Listen Now:

Teachers brainstorm on creative, visual lessons for difficult math concepts.

One year ago Tennessee won a half billion dollars for education in the federal Race to the Top Competition. Every school district in the state received anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of dollars. The catch? Districts have four years to spend it. In that time they must create stronger teachers, boost student learning, and make all these reforms last.

“I think that everyone in this district and myself included feels a tremendous amount of pressure,” says Lisa Wiltshire. She oversees Metro’s $38 million slice of Race to the Top funds.

“We really need this to work,” she says. “This is in some ways a big gamble. I mean the federal government has never offered anything like this to the states and to districts.“

The state had to sign off on how school systems spent the money, but districts pretty much had free reign on coming up with a plan. Metro decided to focus on teachers – recruiting stronger candidates and training them how to track student learning. It’s also ratcheting up training for middle school teachers. Last year only 27 percent of Metro’s elementary and middle school students were considered proficient in math.

Middle school math teachers gather for an evening session funded by Race to the Top

Focusing on Teachers

In a classroom at a downtown middle school about a dozen middle school math teachers sit at two round tables. A math coach guides them through creative, visual ways of teaching mind-twisting concepts, like dividing fractions. Carol Lampkin, an energetic teacher, makes a confession to her peers about being stumped on this topic.

“I actually had a student ask me that very question of why do you have to change it? Or why is if that when you’re dividing with a fraction it’s actually like you’re multiplying and when you’re multiplying with fractions it’s actually like you’re dividing?” Lampkin pauses and shrugs her shoulders. She remembers not having an easily digestible answer for the student.

“I told that child that I would do the best that I could to try to explain it but in the mean time, this is how it works. “

Lampkin says she recited a really confusing formula. The teachers around the table nod. The group’s math coach starts vigorously drawing pies on a white board. She slices them up and counts each piece. The math coach Tammy Parsons then announces, “my answer is seven and a half…I’m halfway to my next set of two-thirds.”

Teacher Carol Lampkin crafts a lesson with math coach Tammy Parsons.

Lampkin’s eyes widen behind her glasses.

“Oh!!” she loudly sighs, realizing the drawing trick is much easier to teach than a formula.

These evening training sessions last about an hour and a half and if teachers complete six, they get paid 500 dollars. About half of Metro’s middle school math teachers have shown up. Lisa Wiltshire, who’s monitoring the money, says this training will become a staple only if teachers are confident their kids are benefiting.

“We want to continue to move this forward if its successful. And roll it out to more teachers, and roll it out to language arts if this works,” she says. “But in order to do that we need to make sure that again this is really centered on teachers and the students that they have in their classrooms. “

Old Moves, New Laws

Metro’s hopeful, but not positive, extra training will drastically boost student learning. That’s why Jeanne Allen views many Race to the Top initiatives as re-choreographing old, familiar moves. Allen’s the president of the Center for Education Reform, an advocacy group for radical school improvement measures. She says change that will stick came when the federal money was up for grabs.

“Tennessee, among other states, promised to evaluate teachers differently and tie those evaluations both to pay, retention, and hiring,” says Allen.

To win Race to the Top money, the state legislature adopted controversial reforms: implementing tougher teacher evaluations, allowing student performance to determine teacher pay, and lifting the cap on charter schools. As it turns out that was just the beginning. Tennessee’s new governor, Bill Haslam, has since overhauled teacher tenure.

“There is absolutely no question that to make meaningful change you need changes in law,” says Allen.

In three years, Race to the Top funds will disappear. The hope is teachers will be stronger, students performing better. But part of the competition’s legacy is already written into law.

More: