for students in Tennessee (and across the U.S.). From 2003-2009, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test SCOREs grew by 29.4% for Tennessee students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That places Tennessee 8th in the nation for this measure. Below is a graph that Matthew Ladner (from the Foundation for…
Most private employers will tell you that one of their foremost concerns is employee morale. In service companies in particular, a customer’s experience with a particular employee determines whether that business survives or dies. In government, however, too many public officials disregard employee morale. Teachers are an acute example. More and more, I hear from…
After completing my first year teaching Algebra 1 as a Teach For America corps member, I was exhausted. For ten months, my ninth graders and I had worked tirelessly to meet our goal of at least 45% of students passing the End of Course exam (up from the 18% of students who passed this…
This Op-Ed originally appeared in the 7/26/11 Robertson County Times. The question is often asked why the chamber of commerce cares about what’s happening in our public schools. As in so many other areas of life, we all tend to live and work in “silos” without stepping back to take a look at the big…
I was fortunate to attend the SCORE Rural Education Summit last week where many great minds came together to discuss education reform and impact to Tennessee. Many topics held my interest – parent engagement, business partnerships, and legislative reforms. I was fortunate to be selected as a speaker on the topic of on-line and distance…
This post is a guest contribution to the SCORE Sheet from Laurie Brown and Ashley Buckelew who attended the Southeast Regional Rural Education Summit last week. Last week, we attended SCORE’s Southeast Regional Rural Education Summit to highlight the work of the Higher Achievement Summer School (H.A.S.S.), an intensive four-week summer experience we put together…
As a member of SCORE’s team this summer, I have learned a lot about the education issues that our nation faces and have dived into the very lively discussion between policy-makers, educators, parents, business leaders, and students themselves. What I have found, is that the term “at-risk” is thrown around a lot. It seems…
SCORE, along with the Ayers Foundation, Niswonger Foundation, Rural School and Community Trust, and Tennessee School Boards Association, kicked off the Southeast Regional Rural Education Summit this past Tuesday. 500 attendees, 14 breakout sessions, and 786 tweets using #ruralsummit later, the Summit concluded. As one attendee remarked, “Excellent; great discussion; now it’s time to get…
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This Op-Ed appeared in today’s Tennessean. The recession has hit hard in rural Tennessee. While statewide unemployment hovers at 9.7 percent, in the past year a few of our rural counties have faced jobless rates near 20 percent. Additionally, rural poverty in Tennessee is well above the national median. In today’s global economy, Bell…
The Southeast Regional Rural Education Summit is SCORE’s effort to start solving the problems facing rural schools today. Our aim is to bring together rural educators, administrators, policymakers, and other stakeholders for two days of engaging sessions to highlight best practices and influence regional and national policy concerning rural education issues. Take a look…
Here at Hamblen County Schools, community and regional partnerships have been the key to our success. These partnerships have enabled us to do things that we would not be able to accomplish on our own and enhance efforts we already have underway. Even though we have been recognized nationally, most recently in the Washington…
I thought I had left the judgmental eyes and awkwardness of middle school years ago, but I was transported back to this strange world last month for the start of summer school. As I quickly realized, middle school math is the last thing 7th and 8th grade students want to do in the summer….
Since this is my first blog post for SCORE, I wanted to use the opportunity to introduce myself. Born in Chattanooga, I now live just miles from where I grew up. I have two young children, one of whom just finished 5th grade at Normal Park Museum Magnet, a Hamilton County public school, and…
This post is a guest contribution to the SCORE Sheet from Dr. Gina Kunz and Dr. Susan Sheridan as part of our series on rural education leading up to the Southeast Regional Rural Education Summit on July 19-20. Despite the fact that more than 25 percent of U.S. schools are rural, much of the existing…
A few months ago I attended a community meeting where the topic of discussion was public education and how community members could support teachers, students and families. The folks around the table shared how the organizations they represented were working to support public education. A professor from an area college spoke about the college’s…
Kids just don’t wake up one morning and decide, “I think I am going to drop out of school today.” Dropping out of high school begins much earlier, before students even enroll in their freshman courses. Much of the focus of drop out prevention in the past has been on making sure high school…
This morning, Governor Haslam and Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman held a press conference to discuss statewide, preliminary results from this year’s TCAP test. The test measures student achievement in math, science, social studies, and reading. While specific data about school and school systems have yet to be released, the message from these initial…
Knoxville News Sentinel’s Humphrey on the Hill has posted that Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam may seek a waiver for the state from meeting federal No Child Left Behind requirements. Governor Haslam acknowledged a “very real possibility” that many Tennessee schools will not meet NCLB requirements in the upcoming school year. It is not yet clear whether Governor Haslam is…