Federal Officials Approve, Spotlight Tennessee’s Plan to Ensure Every Student Has Access to a Great Teacher

Tennessee’s plan to provide every student in every school with a high-quality educator has been approved by the U.S. Department of Education today. This approval is an important step toward furthering specific, Tennessee-tailored strategies that will provide more support to teachers and leaders and target specific issues that some schools face in equipping every classroom with a great teacher.

Tennessee’s plan, designed to ensure education equity across the state, builds on the work done in recent years. The plan takes a comprehensive approach, strengthening teacher training and focusing on transparency and state accountability. The state’s plan received national attention for increasing the ability to make data-driven decisions and enhance feedback loops through providing new and better, more frequent communication, including a new Human Capital Data Report to schools and districts to help them make informed staffing decisions.

“All Tennessee children deserve the right to a world-class teacher in every classroom,” Education Commissioner Candice McQueen said. “Thanks to the input we’ve received from educators throughout the state, we have a set of strategies that we believe can and will address equity gaps while strengthening the teaching profession as a whole. We are eager to continue collaboration with districts to learn more about where and why these gaps exist – and how we can be a partner in helping to close them.”

Under the federal government’s Excellent Educators for All initiative, every state was required through Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to develop a statewide plan – with the collaboration of those across the state and in school districts – that both identified key areas where students lack access to a high-quality teacher and created solutions that will solve those issues.

Today’s announcement builds on the ongoing work Commissioner McQueen outlined earlier this month in the department’s new strategic plan. Under a suite of priority areas, that department noted a set of strategies to better support and equip educators and specifically to increase access to highly effective teachers across student subgroups.

You can view Tennessee’s complete educator equity plan online.