Report: High principal evaluations predict student achievement
Student achievement gains are higher in schools where principals’ leadership practices are rated more positively by their supervisors, according to a new brief by the Tennessee Education Research Alliance at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development.
Examining Tennessee school data from the 2011-12 school year through the 2014-15 school year, TERA faculty director Jason A. Grissom and his team examined the extent to which supervisors’ ratings of principal’s job practices, provided as part of the state’s leader evaluation system, predict measures of school success, including student learning, school climate and teacher retention.
“Our findings offer evidence that district leaders can identify their effective principals,” said Grissom, associate professor of public policy and education. “The principals they evaluate more positively against the state’s instructional leadership standards see better outcomes for both students and teachers.”[Read more at Vanderbilt.edu]
Read MoreNashville School For Immigrant & Refugee Students Celebrates Graduates
A relatively new learning model is helping Nashville’s immigrant and refugee students succeed in school. Only in its second year, Newcomer Academy accepts students who have moved to Tennessee from another country and who have the lowest of the low English comprehension scores.
In just months, students rapidly learn to write and speak English, while also taking courses focused on science, technology, engineering and math.
“A lot of our students came in at the beginning of the school year and had trouble even writing their names in English and couldn’t make a complete sentence,” said Katie Fleming, a teacher at Newcomer Academy. “Now, they’re writing essays, they’re defending their opinions, they’re making argumentative statements and writing a thesis sentence.”
Newcomer Academy is a partnership between STEM Preparatory Academy and Metro Nashville Public Schools. Since 2016, it has served more than 130 students from more than 20 countries under the leadership of Dr. Kristin McGraner, the school’s director.
On Tuesday, the school celebrated its second class of fifth grade graduates, many of whom escaped extreme poverty and war to start a new life in Tennessee. [Continue Reading at NewsChannel5.com]
Read MoreMiddle Tennessee high school named the best in the state for a second consecutive year
Rutherford County’s Central Magnet School was named for the second year in a row the top Tennessee public high schools, according to a 2018 U.S. News & World Report ranking.
Four other Middle Tennessee public schools also sit atop the annual rankings of high schools in the state. Last year, seven of the region’s public schools topped the list.
This year, a Knox County School broke into the top six of all public high schools statewide.
The yearly state rankings by U.S. News & World Report consider performance on the math and reading portions of state proficiency tests, graduation rates, college readiness and proof that schools serve all students well.
Central Magnet was also named the 44th best public high school in the country, according to the ranking. [Read more at Tennessean]
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