When Education Commissioner Candice McQueen gave a stinging assessment this week of Tennessee’s school turnaround work, she cited a small number of schools as the exception.
Twenty have improved enough in the last five years to move off of the state’s list of “priority schools” that are in Tennessee’s bottom 5 percent.
Of those, the State Department of Education has conducted case studies of 10 former priority schools in Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Hardeman County:
- Chickasaw Middle, Shelby County Schools
- Douglass K-8, Shelby County Schools
- Ford Road Elementary, Shelby County Schools
- Gra-Mar Middle, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools
- Hamilton Middle, Shelby County Schools
- Treadwell Middle, Shelby County Schools
- Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy, Hamilton County Schools
- Whiteville Elementary, Hardeman County Schools
- City University Boys Preparatory High, Shelby County Schools
- Springdale Elementary, Shelby County Schools
The first six are part of state-supported innovation zones in Memphis and Nashville. Two schools — in Chattanooga and Hardeman County — have received federal school improvement grants. The last two did not receive federal or state interventions but were studied because their scores improved at a faster rate than 85 percent of schools in 2015.
Ten other former priority schools, all in Shelby County Schools in Memphis, have improved with only local or philanthropic support. The state plans to examine these closer in the coming months:
- Alcy Elementary
- Cherokee Elementary, Innovation Zone
- Hickory Ridge Middle
- Manassas High
- Manor Lake Elementary
- Memphis Academy of Science & Engineering High (charter school)
- Memphis School of Excellence High (charter school)
- Oakhaven Middle
- South Park Elementary
- Whitehaven Elementary
McQueen told lawmakers Tuesday that it’s “a little embarrassing” that only 16 percent of priority schools have moved off of the state’s 2012 and 2014 lists that identify 126 failing schools.
The case studies, in part, have informed the school improvement component of Tennessee’s new plan for its schools under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
“… We have learned that a combination of school leadership, effective teaching with a focus on depth of instruction around standards, and services focused on non-academic supports has led to strong outcomes in these schools,” McQueen said in a statement Wednesday.
Tennessee’s proposed new plan for turnaround work would gives more authority to local districts to make their own improvements before the state-run Achievement School District steps in.
One ASD school — Brick Church in Nashville — also has moved off of the state’s priority list, but was excluded from the state’s analysis because there were not enough years of test data to compare since its takeover by the state-run district.
“What we can’t do as a state is support — in terms of funding and time — district interventions that don’t work,” McQueen said. “We have to learn from what is working because we know we have much more work to do and many more students that have need.”
Chalkbeat reporter Grace Tatter contributed to this report.