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Improving Principals Diversity In Tennessee

An Evaluation of Tennessee’s Achievement School District and Local Innovation Zones

Since 2012, Tennessee has taken a unique approach to intervening in struggling schools. With the goal of turning around the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in the state (known as priority schools), officials introduced two separate models: the Achievement School District (ASD) and Innovation Zones (iZones). The ASD is a state-run district that directly manages some priority schools and turns others over to select charter management organizations. iZones, on the other hand, are subsets of priority schools that remain under district control but are granted greater autonomy and financial support to implement interventions. There are four districts that contain iZones: Shelby County Schools (Memphis), Metro-Nashville Public Schools, Hamilton County Schools (Chattanooga), and Knox County Schools (Knoxville). The remaining priority schools weren’t included in either of these initiatives, effectively creating a comparison group.

Research teams from Vanderbilt University and the University of Kentucky have kept a close eye on both initiatives. In 2015, they published an evaluation of the ASD and iZone schools after three years of implementation. They found that, while ASD schools did not improve any more or less than other priority schools, iZone schools produced moderate to large positive effects on student test scores. A separate study also found that both initiatives had high rates of teacher turnover, but that the numbers were higher in ASD than iZone schools.

Now a recently published study examines the impacts of both initiatives after five years of implementation. To complete their evaluation, the researchers examined student- and teacher-level demographic data, test scores on state assessments, and school enrollment data from 2006—07 through 2016—17. They then compared changes in test scores after reforms were initiated with changes in test scores in priority schools that weren’t part of the ASD or iZones [Read more at the Fordham Institute].

Report Shows Progress in Metro Schools Academics, Community, Engagement and Customer Service

Dr. Shawn Joseph, Director of Nashville Public Schools

Over the past year, Dr. Shawn Joseph, director of schools, has worked with the Metropolitan Nashville Board of Education to develop a highly rigorous assessment process to offer Metro Nashville Public School families and the community a deeper look into the goals, accomplishments and positive movement toward stronger student achievement. After 24-months on the job, Joseph made public his first self-evaluation since taking the helm of the distressed school district in 2016 outlining his leadership and work in addressing the district’s most pressing concerns. 

Supported by a strong budget, the self-evaluation points to encouraging advances made in the 2017-2018 school year which afforded MNPS opportunity to effectively execute in several crucial areas. That budgetary backing helped demonstrate progress in literacy improvements, equitable access to programs, providing more services and supports for all students, and working to offer additional professional development, compensation and voice for MNPS employees.

As the 41st largest school district in the nation, MNPS is responsible for educating 86,000 students supported by more than 11,000 employees. Michael Casserly, executive director of Council of the Great City Schools, a consortium of the nation’s 70 largest urban public-school systems, called Joseph’s self-evaluation “among the most thorough and rigorous I have seen anywhere in the country.” [Read More at Tennessee Tribune]

MNPS Recommends Denying Another Charter School, Revealing Tougher District Stance

Metro Nashville Public Schools administrators are recommending that the board deny the only charter school application that has come in this year.

In a report sent to board members this week, district officials criticized the proposal from the nonprofit ReThink Forward, saying it wasn’t specific enough and the financial model was incomplete.

If the school board agrees with the recommendation, this would mark the fourth year that the district has shied away from charters, which are part of MNPS but run by private operaters.

That’s after years of consistent charter growth. Between 2011 and 2014, the board approved 19 applications for new charter schools or for existing charter schools to open new locations. Since 2015, the board has approved one.

Dennis Queen, who heads the Charter School Office within MNPS, says charters shouldn’t take that as a sign that the district doesn’t want new ones anymore. It’s just being more selective, he says: In addition to digging more into the application’s data to make sure it’s sound, the district is looking for an element of innovation.  [Read more at WPLN, NashvillePublicRadio.org]

Report: High principal evaluations predict student achievement

Student achievement gains are higher in schools where principals’ leadership practices are rated more positively by their supervisors, according to a new brief by the Tennessee Education Research Alliance at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development.

Examining Tennessee school data from the 2011-12 school year through the 2014-15 school year, TERA faculty director Jason A. Grissom and his team examined the extent to which supervisors’ ratings of principal’s job practices, provided as part of the state’s leader evaluation system, predict measures of school success, including student learning, school climate and teacher retention.

“Our findings offer evidence that district leaders can identify their effective principals,” said Grissom, associate professor of public policy and education. “The principals they evaluate more positively against the state’s instructional leadership standards see better outcomes for both students and teachers.”[Read more at Vanderbilt.edu]