Race to the Top. Tennessee Report. Year 4: School Year 2013-2014. [State-Specific Summary Report]
Author: Department of Education (ED)
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Academic Standards,Accountability,Achievement Gap,Administrator Effectiveness,Alignment (Education),Budgets,Career Readiness,Charter Schools,College Readiness,Core Curriculum,Data,Educational Assessment,Educational Change,Educational Improvement,Elementary Secondary Education,Federal Legislation,Federal Aid,Educational Legislation,Federal Programs,Formative Evaluation,Grants,Higher Education,Language Arts,Leadership Effectiveness,Literacy,Low Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Measurement Objectives,Models,Outcomes of Education,Partnerships in Education,Poverty,Principals,Professional Development,Program Effectiveness,Program Implementation,School Districts,School Effectiveness,School Turnaround,State Government,State Standards,STEM Education,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Evaluation,Student Characteristics,National Competency Tests

The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Tennessee's annual Race to the Top implementation. The Year 4 report for Phase 2 grantees highlights successes and accomplishments, identifies challenges, and provides lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2013 through September 2014. Given that Delaware and Tennessee's initial four-year grant periods ended in June and July 2014, respectively, for Phase 1 grantees, the Year 4 report includes the beginning of the no-cost extension year (Year 5). In Year 4, each of the eight regional Center of Regional Excellence (CORE) offices continued to provide content-specific supports to local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools through regionally delivered training, including courses targeting literacy and leadership. Students showed gains on Tennessee's State assessment across grade levels in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics from school year (SY) 2010-2011 to SY 2013-2014. Tennessee implemented a variety of activities across its reform plan to achieve its goals related to increasing student achievement and maintained participation of all LEAs in the State in its Race to the Top plan. Ten LEAs statewide piloted a new principal evaluation rubric aligned to the Tennessee Instructional Leadership Standards (TILS) to enable the State to gather feedback and make refinements prior to statewide implementation in SY 2014-2015. While the State fully implemented Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in all grades and subjects in SY 2013-2014, changes to the State's approach for transitioning to college- and career-ready assessments resulted in challenges communicating and clarifying expectations for LEAs and educators. Additionally, the State faced challenges meeting its targets for recruitment, retention, and placement in UTeach and Teach Tennessee and worked to gather and analyze data on these programs and other alternative preparation programs to continue to refine its approach to recruiting and training highly-effective teachers for high-need subject areas in the future. A glossary is included. [For &quot;Race to the Top. Tennessee Report. Year 3: School Year 2012-2013. [State-Specific Summary Report],&quot; see ED580339.]