stake holder responsibilities
Race to the Top Priorities
Standards and Assessments
1. Provide all districts with both formative and summative
assessments for grades K-12.
2. Launch a statewide public relations campaign to emphasize the
importance of education and that getting a job that pays well today
requires a different level of education than before. Underscore that the
Tennessee Diploma Project is a first step in this process and provide
concrete examples of how parents can help their child succeed.
3. Fund professional development opportunities focused on helping
teachers and guidance counselors successfully implement the
Tennessee Diploma Project. The Electronic Learning Center should
be a key part of this effort and used for both delivering training and
providing a forum for teachers to collaborate and share resources.
4. Working with e4 TN, the Niswonger-Bristol online learning
program, and Oak Ridge Associated Universities, fund the
statewide expansion of online learning opportunities, especially
for high school math, science, and foreign language courses.
5. Provide start-up funding for programs that help make the
transition between high school and postsecondary education more
seamless including early college high schools, online learning, dual
enrollment, dual credit, Advanced Placement, and International
Baccalaureate programs.
Teachers and Leaders
1. Fund the expansion of Teach for America, The New Teacher
Project, Teach Tennessee, Chattanooga/Knoxville/Memphis
Teacher Residencies, Distinguished Professionals, Teach Tennessee,
and UTeach to increase the pipeline of teachers in hard-to-staff
schools and hard-to-staff subjects, especially math and science.
2. Fund a year-long process to create both a teacher effectiveness
measure that can be the basis of all teacher evaluation, tenure,
and compensation decisions and a principal effectiveness measure
that can be the basis of all principal evaluation, tenure, and
compensation decisions.
3. After this teacher effectiveness measure is created, connect it to
both tenure and compensation; specifically:
ˏˏRestructure the state salary schedule to include new elements
such as multiple career paths (e.g., beginning, professional, and
master teachers). Also consider incentivizing select inputs (e.g.
credentials in high-needs subject areas, appropriate graduate
degrees, placement in high-needs schools, teacher leadership
roles) and outputs (e.g., performance on the new teacher
effectiveness measure). All new teachers would fall under the
new salary schedule while existing teachers could opt-in.
ˏˏDirectly link tenure decisions to the teacher effectiveness
measure, allowing student achievement gains to be included as
one component of the teacher effectiveness measure before a
final tenure decision must be reached.
4. Create a competitive state fund to support high-quality district
mentoring, professional development, and differentiated pay programs
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A ROADMAP TO SUCCESS
that are part of a district’s comprehensive human capital strategy (e.g.,
Benwood Initiative and Teacher Advancement Program).
5. Create a network of regional high-quality school leadership programs
that recruit, train, and support highly effective school leaders.
Data Systems
1. Develop a single statewide pre-K through postsecondary data
warehouse containing data from multiple existing sources
including student performance and demographic databases, teacher
identification and demographic databases, financial databases,
and formative and summative assessment databases. The data
warehouse must provide information that is easily accessible and
user friendly to principals, teachers, counselors, administrators,
school board members, higher education institutions and (as
appropriate) parents and students.
2. Fund online and in-person training for superintendents, principals,
and teachers about how TVAAS works and how it and other
assessment tests (e.g., PLAN and EXPLORE) can be effectively
used to improve classroom instruction.
Low-Performing Schools
1. Launch a comprehensive initiative to focus on developing
interventions for low-performing schools, especially in rural areas.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
2010 Agenda:
Policy Recommendations
1. Emphasize that education is your top priority and that every child
can succeed.
2. Hold steadfastly to higher academic standards, even if and when
the resulting student outcomes do not appear as favorable.
3. Pass a legislative package that:
ˏˏEnsures the Tennessee Department of Education directly
provides all principals and teachers log-in information to the
appropriate portions of the TVAAS database.
ˏˏEnsures higher education teacher training programs and
alternative certification providers have access to aggregate
TVAAS data on graduates from their programs.
ˏˏRequires all principals to receive an annual performance
evaluation.
ˏˏRaises the class size cap in certain Career and Technical Education
(CTE) classes (e.g., marketing) where there is no physical safety
risk. Class size would still have to comply with existing grade
level class size caps, and associated funding formulas would be
adjusted to ensure this change remains budget neutral. This
would assist districts in continuing to offer CTE classes while
still implementing the Tennessee Diploma Project.
ˏˏAllows all school districts to use administrative law judges to
settle tenured teacher dismissal proceedings.