|
B y Dr. Mary P. Tanner
Tennessee has recently implemented three educational reform initiatives that set the stage for a period of improved performance in K-12 education, in higher education, and in the alignment of educational experiences with the needs of a modern workplace.
What is at stake is American leadership in the world. The United States currently ranks 12th in the world in the proportion of its population which has graduated from college or university (36%), and our high school graduation rate (76%) is well below that of Germany, Japan and Korea. Most
Americans are surprised at these statistics, but a look at our own state reveals the shortsighted practices and policies that have gotten us to this point.
First among the practices that Tennessee has chosen to address is the lack of rigor associated with the state’s mandated high school curriculum and the waste of academic time in the day of high school students in Tennessee, particularly in the senior year.
This reform was established in the Tennessee Diploma Project. Fully implemented for students who finished in the 2009-2010 school year, this reform focuses on higher mathematics, science and language arts standards for Tennessee high school students. These standards are more in keeping with national standards and more aligned with the demands of college and work.
The American Diploma Project Network sparked Tennessee’s initiative when it called on all states to commit to several principles related to aligning high school standards with real-world expectations in college and on the job.
The new requirements involve additional high school credits to be earned by all students. They include additional credits in math, health, physical education or wellness, and in personal finance, and additional credits specific to the student’s planned program of study. In Tennessee, 64% of all students who finish high school go on to college.
Among those students, only 45% complete their degree within six years. So, if 100 students graduate from high school, 64 will go to college and 28 of those original 100 students will earn a college degree. Why do these students drop out when a college degree is essential to many jobs and some sort of postsecondaryeducation is necessary for virtually ll jobs that lead to a middle-class ifestyle?
Perhaps some of the problem is elated to an unchallenging high school urriculum that does not prepare students ell for the rigorous work of college.
The Diploma Project is designed to ddress that issue, but what if there are actors in the way the colleges do their ork that are affecting our students’ uccess?
In January of 2010 the Tennessee tate Legislature passed and Gov. Bredesen signed into law the Complete College Tennessee Act to focus Tennessee’s higher learning centers on their own inefficiencies, misalignments and ineffective practices. This transformational piece of legislation seeks to create a clearer, smoother path to finishing college by rewarding institutions of higher learning for the number of students they graduate rather than the number of students they admit. In other words, the state will now pay colleges and universities for completions, not enrollments.
This paradigm shift is forcing colleges and universities to re-think how they serve students. How carefully do we orient students, provide supportive and accurate advisement, make our processes of financial aid transparent, provide comprehensible transfer information, offer classes at the right time and in the appropriate number of sections, support faculty to mentor students? Can students easily move from a community college to a university without having to retake core requirements because there is not a common general education requirement?
How a campus does its work can impact the likelihood that a student will finish. The new legislation makes higher education accountable, so “customer service” is a higher priority than ever before. Guided by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, campuses across the state are looking at these areas and finding reform opportunities.
The third reform initiative, the U.S. Department of Education’s much publicized Race to the Top competition, is the final major reform overlay to what is happening in Tennessee. Tennessee’s application for Race to the Top funding was supported in the legislature by the Tennessee First to the Top Act of 2010.
Tennessee’s application and reform plan was accepted as one of only two state awards for the first round. It brought $501 million to the Tennessee reform bandwagon. The Tennessee First reforms were the most sweeping in a generation. They all focused on improving the quality of public schools but not through some new education model. Instead, the reforms focused on the core of what we know makes for a good school: strong teachers, well-prepared and rewarded; great leaders using good data to make decisions which lead to smart hiring and firing decisions; and support from the state and community for failing schools.
A tremendous asset for Tennessee going into the competition was the enormous data set about teacher effectiveness known as the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVASS). These data track each student’s “growth” or improvement in academic achievement from year to year and teacher to teacher.
What was revolutionary was that in this competition Tennessee school systems, with the support of teachers, agreed that they would use the continuous, longitudinal data as a significant factor in the evaluation of individual teachers.
While Race to the Top funds will also enrich a variety of other initiatives, this emphasis on teacher evaluation based on student data, along with robust professional development for all sitting teachers, was the boldest and potentially the most promising reform.
Tennessee can easily claim to be one of the most proactive states in dealing with America’s decline in student preparedness for a global economy, but the participation of state business leaders will be critical to the eventual success of these reforms. Chattanooga will need to continue to engage business leaders in conversations with schools and colleges regarding student learning outcomes that are work-ready.
Recently the Chattanooga Area Chamber partnered with the PEF, Hamilton County Schools and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to create and run a Principal Leadership Academy to prepare assistant principals for one of the most challenging leadership roles in our community. Executives from major companies in the city have agreed to mentor these aspiring principals during the year-long academy program.
These relationships will further expand our ability to link the worlds of schooling and work.
Dr. Mary P. Tanner is Dean of the College of Health, Education and Professional Studies at UTC.
|
PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS
|