• Identify ways for improving the effectiveness of interventions for
low-performing schools and districts by enhancing evaluation
mechanisms of current support programs (e.g., Exemplary
Educators, AGE, and STAT teams), and better segmenting schools
by the type of interventions they need. For example, survey
principals and teachers in schools receiving interventions as a way
to evaluate the effectiveness of those interventions and consider
dividing Exemplary Educators into two groups, one who assists
schools that missed AYP on only one or two subgroups and a
second who assists schools that missed AYP on most subgroups.
Create more tools and pathways to transition high school
graduates into postsecondary institutions or the workforce.
• Launch a task force to identify the best ways to use the Tennessee
Education Lottery Scholarship to most effectively increase access
to and completion of postsecondary degrees including funding
innovative programs that increase the number of high school
students participating in postsecondary coursework (e.g., dual
credit, dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, International
Baccalaureate, and early college high schools).
• Create minimum quality standards for dual credit and dual
enrollment courses.
• Track postsecondary remediation rates and costs of recent high
school graduates back to each high school and district on the
Tennessee Department of Education Report Card.
• Ensure all high school students have access to and utilize highquality career advising resources (e.g., college counselors, KUDER,
www.collegeforTN.org) to help plan their high school elective
focus, develop their post high school plans, and navigate the college
application and financial aid process.
• Develop a network of non-profit, higher education, school district,
and Tennessee Department of Education programs that are currently
assisting students in applying to postsecondary institutions. This
network would provide these programs with opportunities to share
best practices, resources, and training opportunities.
• Hold charter schools accountable by ensuring all existing charter
schools are of a high-quality by supporting existing efforts to create
a statewide charter school incubator to support local charter school
leaders and by actively recruiting high-quality national charter
school providers to the state.
• Promote the exchange of successful school improvement strategies
among all public schools, including charters, in order to build upon
proven best practices for public schools.