Memphis parent advocate Sarah Carpenter is joining a diverse mix of parents, legislators, state education leaders, and Tennessee Teachers of the Year Kim Inglish, Melissa Collins, and Missy Testerman on a new working group created to design the state’s new A through F school grading system, known as the School Letter Grades.That group is hosting meetings this month to review the nearly 300 written public comments along with information presented at town hall meetings across the state to recommend how letter grades will be calculated for each school.“This next phase of work brings us one step closer to fulfilling the state’s promise to its citizens to create a letter grade calculation for schools that is transparent, meaningful and easy to understand,” said Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds. “This group will move forward with those goals in mind to help create calculations to clearly show how Tennessee’s schools are performing so they can target student academic needs.”

A Stanford University researcher says public charter schools in Tennessee aren’t just outperforming their traditional school counterparts, they’re doing so with students who come from significantly more challenging backgrounds.Stanford’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) director Mache Raymond presented her research to Tennessee education leaders at a forum Thursday morning hosted by the Tennessee State Collaboration on Education (SCORE).

Tennessee Public Charter School Commission Executive Director Tess Stovall is providing mixed recommendations for two public charter schools seeking to transfer out of the state-run Achievement School District (ASD) and into Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS).Stovall is recommending commissioners approve the appeal from Cornerstone Prep Lester (CPL) and deny the appeal from Fairley High School at a hearing Friday morning.

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) announced the dates for this year’s free fall ACT Senior Retake opportunities.Traditionally, Tennessee high-school students take the ACT test during the spring of their junior year and then have the option of retaking the test in the fall of their senior year during normal school hours for free.

The Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) released a report this month that found two school districts may offer important lessons for how leaders can strengthen efforts to improve literacy and make assistance more accessible to students that need it the most.SCORE says both have adopted an “instructionally coherent” approach to literacy.“Rather than offering students something different in an academic support setting, it adheres to a principle that students who are academically behind should receive additional time and support with the foundational literacy skills, texts, and tasks that align to core instruction,” wrote SCORE.

Four proposed public charter schools in Memphis, Nashville, and Jackson are all receiving new support from a key state board leader.Tennessee Public Charter School Commission Executive Director Tess Stovall recommended commissioners approve those schools’ appeals at two meetings later this week.

Tennessee ranked No. 6 nationally with a grade of B in the ALEC Index of State Education Freedom.Grades were scored overall from tabulating funding and financing programs; charter schools; homeschooling; virtual schooling; and open enrollment. The overall score was 71.5 points, which trailed only Florida (95), Arkansas (92), Indiana (86.6), Arizona (84) and Iowa (78)

More than 2,200 Tennessee students signed up to take college level Advanced Placement (AP) courses online this fall through the AP Access for ALL (APAA) program.  That’s an increase of more than 77 percent from the number at the beginning of the 2022/2023 school year.

The possibility of Tennessee rejecting federal education funding is back on the General Assembly’s agenda.Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, announced a new Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding Monday that will study whether the state can provide education services without taking federal dollars.

Six Tennessee schools have been recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools for their academic performance or their work to close achievement gaps between student groups

Today officially closes a monthlong process to encourage the public to submit input on the new School Letter Grades system.September 15 is the last day the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) will accept submissions on the new advocacy tool that will provide an A through F letter grade for how well each public school is serving its students.

A new dashboard launched by the Tennessee Comptroller this week will help parents navigate through misinformation about public charter schools.  The dashboard allows users to research the racial demographics and enrollment numbers of districts that offer public charter schools, and the specific info for each school.

Shelbyville parents and educators gave the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) a lot to consider as it fine tunes the new system to provide an A through F grade to each public school.TDOE plans to unveil the School Letter Grades to the public in November and the department has spent the last few weeks hosting public events across the state to gather input.Thursday night’s meeting in Shelbyville provided a number of concerns from both parents and school leaders who don’t want the school grading system to devalue student growth in favor of student achievement.Bedford County Superintendent Tammy Garrett was among them, saying increasing the importance of student achievement on School Letter Grades won’t help with the teacher shortage poorer counties like hers are facing.

Nashville parents and education leaders provided a wide variety of concerns for the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) to consider as it creates a new system to provide an A through F letter grade to public schools.TDOE plans to roll out the School Letter Grades to the public in November and the department has spent the last few weeks hosting town hall events across the state to gather input.Wednesday night’s meeting in Nashville brought concerns from Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) about the timing of implementation.

Accountability was the main focus for Cookeville parents, educators, and administrators during a Tuesday night discussion about how schools should be graded for serving students.The public meeting is the latest in a series of forums hosted by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) to gather state input on how to improve the new School Letter Grades evaluation tool. The tool will provide an A through F letter grade for each public school when it launches in November.Grading schools based on student academic growth has been a common topic discussed in prior meetings, but this time, multiple speakers stressed the importance of School Letter Grades providing a measurement for student achievement and career/college readiness.

Members of the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission unanimously voted Wednesday morning to remove race/ethnicity and gender from the applications candidates applying to serve on an advisory panel will submit.Commissioners will name that advisory panel next year to provide guidance to the board when reviewing science textbooks and instructional materials for public schools.

Tennessee’s much criticized Achievement School District has a new leader.Dr. Bren Elliot is joining the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) today as the new State Turnaround Superintendent. In the position Dr. Elliot will oversee and support the state-run Achievement School District (ASD) and serve certain priority schools identified as in need of improvement and support.The new superintendent will also oversee the entirety of school turnaround efforts in Tennessee, including moving schools out of the bottom five percent of student achievements, managing supports, interventions, monitoring, and funding for priority schools in the state.

Rutherford County is home to two of the top readers in the state.Smyrna’s Stewart’s Creek High School Senior Taylor Aslup and Murfreesboro’s Oakland Middle School sixth-grader Gibson Weber were among four winners of the annual Tristar Reads contest.

New data released by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) shows not many third-graders passed the summer school option to advance to the fourth-grade under the state’s new Third-Grade Retention Law.The Tennessee General Assembly passed the Third-Grade Retention Law in 2021 to ensure students who failed to meet reading proficiency on the annual Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) would receive additional support through tutoring and/or summer school before being promoted to fourth-grade. Under the law, students who scored in the “approaching proficiency” category had the option of advancing by attending summer school and showing “adequate growth” on an assessment at the end of it.