Strong evaluation systems are foundational to improving teacher and principal quality; evaluations recognize excellence, support development, and address ineffectiveness. They also must be meaningful, objective, and fair. Tennessee's evaluation system is one of the strongest in the nation. Educators are evaluated annually according to a five-tier rating system that includes multiple measures, including at least 50% based on student achievement measures, which include student growth making up 35% of the total evaluation and other student achievement data accounting for 15%. For teachers, this includes classroom observations, and for principals, this includes the effective management of teachers. Tennessee must continue to invest in its educators by incorporating student feedback in teacher evaluations and placing a high priority on the student-growth factor. The state's evaluation criteria are not subject to contract negotiations, ensuring districts have the full authority to design rigorous systems.

Basing personnel decisions on performance is critical to building schools that retain effective teachers and make student achievement paramount. While Tennessee is notable in some aspects within this area, overall the state must take serious steps to improve. The state now requires performance to be a factor when teachers must be laid off during a budget-induced reduction in force, but seniority can still be a factor. The state also does not use teacher effectiveness to drive decisions around teacher assignment. Tennessee has improved tenure, however; performance informs tenure decisions. Teachers in Tennessee receive tenure after serving a five-year probationary period, and attainment and revocation of tenure are based on performance standards. Tennessee must continue taking steps to establish a system that prioritizes students and great teachers, using teacher performance as the driving influence for all personnel decisions.

To encourage a high-quality, diverse workforce, professional pay should be based on performance rather than other non-classroom factors such as seniority or degrees held. Tennessee requires increased compensation for teachers with advanced degrees and years of experience. However, school districts can submit to the commissioner and State Board of Education their own proposed salary schedule for consideration. School districts can also participate in a supplemental pay career ladder program for teachers, principals, and supervisors, but pay increases are not tied to measures of effectiveness. To best support and reward effective teachers, Tennessee should prohibit automatic salary increases for master's degrees alone and require school districts to implement performance-pay systems that prioritize student outcome measures.

Tennessee offers many routes, including a transitional license for teachers with bachelor's degrees who either major in the subject taught, earn 24 semester hours in the subject, or pass a content exam. Non-universities may provide teacher preparation programs, some of which have higher standards than the transitional license, which only requires a 2.75 GPA or 21 ACT/920 SAT. To widen the pool of quality teachers, Tennessee should increase the selectivity of its admissions requirements. The state board does not specify whether or how it evaluates its transitional licensure program for teachers. To ensure the quality of its alternative certification programs, Tennessee should establish clear processes for authorizing and evaluating alternative certification programs and decommissioning those that do not produce effective educators.

Tennessee can take a number of steps to empower its parents by providing them with information and options. To give parents a better understanding of how their children's schools are performing, Tennessee should require that each PK_12 school receives an annual report card that assigns an overall A_F letter grade based on student achievement and growth and progress made in reducing the achievement gap. Tennessee does not allow teacher effectiveness data to be made public. The state should change its policy and require districts to notify parents when their child is placed with an ineffective teacher. The state should go even further to require districts to obtain parental consent prior to placing a student with an ineffective teacher. Finally, to increase parent empowerment in the state, Tennessee should establish a parent trigger law that allows a majority of parents to band together at the grassroots level and petition to turn around low-performing schools throughout the state.

Tennessee must ensure its students are not trapped in failing schools by increasing the number of high-quality school choice options for parents. Currently, the state allows for the creation of public charter schools, but authorization is limited to local districts and the Achievement School District. Tennessee must focus on the growth of high-performing schools; it should allow for non-district charter authorizers and establish a high threshold for charter expansion. Additionally, the state must strengthen charter school accountability by requiring annual performance reviews and consequences for poor performance for both schools and authorizers. Tennessee should also establish a publicly funded scholarship program that allows low-income students trapped in chronically failing public schools to attend a private school that meets certain accountability provisions.

Children stuck in chronically failing schools should have an option to attend another school of their choice without being punished by the state through reduced funding. Tennessee is an exemplary state in providing comparable resources to students at public charter schools. Tennessee provides equal per-pupil funding for all students, whether enrolled in traditional or charter public schools, and it prohibits skimming through authorizer fees. The state also provides strong access to unused school facilities and access to tax-credit bonds and a per-pupil facilities allowance. The law could be strengthened to provide additional forms of alternative financing such as a grant or revolving loan program and to permit co-location in a variety of excess public spaces.

The ability to turn around failing schools is often hampered by bureaucratic red tape and politics. Tennessee allows for governance flexibility at the state level but not the local level. The state has recently created the Achievement School District, an organizational unit of the State Department of Education, which has assumed governance over the lowest-performing schools in the state. In terms of scope, autonomy, and authority, the Achievement School District provides a national model for state governance. To streamline performance accountability at the local level, Tennessee should also allow mayoral control over the state's low-performing districts.

Given the limited resources available for public education, states must ensure that districts spend as many dollars as possible in the classroom rather than in bureaucracy and that the dollars invested drive the greatest change. Tennessee law contains a number of provisions that allow school districts and public charter schools to achieve cost efficiencies when providing auxiliary services. However, Tennessee should provide greater staffing and spending flexibility to school districts by removing ineffective class-size restrictions past the third grade and other restrictions that limit districts' ability to reallocate resources to their greatest needs. Moreover, Tennessee should empower data-driven decisionmaking by improving the financial data it collects and linking spending to academic achievement. The law should enable governance changes when resources are mismanaged.

Attracting a high-quality workforce will require a competitive retirement plan. Portable retirement options, such as 401(k) plans, are an essential component of compensation packages and make the teaching profession more competitive. It is a classic win-win for teachers and districts. Under current policy, Tennessee requires employees of traditional schools and charter schools to participate in its defined benefit plan. These plans promise teachers a payout based on years of service and salary, not the actual amount contributed to or earned through the fund. If teachers leave before reaching retirement age, they risk losing a significant portion of their savings. To provide career flexibility and ensure sustainability of the existing system, Tennessee should move to a portable employer-sponsored retirement plan and permit public charter schools to opt out of the plan.