SCORE report calls for professional development of educators

A new report on K-12 education in Tennessee calls for improvements to training and promotion for principals and superintendents.

The interim report from SCORE, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, also calls for more teacher cooperation.

Former Tennessee Senator Bill Frist, who chairs the collaborative, says the state has a lot of good projects in the works, but still falls behind southern peers like Kentucky and North Carolina.

The report looked for trends among leading school districts that could be copied across the state. Frist says one of them is ongoing training to improve principals.

“Tennessee right now fails to have a comprehensive plan to promote that understanding of what a principal does, and that continuing professional development – so that pipeline we want to address.”

Frist says students also tend to thrive when small groups of teachers work together to share successful techniques.

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The report also notes not enough is being done to mine the state’s value-added assessment data, which measures student improvement.

That echoes words from Metro Schools officials earlier this month.