(Nashville) – Jamie Woodson, President and CEO of the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, released the following statement today on the 2010-11 statewide AYP results and waiver request:
In the last few years, Tennessee has committed to bold education reform through an ambitious and aggressive plan to transform our public schools and improve student achievement. Reform is critical to ensuring students graduate from high school prepared for college or the workforce.
This is hard work. While we have a long way to go to reach our goals, significant progress is being made in Tennessee. Because we have set higher standards and are expecting more of students, they are achieving more.
A challenge that Tennessee faces is fitting this bold reform plan within a meaningful federal accountability framework. Tennessee has set a high bar for improving student achievement, and I applaud Governor Haslam and Commissioner Huffman for being innovative about aligning Tennessee’s transformational roadmap with an accountability framework that is focused on student achievement.
The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works with state and local governments to encourage sound policy decisions in public education and advance innovative reform on a statewide basis.