Supporting Effective Teaching in Tennessee: Executive Summary | Page 50

professional development programs on a range of topics for all
Memphis City Schools principals.

New Leaders for New Schools
Memphis City Schools
New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS) is a national non-profit
focused on developing new school leaders. With an acceptance
rate of less than seven percent, NLNS has a highly selective
process for recruiting and selecting high-performing current and
former educators who are interested in becoming school leaders.
New Leaders attend a five-week summer training institute and
then participate in a year-long, full-time, paid residency in an
urban public school working alongside a mentor principal.
After completing their residency year, New Leaders are placed
as principals and assistant principals in Memphis City Schools,
where they receive one-on-one continued support from a
New Leaders Performance Coach. Since coming to Memphis
in 2004, NLNS has trained over 40 principals or assistant
principals. In 2007-08, 18 percent of NLNS-led schools made
gains of 20 or more points combined across English and math,
compared to only six percent of district schools. In the three
Memphis high schools with graduation data and led by New
Leaders, students are increasing their graduation rates at a faster
pace than other schools in the district.

school board and superintendent teams to establish a wide
range of effective policies and processes that improve board
operations, strengthen management oversight, and directly
improve student learning. The RGA program includes four offsite training institutes and ten on-site consulting visits, each
of which centers around both case studies and large and small
group discussions.

Transition to College
Ayers Foundation College Access Program
Decatur, Henderson, and Perry County Schools
The Ayers Foundation runs a two-pronged program aimed at
increasing college access for students in Decatur, Henderson,
and Perry counties. The first component of the program is
a $4,000 last-dollar annual scholarship for all high school
graduates in the counties to pursue two-year or four-year degrees.
Since being launched in 2000, 1,558 students have received
scholarships totaling $4.8 million. The second component is
college counselors who are placed in each of the counties’ high
schools to help students navigate the college application and
financial aid process. The Foundation has found the counselors
are just as important as the funding to increasing students’
college matriculation and completion rates.

Aspiring Leaders Program
Clarksville-Montgomery County School System

Knox Achieves
Knox County Public Schools

With initial support from the Stupski Foundation, ClarksvilleMontgomery County School System (CMCSS) developed an
Aspiring Leaders Program to help train teachers and assistant
principals to become principals. This program includes
giving intensive professional development to these Aspiring
Leaders both in group and one-on-one settings and focuses
developing principals in five areas: teamwork, focus on student
achievement, stakeholder engagement, learning environment,
and distributed leadership. Additionally, the district provides
significant ongoing professional development options to
experienced principals through the district’s Professional
Development Center.100

Starting in Fall 2009, Knox Achieves will provide scholarships
of up to $2,000 a year to approximately 500 Knox County
high school students who enroll in one of the region’s three
community colleges: Pellissippi State, Roane State, and Walters
State. Priority for the scholarships is given to first generation
college students. Scholarships are for two-years of funding as
long as the student maintains a 2.0 GPA. Starting last January,
Knox Achieve mentors began working with every public high
school in Knox County to ensure interested graduating seniors
took all the necessary steps to enroll and be admitted to one of
these three institutions.101

The Broad Institute for School Boards
Memphis City Schools
Memphis City Schools’ school board has been selected as one
of five school boards to currently participate in the Reform
Governance in Action (RGA) program sponsored by the Center
for the Reform of School Systems and the Broad Foundation’s
Institute for School Boards. The two-year RGA program trains

Educate and Grow
Kingsport City Schools
In 2001, Kingsport City launched the Educate and Grow
program to provide last-dollar scholarships to graduating seniors
from Kingsport City high schools to enroll at Northeast State
Community College. The program has now been expanded
to include high school graduates in Carter, Johnson, Sullivan,
Unicoi, and Washington counties. Kingsport is also working

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