SCORE Roadmap to Success | Page 20

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 20 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.