The Echo

From Edweek.org

Local Buy-In Helps Two States Win Race to Top


By Michele McNeil and Lesli A. Maxwell
 
Use the link to read the full story.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/29/28stim-rtt.h29.html?tkn=SWLFMzM5%2BpaVl0dId5ulHQHREb2GEv9aJ7AY&cmp=clp-edweek#comments 

Tennessee’s Teacher Focus


Tennessee, where lawmakers passed legislation that mandates using student achievement as half of a teacher’s annual evaluation in every district, stood out for its mature “value-added” data system that has been around for nearly two decades. All of the state’s teacher-preparation programs, whether traditional, university-based ones, or nontraditional programs like Teach For America, must train their candidates in how to use the data system. Teacher candidates will have to demonstrate that they can use the system before they can be licensed.

At the behest of Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, lawmakers held two special legislative sessions over the last year on education to enact a series of Race to the Top-related changes that included making the state’s cap on charter schools less prohibitive and overhauling teacher evaluations.

The governor, who will leave office next year because of term limits, also secured the signatures of all seven major gubernatorial candidates who vowed to back all of the changes outlined in Tennessee’s Race to the Top plan. He said in a conference call with reporters that his state clearly distinguished itself from most of the other finalists because its overhaul of teacher evaluations will be done statewide, not just in a limited number of willing school districts.

“We said at the outset it’s all or nothing,” Gov. Bredesen said. “We are past the point of demonstration projects or pilot projects.”

The governor was clearly thrilled that Tennessee, which has 846,000 students, will receive nearly all the money it asked for, which is more than twice what the Education Department had suggested as a nonbinding estimate for the state.

“We were supposed to ask for no more than $250 million,” the governor said. “We said ‘to heck with that,’ and basically we got all we asked for.”