Interim Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Superintendent Tutonial “Toni” Williams says improving teacher retention could play a positive role in elevating low-graded schools on the state’s recently released School Letter Grades. The A through F grading system is designed to provide families with a transparent and concise picture for how well public schools are performing.Williams says the district will be taking a more holistic approach to retain teachers in the future, including preserving tutoring and small group instruction initiatives, adding more coaching for teachers, paying for education assistants to enter the profession, and giving veteran teachers longevity bonuses.

The conventional wisdom in some quarters is that the charter school movement has run its course. Abandoned by an increasingly progressive Democratic Party for being “neo-liberal” and by an increasingly populist Republican Party for being “technocratic,” charter schools (the story goes) are falling into the chasm that has opened up in the political center of our ultra-polarized country.But the conventional wisdom is wrong. 

While the entire United States is still reeling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery process has not been even nationwide. Many rural students and communities — especially certain pockets — are facing multiple crises in terms of educational loss, economic outcomes, unemployment and mental health.

The Tennessee Department of Education rolled out its much-anticipated School Letter Grades platform Thursday. The system is designed to provide the public with transparency into how well public schools are meeting state expectations by awarding each school with an A through F grade.Parents can use the dashboard to look up the letter grade for each public school in the state.

The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability (OREA) released a new report that found students who face language, disability, and economical challenges have significantly higher dropout rates than their peers in Tennessee.This disparity is especially a concern for English language learners (ELL) who have a dropout rate of 30 percent in 2021-22, exceeding the state rate by nearly three times.

The lengthy search for a new leader of the state’s largest school district is down to three finalists.Tuesday night members of the Memphis-Shelby County School Board named three out of state educational leaders to move onto the next phase of the superintendent search process.

A heated debate at recent Williamson County School Board meetings will be moving to the Tennessee General Assembly next year.Representative Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, is sponsoring legislation to prohibit traditional public and public charter schools from displaying any flag in the classroom that isn’t the official United States flag or the official state flag of Tennessee. This legislation would effectively ban all pride flags in public schools.Representative Bulso told the Tennessean he was encouraged to file the bill by parents in his county and a school board member who were concerned about “political flags.”

The association that oversees middle and high school sports in Tennessee will now allow church-related schools to become members.The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association’s (TSSAA) Legislative Council approved several changes to its bylaws this month, including allowing Category IV schools, which are church-related schools, to join. Previously, the TSSAA only allowed Category I (public schools), Category II (private schools), and Category III (regionally accredited) schools to become members.

One of the biggest challenges the next superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) will inherit is the aging infrastructure of the district’s schools.The average age of school buildings in the district is 64 years old. That’s 24 years older than the recommended life span of school buildings nationwide and district is currently considering options to fund $500 million school upgrades and address the district’s deferred maintenance costs.With an eye towards this challenge, school board members asked each of the five semi-finalists for the superintendent position about their experience with facilities and operations Friday.Their answers could play an important role in the board’s decision tonight to narrow those five down to three finalists. Here’s how all five responded.

ParagraphLife has been busy for Muna Olaniyi ever since the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission unanimously approved her dream of opening a career based public charter school to serve families in Orange Mound and South Memphis.Empower Memphis Career and College Prep remains on track to open in the fall 2024, but Olaniyi says there are still a lot of important decisions to make before then.

Search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA) announced the five finalists it’s picked to lead Memphis-Shelby County Schools Friday morning.The firm picked two previous finalists, one previous candidate, and two newcomers from a pool of 22 applicants for the long-vacant post.

Darrell Grady says his child was at risk of retention in the second grade. That experience, combined with his own time as a former Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) student who got caught up in the criminal justice system, convinced him to pull his child out of MNPS.Grady told members of the Metro Nashville School Board that even though he’s lost faith in the school system, he hopes the updated GoSchoolBox, Inc. tutoring vendor contract will actively engage with parents when children like his needs help.

Dozens of faith-based leaders gathered around Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Interim Superintendent Tutonial “Toni” Williams Wednesday to denounce a Satanic club that’s planning to rent space at a local elementary school.Non-theistic religious non-profit organization The Satanic Temple (TST) plans to begin hosting the After School Satan Club at Chimneyrock Elementary School on Jan 10.

A new report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found both Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools are facing more competition for students than most other large school districts.The study ranked both districts 21 out of the top 125 school districts for the percentage of students in grades 1 through 8 that attend public charter, private, or home schools instead of district run schools.

Tennessee’s education system must do more to help minority and economically disadvantaged students earn postsecondary degrees in order to meet the state’s workforce needs, a report by an education policy and advocacy organization warned.The State Collaborative on Reforming Education’s 2024 report, released at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, lauded Tennessee students’ overall progress on standardized tests since the pandemic, and a rebound in the number of students attending college during that time. But the group noted that fewer students were finishing college within six years of graduating high school.

Tennessee’s education system must do more to help minority and economically disadvantaged students earn postsecondary degrees in order to meet the state’s workforce needs, a report by an education policy and advocacy organization warned.The State Collaborative on Reforming Education’s 2024 report, released at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, lauded Tennessee students’ overall progress on standardized tests since the pandemic, and a rebound in the number of students attending college during that time. But the group noted that fewer students were finishing college within six years of graduating high school.

Southwest Tennessee Community College Director of Admissions, Recruitment, and K-12 Policy Rosie Britton says last year Tennessee families left more than $2 billion in student aid unclaimed due to missed opportunities or missed information regarding the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).This year students will have less time to start the application process.The FAFSA application process has historically run from October 1 through June 30 but this year it will open no later than December 31.

Interim Memphis-Shelby County School Superintendent Tutonial “Toni” Williams says her administration is evaluating multiple strategies to move the district forward once federal COVID relief funding dries up.The federal government plans to halt providing schools districts with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (ESSER) funds next September.Memphis-Shelby County Schools has received a total of $776 million in ESSER funds. This money has helped support infrastructure needs along with providing advanced placement and vocational courses.

Jackson-Madison County School System (JMCSS) leaders celebrated the district’s surge in graduation rates outpacing the state’s improvement.From 2021, the district’s graduation rates grew from 85.7 percent to 90.5 percent. This 4.8 percent gain surpasses Tennessee’s gain of 1.9 percent by nearly three percentage points during the same period of time.That growth places JMCSS’s graduation rate just .1 percent lower than the state average.