Tennessee’s Plan for Education Reform

Tennessee put in place important new policies last year that help ensure a quality education for Tennessee kids. But we are just at the beginning – much more work needs to be done.

Unfortunately, those who are against reform and are in favor of the status quo are pressuring public officials to back down on the work that was done last year. This would be a disservice to students. Legislators must forge forward to address the issues below:

Meaningful Teacher Evaluations

We should continue to strengthen and improve upon our efforts to evaluate teachers in a fair and meaningful way, so we can reward excellence and support those who need improvement.

We’re focusing on teacher quality because teachers are the most powerful way for schools to ensure a quality education for our kids. A recently published study by researchers from Columbia and Harvard showed that [a great teacher has a significant lifelong impact on students – link to our blog] including increasing the likelihood of college enrollment. Because of this, fair and meaningful teacher evaluations are critical. We must be able to recognize and reward excellence in the classroom and identify and support teachers that need improvement.

Teacher evaluations should be clear and consistent and based on multiple criteria, with the most significant factor being measurements of student learning.

As leaders on school campuses, principals must also be fairly evaluated. Evaluations should be based on school-wide student achievement growth as well as the principal's ability to recruit and retain effective teachers.

Last year, Tennessee enacted new laws to establish a fair and meaningful teacher evaluation system that takes student achievement growth into account. Special interests are pressuring public officials to back down on this important measure. Instead, public officials must continue to strengthen and improve upon the work that was done last year to evaluate teachers in a meaningful way.

Rewarding Effective Teachers

Teachers deserve professional-level salaries, and the more effective they are the more they should be paid.

Teachers should not feel like widgets on an assembly line, where no matter what they do they get paid the same. Extra commitment, hard work and, most importantly, results should be rewarded. Treating teachers like professionals is critical to keeping our best teachers in the classroom so that the maximum number of students benefit from their talent and commitment.

 

Forced Placement

Teachers and principals should both have a say regarding teachers’ school assignments.

Under the current system, a teacher can be placed in a school by the district's human resources office regardless whether or not that teacher wants to be there, or whether the principal believes it is a good fit. This “forced placement” makes no sense. Schools should not be forced to hire ineffective teachers that they don’t want teaching their students. Teachers should be able to choose schools for which their skills will be the best fit. Both teachers and principals should have a say in whether or not a teacher is placed at a given school so that teacher placements are in the best interest of students.

Tennessee should eliminate forced placement and should require that both the teacher and the principal approve a teacher’s placement at a school.

Empowering Parents

Parent involvement is critical to student success. We must empower parents with quality information and with alternatives when their child is not getting the education they deserve.

Parents should have access to quality information about the performance of their child’s school and other schools available to them. School scorecards, that include student achievement gains and give parents an easy-to-understand letter grade, should be distributed to all parents.

In addition, parents should have meaningful action available to them if their child is not getting the education they deserve. Several states across the country have recently enacted "parent trigger" laws that give parents the right to force real turnaround measures if their child’s school is failing through organizing parents to sign a petition.

Tennessee should follow the lead of other states and enact a "parent trigger" law that give parents the right to force real turnaround measures if their child is assigned to a chronically failing school.

Alternative Certification

To recruit the best teachers into the profession, we need new alternative pathways to teacher certification.

Research shows that a teacher’s path to certification does not have an impact on their effectiveness in the classroom. Whether the candidate is a recent college graduate or a mid-career professional, we need to provide high-quality alternative certification programs to recruit as many great teachers as possible.

Two bills have been proposed which will enable Tennessee to recruit talented individuals into the classroom. SB 2302/HB 3098 allows college professors to teach their subject area at the high school level. SB 2298/HB 3059 allows the Board of Education to authorize professionals with subject area expertise to teach in public schools.