Did Tennessee Learn Any Lessons From Its Failed School Reform Plan?

Did Tennessee Learn Any Lessons From Its Failed School Reform Plan?

Did Tennessee Learn Any Lessons From Its Failed School Reform Plan?

Tennessee’s Achievement School District, a plan to rescue the state’s worst schools, is not yet a decade old. But according to a proposal obtained by Chalkbeat, the ASD will not live to see the ten-year mark— at least not in its present form.

Kevin Huffman was a lawyer who had spent a couple of years in a Teach for America classroom placement pre-law school, then came back to TFA on the management side. In 2011, Governor Bill Haslam brought him on as Tennessee state Commissioner of Education. It was the most high-profile example of someone parleying TFA experience into a high-level leadership role in education. He quickly fell in step with the Duncan-Obama reform program, signed Tennessee on for Race to the Top, and in 2011, he launched the Achievement School District.

The ASD concept was simple; the state would pluck schools from those ranked in the bottom 5% of the state and lump them into a separate school district that would be overseen by state officials rather than a local school board. Focus resources on your most challenging cases and try to learn some turnaround techniques that CONTINUE READING: Did Tennessee Learn Any Lessons From Its Failed School Reform Plan?